Easter 2010

Happy Easter everyone! I hope that everyone had a beautiful holiday. I thought it was especially special that Easter and General Conference fell on the same weekend this year. I really loved Dianne's post with her testimony of our Savior Jesus Christ. I too know that our Savior lives and loves all of us. I am so grateful for his atoning sacrifice and ressurrection that make it possible for us all to live with Him again. I love this time of year when everything is so fresh and new. Our little family had a beautiful holiday together though we really missed all of our Doolittle relatives.
We enjoyed a morning session of conference and Easter lunch with my parents and sisters. They colored eggs with the kiddos which everyone loved and we enjoyed a nice multicolored potato salad later in the week from all the hard-boiled excess in our refrigerator!
For afternoon conference we headed over to our good friends the Zufelt's. We enjoyed smoked ham (awesome job T.J.!) and all sorts of other yumminess. Then came.... the egg hunt. So if I thought we went overboard on eggs last year, I don't know what we were thinking this year. Between Ashley and I (although mostly thanks to Ashley) I think we had somewhere in the vicinity of 20 dozen eggs... for 5 children! It was insanely ridiculous, but a ton of fun! The hunt lasted FoReVeR! with pretty much all the kids having to dump their overflowing baskets and go back for more. They thought it was fantastic but I think we'll dial it down next year. Here are some pics of the day:
Grant picked precisely 3 eggs before he stopped to eat. He was mostly confused by what was going on, but he is at that stage where he enjoys picking things up and putting them in to containers so he liked this. It's just that by this point in the Easter season he recognized a plastic egg as something that had candy in it so he really didn't get too far!

L to R: Brooklyne, Tristan, Samuel, Madison, and Lillie. This is the 1st time I've ever taken a picture of all of these children and everyone is pretty much looking at the camera. I was pretty excited.

The moms and babies enjoyed relaxing on the bench while the kids filled up with sugar and the dads...

...burned stuff... Tim and I had neglected to shred personal info documents for about 2 years and the pile was so monumental neither of us wanted to shred it. Thanks guys for letting us use your facilities!

Coloring eggs L to R: Katie, Mom, Lillie, Laura, and Samuel

We had a great day with our family and friends. Thanks for sharing the holiday with us guys! We feel so blessed to be surrounded by so many great people!

Side note: The Easter Bunny leaves the kids baskets outside their bedrooms for them and it was super cute to hear them wake up and be excited about them and sit in the hallway and start scarfing chocolate. They gave Grant's basket to him without us knowing and we found him halfeay through a chocolate bar with the wrapper still on! I let him keep enjoying it, I just made sure to dig the paper out of his mouth first!

Grant is a walkin' man

Okay, pics are out of order and I can't seem to figure out how to move them around anymore, so... the real blog post is at the end. However, I took these super cute pics of Tim and Grant tonight and wanted to share them. The kids have always wanted to get ice-cream from the ice-cream man who drives around in his ghetto beat up van but I've never let them. A few weeks ago I decided to stop being so uptight about it (I mean the ice-creams probably aren't laced with drugs.... right?) and I told them that next time he came by and we had $ we'd get some, even if we hadn't had dinner yet. So we heard him drive by tonight, and of course we hadn't had dinner yet (probably because it's the start of the long weekend and I was in lazy mode and hadn't made any). We ran out to stop him and the kids enjoyed ice-cream cones for dinner. That topped off their afternoon of filling up on Easter candy. Anyway, Grant was pretty mad that he didn't get his own cone but he was appeased by an orange lolli and his daddy. I just love how these pics portray how crazy he is for Tim and vice versa.
And here is my walkin' boy. He's been taking some steps for about a month now, but last Saturday night we all sat and watched everything click into place in his head. He just got up to walk and never stopped. It's so wierd and cute to see him walking everwhere now because he's so short. It's just been a long time since we've had such a little walker. Oh, and at the same time he started walking he also turned into a monkey and tries to climb everything now!

