A New Goal

My new goal is to blog weekly while my parents are on their 18-month mission to Nauvoo, Illinois. That's a lofty goal for one as inconsistent and bad at blogging as I. We'll see how it goes...

Farewell to my sweet parents! I took this picture of them right before they went to the MTC, or Empty Sea, as my children are sure it is called. I have had the hardest time explaining about acronyms. They are sure Grandma and Grandpa are in the Empty Sea. "Why is the sea empty, Mom? Aren't there any fish in it?" Ruben prays that they can do a good job and the day after we said good-bye to them, Marcos wondered if Grandma and Grandpa were still on a mission. Yes, after all this time, they still are.

CELEBRATION WITH THE COBIANS: Things are not in very good order here. Blogger and I do not get along. I have a terrible combination I'm dealing with--my great ignorance of technology, my picture files that are as big as Russia (and I have no idea how to make them smaller), and a very slow internet connection. These pictures are not in chronological order, but all of them happened within the last week or so. Above are Josefina (Edgar's mom) and all her grandchildren (and Edgar). You may notice that we are a little heavy on boys on this side of the family (and Edgar and I are only contributing to the problem by expecting our fourth boy). There are 13 grandchildren and 9 of them are boys. Below is Abuelita with her four granddaughters. We celebrated Abuelita's birthday and Liliana's together. None of these sweet girls has a sister, but they all have at least one brother.

Tia Olivia (pictured) and Tio Sergio gave Lili a new bike for her birthday. Liliana was thrilled and our weather has been gorgeous--allowing for some lovely riding time.CELEBRATION WITH THE DAHLS: Our kids are so lucky (and so are their parents) to have a lot of members of our large families nearby. We always have two birthday parties: a Cobian one and a Dahl one. Two days before Lili's big day, we had the Dahl party. Isaiah drew these great pictures for Lili. We also had an extra Dahl celebration. Almost all of us were in Utah for the weekend (to celebrate our new niece's blessing in church) and we got together for dinner at Sizzler (Lili's choice) for a birthday dinner. I wanted to post more pictures here, but it takes far too long. Among others, Tabor, Katie, and sweet girls were there:

This table was a little rowdy as you can see. Lili had shyly told me she wanted me to tell the waitress it was her birthday. When I told the waitress, she said, "That's great," but there was no special ritual with clapping and singing. Marianne got us all singing happy birthday, though, and there were 24 of us present--we made quite a spectacle for Liliana's big day.

Edgar carved Liliana a lovely wooden box for her birthday. His woodworking hobby is my favorite so far. He made me a similar box for Christmas. Edgar is constantly surprising me with his many talents and with his desire to try anything he thinks might be interesting. If he looks a little tired in this picture, it's because he is. The poor man's been working a lot and he had just gotten home from his 16-hour day when I took this picture.

The day after Lili's birthday, we celebrated another great occasion--the blessing and arrival of our newest niece, Azure.

She's so delicate and lovely. It makes me so excited to have a newborn again. If I look like I've gained 60 pounds in this pregnancy, well, that's because I have.

The day of Azure's blessing was gorgeous and sunny. The kids mostly played outside and got very muddy. Marcos and his cousin Savannah are very good playmates. As always, Marcos insisted on being the mom and Savannah had to be the dad. I like to think he wants to be the mom because of the great role model he has. I make motherhood look like a blast!

My parents gave Ammon this adorable sweater and hat. This picture was taken just moments before Ammon dove face-first into the mud. Luckily, the mud washed out of his new duds. Speaking of Ammon, all he wants to do lately is go, go, go! He insists on wearing his coat and often his shoes in order to be able to go at any moment. He and Marcos have been trying to be the Lone Ranger (we've been watching Lone Ranger movies that my parents lent us). Here both boys are wearing hats they inherited from their Uncle Tabor.

Finally, here's a picture for my parents of one of the gorgeous moonrises they missed this week. I love a full moon, and it looks so pretty coming up over the snow-peaked mountain. Most of my posts will not be so lengthy--we've just had a lot to celebrate lately.