Happy Easter!

Last Monday we spent most of the day cleaning up from the weekend...like usual...since it's always a big party here :)  Our little friends didn't come so it was just clean up and play.  We walked down to get Lauren and then again to get Jared.  In the evening we had family home evening.  We had a nice Easter lesson.  For activity we played cracker smacker.  It was super fun.  I don't remember what reminded us of it, but I hadn't thought about the game in years.  It took us a few weeks before we got out to do it but we had a ton of fun.  When else can you run around whacking each other with rolled news papers? :)  We watched part of the BYU basketball game after.

Tuesday Bradley had preschool.  Jared had his first soccer game. He has been really excited for it to start and he has some good friends from school on his team too.  He had a great game and scored 2 goals...I think.  He also played against some of his good friends.  Our community aids came and checked our smoke detectors in the evening too.

Goal!

Wednesday Connor, Bradley and I went to story time at the library.  Then hurried home so we could walk down to get Lauren.  In the afternoon the little boy who usually comes Mondays came to play for a little while.  We also played outside for a bit since it was such a nice day.  Alan, Jared, Connor and I went to his SEP (student, educator, parent) conference.  Jared is doing great in school!  Mrs. Stewart only had good things to say about him.  When we got back there were emergency vehicles just leaving the quad...we had missed all the excitement.  One of the ladies here who has some medical problems was taken to the hospital.  I think she will be ok.

Thursday Lauren had early release (Jared too) so we didn't go help in her class.  We had a fun time playing in the afternoon.  Lauren had her first soccer game.  She has a boy from our quad on her team and they have become best buds since they figured that out.  They are always practicing outside together.  Their team had a great game.  We got to skype with Brett (and Grandma and Grandpa) a little in the evening too.  Which was super fun!

We had fun decorating some paper eggs for Easter.  Lauren like to deliver them to her friends too.  They liked to make a face on one egg, then put a body on another egg and tape them together. 

Friday was a normal day, but every Friday is early out for Jared (Lauren's day was just normal too).  They got to go see the 4th grade dance festival, so I didn't go help in Jared's class.  My visiting teachers came in the afternoon.  Friday night we just had fun being together here at home.  Alan also met with his PhD committee on Friday.  They say it might take a little longer than August, but they all agree it is getting closer.

My dish buddies!

Gluing 36 sheets of paper together to make a huge paper airplane!

Flying the big one!

The one Lauren is holding is made up of only 16 sheets of paper. :)  It flies better than the bigger one.  They are all made with Jared's own design.

Saturday we woke up to find that the Easter bunny had come to our house.  Then we got ready and went out to an egg hunt in our quad.  There were 42 kids there...and it wasn't close to all of them in the quad.  It was fun and each kid got to pick up 11...I would say find, but they weren't really hidden.  After that egg hunt we walked down to the city/BYU hunt at the track.  There were a ton of people there!!!  In the thousands.  We knew the hunt was supposed to be at 10:30 and we probably got there at 10:15, but it was over for the big kids.  A few kids and gone early and then everyone went and they just couldn't stop it I guess.  The 0-3 hadn't gone yet, so I took Bradley and Connor over to that and Alan took  Jared and Lauren to do a bouncy obstacle course.  There were so many people over at the egg hunt Bradley was lucky to find any eggs...let alone the 5 they said to pick up.  I think they all had fun and no one was too disappointed.  It was fun to go check out the craziness at  least.  Then we went over to the football stadium and watched part of the spring scrimmage.  I think they said there were 12,000 people that showed up to watch that.  Jared was excited because we found some seats on the front row!  They were way down by the end zone in the east stands, but it was cool to be there for some of the drills they ran before the scrimmage and for warm ups.  We went home and ate lunch and rested for a short time then went back to the baseball game.  We watched a couple of innings, then watched the last inning at the softball game.  We went to Winco to get our shopping done.  On the way the kids wanted to check out if the giant snowman was still there or if he had melted all the way....he was gone.  We ate dinner outside and then dyed eggs.  It was a super fun day.

That was my red jelly bean

1 2 3 go!

egg hunt pro

Connor loves the sand box.  I tried earlier in the week to get a good picture of him in the sand box, but he just gets so into it he won't stop to smile.

Walking home

Bradley liked to color his eggs all over with crayon then dye them the same color.  So far out of 2 egg cracking contests he has won them both.  Jared says he is going to patent Brad's method for next year.

