Isaac's birthday

Isaac had a pretty uneventful first birthday. Actually, we celebrated his birthday on the 9th - Mother's Day, because we knew that on his actual birthday (the 12th) we'd be busy packing and getting ready for our trip. Plus, I wanted a cake for Mother's Day and I didn't want to make another one for his birthday :) Here are some pictures:


Isaac had no interest in opening his presents


Rae got him some mini-bath toys. Perfectly bite sized!

Blaise got him a shark stuffed animal. Hmmm, sharks just happened
to be Blaise's favorite animal that week.

Isaac was pretty sick and grumpy.


But some chocolate cake makes it all better!

On the 11th we took the kids to the circus for Isaac's birthday. I thought Isaac would enjoy the different animals, but he wasn't very interested. Rae's friend Sarah came with us. It was a pretty ghetto circus.

Our Charlotte visit

Here are some pictures to look at until Ashley gets around to blogging again.

Rae's dance recital

I know the video is long, but Rae is in the front row in the very beginning, so you can just watch that part. Rae did so much better during rehearsal...I wish I had that on video. I think she was a little more nervous this time around. I like the fact that their teacher actually taught them a lot of real ballet moves. I think they are pretty good for a beginners ballet class - they are all 5 and 6 (well, some of them have probably turned 7 this year - and Rae is the youngest) Her kindergarten teacher came to watch her and she sat with us. That was a lot of fun for Rae. I hope we can find a nice dance studio when we move.

Buried treasure

Today I turned on my cellphone, which I haven't used in a year, and noticed that there are a bunch of pictures on it from around the time Isaac was born:

Uhhh, I dunno

Not sure why I haven't been blogging. Part of it is the fact that there's no job news to share and it's a frustrating time of year. Sigh.

Another reason is that every time I sit down at the computer Isaac ends up trashing the house. That boy is crazy. I'd like to attach a camera to his head so you could see the world from his level. He wanders into the kitchen several times a day and gets food out of the cupboard (stupid rotating cupboard that I can't lock, but it's the only decent place to put food) then he takes that food and puts it random places in the house. Then he wanders into the bathroom and gets his favorite hairbrush and puts that somewhere random. He's always so busy. I can't clean up fast enough!

Last week at church I had several people comment that they can't believe how big Isaac is and that he's not a baby anymore! He is such a toddler now - he's learning how to communicate, he has opinions about everything, he's learning how to run and he loves to play! Last week we got him an early birthday present.



Aldi had these for a good price and I thought the kids would all enjoy it. I wanted to get it now since the weather has been so nice and they are outside so often. I put water and sand in it the first time we used it, but it immediately became mud, so I emptied out the water and just put sand. When it gets hot I'll put water in both sides.

This afternoon we made grahmn cracker houses. I wanted to get rid of some frosting that I had in the fridge and we have way too much Easter candy, so we did these. The kids had a blast.






I threw away the leftover candy, so now we just have a few Peeps around here somewhere, and a bunch of Valentine's Day candy still - ugh!

If I don't blog again for a while it's just because I'm waiting for some news to share. When we know where we are going (or staying) we'll let ya know!

Extra Lucky Charms

At our primary activity yesterday the primary president had a bunch of different items for the kids to make their own "trail-mix". One of these items was a container of marshmallows - ya know, the type found in Lucky Charms? I was like "uh, did you pick these all out??" She told me she got them from an Amish bulk food store in Iowa and someone else chimed in that you could also get them at the bulk food store right outside of Kirksville. I had passed this store a few times and always wanted to stop but never had, so on our way home from Nauvoo we stopped by. We found a lot of yummy stuff! But the best thing of all was this bag of tasty marshmallows!


I've had about three bowls of cereal today with extra marshmallows! (Of course, we don't buy Lucky Charms, I think ours are called Marshmallow Stars or something)

How am I ever going to lose weight? Maybe I'll add some to my Fiber One :)

Easter, Conference and Spring

Saturday night we colored eggs. Roy did some abstract ones. Blaise put happy faces on all of his. Isaac was mad that he couldn't help.





Easter morning I let Roy sleep in (since we didn't have 9am church!) but I let the kids have their baskets when they woke up and then we did a egg hunt later in the day.

(Filled with mostly clearanced items from last Easter!)

Watching General Conference and playing tootsie roll BINGO!
While we were watching conference, Isaac was trashing the playroom.

Emptying their eggs. I didn't post the video of them doing the egg hunt because there were too many shots of my fat behind.

Tuesday was a lovely spring day. I just love this picture of the kids!


A chalky footprint
From a happy baby (who is really more like a toddler!) Here's a video that shows how quickly he can get around!

10 minutes of waiting, 1 minute of hunting

The city does an annual Easter egg hunt and they have it on Truman's campus. They divide the groups up ages 1-3, 4-5, 6,7,8 and maybe 9,10 - not sure about that one. Anyway, you have to get there fairly early to get a good parking spot and find a spot on the quad. Roy took Rae and the camera to her area and I stayed with the boys in their area. It's tough to keep a huge crowd of kids waiting on the edge of the grass! A siren goes off and it's a rush to get as many eggs as you can. Blaise took a while to get into it, but there were plenty of eggs and lots of other kids who didn't really know what they were doing. Isaac was happy to hold two eggs. All of the eggs had tootsie rolls - so that was kinda lame, but the kids love them. It was a gorgeous day on Saturday! There were some beautiful daffidols growing all over campus. You can see some in the first picture.

Gotta get this tip out there!

When you are coloring eggs this year, give your kid a wire whisk to put their egg in. Then dip the whisk into the dye! No more cracked eggs! Genius huh? I saw this idea in Family Fun. Also, make sure you pick up some some Paas Color Snaps! We used them last year and loved them! I got a bunch on clearance last year after Easter and I am excited to have plenty to go around this year.