Lillie's First "Lost" Tooth

So a couple of weeks ago Ms. Lillie got what she has been waiting for since Kinder began.... her first loose tooth. It took a while to get it out because her teeth grow so tightly together she had a hard time wiggling it and mostly gave up. Until last Sunday. It loosened up on it's own, which I'm sure is much better, and she came to me and the thing was bending back all far and gross-like. It held on until school the next day (which is what she wanted). She lost it in Mr. Z's P.E. class and got to go to the nurse and put it in a tooth necklace. She was so excited! She came home and said "Renee said that when she lost her tooth the tooth fairy gave her $100!" I said "That's so awesome! But our family tooth fairy is on a budget so it's probably not going to be that much..." "I think it will be" she said. Suffice it to say she was very happy with the $3 under her pillow the next morning. And she already has a second loose one... I think she's having the dangerous realization that her mouth is actually a money machine. We're just waiting to find her with a piece of string attaching her tooth to a door knob or something... yeah, Tim gave her that idea!

I have reached a new stage of life....

So today Lillie started out a sentence with the words "Mom, when you're an old lady..." I was like whoa, what?!? Then it got funny. She said "Mom, when you're an old lady and you're trimming my finger nails you're going to cut my skin." "Why?", I ask. "It won't be on purpose. Old people are just shaky. It won't be your fault."
Where do they come up with this stuff?

Get out your metal detectors...

So our friends had us over for dinner and it was fabulous so I wanted to make them a loaf of banana bread to say thank you. I delivered the bread and about an hour later I got a call:
"Audrey, I'm eating your bread right now and it's very good. But I have something to tell you and I don't want you to be embarassed." "Oh crap" is the phrase that goes through my head.
Me: "Okaaaay.... what is it?"
Kethy: "We got about halfway through the loaf and we reached something hard."
Me: "What?!? What is it?"
Kethy: "We dug all around it and found..... a measuring spoon!"
So, Samuel is my little sous chef and I remembered that he had been mixing the flour mixture with this little metal measuring spoon. I guess he must have let it fall down and it got covered up by everything else. What I am amazed by is that in all the mixing and pouring into the pan I never discovered it! And out of both loaves she happened to get the spoon. All I can say is that I'm glad it was the spoon because when she said "something hard" I was prepared for the worst! This was not so much embarassing as hilarious. Needless to say, when Samuel and I bake I watch those spoons like a hawk!

Happy 1st Birthday Grant!

Happy 1st Birthday Grant! I cannot believe that it has been an enitre year since this boy was born. It has been a most amazing journey so far. Grant is so loved by everyone that meets him and he is, of course!, a perfect fit in our little family. It has been such a joy getting to know and love him and we were all so excited to celebrate his special day. When Lillie woke up in the morning she insisted that she needed to stay home from school for it. Needless to say, she was disappointed! Samuel and I had a fun and busy day preparing for that night's party. We spent a relaxed day at home playing and preparing for the party. That night we celebrated with the Burwell side of the family and some of our next door neighbors enjoying, presents, pizza, cake, and ice-cream.
Here are the boys with Grant's decorations. Samuel helped me with everything that you see here and he did such a great job! He was super excited to get things ready for his brother. And the day before Lillie and I spent some time preparing the art you see on the wall. She also made similar "GRANT" letters that she hung on the mantle. She was also really excited to get things ready for him!

This is the one and only time Grant wore this party hat. He's usually so good with hats, but with these he would scream and cry hysterically if he even saw one so they had to be put away.

Grant's first cake made by mom. I had a lot of fun doing this one and L and S really liked it. I have a feeling that the "personal cake" might be a theme for the rest of the year!

My sister Allison with all the decorations

Grant was not super interested in the present opening but thankfully I had Samuel as a wonderful helper. I did warn him however that this is most likely the only year he will ever be able to do this for Grant!

Here is Grant with the walker/ride-on lion that Tim and I got for him. This was taken after he ate cake hence the onesie and matted down hair. He does love this thing though!

Cake time! It took about 30 seconds of prodding the frosting before he finally dug in but then he enjoyed himself. I think he ate/crumbled about a third of it before he was done.

Happy birthday buddy, I love you and I love being your mom!

