Happy Easter

We had a nice Easter weekend filled with LOTS of Easter Egg hunts and excuses to get together with friends. It was fun. The festivities started with an easter egg hunt for the kids at the business school. Jane wanted nothing to do with the big giant easter bunny and I was surprised to see Lucas get within inches of it! On Sunday we enjoyed watching conference and then had a giant Easter dinner with about 50 other people. It was lots of fun. Thank goodness for nice weather because we would have never fit in our tiny apartment! Our Easter Festivities ended on Monday night with and egg hunt and dinner with the Kelly Kids. The kids loved it and have been on a sugar high for the past week. So have I!!
This was Janes first time sitting in the grass. She was pretty fascinated with it!


The kids LOVE decorating Eggs. Last year they each got about 4 eggs to decorate and that was it. They were disappointed when the eggs ran out so this year I decided to do LOTS. I did 4 dozen and yes, we still have a fridge full of hard boiled eggs! Jane even got in on the coloring. However, she never made it to the color because the egg went right to her mouth. Nothing like munching on a shell!!
Lucas LOVES the color green so of course all of his eggs were green!

Spring Break

So, there are some benefits to being students again. Not only do the kids get a spring break but so does Andy - 2 weeks of break for him. It was heaven having him around and home for dinner. We spent our first week getting some things done around the house and then spent the last week in D.C. We had so much fun staying with Andy's brother and family. It was fun seeing the kids together. They all had so much fun!

We enjoyed spending a lot of time in D.C. Jim (Andy's brother) was so nice to drive us around to the memorials one night. They are so far apart from each other we realized our kids would never be able to walk it all so he dropped us off at one and picked us up when we were ready and took us to the next. It was so nice of him. We loved it!
We've spent a lot of time in this car over the past year. This is what our road trips look like. Lucas who could care less about T.V. spends his time talking to us (yes, it gets tiring) and eventually it gets quiet and I look and this is how we find him. He wore himself out talking!! So, it takes a good 6 hours to get him to sleep and no fail no sooner than he drifts off to sleep someone has to go to the bathroom which means it'll be another 6 hours before he is asleep again!!
Lucy and Ethan do their own thing in the back. They are perfectly happy watching movies all day long!!
And Jane is so sweet. She was a good little traveler and was thrilled when any attention was given to her!
We loved visiting a lot of the museums in D.C. Here is Ethan in the natural history museum.
We loved going to the air and space museum near the airport. We especially loved seeing the spaceship. It was HUGE!!!
Here are Ethan and Lucas standing under the spaceship.
We also had fun visiting Jon and Monica and kids.
Here are all of our kids together
We had a lot of good weather but a few rainy days too. Ethan and Katie had lots of fun together while we were there. Wish we lived closer to cousins!
Here are Andy and Jim and kids in the Air and Space Museum standing by the Pioneer 10 which was the first satellite to make direct observations of Jupiter and their dad helped design it!! Cool huh?!?!?!

What does that tell you when the car Andy had growing up is found in the museum!! Hmmmm.....are we really that old?!?!?!
Katie, Ethan, Lucy, and Marc - All of the kids had so much fun playing

We got to see the world war 2 memorial which we had never seen before. It was beautiful with lots of fountains everywhere.

Andy and Lucas

Lucas, Andy, and Ethan

Lucy and Katie

Lucas looking at the elephant and the zoo

Here are my crazy cute boys!!

The kids loved riding the metro into the city.

We did lots and lots and lots of walking

Lucy and Lucas

Here are the kids in the Art Museum. Lucy and I had fun walking around looking at the art while Andy hung out with the rest of the kiddos. Lucy LOVED the art museum.

Lucas thinks he's so cool....and he is!

We had tons of fun. Thanks to Jim and Kristina for letting us stay with them!!

Happy Birthday

Well, it doesn't really matter but I forgot to post about Lucas and Ethan's birthdays. So, here are a few pictures from their birthdays. Lucas turned 3 in January and Ethan turned 6 and had a pokemon party.

