Easter

On a lighter note, Easter happened, which was actually more like three days of Norah eating more candy than she's ever had in her entire life to date. The weekend proved to me, yet again, how blessed we are to have such an amazing support system. For example:

What kid coloring Easter eggs has the complete attention of six adults? Seriously. I hope it doesn't go to her head--but then again I kind of do. Not to get too serious again, but there is just so much in her life that I won't be able to control. She will, however, always know that she is loved.

And we love her even though she can be a giant turd, as evidenced by Nic's fist shaking. She really likes telling everyone "No!" and "Mine!"

She even stared down my dad. Apparently he was doing it wrong.

A lot of our time was spent re-dyeing eggs. It went like this: Drop egg in dye, get spoon, lift egg out immediately while shouting "Get it get it get it get it get it!" Repeat. And repeat. And repeat again and again.

When it was time to go, we could not get her to let go of the paints and brush she was using. She clutched onto them the whole way home and ended up going to bed with them still in her baby death grip. I think she had a good time.

Eagle Mountain city had an egg hunt that began and ended in about five minutes. But check out this Easter baby mullet:

We also had an egg hunt at Grandma Stewart's with Norah's cousins. And you know what is so awesome? Norah is finally at an age where we can go to Grandma's house and she will actually play with all these cousins she's lucky to have. It really is the best thing ever.

Here they are on the hunt:

Showing Dad her spoils:

Still excited to show Mom:

About the thing I learned from opening my mouth when I shouldn't have

You've probably never noticed, but on the About Me section of my blog I've given myself a Grand Canyon-sized disclaimer about how I really can't (read: won't) blog about "the really good stuff." Truth is, I usually do write about the good stuff--at least most of the sort-of-interesting-to-people-who-know-me stuff. At very least my daughter is cute and my family can come here to see the latest pictures of her adorableness.

What I can't (i.e., won't) blog about so far has been much more personal. Stuff like, oh, I don't know, the fact that I haven't been to church since Norah was blessed. Yep, I just put that out there and, nope, still not ready to talk about it.

But I relearned something this weekend. And even though I can't really share, I still want to share. See, I thought that I knew how to be the bigger person. Ever heard the quote "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle"? I thought I was all over that shit. Like, "Oh, you don't think someone should be able to marry whomever they want? What if that person was your child? What if that person was you?" Or, "Who am I to say what I would do if I were destitute? I would probably do whatever it took to get into the U.S. too."

Bam! I'm so not judgmental.

And then I got offended.

And then I started judging.

And then Nic got involved.

And now more people are involved.

And now we have a family member who isn't speaking to any of us.

So that "hard battle" I was supposed to be aware that everyone is fighting, was just made a lot harder for a lot of people because I felt like I needed to make myself heard.

Now, I realize that family drama does not begin or end with me, but if I could just put this out there to anyone who has managed to read this far: Be kind, people! Everyone you know if fighting a hard battle.

...

And lest you get distracted by my little church disclosure there at the beginning, look! Adorable pictures of Norah!

My mom and dad were kind enough to watch the babe while Nic and I were in Las Vegas for the weekend. These are two of the pictures I was sent. See if you can tell which one was titled "Like Grandma" and which one is "Like Grandpa."

Busy-ish

There has been so much going on around here, but then again kind of nothing at all. More than ever, I've been finding that the whole business of simply living our lives is exhausting. Exhausting. I keep wanting to catch up on my blog, but then it seems more important to watch Norah dance around in her hand-me-down superhero costume yelling "Awesome!"  for hours.