Happy Family!

Year One recap:

Favorite things to do:

Play in the refrigerator

Use anything and everything for a walker

Sneak into the bathroom and unroll the t.p.

Be chased by Lillie and Samuel

Crawl under Lillie's bed

Be outside

Jump in his jumparoo

Write on the credit card machine at the checkout (absolute favorite! freaks out everytime I roll the cart past!)

Drive his Little Einsteins steering wheel

Baths in the big bathtub with Samuel

Tim. Tim is his favorite person in the universe!

Things He HATES!

Getting into his carseat

Baby Food

Favorite Foods:

ice-cream

avocados

bananas

scrambled eggs

yogurt

cheerios/kix

french fries

Talent:

So of course he is a genius baby as all of my children have been! But this kid is pretty awesome. All he has to do is see something one time and he's got it down. You show him where to push the button on a toy to make a sound or flip a switch on or make a sound with your mouth and he's got it for life! He was clapping at I think 6 months old, waving bye at 10 months, and a billion other imitations I can't think of! Lately he's also been trying to put his shoes on his feet, and hats on his head.

Nicknames:

Dad's: Grant-a-million

Mom's: Mr. Grant

Lillie and Samuel's: Grant Boy

Not too creative but it's just what fits him!

We love this boy and we are so glad that he came to our family! Happy Birthday Grant! And thank you to everyone who remembered him for afar!

Valentine's 2010 plus random fun pics

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! This is one of my favorite holidays of the year. And yes, I know about all you cynical people out there saying how this is just a "greeting card holiday, yada, yada" Please people! Everyone is out there to make a buck and if they can sell you something, they will! However, Valentine's is a holiday to celebrate the people that you love! How fantastic is that!!! I love my amazing fantastical husband and my three beautiful children and I love, love, love, having a day set aside to really get excited and celebrate that love. So, here is a slight recap of our day with pics below. We do a BIG breakfast every year but this year we have 8:30 church so we did breakfast for dinner. Pink pancakes, pink butter, (yellow) eggs! Tim would not let me dye them and I guess I have to agree with him on that one, red juice, heart shaped toast... the kids loved it and it was yum! We also did heart shaped sandwhiches at lunch. Here is Tim with the famous candy posterboard. I make one for him every year and he loves them. They are fun to do but I'm always jealous later of how much candy he has! Every year he buys my favorite, a Russell Stover's heart of assorted chocolates. He even buys the BiG box, but I go through it pretty quickly and for the next month I'm always begging him to share!

Happy 1st Valentine's Day! This little boy is so easy to love. Of course he had no idea what was going on, but he was dressed in red, and he did enjoy a red lollipop after lunch and some pink pancakes at dinner.

My parents came over in the evening with gifts for the kiddos and I snapped this pic. I just loved it so much. My dad is such a great grandad!

We heart attacked the kids bedrooms the night before while they were sleeping. It was really fun to do together and they were really excited to wake up to it.

(Yes, I know, Samuel is STILL in a crib! He just loves it and has not wanted to move out! He did just ask this evening for his "little bed" so we're going to try him out in the toddler bed that's been waiting for him in the garage.)

Okay, here are some random pics of the latest things we've been up to:

I think ice-cream is Grant's favorite food group!

Here is Samuel all ready for school in his p.j.'s which he thought was fantastic! Every year his pre-school has an annual pancakes 'n p.j.'s day.

On that same day was Lillie's 100th day of school which they make a pretty big deal about. So here she is in her 100 days project shirt and later that day she was in the 100 Days parade.

Samuel and I built a track city one day and it was really fun to do together. It lasted until Grant (a.k.a. Godzilla) woke up from his nap.

One day I found Grant eating my left over Pei Wei rice out of the trash can. BoYs!!!!! It was still hot from my lunch and it was the only thing besides craft paper in the brand new trash liner so not too terrible... so yes, I did take the time to snap a shot and let him keep eating!

Super Hero Dad, home from a hard days work.

Grant, trying to climb his way out to the big kids. Always trying to catch up. I guess that's the lot of the youngest child.