The Snake Guy

Today at Andrew's preschool, the Snake Guy came & brought lots of different reptiles. This is always a super exciting day at preschool & I love going. Eliza & I sat right next to Miss Krista who wore a snake around her neck the whole time. Eliza was a bit nervous at first but then tried to grab it multiple times.

Andrew tried touching all of the different animals except for one of the snakes. It was a greenish one from Africa. Here he is with 2 of the lizards.

And with I think the bull snake. (I really can't remember which was which.)

And here is Lizzy the Iguana. Eliza was fascinated by her & really wanted to hold her until she came close to us. Then she closed right up & wanted nothing to do with her.

And here is the highlight of the show, Banana the albino Burmese Python. All of the kids got to come up & help hold him up.

Andrew says Banana was pretty light. He really liked it. Joseph really wants us to get a snake but after hearing how much these guys eat, I don't think I want to do that. Wow!

Another fun day at preschool!

Weekend With Grandma

My twin nephews were baptized this weekend so my mom came out for a visit. She got to stay at our house. The kids always love it when Grandma comes. Once we got Lexie & Joseph off to school & Eliza down for a nap we had some good playing time with Andrew. We played a kind of war game & worked on simple math skills. This kid beat, well rather, annihilated us! And he had this smile & giggle that was just awesome!

Thanks for coming Grandma & come again soon!

Playing Chess

My visiting teaching companion caught this picture of our cute kiddos playing chess with Oklahoma & Texas football player pieces while visiting teaching this afternoon. They are just so cute & did a good job sharing with each other.

First Day of Nursery

Eliza is 18 months old & had her first day in Nursery. Rick has been counting down the weeks for this day to come. After her attack on Andrew during Sacrament Meeting I could understand a little bit more as to why. This girl loves to bicycle kick her legs all day long. And she did so & got Andrew in the nose & gave him a huge bloody nose. Rick said his cupped hand was halfway filled with dripping blood by the time he got him to the bathroom. Silly girl! Gratefully, she didn't pull out any tricks like that in Nursery. She also didn't cry when we dropped her off. (But we did sneak out so she wasn't quite sure where we went & looked around for us for a bit. But she survived the day & seemed to have lots of fun!

 Apparently, the combination of Nursery & no naps really wore her out. She feel asleep after a few bites of dinner.

Here's hoping the next few weeks in Nursery go just as well.

Kansas City Temple Open House

We went to Kansas this weekend to see family & go to the Kansas City Temple Open House. It was awesome! The kiddos (& I) have been looking forward to this for a long time! The morning was a bit chilly to begin with but by the time we were done with the tour it started to warm up nicely. The temple was beautiful & had a wonderful spirit there.

Joseph said about the temple: "I really liked how warm I felt in the temple. I liked the Celestial room the most." 

Lexie said: "My favorite part was the Celestial room because I got a warm, fiery feeling and I felt close to heaven. I can't wait to be  married in a temple one day."

Andrew said: "My favorite part of the temple was eating cookies and punch. I did not like putting on the bootie shoes."
Eliza was very quiet during most of the tour until we got to the Celestial room & then she looked at the chandelier & all around the room & started singing sweetly.

 The Temple was beautiful. It's always a wonderful experience taking our children there & hearing them talk about the feelings they have & being able to talk about how & why we feel the Holy Ghost. It's really awesome to think that there is a temple an hour from where I grew up now because it certainly wasn't like that when my parents moved to Kansas.

After the tour we had a snickerdoodle cookie & punch in the next door Stake Center. Rick & I were commenting on how awesome it would have been to serve as a missionary during an Open House & getting to bring investigators & such. We met a sister couple missionary who was serving her 9th mission. And she had 11 children. Rick & I were in awe! (No we will not be having 11 children but how cool would it be to serve 9 missions.) She commented on our wonderful children & how she loved seeing all of the families come through, especially the LDS ones who brought their children teaching them about the temple. And I said, yes, but it must be even more awesome to see the ones who are not members & get to introduce them to the gospel & Heavenly Father's plan of salvation & that families can be together forever. She agreed. My mom told me that after the first week of the open house, the mission had 119 requests for baptism. That is awesome! Hooray for Temples! I can't wait to go to the Kansas City Temple again in June!

Alrighty then...

So, for years we've had this magnetic holder on our fridge. It hasn't ever held anything. I never had any good ideas to put in there. But Andrew did. He climbed up there & asked if he could use it. "Sure," I told him, wondering what he had to store there.

Sure enough he found something: a pair of underwear. Now why didn't I ever think of that?

Baby Cake

Today we had our ultrasound & we opted not to find out what we were having (at least not at the appointment). The tech was kind enough to put the picture best showing the gender into an envelope so we could be surprised this evening. We gave the envelope to our dear friend, Kiffon, & she was sweet enough to make a super cute (& might I add super delicious) baby cake telling us the gender of our baby.

Isn't it just so cute you could eat it up? We loved it!

And, without further ado, here's what the inside of the adorable cake told us:

We're adding another girl to our family!!!

A Goose Egg

I was surprised when I picked up Andrew from school today to see him holding ice to his head. His teacher quickly ran over to me & handed me an injury report from the school nurse & told me that Andrew fell & ran into the rock climbing wall at recess. She wasn't kidding. Poor boy bonked his noggin pretty hard & got his nose, mouth, & hands all scrapped up as well. But his teacher said she was pretty sure he didn't have a concussion (& I agree) as he could tell her how many fingers she was holding up & laughed & told her she was trying to trick him when she showed him 2 with pointer & middle finger & then 2 with her pointer & pinky. At least he has a sense of humor. I did feel bad though that I walked to pick them up rather than drive today. But it sure was cute watching him hold Lexie's hand with one hand & kept the ice bag on his head with the other. He's a trooper!

