This past week

We had a great week filled with some fun. There was two birthdays in my family this last week. Jared and Benjamen. We went to my parent's house on Thursday to celebrate with Jared and gave him a new haircut for a birthday present. Then yesterday he had a dance festival that was multi stake. He did a great job. His stake got to do country swing and line dancing. Emily especially had a great time at the festival and danced right along with everyone else while sitting up in the stands. She told me later that she needed to go again and she would dance on the floor with Jared. Yesterday was also Benjamen's birthday so we wished him a happy birthday and we will be celebrating today with cake and ice cream at my parent's house. Also today Joe and I gave talks at church. I always get so nervous about giving a talk and it was even more nerve wracking because I also play the organ so I played the opening song and then sacrament song, gave my talk and went right back to the organ to do the intermediate hymn. To make it even more crazy I didn't get any songs this week and found out that the music instructor is out of town so I picked my songs yesterday. It all turned out okay though. I ended though with 1/2 hour left for Joe to give his talk (sorry Joe). All was okay though because our bishop decided he wanted to give some closing remarks. I spoke on how family home evening prepares me to share the gospel and Joe spoke on how scripture study prepares him to share the gospel. I think that both talks went great.

Cute kid

Today when I was getting out of bed I didn't feel very well. I was telling Emily that I had a headache. (she was asking why I was still in bed) So she replied, "why don't you have daddy give you a blessing to make your head feel better?" I just love it when they grasp these simple concepts and everything is so black and white to them.

Grumpy Pants

Today we had stake conference and as I was wrestling with a very antsy and grumpy Madison the man sitting next to us, who is also in our ward, was trying to help. He said, "We need to take those grumpy pants off of you" Madison looked at him and said (as she is pointing to it with a confused look on her face) "No, Dress"

Is it up or down?

Saturday night our gas light came on as we were coming home from my parent's house. I told Emily we were going to fill up our van. On the way home we got into a discussion that really confused me. She asked, "When we get home is our van going to be up, or down?" I said I didn't understand and she said "Our wheels are they going to be Up, or Down? I was still confused until a moment later I remembered that I had told her we were filling up our car. I asked if that was what she was talking about and she said "Yeah, when is our van going to be up in the sky?" :) It took a little bit of explaining to let her know that filling up a car is just an expression about putting gas in the car.

Our Fun Weekend

This weekend we had family in town from Thursday until this morning. We tried to spend some time with them each day. On Thursday we went to my parent's house and had dinner with my Uncle Don and Aunt Joy and their daughter Cammi. After dinner we went to Settler's park and had a lot of fun playing on the toys. Friday, we went to my cousin Cherice's wedding reception in Fruitland. Saturday, we went to a park in Fruitland with my cousins that we don't get to see much. After the park we went to my parent's house for lunch and then we went to the MK Nature Center and the park there afterwards. It was a lot of fun and made for a very busy weekend. Emily and Madison loved looking at all the animals and fish at the Nature Center. We even saw a mink. He kept fishing for crawdads and eating them right in front of us. I think he was the highlight of the afternoon. Everyone sat and watched him for about 15 minutes. Of course I forgot the camera all three days so there aren't any pictures from me.

Ummm...

The other night Joe was getting the kids ready for bed while I was at enrichment. He had left JJ on the bed with Madison while he took Emily potty. He came back to find this....

Madison had used the jewelry and dressed JJ up like a princess. He was loving it.

Eight Months

Another month has passed and JJ is now eight months old. I can't believe it. He is the same age that I took the binky away from both of the girls so I guess that will be happening soon. He is starting to sit better. He still isn't quite able
to be left alone sitting, but he is getting there. He has been working on this since 5 1/2 months. He is smiling a ton and loves his family members. He has recently started hugging on to me tightly when I have him. It makes me feel so loved. I love getting his squeezes. He loves to laugh and pretty much anything can set him off. We are often seen making the craziest faces and sounds just to get him to give us a laugh. He also loves to eat his food. He recently discovered juice and loves it. One of these days he will work up to crawling and those other wonderful things, but I think he is content with taking his time. I don't mind to much either because it means I'm not chasing him all over.

Speed up your computer giveaway!

One of my favorite blogs A Thrifty Mom is doing a giveaway for a program called iolo's System Mechanic. It looks like an awesome program. Go here to see the details.

Easter

On Easter we went to Church. At church we had great speakers that talked about physical death and spiritual death. They included in their talks the reason we celebrate Easter and spoke about Christ's atonement and his death and resurrection. They were great talks. After church we came home and ate pancakes.. Madison and Emily love pancakes. After pancakes they took naps and the Easter bunny came while they were asleep and hid their baskets. When they woke up Madison got to look for hers first. She wasn't really interested in looking for it and just cried. Finally I just showed her where it was and then she was the happiest person in the world. She ate as much candy as she could in the 10 minutes it took for Emily to find her basket and us to leave for my parent's house. Emily had a hard time finding her basket and we basically gave it away when it came down to it, but she thinks she found it all on her own so that is okay. She was so excited that the Easter bunny knew not to give her any candy with soy in it. (Some of the candy she had gotten on Saturday at my parent's Easter egg hunt had soy in it and she had been bummed that she couldn't eat it. ) After they found their baskets we picked Ben and Sara up(we are so glad they live so close now) and went to our parent's house for dinner and another Easter egg hunt. At my parent's we hid all the eggs we had painted as well as some plastic eggs. There were even big eggs for the adults. All the adults went out to help the kids look for eggs. It was kind of funny watching Emily and Madison because they didn't know which way to turn because so many people were telling them what to do. After the egg hunt we all went in and had ham, scalloped potatoes, deviled eggs (from the egg hunt), cornbread, and corn. It was a very yummy dinner. For dessert we even had homemade ice cream. Overall we had a very fun Easter day and had lots of fun spending time with family.

This is Madison and Emily getting ready to go outside. Madison was crying again because she was upset we were making her stand there to take a silly picture.

Emily finding eggs.

Madison was actually really good at finding eggs and would try to reach all the ones that she could.

Here is my parent's helping the kids find eggs.

JJ even got an egg.

Rachel has her big egg and a special egg we made for her that says Rachel loves Tim.

This is how I did Emily's hair. It is weaved like a basket. She loved it. It is actually really easy to do. I found how to do it here.

Saturday

Saturday we went to my parent's ward for an Easter brunch. We had yummy pancakes and eggs made by my Dad and Jared. He even made some wheat pancakes for Emily separately since the Krusteaz ones have soy in them. Emily was so happy that he did that and she didn't have to eat the Kix cereal I brought for "just in case" After the breakfast the kids got to go on a little Easter egg hunt. Emily and Madison loved it. Emily wasn't ready to be done when all the eggs were gone. Saturday night we went over to Ben and Sara's new house and colored Easter eggs. We colored 3 1/2 dozen. It was so much fun. We used crayons to make pictures on the eggs and then we dipped them in the dye. Madison wanted to use her hands to pull the eggs out of the cups of dye. They were both sad again when we ran out of eggs.