'hoppy' easter

So it looks like I actually have two weekends to catch up on here.

This is a funny picture I took of Tosh with some huge malted milk balls in his mouth. I've gotten used to his short hair again. Boy, it is nice not to have to chase him around with a spray bottle in the morning.

Tosh's asthma has been horrible this past week. We've been doing albuterol treatments with the nebulizer and took him to the doctor on Friday to get a steroid treatment and antibiotics. I guess they listened to one part of the lung to determine pneumonia and the doc said the he sounded like that (bad) all over his lungs. He isn't contagious or anything, but what a challenge to keep him down and not running all over the place (especially when he feels fine other than a tight chest). He has thrown up from coughing so hard a couple of times... he seems to finally be doing a little better today. While I'm talking about sickness, Liv had an ear infection this week as well. Looks like one of her tubes has fallen out... I'm sure hoping she won't need them put in again!

Last Saturday after General Conference, the kids decided it was warm enough to swim (too cold for me, thanks). Here is Hewitt's first flip of the season:

This is the only shot I got with all four kids:

Liv inherited this swimming suit from her cousin--it's about the cutest thing I've ever seen:

I ran some errands by myself last Saturday (bliss) and when I came home from the store, I hardly recognized the young man that came out to help me carry in groceries... I guess that Burke was asking Tosh how he liked his hair cut while they were swimming and then requested the same! Burke hasn't had his hair buzzed since he was three years old! He got a good reaction from me :). Here is a shot of Burke at the piano (a common thing these days). He works really hard at all of the songs in the "Star Wars" book and is really getting pretty good.

Hewitt has made a couple of Power Point presentations at school this year. He came home the other day and asked if he could make one on my laptop. This has pretty much become his new obsession and what he tries to spend most of his time doing. He has created over 96 pages, some with sound and animation. He started out writing about himself and his interests and then started creating a book with characters, etc.

A big highlight of the week was having Rob's sister and her family here with us. Aunt Sue and Uncle Zach are beloved by our kids (Tosh never left Zach's side once) and we had so much fun with their twin 10-month-old boybies, August and Kiefer. They are crawling all over the place and such cuties!

I was pretty horrible about taking photos while they were here, but here is one that we took on Friday morning before they left:

Sue and I covered some canvases in paper for Liv's room (I had previously painted something on them, but the paper flowers are way cuter). This was a fun and fairly easy project thanks to Sue's instruction.

Rob and I finally got around to hanging some things in our bedroom after living here for 2 1/2 years... Thanks again to Sue and Zach for giving their input on where things should go (Sue made that cool ceramic guitar by the window for Rob last Christmas).

I took Burke with me on Saturday morning for my run. He biked next to me and we did about 4 miles or so. It was so much fun, and I'm hoping he'll want to go with me often.

That afternoon, we dyed Easter eggs and then went to Mesa to attend the wedding reception for Rob's cousin's son (Jordan Fisher). We were in and out of the Fisher's house pretty quick (not used to taking four kids to a wedding reception). We hit the dessert table and then got out of there before Liv and Tosh could start jumping on the trampoline and climbing on their jungle gym :)

Fun with eggs:

At the reception (from Rob's phone at dusk):

We had a quiet Easter. Especially for me since I stayed home from church with Tosh. Here are some shots of the kids during the egg hunt:

Tosh found the golden egg!

In addition to candy, the kids got some Nutella, swimming noodles, and the new "Muppet Movie" for Easter.

The other night Burke was talking about his upcoming birthday and told me that he wanted the Muppet Movie and an ice cream maker for his birthday. He is SO my kid!

This next photo of Hewitt with the fake grass on his head makes me laugh. I didn't even notice he had done that until I looked back on my camera!
No cute Easter picture of the four kids this year... but I did snap some of Liv looking 'fancy' before church just like she likes. It was kind of nice to prepare Easter dinner and dessert in a quiet house yesterday afternoon while Tosh was resting and everyone else was at church. I tried a new chocolate cake with a yummy frosting/filling made with cream cheese, brown sugar and whipping cream. YUMMY! My cousin Bob joined us for ham dinner with his dog Carmella, of course.

Friday, was my mom's 71st birthday. I think of her everyday, but especially with her birthday and Easter this weekend. I sure hope that they have chocolate cake in Paradise :)

This next week also marks the one year anniversary of my mom being diagnosed with cancer. I feel like I have been on some sort of emotional roller coaster this year. I have felt so many different things including grief, sorrow, gratitude, and peace. In general I haven't really felt like myself for awhile and I miss that. I was talking with Rob yesterday and was trying to put my feelings into words and it's as if my heart doesn't have room for as much happiness or joy that I can usually feel-- like there is too much sorrow in it's place or something. I know it takes time.

I am grateful for supportive friends and family members--especially Rob for his love and patience with me. I know I haven't been easy to live with. I also want to express my gratitude for the gospel message of love and peace and the wonderful promise of the resurrection. I believe that the Atonement of our Savior is real and know that things will all work out.

Happy Easter!

it's that time of year again...

Yep, it's really warming up outside and we figured it was time to shave off the curls again.