I'm gonna boil up 2 dozen eggs, because Roy and I enjoy coloring them as much as the kids do! We probably won't be able to eat them all but it's cheap entertainment!

Things I've been lovin'....

These guys play great along side each other. It's nice in the morning while Rae is at school, because they both have a chance to do their own thing without her interfering.

Our neighbors put this huge box out at the dumpster and we grabbed it right away, planning to use it when we move, but decided it would be more fun for the kids to use! They played in it constantly for about a week. They loved being able to draw on it -
just like Pinky Dinky Doo!

We have had awesome weather the past week!
Rae and Isaac like to explore out in the grass.
Do you see Isaac ? He's in an orange shirt.

Blaise prefers to play in the rocks and use the chalk.

Disney on Ice

We had a fantastic time at Disney on Ice in St Louis. I enjoyed it as much, if not more, than the kids did. I love ice skating on its own, and when you add the talent of Disney it is even better! Disney just does such a good job. I was imaging the characters out there on the ice doing their thing, but I didn't even except so many special effects and little extras. The actors were so good at staying in character and they all looked liked they were having a great time. Those kinds of things are important to me.

We were sitting in Row Q. When I got the tickets I thought "aw man, Row Q is gonna be so high up", but I always forget that Q isn't one of the last letters of the alphabet! We could see everything perfectly. I think that sitting on the ice and being able to reach out and touch the characters would have been fun, but it would have been hard to see everything that was going on. There was just so much going on at all times. At one point Rae said "my brain is confused, it doesn't know what to watch". So I liked being high up and being able to see it all from above.

This show was called "Let's Celebrate" so they did a bunch of holidays and vacation themes. They did birthdays (Alice in Wonderland's "un-birthday") Halloween (with a bunch of villains from different movies - Blaise was a little scared during this one) I can't remember everything. Valentine's Day was my favorite because Minnie talked about finding her prince charming, so they had all the different princesses come out and do a dance with their prince. I think it was Rae's favorite too. This is the finale of that scene.




After the "un-birthday" party Mickey was cleaning up and it turned into the scene from Fantasia with all of the brooms. That part was pretty cool too.



I wish I had a video of the very end. They did Christmas and all of the characters came out and it snowed - it was really cool. Another part that was cool was when they were in Hawaii and a guy made a ring of fire around himself. So many cool special effects.

Anyway, it was really great and if it is ever in your area I recommend seeing it. We got 4 tickets for $44, plus all the stupid fees and stuff. It was probably a little more than twice as expensive as taking your kids to a movie in the theater, but more than twice as cool!

Sunday Best

St. Louis

Ashley has given me the task of blogging about the trip to St. Louis last week, but I'm just as lazy as her, so here are some pictures: LINK.

BONUS:
Here are some insanely cute pictures of Isaac eating stuff.

Another of Rae

I know, I need to blog about our trip to St Louis - and I will, I just don't feel like it today. So here's an old video of Rae.

I declare it to be springtime

Handsome Boy

Isaac would not cooperate for a picture, so here's one of just Blaise in his new church outfit. So grown up! I think he is the biggest Sunbeam in his class and he is also the youngest.

Let's go back in time.....

I didn't start blogging regularly until Rae was about 3, so most of you haven't seen any of the fun videos of her as a toddler. So I'm going to start posting one every week or so. Roy and I sat for about 20 minutes and watched all our old videos on the computer and it made me miss my sweet little Rae! Here's one of her getting a snack! Yummy!

Things that made me happy today

Blaise is back to potty training (his idea) so things were pretty crappy today (pun intended - he pooped on the potty once this morning but then pooped in his underwear THREE times in the afternoon!!) But here are a few things that brightened up my day:

~Isaac is doing more walking than crawling now. I've been trying to get a video but every time he sees the camera he just tries to get it.

~Rae's school is doing dress-up days this week to celebrate Dr.Seuss's birthday and today was "Wacky Wednesday", so she wore pants with shorts on top and her shirt inside out and one pink shoe and one black shoe. It was cute.

~We had preschool at our house today and Blaise was super cute.

~On the way into the library a guy outside was doing some sort of political petition and asked me to stop and take a look on my way out, but on my way out he was busy talking to someone else so I got out of there quick! Three kids in tow right before dinner - heck no I don't want to read your petition!

~And my number one favorite thing about today was getting a package in the mail of stuff I ordered from Target. Oh my heck, Isaac and Blaise are gonna be so adorable at church on Sunday in their matching outfits!

Diet Dr.Pepper cake

Yesterday my sister Christie sent me this link on facebook. It's for a tasty sounding cake made with dr.pepper (my major weakness) Well, I didn't have any of those ingredients and I'm trying to eat better and that cake looks pretty naughty. So I started looking around for a different cake made with dr.pepper. I'm sure you've all heard of the soda-cake. You take a cake mix and add a can of diet soda. That's it. No eggs, no oil. It's lower fat than a regular cake. I made one today. Man, oh man, it is delicious! No frosting needed! Next time I want to try it with cherry dr pepper. Oooh, or maybe a vanilla cake with diet cherry 7-up? Diet Rite makes some tasty flavors too. Mmmmm, the possibilties.



Oh, and notice that it is caffeine free - I'm turning over a new leaf and cutting out caffeine. I may have some on long trips, but I know it is not good for me and I can't keep having in on a daily basis.

Oh, and those are some lovely purple tulips that Roy brought home for me on Saturday. They make me so happy. :)

Before and after

Shaggy boy


Buzzed boy