Sunny, Springy Sundays!

Mom, "Please take off your church clothes before you go outside so that they don't get ruined." 

Elijah, "We're just going on the swings." As he and Emi run out the back door. 

Dad, "What are you doing with the hose, Elijah?!"

 "Oh, me? Nothing..."

 Elijah, "Really, nothing, I promise." 

Emi, "Hmmm... I don't know about this."

 Elijah, "Look at the rainbow...very closely!"

Emi, "ELIJAH! I didn't want to get wet!"

 Elijah, "Okay, okay, I won't do it again."

Emi, "It feels good. Hahaha, I like it!"

 Emi, "Can I have a turn?"

PS Phil took all the photos. Not too bad, huh? Great! Now he'll outdo me in one more thing!

A Truly Happy Easter!

Love these kiddos! Happy Easter everyone!

We've had a long day. We're having Easter at our house.We're hosting a family occasion with all of our kids for the first time. Wish us luck! It doesn't help that something I ate yesterday has made me so sick that I have been laying on the couch all day! It is so hard to not be up and cleaning and organizing and preparing! Every time I try, though, I get sick! Anyway, on to the good stuff...

We have a wonderful Elder in our ward, Elder Orgill. His family lives in Oahu as his dad serves as the President of the PCC. We have been sending them pictures and e-mails and keeping them "in touch" with their son while he's on his mission here. His uncle called here tonight (stake president in Utah) and told us how difficult the mission has been on their family and how they've fasted and prayed to receive comfort as he's been away. That's when the e-mails and photos began coming to them. It was really Phil's idea to begin with so he gets the credit, but last night I decided to send some photos of them just being missionaries at various meetings and such and the uncle had to call and say how much it had meant to their family and how inspired it was. I am so thankful for experiences like this! It keeps me going and serving and being a single mom every Sunday and several nights a week at times. Funny because as I read President Orgill's reply to my e-mail I really felt the spirit. I dismissed it thinking that I was just emotional thinking about what it will be like to have Elijah gone, but I am thankful that the Lord sent another message that couldn't be ignored. Happy Easter! How thankful I am for my Savior and for His compassion and love and how often he succors my family and I!

We had the most incredible day on Friday! We went to a training on how to take dental photos with an amazing professional photographer, Len Bucko. Not just that, but then we went and had a family photo shoot. I seriously can't wait to see those photos! :) I learned quite a bit about my camera and the various ways to take photos not in AUTO! I am still learning and have a long way to go, but I LOVE it! Here are my beginning photos. Some are better than others...

 I still need to play with the ISO when I am not using flash to get rid of the noise in the photos. Bear with me!

 I love this one of Noah!

 He's got a thing for smelling EVERYTHING right now. Not sure what that's about but it's pretty funny. He gave up his Plug! We are so proud of him for becoming a bigger boy each day! Now for the diapers!

 LOVE this picture of Isaiah.

 I never got Elijah to smile, but he's sure handsome!

 And soooo smart! He got into NorthStar Academy. His scores were so amazing and I started to cry because I just had no idea how bright he really is. I LOVE this boy and I am so proud of him!

 Emi was so patient and willing to take photos even though all she wanted to do was play and swing!

 She gave up her PLUG! That is huge! We never thought it'd happen and she did it for the plug fairy who brought her a little toy and then her dad took her to the Disney store and she bought a Rapunzel doll.

 I really need to play with the ISO more, but I love these pics anyway!

 Isaiah was actually not into the photo session and we kept having to shove his mouth full of puffs and other treats to get him to cooperate. This is Phil trying to entice him into the photos. It was super fun and I am so excited to see the photos!

Sleeping Baby

Is there anything as precious as a sleeping baby? Or even just sneaking in and looking at your children fast asleep. There is something so peaceful and serene about seeing them sleeping.

 These pictures are super fuzzy and out of focus, but I am still learning how to use my camera without the flash. I will have some photos coming that start to show some improvement. Anyway, here's a funny story about this sleeping child. This is naptime. He likes to take a morning 10:30 nap and an afternoon 1:30-2:00 nap every day. If you time them just right and he sleeps the perfect amount of time and you have food waiting for the hibernating bear upon his waking up all is very well. If any of the variables change he's not so easy to handle.