Tosh before:

And then after (we gave him an ice cream cone for doing so well during the haircut--he laughed in the mirror for most of it):

We forget how handsome he is under all that hair!

A few pictures outside to show the new (have actually had for several months) trampoline pads we finally put on:

This shadow is pretty cool:

To rewind a bit and wrap up Spring Break, we met up with some friends and had a great time at the zoo last week. We went on one of the last cool days of the season:

(did you see the cute baby bobcat sleeping in the rock?)

The kids climbing around and being, well, kids:

We also went to a few different parks, the library, and (my personal favorite) rented the new Muppet movie--loved it! We certainly stayed busy with Rob out of town. I also finally got around to reading the three "Hunger Games" books.

On Saturday we biked from our house to Tumbleweed park (about 4 miles from here) and had dinner there with some friends. Tosh went about half way on his scooter until we insisted that he climb in the bike trailer to speed things up a bit. We had a great time and are enjoying the perfect outdoor weather right now.

This next thing is totally random, but I had a funny conversation with Burke this weekend when I found his "proof" photo from third grade:

This is why I don't buy school pictures. They took these after lunch when Burke was all hot and sweaty from playing soccer. I asked if he had purposely messed up his hair and he smiled and said, "Possibly." Ha! We laughed about how it totally looks like a mug shot with the number and name at the bottom. Right?

Although I must say that I totally regret not buying Burke's first grade photo:

So cute! I love it (gosh, he seems old now--and getting tall!). Thankfully we have a couple of mini pics and a Christmas ornament he made in class with this photo on it.

Well, to get back to this week again, Hewitt did our Family Home Evening lesson all on his own. He made several footprints (took one of my shoes to make an outline) to show things we can do to "Come Unto Christ" and colored pictures that he pasted on them. He did a great job.
Liv is usually exhausted and asking to go to bed by about 7pm. She was totally *done* by the end of Hewitt's lesson on Monday and went up and got her jammies for us to put on her. She stripped down and was whining for us to put on her pajamas and take her to bed "right now." I couldn't resist taking a photo of her while the rest of us were singing our closing song, in the buff, covering her ears! What a little turkey she can be. :)She has discovered salad, and I caught her coming back for seconds after dinner last night. She helped herself as you can see. How 'bout some salad with that dressing, Livvy?:

This afternoon as I was working on this blog (cough, cough), she got into my things in the bathroom and dropped some nail polish that shattered all over the floor. Just thankful it was tile. Love my busy little girl.

spring break (more like spring WORK!)

This past week mostly consisted of yard work. I laugh that I was thinking we'd get everything done this week including planting a garden--not quite. BUT, we did get a lot done including rock in the backyard and 70% of the front. We worked hard from about 7am until 3pm on Saturday moving rock (until we couldn't move anymore) and probably have just two of the 10 tons left maybe? We moved dirt back into the garden box area as well and fixed more drip lines, etc. We were a little bit sore on Sunday, but not too bad.

I felt some guilt on Saturday night that we had worked all day and didn't do anything fun with the kids or for St. Patrick's Day, so I whipped up some 'green' cupcakes while Rob took the kids to the store. My allergies have been HORRIBLE for the past two weeks. I was really quite sick on Tuesday and Wednesday, so I didn't get much done on those days which set us back a bit. I was struggling quite a bit emotionally as well, and maybe I'll write more about this another time, but not today. I'm doing really well right now, so I'm grateful for that.

We had a huge rain/thunder/hail storm on Sunday which was so nice. It rained for quite a bit which was great timing for our yard. I took some photos of the yard on Sunday afternoon. The first from our balcony:

This next one was during the rain storm on Sunday. We were noticing that the sun was finally peeking out a bit after it rained all day and then we stepped out to find an ENORMOUS rainbow that we could see from our back yard and also from the front:

This back corner is where a garden box will be-- picture taken from far away as it was raining hard:

This is totally random, but I forgot to post this picture that one of the primary kids gave to me during sharing time last week. He drew this during my sacrament meeting talk. It says, "repentance is a good thing." I thought is was so cute and at least someone was listening :)

The cabinet guy made it back to put on the pulls to our drawers. They make such a huge difference! Big improvement:

I pulled out the camera before church and took a few shots of the kids (seems like I haven't done that in a while). Liv was watching the rain and looked so cute:

This next one is just about my favorite photo ever right now. It's so 'Liv' isn't it?

Back to her favorite pose of late:

I see you...

A more serious side of Tosh...

...then his dad walked in the room and got Tosh laughing about something or other.

Not lacking in personality I would say:

Hewitt is never very shy with the camera. He was looking and feeling dapper in his church coat:

Love those cute freckles on his nose:

Fast forward several hours... I made sure to grab a couple shots of Burke after church.

(He collided with a buddy while shooting hoops this week which broke his favorite frames and left a small cut/bruise over his left eye. Probably not the first set of broken glasses we'll encounter...)

Rob left very early for California this morning. The kids and I had a good day today (chores, shopping, reading, etc.), and are off to the zoo tomorrow. I want to make the most of the final week of spring break and the cooler weather. Have a great week!