Today is Easter!  Happy Easter!  Today was a really good day.  This morning we watched some of the new Bible videos the church has made about Easter.  Then these guys colored and cut out the page from the nursery manual's Easter lesson.  At church I got to do singing time again.  We talked about events from Jesus life and why Jesus is important.  I had this idea then looking through the Friend found a short article by Elder Oaks that was essentially the same thing, so I was able to use that a little.  We started by singing Picture a Christmas, but before we sang someone hid an egg with a sentence inside about Jesus.  While we sang a child would try to find the egg by us singing loud and soft.  Then we would read the paper and decide which picture on the board went with the paper.  I had 8 eggs and we made it through 7 of them.  Since I was letting the child hiding the egg pick the egg out of my basket the only song we didn't sing was the Easter one...oh well.  I think it all went really well and was a lot of fun.  After church we went to Jeff and Elizabeth's house for dinner.  We took jello eggs, rolls, coconut pie, and hard boiled eggs so we could have an egg cracking contest with Jeff, Elizabeth, and Stephen.  Jeff and Elizabeth made super yummy ham, garlic buttermilk mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, cheesy garlic herb pull apart, and brownies.  We all got stuffed!  We played a few games after dinner and before dessert.  I am super grateful that we have the knowledge of the restored gospel!  That because Jesus is resurrected we will all be resurrected too.


We will have to get a better picture in a few weeks when there is something in bloom (crocus and daffodils have started to bloom, but not much else).  (It's hard to get a nice Easter picture when there are wet pants and falls involved.)

A little blurry, but a delicious dinner!

We are on Spring Break!  We can't wait to have some fun this week.  Hope everyone else has a great week too!

Play Play Play

This last week was a pretty normal week...which was nice.  Our little friends came to play in the morning on Monday.  We walked down to get Lauren and Jared.  I turned Connor's 3day food diary into the health center...they are going to give it to a nutritionist to analyze.  We also caught up on all our usual stuff.  We also heard the good news that Lindsay had her baby.

Mom said I could finish it off!

Tuesday morning they had the Bean Museum come visit preschool.  They had a fun time.  The guy who did they show brought 4 animals.  A tarantula, a snake (cuddles), a stuffed skunk, and a tortoise.  The tortoise was huge..he weighed 50 pounds.  We played outside for a long while Tuesday afternoon.

Bradley wouldn't touch any of the animals (I did make him touch the tortoise, but he wasn't happy about it).  He was trying to back up but he was pinned by the wall and me.  Connor touched them all.

Wednesday Bradley Connor and I went to the library for story time. Then picked up Lauren and went straight to ready to learn.  They are starting something new the half hour before and feed us all lunch and we got a free book for going to it too....and a book for staying for ready to learn too.  Wednesday night we went to see some science fair projects at the Harmon building. It was a regional science fair I think.  We saw the middle school and high school projects....we just couldn't make it the night before for the elementary projects.

Thursday morning we had to have them come fix our heater.  The blower wasn't coming on and Alan had tried to fix it the night before some.  Our heater was off all night, but luckily is didn't get too cold inside.  Alan tried one more time in the morning...and got it working before the guy came.  He looked at it and changed the filter and said if it has any more problems to call.  Thursday Lauren and Jared both had early release.  It was a lot colder, but once they got their homework done I agreed to go out and play for a little while.  We were out a lot longer than I thought we would be.  I think that Thursday was the night Alan got our taxes done.

Bradley and Connor playing while waiting for the guy to come check out the heater....You can see stuff pulled out in the kitchen so he could get to the heater.

They stacked up egg cartons and then took turns throwing balls to knock them over.  They both had a great time!

Jared rigged this swing up all by himself.  All I did was move the rope closer to the trunk.  Here there is no seat just rope.

They decided that just rope didn't feel so good, so they tried a BYU ice cream bucket lid.  They couldn't get it to work very well, so then they tried an egg carton.  This actually worked pretty well.

Then they tried a frying pan.  Jared finally found this board and it worked great!  Everyone wanted a turn to try it out.

Friday I went and helped in Jared's class. It started snowing while I was there and I had to scrape the car off when I left.  Once Jared got home we just played inside all afternoon.  Jeff and Elizabeth babysat for us in the evening so we could go to our ward activity and then do a little shopping.

Playing once when he was in his seat.  He had it like this all by himself...I did have to put it back for the picture.

Saturday we woke up to more snow.  After getting some work done in the morning we went out and played in it a little.  I went and did some shopping in the afternoon...church shoes for me (my old ones had holes and got cold walking in snow), shoes for Connor, a quick stop at Deseret Book, and Winco, and got gas.  They were eating dinner when I got home.  It sounded like they all had a fun afternoon.