He was also excited about getting home & laying down to watch Team Umizoomi while Lexie did homework & Joseph pulled weeds. Hopefully the swelling will start to go down at some point & he'll have a great sleep tonight!

And silly Eliza really wanted her picture taken too (she didn't like that Andrew was getting all of the attention).

One More Birthday Celebration

Since we were in Utah for Joseph's birthday we didn't get to make him the cake he wanted (well, kind of-we didn't quite get it right but he was okay with it) & didn't bring out presents from his siblings for him so we did that today.

And thus ends our birthday celebrations for our Joseph! That is a bonus to having your birthday over Spring Break-it really spreads out the celebration.

A New Trick

Eliza learned a new trick that is freaking Mama out.

But she is sure pleased with herself!

She's also wearing 5 pairs of socks in this picture. She cracks me up! She kept bringing me pair after pair after pair to put on her & was finally satisfied with 5. Goofy girl!

Eliza also learned that she could climb up on the island & help herself to anything she wanted. You'd think we never feed this girl, but I'm glad she's learning some independence-she just needs to keep it within reason at this point (basically, be safe about it).

Happy Easter!

We were excited to wake up & find that we hadn't missed all of our daffodils blooming!

Lexie was super excited about it!

We enjoyed a yummy bunny breakfast together, listened to Music & the Spoken Word & talked about Easter & got ready for church. We were awfully tired as we got home just before midnight last night, but we made it.

And here are the kids! Andrew happily announced to many people at church that Joseph was wearing his birthday suit because Joseph was wearing his new church clothes that he got for his birthday. It sure gave us all a good chuckle.

Happy Easter!

Easter Egg Hunt

Each year for Easter, my Aunt Carolee throws a big Easter Egg Hunt. As a kid I only got to go a few times but we would go up & visit at other times of the year. One really fun thing about her house is the pond in her backyard. I loved feeding all of the ducks bread as a kid. It was a lot of fun. Since we were going to be out in Utah for this party, we thought it would be a great time to let my kids experience one of these hunts. They are crazy! Candy is just everywhere & way more than enough to go around. The kids loved it! It was a great way to end our week out here & grateful we could participate & see so many more family members that we don't usually get to see too often.

After it was done we said our good byes & started our trek home! (Oh, it was cute as we were driving eastward, Lexie asked if we could stop one more time at Grandpa's grave so she could leave some Easter candy for him so he could have it to eat once he was resurrected. She was really sad when I told her that may not be the best thing to leave in a cemetery. But it sure was sweet.) We had a great Spring Break! Too bad it's not longer...but the kids are also excited to head back to school & see all of their friends.

More Utah Trip

Yesterday, I didn't take any pictures, but I headed up to Logan to visit another sister & her family. It was a great time. We just visited, ate, went for a little walk, got to watch my niece practice jump roping (she is amazing!) & let the kids play lots! We're so glad we could make it up there on this trip, too.

This morning we woke up to a few inches of snow. It was kind of funny as I realized it had been years since I've had to clear snow from my car. I'm glad we always have a scraper & some gloves in the car. It made me laugh when Andrew asked me if today was Easter. I said no, but quickly caught myself & said, "Yes, today is kind of like Christmas!" It was fun to then hear Lexie & Joseph explain to him why (because it's Christ's birthday).

Today was Rick's last day of class. Because he was at work from 7:30 am until about 5 each night he didn't get to do many of the fun things we did. But he really wanted to go to the Aerospace Museum. So, once he was done with class around lunch time he took the boys over for a quick visit while Lexie & I did some packing up & Eliza "napped" for a bit.

Then we had some lunch & went out to visit my dad's grave. I'm always so touched at how sweet my children are when they are there & what they remember about Grandpa. It was interesting today seeing Eliza there. She never met my dad here but the way she just went up & put her head down by his name like she was giving him a hug & then sitting & facing the headstone & babbling it was like she knew who he was & was having a little chat while sitting on his lap. It was really cute. And after we took this picture she started dancing all over & around. It was kind of funny how sweet, silly, & happy she was to be there. We all sure miss him, lots!

Then we went back to the apartment & let Joseph open some presents he got from us & his Grandparents.

He was pretty excited about everything.

Antelope Island

Today's adventure was heading out to Antelope Island. I had also never been there before. It was a beautiful day for it & lots to see & do. We headed out to the ranch where there was a little museum for the kids to go through of buildings with tools, old homes & where they could practice lassoing cattle. They also found plenty of walking sticks along the way.

Here are all of the cousins outside the house. The girls especially loved all of the period clothing & old things in there.

I decided I had better take a picture of one of the antelopes I saw on Antelope Island. Not the best, but tada, there it is.

Before we left we drove down to a beachy area & let the kids go down into the Great Salt Lake. They said it was pretty salty.

Just before leaving the ranch I took Eliza over to see the horses that were getting ready to go out for a ride. Eliza LOVES horses right now. The ranch hands were so nice & let me bring her over to pet them. She is usually nervous about petting dogs & cats-loves them & wants to see them but not pet them too much, so I was expecting the same thing with the horses. Nope, she immediately started petting them & tried to share her bink with them over & over. She loved every minute of it. I didn't take any pictures of this because I was too nervous she would stop loving on them. But, tonight at Heather's house the horses in the field behind her came over to eat grass & Eliza again got her fill of horses.

Lots of fun!