happy easter

dave and the boys decorated eggs.

it was pretty basic egg decorating so they tried to add

a little excitement by making a few into planets.

the easter bunny found us, which was a good thing. i only had my iphone and so these pictures are terrible quality, but i love them anyway.

max wanted to leave out THIS HUGE basket for the easter bunny.

it makes me laugh every time i look at it. go big or go home.

the easter bunny didn't disappoint. he filled it right up.

we found all the hiding spots in our new house searching for our baskets. abe finds his last every year. dave was on call, but luckily, didn't get called in until all the baskets and eggs had been found...except for that egg that always shows up a few days later:)

my parents brought dinner to us and i was so happy they came. dave even snuck home for a little while, which was a real easter treat!

kite flying

sadie helped max fly his birthday kites.

he had a fantastic time.

she took this picture.

we agreed it was perfect.

girl's night (boys included)

dave's sister arranged all the girls in his family to spend an evening with me in honor of this little soon-to-be baby girl. we went out to dinner, ate treats, opened the cutest presents, and gave ourselves pedicures while we watched enchanted.

the boys couldn't stay away when it came pedicure time. max, kai and abe all somehow managed to get their toes done.

dave, on the other hand, only came in to paint my toes....what a guy!

notice my swollen feet. they are now lovely, swollen feet thanks to my awesome husband.

thanks ladies! it was a fun, relaxing night. just what i needed.

family updates

so much has happened the last few months, i decided to write a few journal entries about each of the kids and our family. i have been so pregnant and functioning on such a lower level than i would like. i have tried to make sure basic needs are met and that somehow my kids will survive and have prayed that Heavenly Father will make up the difference. these updates are partly for my sake to realize Heavenly Father has blessed them through this year of survival.

We live in a house!

it has been a long, long process. frustrating and exciting. i hope it is a great place for us to land after 15 years of adventures, hard work and wondering where we would end up.

max in front of the moving truck we hoped they would lose. we haven't seen any of our stuff for over a year and it makes you realize how much you don't need.

here are a few parts of the house that i really like....

even though being in a hotel was a little cramped, we enjoyed a lot of our time there.

the kids loved doing laundry. here they are rockin' the laundry room.

this is such a typical site, all three of my boys hanging out. they have a great time together. in the hotel they would kneel around the computer together since the computer was on the coffee table. for some reason, i love this picture.

....and this one!

some of our favorite things we did in the hotel:

playing pool and chess in the lobby

getting apple cider in the lobby

going to dinner or getting hot chocolate in the restaurant

our photo scavenger hunt for family night!!

here is an awesome picture of my pregnant belly. i have had so many contractions with this pregnancy!! i feel like i am in labor everyday. it has gone by fast, but has been hard with all of our moving around. i can't imagine how this will change our family, but i am sure when i see this baby i will fall in love with her. the kids are excited, although they will miss my very needed, almost daily, ice cream run to dairy keen after school. dave has been excited since day one and he keeps telling me he knows exactly what she will be like. i like seeing him excited about it all.

we did celebrate an anniversary somewhere in there. dave gave me cookies. after a lot of interesting comments, we have decided the only good thing to say to a pregnant lady is, "do you want a cookie?" i am really grateful for dave. life is better because of him.

this has been an interesting, good, and challenging year. i also know, the best is yet to come!!!

update-max

MAX TURNED A BIG 5!!!

he was so excited for his birthday!

i realized he had never had a friend birthday party, so despite being super pregnant, i decided this was the year. we decided to invite the kids in his preschool class and a few cousins and have a "BIG" party, since he is now a BIG five years old. this is a picture of his invitations.

we tried to make everything BIG. he had a big #5 cake that he wanted to look like a road. we added some huge candles and he was thrilled. we played some big games and opened presents. he gave everyone a huge bottle of bubbles to take home that said, "blowing you a BIG thank you! from, max"

it was a low-key party and he LOVED it.

abe and kai were so excited to buy him presents and totally splurged all their money on him. they did it so unselfishly. it was a happy moment for me as a mom.

other max updates: he still loves penguins.

he had tennis lessons this year and is really good!

he loves preschool and teaches or explains things to me constantly. it is always followed with, "get it, mom?" i must hear that ten times a day. he is a feeler and is really in tune with every one's feelings around him. one day i dropped kai off to school. kai was walking down the hall and i said, "kai...kai, see ya buddy." or something like that. kai was probably embarrassed and completely ignored it and walked into his classroom. max looked at me concerned and said, "sometimes i don't hear people when they are really close to me. kai just probably didn't hear you, so it's ok mom." he was trying to make sure i didn't feel bad. he is a joy to have around! he really likes our new house, wii wednesdays, and having dave home from work.

oh yeah!! and max learned to ride a two wheeler. he kept asking to try and it took him about ten minutes to get the hang of it. he loves going on bike rides in our new neighborhood.

update-kai

kai seems to be so grown up and big lately. he lost a lot of teeth and decided to get his long hair cut really short. it looks a lot different, older, and really good.