A first and hopefully a last!

Last night (when Ethan was supposed to be asleep in bed) he got a Lego stuck in his nose. We've never had kids put anything in their nose. I've heard of it happening but never experienced it with my kids. No surprise that Ethan was the first to try and hopefully he will be the last! So we told him not to breathe in because we didn't want him to get it stuck up higher in his nose. But that freaked him out because he felt like he couldn't breathe so he panicked a bit and in the end I managed to get a shish-ka-bob (sp?) stick and pull out the lego. So glad we didn't end up in the ER which is where I was pretty sure we'd end up!

California here we come!!

I am happy and grateful to say we have an internship for this summer. Andy accepted an offer with Toyota in California. We look forward to spending about a month with my parents in Utah and will join Andy for the last 2 months of his internship where we will live with his mom and enjoy being close to lots of Andy's family and of course enjoy lots of time on the beach (which is just down the hill from where we will be living!) Other than our 3 day trek out there and 3 day trek back we are looking forward to this summer!!

Dory lives here....really!

Remember good old Dory from "Finding Nemo" who says one thing and within seconds forgets what she said or even what she was talking about. Well, Lucas is unfortunately deserving of the name Dory! He makes Dory comments DAILY.
This is just a sampling of some of our Dory conversations:
Lucas: Mom that's a big car
Me: Yeah Lucas you are right, that is a BIG car
Lucas: What car?
or

Lucas was laying right next to the piano
Me: Lucas can you put your gloves away please?
Lucas: Where are they?
Me: Under the piano
Lucas: What piano?

or

this is kind of a gross example but he is potty training and has not yet learned to wipe his bottom so he called me to wipe his bottom
Lucas: Do I get a treat because I did a big giant poop
Me: No, remember you don't get treats anymore for going poop but you are right it is big (sick)
Lucas: What's big?
Me: Your poop
Lucas: oh, when did I poop?
REALLY?!?!? I mean I'm standing there wiping his bottom and he's asking when he pooped? Hmmmmmm!?!??!?

So, to Lucas' credit he is not stupid and is really funny and I'm not sure if he's serious when he says these things or if he's trying to be funny! Hopefully he's just trying to be funny....but sometimes I can't believe how much he is like Dory!!

BAD WORDS

This is pretty funny! Tonight at dinner our topic of conversation somehow got onto "bad words"and it went something like this:

Ethan: Well I know what the "S" word is!
I was shocked. Why and how does he know these bad words.
Me: What is the "S" word Ethan?

His eyes got really big

Ethan: You really want me to say it?
Me: Yes. Just here one time but never again.

Ethan: unsure if he should really say it or not and finally he blurts out "STUPID"
( I was relieved to realize that was the word)

The conversation continued

Ethan: I also know the "F" word
Me: How do you know that I said in disbelief.

Hesitantly I asked what it was

Ethan: "Fat"
Me: (sigh of relief) Yeah, that's not nice to call people fat.

Ethan: I also know the "D"word and the "P" word - DUMB and POOH

The conversation continued for a little bit longer and was finally dropped. It is kind of funny when I think about it because although stupid and dumb aren't nice words I don't think we've ever discussed that these are "bad"words. I guess I'm glad these are the words they know and not others!!

Poor Baby

On Friday morning Jane woke up with a cough. I didn't think anything of it. Saturday morning her breathing was a bit labored but I didn't feel it was too bad. I ended up taking her into the doctor thinking she might have strep throat. As it turns out we were sent to the hospital because she had pneumonia! Poor girl. She was on oxygen for the first day. And I had a very interesting 33rd birthday celebrating it in the hospital with Jane. We were finally released on Monday and today she finally showed signs of getting better. Thank goodness for so many willing friends offering to help in so many ways! And thank goodness for andy who volunteered to stay in the hospital Sunday night so i could sleep at home. (I only got 3 hours of sleep the first night in the hospital and was exhausted on Sunday) Things like this make me grateful for good health. I also couldn't help but think of my friend Becky who is in and out of hospitals ALL the time with her son Ben and yet always has a smile on her face and deals with it. You are amazing Becky!

