One more picture

Because I *do* have a son you know! I also have some pictures of him in the buff walking around in Ellie's dress up shoes, but I'll save those for blackmail later on down the road!

Not sure why Ellie's birthday pictures formatted all wonky, but I'm waaaaay too lazy to figure it out. If you click on the individual pictures, you can see them a little bit bigger.

The Party's Over . . .

PHEW!

It's funny how the party seemed to last forevvvvvvvvvver, but as soon as everyone was gone, I was wishing they were all back again. I admit the kids were a handful, but it was so much fun! I can't believe what a good time we had. I'm seriously wishing we could do it all again today.

The theme was "luau" but that was mainly just because we wanted everyone to wear their swimsuits. We did it outside and had a whole water thing going on. The biggest hit was the Bonzai slide of course. I was surprised at who liked the slide and who didn't. Two of the boys wanted nothing to do with it, but little tiny Hannah and shy little Ashley loooooved it. In fact, all of the girls loved it. There was smaller pool, too, which the kids warmed up in -- the water in there warmed up all day, while the water on the slide was always new and a little chilly. And we also did a slip n' slide, which was hysterical to watch. Preschoolers do not get how to do a slip n' slide. I had a bunch of games planned -- some of which were hits and others were not. For instance, the water balloon toss -- not such a great game. The balloons rarely made it past one throw, and there was waaaaaaay too much bickering over what color balloon they got. Duck Duck Goose on the other hand -- bit hit. Although sometimes the chase would be all over the yard, around the slide and through the circle, but hey, whatever keeps them occupied. We did squirt guns, tatoos, leis, blow up beach balls, cake, presents. . . it was the never ending party. Soooooooo much fun!

Shortly after cake and presents the parents all showed up. YEAY! I had told a couple of moms that they could bring their older kids back for a couple of turns down the slide once everyone left, so the party continued on until 5:30. Two moms even decided to go down the slide fully dressed. So basically, we had a FABULOUS time. . .until about 7.

After everyone left we got McD's and noticed that Nate wasn't eating and was burning up. Sure enough the poor kid ended up throwing up 3 times before we took him to Urgent Care. Turns out he has a massive ear infection and the fever was causing him to throw up. I'll save you all the fun middle of the night details, but we're happy to say he isn't throwing up anymore this morning and his fever is down. In fact, we all slept in until 8:40 this morning! So of course Ellie was late for school. When I dropped her off one of the boys yelled, "HEY ELLIE! Remember when I went to that party at your house? That was AWESOME!"

It was totally worth it. :)

Happy (late) Easter

We hope everyone had a great Easter. We started off the weekend with an egg hunt on Friday for all the kids in play group. Jacque did the BEST job. She had a little easter egg craft for them to do while the moms hid eggs, pin the tail on the bunny and she even made rice crispie treats in the shape of egg baskets with little jelly beans. Dang that girl is cute! Nate found Ellie's easter basket and kept himself busy for the next half hour emptying all of the contents of her basket into his mouth.

Friday night Dustin and I went to see "Much Ado about Nothing." We like to get a little culture in every now and then ;p

Saturday was just busy. Ellie had a birthday party in the morning, so I ran down to visit a friend in the hospital. When we got home, Dustin took Ellie swimming while Nate and I did some cleaning and then we had friends over for dinner. We *were* going to dye easter eggs, but after thinking it over, decided it wasn't worth the hassle.

Sunday morning we did the whole egg hunt thing. Ellie had so much fun. Then I *tried* to get pictures of the kids. Once again, they totally would not co-operate. I know it's really sunny out, but OPEN YOUR EYES!!! Nate had an adorable little vest to go with his outfit, but it was just too stinking hot to stick him in it. I tried to curl Ellie's hair (like a princess), but of course it all fell out. Ellie was the star of Primary (I was subbing for an older class). She got to say the prayer, help with Sharing time AND she was the spotlight. Lucky little girl.

Then for easter dinner we headed over to Floyd and Karen's. It was fun to be with family. Lola was there and of course brought MORE candy for my kids, and then there was another egg hunt. WAAAAY too much candy in this house right now. But I'm slowly chipping away at it ;). The kids ran around and we played cards. Not a bad way to spend Easter.

And that was our official weekend!

Ellie says

This conversation happened yesterday, about an hour after lunch -- which Ellie couldn't finish because she was "*soooooooooo* full" and "ate too much."

"Mom, do you know what my tumach says?"
"No Ellie, what does your stomach say?"
"My tumach says, 'I'm hungry'."
"Hey Ellie, do you know what my stomach says?"
"What?"
"My stomach says, 'You just ate lunch, so no more food, but I love you'."
"Moooooooooom, tumach's don't say that. They're just tumachs! They're either so so full or hungry. They don't love anybody."

I'm back

Well, only time will tell if I'm really back! Buuuuut, I am trying to get on this computer more often now. I've missed my e-mail and shopping on-line!

The holidays were crazy and it just seemed like one thing after another. I promised once we got back from Tennessee (which was really fun by the way) that things would settle down and we'd get back into the swing of things. Well, they didn't! They got crazier! The kids seems to be continually sick, we had all sorts of overlapping plans, baby showers, play dates, parties and then we were asked to teach a class at Youth Conference which shortly became all time consuming. But now it's April and things have since settled down. I can't complain though! I'd rather be busy than bored.

Ellie's birthday is coming up. The countdown is on -- 2 weeks. She is really excited about her Hula party -- I wish I could say the same. Planning it is so much fun, but the idea of entertaining eleven 3, 4, and 5 year olds is a little scary. This is the first "drop them off and leave them" year. It is also the last BIG party year. Next year I'm only letting her have 4 friends.

OK, now I'll give you the rundown of the photos.
1. Lola -- my sister who I adore dearly. She babysits my kids for free, brings her computer over every weekend with a virus, and keeps me entertained. The picture above is her FABULOUS hairdo. After a practical joke went awry, I spent all day one Friday running her from hair dresser to hairdresser so we could get her bangs ot look like bangs. I actually think it makes her look much older now. And I think Jill did a great job. I also think my sister is going to kill me for showing this picture.

2. Superman -- We got Nate these really adorable (and cheesey) super hero PJs -- one is superman and one is spiderman. They were a STEAL! So then we get them home and we're about to dress Nate in the spiderman ones and Ellie starts putting on the pants. So we can't figure out how Ellie could possibly fit in the pants. We then look at the tags and the shirt is 4T and the bottoms are 5T. No wonder they were cheap! Superman luckily is the right size.

3. The cape. I just think it's so cheesy that it's cute. Plus you can see some of my pillows Mer made for me.

4. Ellie doing her "Nastics." She started Gymnastics a few weeks ago and loves it. This is her version of a head stand. I just think she likes any excuse to wear a pink ballerina outfit. She's taking it with one of her friends and they have matching outfits. The mom and I take turns carpooling so everyone thinks the girls are twins.

5. Ellie's wild hair. Ellie's big thing now is that she will not let me flat iron her hair. She wants it to be wild because princesses have curly hair. The other day I was doing it and she kept telling me she wanted it in diamonds like Brianna's. After avout 5 minutes of frustration, I finally figured out that meant a braid.

You can also see Nate! I do have a son afterall. He's just as adorable as always.

OK, so hopefully I'll be around here more often -- Easter is coming up, so I can't promise anything. M-