Today was a good.day.  I did singing time today.  We just reviewed the songs for the program.  I took a couple of videos to sing along with.  Well first we talked about dynamics...crescendos, diminuendos, pianissimo,  fortissimo (and all the ones in between).  Then as we sang along with the tabernacle choir to My Heavenly Father Loves Me we lifted our hands up as they sang louder and put the down as they sang softer.  Then we Practiced singing If the Savior stood beside me changing our dynamics. Then we sang along with a video for that song.  We had a little time to start learning Did Jesus Really Live Again? And a couple other songs too.  Our home teachers stopped by after church.  Alan and I both spent a little time plying on the violin.  It was a good day.  My kids also informed me that today is my half birthday!  Of course Jared's was yesterday.

When Connor was all ready for church Alan said he looked like he was ready to go to school...so Jared got him a backpack and his lunch box.

He looks big with his boat shoes.  (They are just a little big..like can't feel his toes in them big.  I measured his feet before I left, so they should be the right size.  At least he doesn't trip in them.)

We still don't have the test results back for Connor.  I asked when I was in there on Monday and she said she would give it to the doctor on Tuesday (the only day that pediatrician is at the health center).  We never heard from them though.  This week should be another great week !

doctor doctor doctor cake

This week has been crazy!!!  Monday morning they came and cleaned our carpets.  The were coming between 9 and 12 so I had to hurry and pick up and get ready for them and vacuum everywhere.  Alan was nice and helped my get ready for them.  I was worried our little friends would come right at the same time as the carpet cleaners...then where would we play since it would all be wet, but they didn't end up coming after all.  The morning seemed cool because of the time change and the sun came over the top of the mountain later.  It did warm up and we decided to walk with Alan down to campus and then over to get Lauren.   On our walk down we saw some dark smoke coming from campus.  At first it wasn't much, but got bigger.  I sent Alan up the stairs from the Marriott Center up to the creamery to "risk his life and satisfy his morbid curiosity...and mine".  He said the Bean Museum was on fire right where they were doing the construction for the expansion.  We walked around the building and saw the fire trucks arrive and it was out a short time later.  We saw the whole thing.  There was no internal damage to the building...which is good!  After getting Lauren we played outside.  Brad told me it was painful to go to the bathroom and he was walking kind of funny.  Since he had been saying that for a couple of days I decided I better take him in to get checked for a uti.  We were able to get an appointment with the doctor for later that day.  They said he had to be there an hour early.  We hurried and ate lunch and ran over to the health center.  They gave us the cup and we just had to wait...and wait...and wait.  I had to get him pretty excited about it and I was getting him to drink more and more.  Finally he said he was ready.  After he was done with the test he told everyone (doctors, nurses, receptionist, lady at the pharmacy, friends outside) what he saw what he had done and how cool it was.  He was pretty proud of himself.  Luckily he didn't have a uti, just some other irritation.  He is feeling better now.  We were done just in time to go get Jared.  We played more outside.  We are loving that it is getting warmer and we can.  Then had a quick dinner and family home evening and went to bed.  Oh that morning we also figured out that our phone was not making or receiving calls, so I call OIT to see what they could do about it.

Getting ready for our walk

Tuesday after taking Jared and Lauren to school we hurried to get ready to take Connor to the doctor.  Poor little guy had a low fever and I had to wake him up to take him.  He was just going for a weight check because he was so small a month ago.  We have been trying to feed him more and more calorie rich foods, but it isn't working.  He is 17 lbs 5 oz.  Which is 2 or 3 ounces more that a month ago...and not enough for the doctor.  He had been labeled with failure to thrive.  A month ago they did routine blood tests and also tested for celiac disease and maybe some other things.  All the tests came back normal.  Tuesday the doctor decided she wanted to have a sweat chloride test to check for cystic fibrosis and said it had to be done at the hospital.  The nurse was busy when we were done with the doctor and she said she would call (on our broken phone...I gave her a different number...but still)  We hurried from there over to preschool a little late...and we took snack...popcorn, apples, and a few pretzels.  After preschool we walked down to get Lauren again.  We were able to get a little done here in the afternoon, but it seemed like we had been spending a lot of time at the doctor!  We also walked down to get Jared.  We went back over to the doctor since I hadn't heard from the nurse about the test.  She said they just found out that we would have to go to Primary Children's Medical center for the test.  It is the only licensed place in the state to have it done.  Wednesday was the most open day to go this week and they had an opening that would work for us.  Tuesday night we went to juggling club for a little bit.