Look at those sad eyes!!

Loving this series!!

Some of my friends told me about this book. It sounded a little strange but I decided to give it a try and although it is something I wouldn't typically like (kind of the way I felt about vampire books!) I have LOVED it! I couldn't put the book down. If you are looking for a quick good read give this a try. I am now reading the second book - "Catching fire" and so far so good! Read it and let me know what you think!

Toaster on Fire!!

Today my toaster of hmmmmm let's see over 10 years caught fire!!! I went to pull my toast out only to look in and see a tiny flame. Thinking it might be a little crumb on fire I was not worried but then the flame got bigger. I started looking for the baking soda but of course couldn't find it. By now the flame is large - as far as toaster fires go. It was coming out of the toaster and all i could think was what if our cupboards catch on fire. In another quick effort to find the baking soda I succeeded and according to my boys I saved the day and dumped the box of baking soda onto the fire and it was gone. Nothing too exciting but as of late that's as good as it gets for excitement!!

Christmas

We were so grateful to spend time with my family in Utah for Christmas. We were off to a rocky start when Ethan threw up numerous times on the plane! Andy and I ended up with the flu the night we arrived and my sweet mom took care of the kids the next day. Unfortunately we passed it on to others in the family. The good news.... it lasted only 12-24 hours and then was gone!
We did so much and I didn't take out my camera nearly enough so some highlights of the holidays are:

*Seeing family
*Being able to spread out and not be in such a small house (as is the case in IN)
*Sledding on my parent's hill
*Drinking hot chocolate
*Visiting Temple Square (when the lights turned on the kids were amazed and Ethan jumped up and down saying "this is awesome! this is awesome!"
*Spending Christmas morning with LOTS of kids
*Taking a LONG nap Christmas day
*Having one on one time with grandpa after everyone left (including my mom who had to go help alisa with her new baby)
*Going swimming
*Hanging out with Adam and discussing his personal life
*Learning to crochet (thanks Liz)
*Going on a date (Ok adam was with us and we got to the movie late so none of us got to sit by eah other - minor details!!) and watching Sherlock Holmes movie (dad watched the kids and put them to bed - impressive!!)
*Exercising
*Going to the temple
*Eating
*Ringing in the new year with Dad, Mike's family, and Adam
*Playing games
*Sleeping
*Reading
*Seeing Andy
*Being together as a family

I could go on! We had a wonderful time! Isn't family the best!
Happy New Year Everyone

Lucy was so happy she got to be Mary on Christmas Eve (yes, she is holding Jane who is not so much a newborn anymore!)

We loved seeing Uncle Adam

Fun at the Children's Museum

One day in December Sarah was not at the bus stop with Libby. I called her to make sure they were OK only to find out they were playing a little hooky and going to the Children's Museum in Indianapolis. Well, I thought that sounded like a much better idea than what we had planned for the day (nothing - typical these days!). So, being the great friend that I am ....... I invited my family to join them. Because Sarah is so nice she would NEVER say no even if she didn't want us there. So, after great efforts to get all the car seats in her van and surprise Lucy and pick her up at school we were on our way. We had a WONDERFUL day. Given it was a school day, the museum was practically empty. It was great! Thanks to Sarah for letting us join in on the fun.

While at the museum we got to pay a visit to Santa. Ethan was more than happy to throw in some requests and try to convince Santa he really has been a good boy this year (even though that is debatable!) Lucas is NOT in the picture. He is behind me freaking out because he wants nothing to do with santa. Ooooh big surprise! So, he would not join in on the picture. However, Jane was pretty fascinated with him. Look at her just staring at him! Too cute!

Jenna and Lucas " ïce fishing"
There is a really great slide built from the second floor down to the first. It is really fun and the kids LOVED it (so did I)
And here is sweet Sarah going down with Lucas because he was too afraid to go alone and I was at the bottom with Jane. She is so wonderful to help out!