 Well, though child safety experts would probably arrest me for having a pillow and blankets in his bed, this is how he sleeps best. All snuggled up. So on to the funny part...well he was sick with a cold recently and he was so congested that I finally decided to give him some Benadryl to help him sleep at night. Lo and behold he slept ALL night for the first time in 14 months! So, yes, I did give him Benadryl for another 4, maybe 5 nights. Can you blame a lady for wanting to sleep all night? Besides, he was still sick and when I'm sick I want medicine.

Well, the cold is gone and so is the sleeping and the Benadryl. Oh well, who needs to sleep all night anyway?!

Bear Hugs

Elijah almost caught it. Isaiah and I have this thing where if I hold him and squeeze him tight he squeezes me just as tight back. He only does it with me and I always feel as though I could melt. It is the BEST feeling ever! He puts both arms around me and makes a little grunt and squeezes (I always make a "mmm" sound so I guess he thinks grunting is his job). :) Man, I LOVE this boy!

New Jammies

We met a second cousin (Leslie) for dinner at the Pizzeria and she was so nice to give all the kids some new jammies since she was meeting them for the first time. :) Noah decided that he wasn't so happy about being on Elijah's bed instead of his for the photo soooo...

 He went into full-blown tantrum mode. In fact, I wish I would've centered this right so that Elijah would have been in this picture because it's a perfect portrait of our lives with these little one right now!

 Noah, still upset (AND EXHAUSTED) but happier in his bed.

 Elijah totally happy.

 Emi being silly

 Elijah faking asleep so he could see the picture to know what he looks like. Pretty good at that, huh? That's because he likes to fake asleep so we'll turn out the lights and he'll turn them back on and start reading for another hour! Sneaky!

Lots to Do, Getting Lots Done!

When we bought this house we knew we were buying A LOT of work, but we had no idea how much TIME it would all take when we tried to do it all by ourselves. Soooo, Phil finally decided to have a great construction company come and handle the cement work in front. It was a lot of work, but mostly it was the time that it saved for Phil to be able to get started on his grass...

 Getting closer! And as I write this he's out there putting top soil down and we'll be ordering sod tomorrow (PLEASE DON'T RAIN!) so we'll have grass by the weekend (though with baseball, a baptism and the YW auction that might be postponed to the following week) :)

In the meantime, we took Sunday of General Conference to just sit listen to talks and EAT! Man did we eat ALL DAY!

 We painted egg carton flowers for a wreath I saw and mentioned in my last post HERE. The kids had a great time and it gave them something to do besides drive each other crazy and play on the computer or Angry Birds on my phone!

 As always they start out strong. Fighting over how many they each get to paint and then it's me, painting the rest myself while they all go off to make messes elsewhere.

In fact, shortly after these photos, Noah took his paint plate and cut it apart in the LIVING ROOM!!! There was paint all over the hardwood floor. Nice. But the end product was worth the work. I added the bird because I thought it needed a little something special!

Note the ugly door knob that needs to be replaced as it decides when it would like to lock and unlock on it's own. Nice.

Noah tired of hanging out and wanted to watch his buddy Caillou. We stuck him in our bed with head phones to hear since Isaiah was taking a nap in there. can you see the little button in the bed?

 SOOO cute! He would smile every time I came in to see him. :)

 Then we began this HUGE project of building the kids' a swing set. There are guys on Craiglist who will build it for a fee. DO THAT! This was insanity. We started at about 8:30am...

 Phil and I worked, then I had to take both boys to the Dr. so Phil's dad came to the rescue (bet he wished he hadn't showed up :))

 The kids were beside themselves to get this things done! Emi LOVES monkey bars. Elijah loves climbing and Noah was hammering screws in the boards all over the structure. He did it perfectly!

 We didn't even finish entirely that night at 8:30pm! Phil promised the kids he'd figure out how to hook up the swings since they'd been BEGGING all day for the swings to be ready for them to play on. He located the bolts and got it together and lo and behold...

 They were swinging at 9pm! The neighbors must love us now!

I only wish I'd gotten a picture of them the next morning, first thing, all four of them out there swinging, climbing, hammering and sliding before school! LOVE that thing! It's also the first place they run to as soon as they get home from school. Best money we've spent for a toy! :)