Spring Break in Idaho

Some time around last November I hit a major "Philly wall" and really needed to get out of town. I called my mom in desperation and arranged a trip home the week of the kid's spring break as well as the week following. Just knowing that I would be getting a bit of a break helped to ease the anxiety a bit. Sometimes you just gotta skip town, ya know? It turned out to be a wonderful and relaxing two weeks. A whole lot of playing, and reading and hula hooping happened, and we loved every minute.

My mom took us to see the dinosaur exhibit in IF.  Sky's new obsession of late has been dinosaurs and I was tickled to see how interested he was in all the bones and species.  They also had a children's discovery area where they could have spent all day had we let them.

This is a horrible picture, but working out with Grandpa was a nightly treat for the kids.  They loved the treadmill and eliptical, maybe a bit too much.  Jayda took a serious tumble on the treadmill and really junked her mouth up, I felt so bad for her.

Bless anyone's heart who will play Candy Land with kids.

This culinary delight is called Bunny Bait.  It consists of popcorn, M&M's, white chocolate, pretzels and crack.  I made about five batches of it while at home, thank goodness for aerobics.

Playing with the center piece.  I believe they were making an omelet.  Notice Sky's black fedora.  He treated it like a cowboy hat which made him even cuter.  Unfortunately it never made it home, there was a chocolate milk incident and it had to be thrown away.

Dying Easter Eggs with Aunt Jaclyn, an important tradition.

I was sad that we didn't get to spent Easter with Glenn this year, something I completely overlooked when making plans, but we still had a lot of fun having Easter at my parent's.  The Easter bunny came that morning and afterwards the kids got to dress in their new and adorable Easter digs for church.  My mom made an AMAZING Easter/birthday dinner for my dad and I (our birthday, which is on the same day, was a few weeks previous, but this way we were able to celebrate them together), and we all went to bed very stuffed and happy.

Some serious hula hooping taking place.  Jayda spent a lot of time practicing her hula skills.  Unfortunately I'm having a problem uploading that picture.  I think this one makes an awesome substitute.

Jayda snuggling Sky.  Here's what you need to know about Skyler (although I may have mentioned it before).  He's an absolute delight and joy...until three o'clock hits and he's tired, and then he loses all hope and struggles to deal with life and needs a bit of TLC.  We've all learned to work around this, including Jayda, who know that sometimes Sky just needs a hug and a minute to collect himself.

Pink fedora, sweet shades and sparkly Toms.  Love it.

In light of our very successful ice skating trip, Jaclyn and I decided to take the kids roller skating, expecting the same result.  It did not happen.  Turns out it's much more painful to land on a hard floor that you don't slide into.  It's also equally as hard to stay up on roller skates when you don't have a mini walker.  Lesson learned.

Me and my sibs that still live in Idaho.  I might be their big sis, but by now I've really come to look up to these guys, figuratively, and literally. :)

The Winter Months

There's never really much to blog from January to about April. Usually they're just months that we grit our teeth and just tolerate. Especially February, gosh, how can such a short month seem so long. Thankfully this year was a bit different. Not only was there enough life and planning going on to make it go by fast, it also never got near as cold as usual. Not a single snow day, barely any snow at all, in fact, there were a few days in January so beautiful that we were at the park soaking up sun.  It was a nice break after two very narly winters. However, it was still cold enough to stay indoors and keep a lower profile, which is exactly what I did. With a big move coming up, I took advantage of some quiet time. I was released as Primary Pres in March, let go of a lot of other things that had kept me busy in the past, and allowed for a few months of working out, lunches with friends, reading and hanging out with my family. I can't say that I regret a second of it. Here are some random shots from our quiet winter.

Every year or so I like to take a Sunday shot of the kids.  They're getting so grown up, and rather good looking if you ask me :)

The story of the cupcakes is that as a New Years Resolution I decided that we were FINALLY going to have Family Home Evening.  To add more embarrassment to this confession, when I announced this to my kids I got the question "what's Family Home Evening?"  While we haven't been perfect at it, they've always turned out to be such fun and meaningful nights with the kids.  They each get a turn choosing the treat and this one Jayda picked from a cute princess cookbook.  FYI, cupcakes in a ramekin = a lot of cake!

Our kids discovered Monopoly, or Bonokoly as they like to call it.  The money had been lost forever ago, but apparently they figured out how to play it anyway.  They play this game ALL THE TIME and it cracks me up every time.

This is my cousin Tiff's little girl Abby.  I would adopt her if I could, she's pretty much precious.

Jayda wears my clothes all the time, I finally had to get a shot.  Love the pose.

This Valentine's Day I was determined to step it up as a mom, dive into my creative side, and let Pinterest tell me how to make my kids Valentine's for school.  Jayda sent butterflies suckers with eyeballs on the head.  Sky sent superhero suckers with a cape and mask.  And while I'm convinced that most of them had fallen apart before they even found their way inside the shoebox of their classmate's, I still felt pretty proud of myself.

