Easter Egg Extravaganza!

Last year we hosted an Easter party where we announced another Jones baby. This year no big news but we compensated by having almost 400 eggs in our back yard. The weather cooperated and the kids all got to fill their baskets and then some. The food was good and the company was even better. It made for a great weekend.

  

I stood in the middle of the yard taking pictures of all of our friends around me and got teary. It finally hit me exactly how much I’m going to miss everyone when we move in June. It is such a rarity to have so many people in the same situation as you are, all in one area. Families are starting to disperse in only a few short weeks and I’m so sad to see this chapter of our lives close. I have grown so close to so many inspirational people.  I just hope that everyone will be safe on their new adventures and that in the future we might have the opportunity to cross paths every once in a while.

Spring

Just a quick note. I love spring in the south. The trees are in blossom and they are beautiful. Spring was never like this in Utah. The colors a bright and watching everything change daily is amazing.

This is just a random picture of Katie playing at Grandpa Jones’ house. No real reason to have it except that I thought she looks extra cute.

 

One downside to Spring is the rain. It rained so hard that the ward Easter egg hunt was moved indoors because of the standing water everywhere. The park was now a lake. Katie didn’t mind though. She still had fun finding her eggs.

 

Silly kid….

So my cousin Shess sent some clothes for Brady. For which I am truly grateful. Amongst the cute Hawaiian shirts were a pair of 12 month footed pj’s. Katie was convinced that they were for her and not Brady. I told her that they were too small for her but she wasn’t about to believe me. For the next 20 minutes she wiggled her little bum and moved her shoulders until she finally was able to zip the pajamas up. I guess I was wrong they do fit her, they will just fit Brady better.

Brady didn’t care that his sister was taking claim on his clothes. All he wanted was to munch on his favorite toy bug.

I just want to add that I think my kiddies are fabulous. They are so cute and make smile everyday. I’m so lucky to be able to call them mine. I hope they always know how much mommy loves them.

Playing with Katie

 

I love my daughter but like most mommy-daughter relationships we can butt heads at times. I feel guilty about it at times but I am very grateful that we have been able to play together so much during the last few weeks. Katie can talk up a storm and loves to ask questions and play repetition games. We were able to join some friends this month at a children’s museum about an hour and half away. She loved the water room and would have stayed all day if I would have let her. The museum comes complete with a child size doll house. Parents are not allowed. Katie had a great time ringing the door bell and getting into the fridge. Well worth the time it took getting there. (of course Brady came along and was a trooper)

I found that if I don’t get right in Katie’s face I don’t ever get a picture of her smiling. She is always on the go and never wants to stop for a picture anymore.

Oh are you in trouble!

 

I was busy doing the dishes. Which really doesn’t take that long. When I finished this is what I found.

Yep that is right. She colored on a total of 6 walls. YEP 6!!

Luckily for me it was pencil so I gave her an eraser and told her to get cleaning.

After cleaning about 1/4th of one wall she turned to me and told me it was too hard.

I responded that if she wasn’t going to use the eraser than she could sit in time out while I cleaned the wall. 1 hour and 2 magic erasers later I finally finished with the walls. Yes I had my child sit in time out the entire time. When Katie finally got out of time out she walked right over to me and told me, “sorry mommy.” She then kissed me on the cheek and told me, “thanks mommy that was hard.”

She was then banned from any writing forms for a week. This included crayons in Nursery. Yep I’m the mean mom that made my child sit on my lap in nursery while everyone else colored. I think it got the point across because now when she sits down to color she says, “we color on paper, not mommy’s walls.”

Just doing our thing….

Katie is busy being silly. She loves to take the caps off of her markers and wear them on her fingers. She was a little upset that mommy’s fingers were too big to fit inside the caps. She tried pushing one onto my finger for a while and finally gave up.

We went out for Rick’s birthday to get some ice cream. Katie was great. She actually sat at our table and ate her food without complaint. She also built a tower for Daddy and loved that we sang really loudly happy birthday. (Rick didn’t like the singing that much)

Brady started Crawling at exactly 5 1/2 months. I also last week dusted off Katie’s walker and threw in Brady. A few days later he can now move on hard surfaces pretty well. (he isn’t strong enough for carpet yet) I laughed when Katie got her feet ran over from Brady because she use to do the exact same thing to me.

(See Video Below)

I got the kids matching shirts and decided to take a picture of them while they were still white. It was all in support of their daddy.

I watched Conference with Katie. Rick had to study for a big exam so it was fun trying to keep the kids focused on things while I tried to listen. I loved the messages of hope that came with conference. There were a few thing that speakers were pretty blunt about too. I love when people are blunt. It makes it so much easier for me to understand what to do. One of my favorite talks went into detail on how to be a better parent. I really enjoyed learning from the speakers and hearing that I’m not doing as horribly as I think I might be. If you don’t know what I’m talking about you should listen for yourself here. I’m pretty sure the kids were bored. You might be able to tell by the picture.

It was nice to see the pretty snow in the video of the conference center. I say it was nice because I didn’t have to deal with it but I could still admire the beauty that snow brings. Katie and I enjoyed the break between sessions by coloring with Chalk outside in the SUN! A much better way to spend the time I think than freezing in the snow.

During Rick’s spring break we took the kids to the park and Brady got to go down his first slide and take his first ride in a swing by himself.

Rick’s Spring Break

Last official spring break of his life. So what did Rick do?

Well he spent a few days in Colorado at a conference for DO’s. I see more of these coming in the future. While he was there, he and a few friends decided to get outdoors and climb some rocks.

He also has always wanted to go to a March Madness game. Being close to Denver this year made that possible. He was even able to go watch BYU win!

When he came home we hung out as a family and he tried to forget that his brain is about fried from school. I was extremely nice to have him around more. Hopefully rotations will provide him with a little more free time since he won’t need to study 24/7.