May Day

When we got home from our week at Grandma's the kids were really eager to see their friends. Erik (Dude) and Kysha went to Utah during Spring Break. They left a few days before us and got home a few days before us. The kids were going through major withdrawals.

We found out that the Christensens were stuck at home without a car and the kids were pretty bummed that they would have to go without their traditional Pizza Night while daddy did his guard weekend.

Well Dan decided we were getting a pizza for dinner that night at Papa Murphy's, so I called and offered to pick them up a pizza. Jalyssa and I got talking one thing lead to another and some how we ended up having dinner together. The kids were thrilled, we all got a chance to catch up, but I guess Erik was a little disappointed that he missed out on the fun again. We always seem to get together when he is not around.

Some how the discussion of May Day came up. I remember as a kid we would make paper baskets at school, fill them with flowers, and then secretly leave them on some one's front door. Dan remembered something about the May Pole Dance. The kids overheard us talking and insisted on doing something. So, we celebrated May Day a day early this year. Actually this is the first time we have ever done anything for May Day.

Dan constructed this make shift May Pole.

He had a lot of fun trying to give instructions to all the kids and get them to do exactly as he said.
Jack hung out in the house during the May Pole experience. He managed to crawl from their living room to the sliding glass door in the dining room. He is one determined kid.
Almost done.
The finished product.
I figured out where we went wrong. It would have worked better, if the boys and girls walked in opposite directions. At least the kids had fun and hopefully a memory was created.

Spring Break

Here are a few highlights from our week at Grandma Sandi's house:

This was are sleeping arrangements. Noah and Zoe both refused to sleep in the other bedroom with their cousin. It was hard sharing a bed with all 3 kids.

We helped Chelsea with a school project about nature. She decided to do a scrapbook about the local Duck Pond. I remember visiting this pond often as a child and feeding the ducks. Here is a picture of the explorers.

A view of the pond.
These geese came running from up the street when they realized we had bread for them. Chelsea was afraid of them, Noah too to a certain extent, Zoe was fearless.
This duck let us get extremely close, we later discovered it had a hurt foot.
We introduced everyone to Peanut Butter Popcorn. I'm still trying to perfect my skills, mine doesn't taste as good as Jalyssa's, even though I follow her recipe.
Chelsea and Zoe all dressed up in matching dresses ready to go to Chelsea's Spring Sing. Chelsea, along with all the first graders at Schnell School, learned several patriotic songs and songs about the Earth. It was there end of the year program.
The kids spent the week raising Granny's spirits. She was supposed to have had hip replacement surgery, but it was canceled at the last minute when they discovered a heart problem. Needless to say she was a little down about the possibility of spending the rest of her life in pain. So, the kids took dinner to her and ate with her every evening. We even helped take her to a few of her doctor appointments. They loved checking in on her any moment they could.

Noah and Zoe also got to cross another wish off their list. They have been begging me to take a walk in the rain, but I never had anyone to leave Jack with. Grandma was willing to keep him one morning so we walked in the rain down to McDonald's to have breakfast.

The week sure went by fast. We ran out of time. We didn't see or do everything that we wanted to do. But, we still managed to have a fun week.

Happy Easter

We had a fun and interesting Easter Sunday.

Noah and Zoe woke up super early and were hunting for their Easter Goodies before Dan, Jack, and I were even out of bed.

Daddy didn't have any morning meetings, so we were able to celebrate and go to church as a family. Noah and Zoe were pretty wound up during Sacrament Meeting, making me think that next year we need to ask the Easter Bunny to come on Saturday. I can't really blame it on the candy, I only let them have 1 piece before church.

The funniest thing was Noah's reaction when the choir started singing. We have a small choir with a director who likes to think big. You have to give her credit for attempting such big arrangements. Most of the time it ends up with her singing louder than anyone. As soon as they started their number Noah blurts out (hopefully no one but myself and Sister Egbert heard him): Why are they singing? They sound so horrible. Why don't they just stop? Doesn't it sound horrible? I was caught off guard and tried to stifle my laughter, but I honestly had to agree with him. It was not good at all. However, I tried my best to explain to him that what he said wasn't nice and we didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings. I'm glad others found the humor in it too. You got to love kids and their lack of a filter.

After church we packed our suitcases and headed to Reno. Dan was catching a flight to Phoenix for Boat Training and the kids and I were meeting Papa Tim, so we could spend the week at Grandma Sandi's house. I wasn't up to spending all day and night at home with the kids. Plus Noah didn't have school due to Spring Break. I would have gone to Phoenix with Dan, except that Granny Milkshake was supposed to have hip replacement surgery the week before and Grandma Sandi wouldn't be available to watch the kids.