Wednesday we waited for the technicians to come out and fix the phone...they never showed up.  They did finally call and say they had put us on the schedule for Thursday and would that work for us. Bradley, Connor, and I went to story time at the library.  Then we hurried home and packed lunches and got ready to go to Salt Lake.  We picked Lauren up and headed up to Primary Children's.  They had a fun wagon that these guys got to ride around in while we went from place to place in the hospital.  First to out patient registration, then the lab, then to the lab upstairs.  They got Connor all hooked up.  First they cleaned both arms, then put gauze pads soaked in a solution on his arms then copper plates velcroed down on top of that...on his forearm and upper arm.    They passed an electrical current through his arm to help open his pours...the solution helped with that too..and to help him sweat.  He had to have the current through his arms for 5 minutes.  There was one person holding each arm and I was holding him on my lap.  Connor screamed the whole time!  As one of the phlebotomists said "sometimes it's a long 5 minutes and sometimes it a fast 5 minutes"  When time was up they hurried (one on each arm) and took all that off and put a preweighed gauze piece on each forearm.  Then wrapped each with what looked like plastic wrap several times around each arm.  On top of that they used the wrap they use when you give blood (green with little blue dinosaurs).  Then they pulled his sleeves down.  Then wrapped each arm with a heating pack...and taped it on.  They then told me to put his coat on him and wrap him in a blanket.  We had to wait 30 minutes.  We were able to explore around the hospital (we didn't go far I didn't want to get lost) in our squeaky wheeled wagon, but Connor wasn't very happy about it.  He was hot, I'm sure.  He was happy to get all that stuff off!  They had to weigh his gauze pads to see if he sweat enough, but he had sweat a ton!  I could see the beads of water on his arm when they took it all off.  We hurried home as fast as we could.  We still haven't heard the results of the test. We were about 15 minutes too slow for getting Jared so Alan walked over and picked him up.  They walked to Alan's lab and we got him from there.  What a day!  We played outside when we got home and then just normal things in the evening.  I think that's the night we had the dinner of champions...hotdogs!  Connor wouldn't even try one.

This sums up Connor's experience

A little happier once he was done.

Thursday I was looking forward to a doctor free day.  Besides the test though the doctor wanted me to keep a 3 day diary of everything Connor eats.  We had to weigh and measure everything!  I decided I would start it on Thursday.  In the morning they guys from OIT came and fixed our phone.   We also went and helped in Lauren's class.  Thursday afternoon I was finally able to catch up on a few dishes and things around the house.  I also made a pear pie, apple pie, and quiche for dinner.  We walked down to get Jared from school again and stopped at a friend's house for a few minutes on the way home.  They have a huge swing in their front yard.  Thursday night was also the Wasatch Storytelling Festival.  Lauren and Jared both did great with their stories!  Lauren told Froggy Gets Dressed and Jared told More Pies!  We figured out about a week before that Jared would be telling it on pi day.  We thought that was fun...and at least one other parent noticed.  After the storytelling festival we went to a pi day party.  We took our pear and apple pies to share.  It was up at the multi-purpose building and a guy from Alan's lab planned it.  It was late when we got home from the party and we were all ready for bed!

More Pies!

Froggy Gets Dressed

Yum, Pies!

Friday was another food diary day.  I went and helped in Jared's class.  Once we got home with Lauren I did dishes and started baking cakes.  I took a little break and walked down to get Jared.  I baked a little more when we got home and we played outside.  I got all the cakes baked and 2 covered that night.  The other guys ate dinner and watched Robin Hood.

Saturday we slept in as long as we could.  Then I worked on cake.  I was making a cake for the Relief Society birthday dinner.  I was tired by the end of the week and I could have made something lots simpler, but I just couldn't give up the idea of this one.  Alan played outside with everyone for awhile.  Connor took a really nice long nap too.  We all went up to the multipurpose building to set the cake up...which took me a while.  I went to the dinner and the other guys came home and had their own dinner.  When I got back they had decorated some little 4 inch cakes that I had baked for them to decorate with leftover Valentine cookie frosting.  They added a few leftover flowers from my cake to their own cakes too.  They were also playing dance dance revolution and loving it.  I'm glad we only had to keep Connor's food diary for 3 days.


Bradley, Jared, Lauren

The Chocolate Lover

The Nibbler

The Frosting King

The rest of the room's decorations.  There was a huge balloon arch over the food table.

Yum! Yum! Yum!

Today was a pretty normal Sunday.  I went visiting teaching before church and Alan went home teaching after church.   Some people in our ward fasted for a little boy who was born a couple of weeks ago.  He was 13 weeks early.  Right now he weighs just over 1 pound.  Jared fasted too.  It was his first time and I think he had a really good experience with.  We had corned beef and cabbage for dinner and green shamrock rolls.  Almost everyone loved it!

Last week I wrote about our cereal bowls.  I learned more of the guys names....and had to share.  Tony the Tiger is just Tony the Tiger, the fruit loop toucan is Tutu the Toucan, Snap Crackle and Pop are Paddy Maddy Faddy, and of course Corny the Rooster is Chika Baka.

Since there are only a couple things on the calendar for this coming week (just like the one we just had) it should be a pretty calm uneventful week. :)  Hope everyone has a good one!