I really like Valentine's Day.  Well, who am I kidding, I like any day that gives me an excuse to consume more calories than I do on an average day.  This year we had homemade lasagna, salad, French bread and some fizzy pink drink that would have made my toes fall off had I drank too much.  Jayda, who is nuts for strawberries and pink, loved it.  Please pay no attention to my son's grumpy face.  He's an angel until the clock strikes three, then it's just countdown to bedtime.

For the last two years Glenn has gone to Haiti to serve the underprivileged.  I would have him blog about it, but who are we kidding.  As a fundraiser, the club held an ice skating night.  I've always wanted to take the kids ice skating so we took advantage.  At first I was nervous, the kids were sliding all over the place and could barely stay on their feet.  But a few minutes later they brought out these mini sized walkers which are the best invention ever!  After that we could have skated all night, they had a blast, despite the fact that they were soaking wet from falling 798 times.  The beauty of falling in a skating rink is that you slide into the fall, so it doesn't hurt.  Skyler still begs for us to take him again.

Last year Glenn was in Haiti for my birthday, this year he got home just in the nick of time.  It was a quiet day, mostly me decompressing from being husbandless for a week and a half.  Gosh, that's a lot of candles.

Once again, Jayda rocking my wardrobe.

A few months ago, Sky came out of the bathroom after I told him to brush his teeth.  He was very distraught and told me that he had gotten toothpaste on the back of his neck.  I gasped and then laughed for about five minutes.  I just so wish I could have seen how this had happened.

Right before we left for Idaho in April, I decided to pull Sky from preschool  Honestly, it all came down to the money, I just didn't want to pay to only send him four more weeks.  I was sad, but he was okay with it.  We sent cupcakes and made a big deal of his last day.  We'll sure miss Miss Pat and Miss Lois as well as the Houston Park where were literally probably spent a third of our time while living in Philly.

This time of year is also when we learned that we would be living in New Jersey for a year.  It was really hard learning that Glenn didn't match, but it was still something that we were very prepared for.  The hardest part was going through the longest two weeks of our lives trying to figure out what in the world we were going to do next.  The internships just weren't out there like we though they would be.  Then UMDNJ from Newark came calling and we didn't have a choice but to accept.  I'll admit that initially I was pretty terrified of the idea, but after doing some research, and talking with people who had way more positive perspectives than I did at the time, I learned to embrace it and even become excited.  Now we're here and are very happy, but I'll save that for another post, I can't get out of order! :)

New Years Eve

We really took advantage of having our HS friends the Simonsons so close these last few months. So it wasn't a tough decision to spend New Years with them too. Luckily, our other HS bud Kris and her family now live in VA, so they were able to come party too! It was seriously such a fun day. We weren't able to spend much time, but we really soaked up as much as we could, staying up until 3am, just to have to get up at 6am so we could make it back for church the next day. It was exhausting, but oh so worth it.

Christmas 2011

I know I've said it before, but having Christmas with kids is freaking awesome. And the older they get, the funner it is. We are finally reaching an age where the traditions are catching on, the kids are expecting certain things to happen and they are totally feeling the magic. I love it. This year Christmas was absolutely wonderful, we spent it with good friends and had such a great time.

We started our Christmas Eve by going to Chili's for lunch. Glenn and I were going to try to get a workout in that morning since we were doing our crazy diet and exercise program, but yeah right, not on Christmas Eve.

Afterward, we met up with the Bergesons for some bowling. The kids did great and enjoyed having a fun noisy place to run around in.

Then back to our place for a HUGE spread of foods that none of us adults had touched for at least two months. It was delicious, but I think we were all pretty sick by the end of the night! Glenn baked the kids cookies to decorate, and we watched Muppet Christmas Carol and National Lampoons Christmas. It was such a great night of food and relaxing.

Before we put the kids to bed that night, they each got to open their Christmas Eve gift of new jammies. I got surprised with my own new set with I may had put a request in for :) We set cookies out and put the kids to bed. That night "Santa" hung newspaper in the hallway to prevent any peeking. He also put a note out for the kids thanking them for their delicious cookies.

Christmas morning was fun and exciting. Unfortunately the newspaper had fallen, but the kids were still good enough to get us before running out to see what was under the tree. We all had wonderful Christmases. Jayda got a huge dollhouse that Glenn and I may have been even more excited about. Sky got a remote control car that he loved. It was a great day and we all felt blessed to have each other and good friends in our lives.

In a rare moment of craftiness, I made these cute Santa advent calendars with the help of the very talented Allyson.  One cotton ball for each day of December until the day of Christmas.  So fun for the kids!

That same day after opening gifts, we loaded up and spent three days with the Simonsons. It was basically three days of laughing and eating while the kids kept busy with their new gifts. Life doesn't get much better than that!