Welcome, London!

I am super late on this post, but on March 27th, my baby sister Rachael, gave birth to her first baby girl!!!  London Christine Aveytua arrived after a mere 1.5 hours of hospital labor (and a few days of very inconsistent contractions) weighing in at a delicate 7 lbs 10 oz.  Seriously, that's two pounds lighter than Camille at birth!!!

She came so easily, she decided she had to create a little bit of drama by letting her oxygen levels dip just enough that the doctors decided to send her to a children's hospital in Akron just to make sure everything was okay.  So she got to ride in an ambulance for a couple hours while mommy and daddy very nervously followed behind (apparently no one thought it was a good idea for Rachael to ride in a bumpy ambulance less than 24 hours postpartum).  Once they could check her out there they decided she was just fine, so that was a huge relief, and she got to go home the next day.  Everyone was very excited to have mommy and daddy and baby home!

She got to come home on her big brother Clayton's second birthday.  He had been less than thrilled about this birthday gift (when he first met her in the hospital, he yelled "Keep her!" while trying to push her away), but Nolan and Harrison seem delighted with their baby sister especially Harrison, who declared, "Clayton has Nolan to watch over him, but I get London!"  And Clayton warmed up to her very quickly after they were all home (and he got a big birthday celebration the next day)!

And we're all just thrilled to have another adorable niece in the family!

And I'm very impressed with Rachael's ability to give her kids themed names that aren't annoying!  Well done, Rocky!

Random April (and March) Stuff

My choir has been hard at work learning Rachmaninoff's All-Night Vigil for our concert at the end of the month.  I'm getting so much better at sight-reading music and harmonizing below the 1st sopranos and singing in Russian.  And yet, I feel like it's not even close to enough for what this work requires-- I am going to be putting in some serious extra hours very soon.  As Michael put it, "After this, everything will seem easy!"

We participated in a small concert a couple weeks ago at a local winery-- we sang with the University Singers (who will be joining us for the upcoming concert as well, meaning we'll have 160 voices all blending in a church with gorgeous acoustics!).  Charlottesville Ballet also performed, and there were soloists from Charlottesville Opera, so that was pretty awesome.  Unfortunately, it was also FREEZING.  The temperature didn't look too bad if you just checked the weather, but the wind was just cutting through everything.  By the time we walked off the stage, my toes were going numb.  I wanted to stick around and listen to everything else, but the heater in my car (and the promise of pizza at home with my family) was too tempting.

We had a solo dancer during one of our songs, so that was cool, although I wish I could have watched her more!  If only I'd memorized the Russian...

It was a beautiful venue and a beautiful day, if it hadn't been so cold!!!

We had spring break the first week of April.  We weren't doing much, since we'd just gone on our cruise, but I did use the extra time to get Colton an EKG.  All my children seem to have sinus arrhythmia, which sounds scary but is apparently no big deal?  Anyway, my pediatrician wanted Colton's checked out, just to be sure.  It's always so weird for me to do things I'm unfamiliar with, but once the doctor had sent in the order, all we had to do was show up at the hospital and ask for an EKG!  Doesn't that seem like the kind of thing you'd need an appointment for?

But that was exactly how it went!  The only glitch was that the nurse accidentally didn't save the images, so right as we were getting in the car, she called me and asked if I could come back so she could do it once more.  The good thing about that was that I hadn't taken any pictures, so now I had the chance to rectify that.

I sent these pictures to Craig and he wrote back, "Why does everyone want to attach wires to Colton all the time???"  He concluded that he must be a cyborg, which Colton thought was awesome.  (Craig isn't wrong.  This really does seem to be a thing with Colton.) (And yes, the nurse confirmed that Colton has a sinus arrhythmia which is absolutely nothing to worry about.  Whew!  I wasn't particularly worried-- mostly because it's not in my nature to worry too much until I absolutely have to-- but as we were walking into the hospital Colton asked me what would happen if there was something wrong with his heart, and my own heart nearly broke as I realized that just because I was acting like this was no big deal didn't mean that my sensitive little guy hadn't picked up on the fact that it could be a big deal.)

Later in the day, Adam and I took the kids hiking at Walnut Creek!  We didn't take a group photo this time, but I did snap these fun shots:

I think this was my 4th time hiking here so how had I never noticed this totally creepy abandoned house before???  We all agreed it was scary and probably haunted.

These trees grew together and now it looks like the big one is giving the little one a hug!  Awww...!

The eastern redbuds were just starting to bloom, which always makes me happy!

A recent storm had snapped a whole bunch of trees, but it really mangled this one...!  Yipes!

After our hike, we made pizzas with Adam and then watched a movie, so that was a really fun afternoon!

And on a TOTALLY different note, I met up with Sarah for lunch and she happened to have a wig in her car that we needed to try out on me, and we ended up with this amazing picture:

It took Craig a few minutes to even realize that was me! 😂😂😂 And Bentley is telling me I shouldn't post this on my blog because it is too scary.  Sorry to end on this terrifying image!

Fundraising

The church has changed what used to be EFY (Especially For Youth) to a new program called FSY (For the Strength of Youth).  As far as I can tell, it's roughly the same, but much cheaper and they're really trying to get ALL the youth to be able to participate (whereas EFY was expensive enough and often involved traveling to a different state, so really only people who were fairly well off could have afforded it).  Obviously, I am ALL FOR these changes!  And what's even more exciting, our kids will get to attend FSY at William & Mary, so that's just super cool.  

The cost is only $75 per kid, which is insanely cheap for a week, but our ward still decided that it would cover expenses and have the kids do fundraising to pay for it.  If that means more kids can participate AND my kids will have a greater sense of ownership over their time there (or a sense that they had to work to earn it), then that's also great with me.  So all the youth have been working at various people's homes doing yard work to earn money.  Their first day doing this was the day that Bentley broke his arm, so Craig ended up having to bring Camille with him, since we were still at the hospital.  They had Ryder helping using a wood chopper, so I'm very thankful we didn't end up with TWO trips to the ER that day!

Look at that hard-working girl!

(Kendra and Colton had activities at the church, and we were very fortunate that the Herrings were willing to take them and bring them home for us!)

Their next project involved clearing away trees and brush that some people had had cut down and burned, clearing more pasture for their horses.  It was dirty, hard work and I was glad I didn't have to help out!  Craig made Bentley come along thinking he could blow leaves or something, but that ended up not being the case.  But hopefully he gets points for showing up?  And the people bought them all pizza when they were done, so that was nice!

And speaking of making money, I went to work that night at another wedding!  (First I've done in several months-- there aren't many weddings in the winter, and I was usually too busy with our own family stuff to make it to even those few!)  This was the WINDIEST wedding I've ever seen, but luckily enough, the bride's dress moved very beautifully in the wind, so while everyone was very cold, at least the bride looked lovely!  I only bothered taking pictures of this one thing I helped set up which turned out even cuter than I would have guessed:

Seriously, how cute is this???

Unfortunately, I didn't get to eat any.  But I did get a slice of wedding cake (with passionfruit curd-- so delicious!), so I can't complain too much.  And I was doubly delighted when I got paid and realized Adam had given me a raise!  Happy day!

While we were waiting for our dinner, the photo booth guy said we could come and take pictures, since the guests weren't there yet, so we did!  There's Brittany, me and Adam having a blast!

And here's one more day of fundraising, just so you can see that Kendra is also working hard!

Ironically, this is SO MUCH more yard work than we ever make our kids do around our home!