he has had a great year at school. at the beginning of the year he was very nervous about messing up or doing something wrong, he was very timid and got nervous to talk to his teacher. i am proud to say that at his parent teacher conference last week, his teacher said he has made leaps and bounds! she said he now adds to class discussions and has a lot to say. his teacher has been so positive and helpful. at the beginning of the year we set goals with kai and i would give him brave assignments. things like saying thank you to his teacher after school or saying hi to the lunch lady everyday. these were very scary to him and now they are just a normal, easy part of his day. i knew we had made major progress the other day when he was late to school and he said he didn't need me to walk him in he could go to the office and check himself in. his confidence has grown and i hope he realizes it is ok to make mistakes and be brave and say what you want and that he can ask questions and he has good things to say.

he has had a lot of positive recognition lately. the office called me yesterday to say that he was selected to be part of the principal's 200 club, which they told me they only give to the "best and brightest."

he also read the most minutes in his class so he got to make the principal into a snowman during an assembly.

his favorite accomplishment probably is marble math. his class is working on addition and subtraction facts and if they get so many in a minute, then they pass off a level. when they pass of all their levels they earn a marble bag and they get to play a tournament against the principal. kai passed off all his levels in about two weeks. his teacher moved him up to multiplication and division and he quickly passed off all the levels and is now working on passing them off again, only he has to get more in one minute to pass off a level. he loves it! he has an amazing math brain and he is so competitive, he loves racing the clock and beating it. i love watching how he thinks about math concepts. it is pretty impressive. he has waited along time for enough kids to earn their marbles so the tournament can start. it is scheduled to happen soon and he is excited to show his principle how marbles should be played:)

other kai updates: he enjoyed tennis lessons this year and now goes to soccer practice with abe. he likes to show the bigger kids that he can totally keep up and dave says he does.

everywhere we go, girls say hi to kai. he never looks at them or responds. we tease him about it because it happens ALL the time and he hates it!

kai is excited to have a baby at our house and he is the one that will randomly hug me or rub my stomach. it is really tender and i know he really cares about me and will offer to do things so i don't have to. i really love my kai!

kai- taking stats at abe's game. he loves taking stats, filling out brackets, or counting as high as he can just for fun.

update-abe

abe's birthday celebration:

abe's birthday was great. he had the traditional birthday table and then off to school. dave went early to decorate his locker and one of abe's friends had already done it. so dave made it more decorated. (i love max making an 11 with his hand in this pic)

we took donuts to his class at noon and then checked him out for the day. in fact, i checked out sadie and kai so we could spend the day together.

we played laser tag and mini bowling

then we headed to thanksgiving point to the imax theater.

abe didn't want a friend party, but kept asking if we could have a cousin party. i pretty much ignored his request and on his birthday he even asked again if maybe we could get together with family. little did he know a surprise cousin party/sleepover was waiting for him at my parent's house. i told him we had to go there to drop off some laundry but instead an "upside down" party was next on the list of celebrations. my mom had an upside down dinner where the food was upside down and they ate under the table. they played a few games and opened presents. he loved it and was totally surprised!

since all he wanted was to get together with cousins, we had a second cousin party the next day.

we played games and ate cake.

in this picture, abe is holding up two fingers to make an 11, but also because when he turned two, we have a picture of him doing the same thing.

basketball:

basketball has been keeping abe active lately. his team has improved a lot! the highlight of the season--definitely the two buzzer beater games we won. one was in double overtime and so the ref called sudden death. the next two points won the game. abe made a left handed lay-up for the win. the other was abe at the line for foul shots with 6 seconds left and we were down by one. he hit both shots and sealed the deal. he wrote a paper about buzzer beaters and how they are one of the top joys in life, along with beef jerky and a clean house:) he has one tournament game left, just in time to start soccer.

school:

abe's class does a lot of projects. here is the one we worked on when i was so sick.

he is a good student and got all A's on his report card. he is determined to get good grades in his class so he can stay in the GATE program for next year because the teacher next year doesn't believe in homework. i enjoy our drive home from school each day because i find out so much about his day. recently he has been telling me about recess basketball and how his team does each day. they seemed to always lose, but not by too much. i started asking questions and found out he was always on the team with kids that are not very sporty. i asked him how he always ended up on that team and found out he was the team captain everyday and he always picks the kids that never get picked. typical abe.

he finished up being class president and decided to run again and made vice president. he is now done with his term... happy and jobless.

science fair:

i was super not excited about science fair this year since we had so many other things going on. dave helped abe do an experiment with different hooks that hang in the wall to determine which ones hold the most weight and are the best price with the least amount of damage to the wall. after the experiment was done, i let him do the entire display, research, and everything. we didn't even go to the awards night because we had something else going on and i was just happy he finished and it was turned in and we were done. the next day when i picked him up he was carrying his project. i asked him how he did. he said ok, then he pulled out of his backpack a big trophy and said he got picked to go to BYU. he was excited to spend the day at byu and his cousin ended up being his judge...what are the chances?! honestly, i never even checked on-line to see if he won an award, he had such a great day riding the bus, at the science fair, and participating in all the activities. it was a great experience for him.

cello:

abe started playing the cello at school this year. he likes it and his teacher told me he needs to be a cellist.