OK, OK, so I've been a slacker this past elongated weekend. My mother and my little sister Ruthie arrived at our house on Friday evening after driving up from Texas. Ruthie will be living with us for the summer while she is an intern at the Washington National Opera. Mom came with to help her drive. So we had a fun, family-filled weekend. Saturday we drove to D.C. to check out Ruthie's commute and workplace. She actually works in the Watergate Hotel right next to the Kennedy Center! And her boss is Placido Domingo! She is totally excited (she had her first day yesterday and things went great). For more about Ruthie check out her blog.

Anyway, also on Saturday, we celebrated Isaiah's first birthday. I really can't believe he's 1. He's such a sweet, cuddly boy. He's always smiling and cooing at us. He crawls pretty fast and will crawl right up to you and keep on going crawling up your leg until he's standing in front of you. It's adorable. Unless you walk away after he crawls up your leg. Then he cries because how could you possibly dare to walk away from a cute little guy when he just spent all that time crawling up your leg? We had puppy-dog cupcakes for his birthday cake. Have I mentioned that we call Isaiah "Poochy" these days? Naomi started it because she was pretending that he was her pet dog. She had no idea that pooch is another name for dog - she just picked a couple of syllables to make up a name. But Poochy kind of stuck around. First Naomi got Asher calling him that, then I started and now the whole family calls him Poochy just as often as Isaiah. So, that's why the puppy-dog cupcakes.

Sunday we had a lovely Mother's Day. Richard actually left us around 1:00 to go to his mother's house with his siblings while the kids, my mom, Ruthie and I stayed at our house and had my Aunt Nancy (my mom's sister) and her family over for dinner. It was a lovely dinner enjoyed by all. We ate on paper plates and such so there wasn't much cleaning up. After Nancy and fam left we put the kids to bed. Then Ruthie, Mom and I designed and made some jewelry and listened to Elder Ballard's talk on mothers. Then we watched ER and went to bed. It really was a lovely day.

Yesterday we got to squeeze a little more Grandma-time in for the kids before we took my mom to the airport for her flight home. My kids sure do love her. Naomi loves to have Grandma in her room to have tea parties and play dress up. Asher loves to play blocks and vroom cars. Isaiah loves extra cuddles and to be held while having a bottle.

We will miss Grandma, but we are so excited that Aunt Ruth will be here all summer! Asher took an immediate fancy toward Ruthie. She is the first thing he asks for in the morning. She brings one of those huge smiles to his face every time she walks in the room. I'm sure they'll be very special friends forever after this summer.

And just because...well, I have to, don't I?...here's a progression of photos of Isaiah eating his birthday cupcake.