We made it to Grandma's just in time for a nice Easter Feast of ham, funeral potatoes, green Jello salad, asparagus, and home made rolls. There were even two choices for dessert: a bunny cake or a pineapple lush cake. The kids also got a second round of Easter goodies. Dan ate Easter Dinner at Red Lobster.

Here are a few pictures from the morning events:

Noah found his basket under the bathroom sink.

Noah trying to figure out which one was his. He was a little confused, we bought the bigger blue basket this year, but it ended up being Noah's and not Jack's.

Zoe found her basket in the kitchen cupboard where all the pots and pans are kept.
A closer look at Zoe's loot.
Jackson crawling towards his basket. Noah and Zoe found it under the end table.
Jack very excited about his plastic Easter egg. We had to fight off his brother and sister who were more than eager to help him explore his basket.
Jack was not to sure if he liked the plastic grass. He got this very confused and concerned look every time he touched it. It made me laugh.

The Egg Hunt

One of Dan's coworkers throw this huge Easter Egg Hunt every year. They hide over 1000 candy filled eggs, have a bounce house (that they own), Foosball, ping pong, and a ton of food. This is the first year Dan didn't work on the Saturday before Easter, so we decided to give it a try.

Unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate this year, so the eggs weren't hidden as well as the previous years, and it was too wet and muddy for the bounce house. But the kids had fun gathering the eggs anyway.

Here are all the kids waiting for the starting signal.

Noah went right to work.
Zoe needed a little help.
Here they are working together.
Noah proudly holding his loot.
Its always great to try new things and the kids are already talking about next year.

Easter Treats

The holidays are becoming more and more popular and important around here.

Noah gets so excited about celebrating them, decorating for them, cooking for them, and making gifts for them. Easter was no exception. We decorated the house early in the month and he started thinking of a treat to take his class. This was really important to him as his friend Erik does it every holiday. Zoe also wanted to make a treat for her class. Then we discovered that it was Sister Egbert's birthday the week before Easter. She is my lifesaver in church, my kids absolutely adore her and wanted to take her something. So this warranted for some creativity in the kitchen.

I came upon this cute idea on another blog - chocolate covered peeps. It seemed easy enough, I had a few of the ingredients on hand, (dipping chocolate and sprinkles) plus Peeps are so cheap.

We started out with three colors of bunnies.

Here is our assortment of sprinkles.
We ended up dipping them in milk chocolate and white chocolate. I did the dipping, the kids did the sprinkling. Here is our finished product.
I think they were a big hit. They were cute, easy, tasted great, and were enjoyed by all. I can't wait to make them next year.

7 Months

Jackson is already 7 months old. I don't have any weight or length updates. That won't come until his 9 month well child exam in June.

But here are some other updates:

He is a crawler. Not the conventional crawler, but a crawler non the less. He has mastered and perfected the army crawl. He is super fast and doesn't stay in one place for too long. As you can see he loves to crawl under the table.

He loves the TV remote. Everything goes in his mouth these days. He can even crawl while holding the remote.
He loves to eat. He is the only kid of mine who will eat rice cereal. He also likes the baby oatmeal and the baby barley cereals. He is also the only one of my kids who have liked the baby food jars of meat.

He is improving on sitting up, but would rather be in motion than just sit around.

He prefers to be on the floor crawling around and not in his jumproo.

He thinks his sister is the funniest thing in the world. She doesn't have to really do anything to get him to laugh.

He is still wearing 3 to 6 month clothing.

He still sounds congested most of the time.

We are working on becoming a better independent sleeper.

Emergency Expo

As part of my church calling, I was involved in putting together an Emergency Expo. The purpose of this activity was to get everyone prepared for possible natural disasters. We touched on topics such as 72 hour kits, earthquake preparedness, food storage, water purification, making a family plan, cooking over a fire, First Aid, and making sure you had the right insurance to cover your losses in such events. A service missionary from the Reno Cannery came, she was so full of information, it almost needed a night of it's own. She got me really interested in food storage and eager to try out the cannery. I'm just not sure I am ready to replace butter and oil with beans. I put together the display for earthquakes and Dan was nice enough to put a booth together about insurance. He thought it would be fun to bring the stand up of Flo.

Here are a few that participated in the fun:

Brya Steffens and Jalyssa Christensen.

Tressa Card.
Michelle LaMont, our Relief Society President.

Jack spent the evening playing with Parker Guisti.

Parker is about 3 weeks older than Jack, he belongs to my friend Lindsey. It has been fun watching these two become more interactive with one another. They are the only boys in their age group. They will need to stick together when it comes to the handful of girls that will go through primary and school with them.

It was a very successful activity. I think the most positive feedback we have gotten in awhile. The attendance was great too, especially since we invited the other Ward to participate with us.

