Thursday, March 27, 2008

I hope you all had a happy Easter. We had a fun filled weekend with lots of time with family, friends and Easter eggs. We traveled to VA for most of the weekend and the days were full of sunshine and nice weather. We didn't make it to sunrise service (the kids and I didn't make it) as I am still letting the kids sleep to almost 8:00 every morning. The kids started egg hunts last week and are still going strong as of this morning. Luckily we have moved from Mom hiding them to Landon and Ella hiding them for each other and they don't mind that there is nothing in the eggs. Every time they finished finding the eggs they immediately ask to hide them again. I am sure we will find colored plastic eggs with the lawnmower through the entire summer. Hey, but if it keeps them entertained how could I complain. You also can't beat 3 dozen eggs for $1.00

Eli is finally feeling better. After having a virus last week he ended the Easter weekend with an ear infection. If he had some ibuprofen in him you couldn't tell anything was wrong and he never once pulled at his ear, but sure enough, Monday the doctor told us it was infected and he began his first antibiotics. He is quite a trooper and seemed to feel better by the end of the day on Monday. The nice thing is he has been taking longer naps which leaves some time for me to scramble and try to get a few things done in the house. (you can't tell by looking at it but I feel better about the laundry). As of late yesterday I have come down with a runny nose again. Who's to say whether it is allergies or a cold but I have gone through almost 2 boxes of tissues and still going. Keeping my fingers crossed that no one else gets it but with all of the crazy weather up and down temperatures it is bound to happen.

With the longer days Ella seems to be getting worn out quickly and after I got them ready to go last Friday things got quiet. By the time I changed Eli and went to find her this is how she was. I just covered her up, took off her shoes and let her sleep. I am still trying each day to get all 3 of them napping at the same time for at least 30 minutes.

So the pictures today, mainly from the weekend. We were able to see Uncle Nathan which is a rare treat. The kids kept him busy reading books, answering questions, playing tee ball, finding eggs and so forth. Eli went along on an Easter egg hunt at Gammy's church. Landon and Ella and Eli all dressed up in the chair for a photo op - just excuse the mess on Ella's face and also her dress not being completely down but it is a true shot of Ella - she is not a "girly girl" for the most part. The proof of that is take a look at this last picture of her riding home from the church!!!!!!!!!

Happy week to you all!

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

I want, I want, I want!! I thought I had somehow joyfully made it past the "I want it" stage but yesterday as I ventured to the drug store to buy some items for Landon to take to his Easter party at preschool it started for the very first time! Landon started pointing at things saying "I want one of those" and so then immediately Ella joined her brother. They each pointed to item after item saying that they wanted it. After almost 4.5 years of parenthood I thought that I had lucked out and somehow had kids that didn't ask for anything for birthdays, Christmas, or even when rolling down the isles of the grocery store. At Christmas we had to coax it out of them something that they might like and Landon wanted "toys for boys and girls that didn't have any". My thoughts went spiraling down as I tried to pick out chocolate candies that would fit into multi-colored eggs. I quickly tried different approaches and we settled on the "one day I would like to have" so they pointed out about 10 more things that "they would like to have" and I quickly moved to an isle that only had medicine. Ella was disappointed that she couldn't carry out 10 bags of jelly beans but we managed to check out without a fit or tantrum much to my delight.

Poor little Eli watched all of this from his car seat as our primary goal was to get him some ibuprofen to help ease the high fever he started running yesterday. He doesn't have any other symptoms and continues to be so very happy, smiling and cooing and even jumping at times. Just the other day he took his first big swing in a swing at the park and at home in the swing hanging in our tree. He giggled and smiled as the downward ride must have tickled his belly. He is changing so much as you can notice in the picture his hair is getting really long and blowing in the breeze. We all think he looks a bit like his older brother.

We have all enjoyed some warmer weather with walks outside, playground time, Easter egg hunts and backyard time. Eli seems to like playing outside as much as his brother and sister. Ella delights in finding flowers outside that she can pick. Landon is enjoying his bike and football and has just taken some interest in tee ball. He and Ella take turns trying to wack the ball off of the tee while barely missing each other's face with a plastic bat. Ella tends to just swing the bat back and forth in both directions hoping that somehow with the tee behind her or 10 feet away from her that she will hit the ball farther than her brother. Eli and I watch from the other side of the yard :-)

I hope everyone had a nice St. Patrick's Day and are getting ready for the day to celebrate our risen Lord!

Saturday, March 8, 2008

Well I am attempting another post. The other day I wrote an entire post and then poof, it disappeared into thin air or wherever those things disappear to. My first shout out was to Caroline - happy birthday, then to Matthew - happy birthday as well. So many things to celebrate.

February also brought around my birthday, however, I have stopped counting the years but was glad that all 25 candles ;-) would fit on the wonderful ice cream cake that I had!!! I ended up with a cold on my birthday so there wasn't much fun going around but I did get to have some cake followed by some chicken pot pie soup (one of my favorites, thanks Mike). Eli also celebrated his 4 month birthday in February but no cake for him yet. Landon and Ella are more excited each day as Eli learns new tricks and is more responsive to their playing. He has started with rice cereal this week and is really enjoying it. He is constantly eyeing my food and I think would prefer to have what we are eating but for now we will stick with cereal. He is also a huge fan of his johnny jump up and his legs are the strongest I have ever seen. I have to remember to get him out of the jumper after 30 or 45 minutes because I think he would stay in there all day.

Landon and Ella are busier than ever. Ella is in Kindermusik and loves all of the singing and dancing. She gets so excited about going and watches the teacher's every move so she can duplicate it even down to the facial expression. Landon is reading everything and enjoys trying to figure out new words like wonderland, sensational, amusing, and so forth. Both he and Ella are addicted to puzzles. They work on puzzles several times a day and mainly enjoy those with 60 pieces or above. They will sit and work on them for 30 minutes at a time. They spread out about 4 or 5 different puzzles on our dining room table and work on each one throughout the day. If they finish one they take it apart and start all over.

Mike has been very busy at work but also at home. Our neighbor cut down a huge oak tree that was starting to rot and Mike took about 12,000 pounds of branches from the tree to cut up for firewood. I don't think any of us realized just how much wood that was until Mike had to spend about 5 or 6 days chainsawing and splitting wood. We had help from about 8 or so different people over time and also gave away about 5 truckloads full of wood. Our backyard still has 2 piles of wood sitting in it that we haven't been able to stack yet and have actually run out of room to stack it. I am betting it will be 5 years before we use it all! I think Mike enjoyed the "roughness" of getting out there with power tools and just cutting stuff up to relieve stress. In fact this morning he is off using the chainsaw again but this time it is not on wood at our house (thankfully).

So I know this was just a bunch of random updates but it has been a while and I have never been very good at writing anything that really follows a logical pattern (most of you know this by just talking to me). I hope you enjoy the pictures and I hope you are all doing well. Mama Amy, we want you to know we love you and are praying for you!!!!