We have a long list of ideas for follow up classes. There is so much to learn and prepare for.

8 is Great!

I can't believe that Dan and I have been married for eight years already. I guess time flies when you are having fun. Or maybe life is just too crazy to notice the passing of time. In some ways it seems like we have been together forever. I know Noah and Zoe don't understand that there was a time when we didn't even know each other.

We have accomplished a lot in these last 8 years. Dan has graduated from college, we have moved twice, bought two homes, added 3 kids to the mix, survived a few job changes, added several branches to our family tree with the discovery of his biological family - just to name a few.

It has been a crazy ride so far and I am glad I get to face each day and new challenge with my best friend by my side.

We ended up celebrating our Anniversary at the local Mexican Restaurant, La Fiesta.

Here are the events that led up to our celebration.

Noah got it in his head that he was supposed to make dinner for us. Keep in mind that he is 5 1/2, so his cooking skills are very limited.

He got the cheese and the cheese grater out and quickly got to work. He even got Zoe involved in grating the cheese.

The whole time I was very nervous about him cutting his fingers and he was not telling me what he was up to. He just kept telling me he was supposed to make dinner.

He then got the taco shells out of the pantry.

At this point Noah realized he wasn't allowed to use the stove and he still wasn't telling me what he was trying to do. By this time Dan had gotten home and was surveying the scene, also puzzled at Noah's determination and how adamant he was about cooking dinner.

Realizing that meatless tacos weren't a very good dinner option, he decided he'd better take us out to eat.

So that's how we all ended up at the restaurant.

The girls...
The boys...

And Jack Jack...

This will go down in the books as a memorable anniversary.

My Crazy Kids

I'm not sure which child took this picture.

They just love the monkey on his butt.

Noah sure loves his baby brother, at least most of the time. Once in awhile he wishes Jack wasn't born. Noah is starting to get overly confident in his baby handling skills and has been spotted trying to do things he knows he is not allowed to do. Such as picking Jack up and carrying him. I think sometimes he, as well as Zoe, forget that Jack is a human being and not a toy.

This is what happens when I leave Jack unattended for too long.

Zoe likes to dress him up and hand him all sorts of random objects.

The other day the kids locked me out of the house. We had gone out on the front porch to do something and they managed to sneak back inside and lock the front door. Lucky for them, or should I say me, I know the code to the garage door and they didn't manage to lock that door. This is what I found when I came inside.
They were feeding him the food I had prepared and left on the table. Another task they know I don't like them doing.

Zoe sure loves her curlers.

These pictures remind me of my Grandma Partin. We already know she has her glare, but I think the resemblance goes much farther than that. It's not a bad thing, I actually have a lot of fond memories of my Grandma Partin and know my kids would love her too.

There is never a dull moment around here.

The Kids Expo

We took advantage of a clear weekend and headed over the pass to spend sometime with family. My Aunt Heidi was visiting from Colorado, plus it had been awhile since Grandma Sandi, Papa Tim, and Granny Milkshake had seen Baby Jack. I didn't give the kids much notice as I wasn't sure if the weather was going to cooperate. In the end, I packed for everyone, including Dan, and informed him we would be going and that the kids and I would be meeting him at his office.

We had a nice visit. It happened to be the weekend of the Kids Expo, an event held at the El Dorado County Fairgrounds every year full of fun activities, prizes, crafts, and give aways. Did I mention all of it is free? While there the kids were treated to a movie and snacks from Aunt Heidi. She was impressed at how much Noah knew about the differences between fiction and non-fiction. She also became fast friends with Jack. Dan and I got to sneak away for the evening and have dinner and dessert alone, an early celebration for our Anniversary. We ate at a little hole in the wall in Downtown Placerville known as the Powell Brothers Steam house. In all my years of living in Placerville I had never been there, so it was neat to see what all the buzz was about. I had a really good seafood stew and Dan ate steamed clams. For dessert we headed to Baskin Robins, I had some yummy ice cream made with Red Hots. It wasn't the fanciest of evenings, but a fun one. We were just too tired to run down the hill into Folsom or Sacramento, plus we weren't sure how long Jack would survive with out me. It was a fun, fast paced weekend.

Here are a few highlights from the Kids Expo:

Chelsea holding a chicken....

Noah and Zoe putting out the flames using equipment from the Forrest Service Fire Squad. The guy was really impressed with Zoe's spunk, determination, and stance. I even picked up a few Smokey the Bear pins. Remember him? I think it is sad that kids these days know so little about who Smokey the Bear is.

Noah sitting inside their truck.

Zoe got her face painted, Noah didn't want anything to do with it.
Trying out the CHP car.

Zoe tried tumbling.
Zoe and Chelsea making butterflies using coffee filters and clothes pins.