First Food

We gave Eliza her first taste of rice cereal today. She was less than impressed.

The before shot.

The eating shot.

The thinking about it shot.

Not her favorite.

*5/1/11 I've decided she really doesn't like food. We gave her applesauce today & she kept spitting it out as well. One day she will learn to like real food.

Creating

I love how the kids love to create things & build things all for Eliza. And as you can see in the background, she loves it! I hope they never stop!!

Happy Easter!

Joseph got to give a talk today in Primary. We talked a bit about what he wanted to give his talk on & then while we were getting other kids ready this morning for church, we told Joseph to head downstairs & start writing his thoughts down & then we'd help him with his talk. We came down & he had the first half of his page all written & we thought it was pretty good. Rick found him a scripture to use & then Joseph said he didn't need any more help. Then Joseph finished writing the rest of his talk. We were really impressed with his independence & with what a great job he did.

We are grateful for the life & death of our Savior. We are grateful that He overcame death that we may live again! Jesus is the Christ & we know He lives!

Happy Easter!

The Bunny Part of Easter

We like to do the Bunny stuffs on Saturday so that we can keep Sunday all about the Resurrection of Christ.

We started out our day over at Rick's work for an Easter Egg Hunt & breakfast. It was really cold! Andrew enjoyed the bouncy castle & the kids had a great time sprinting for eggs. I liked how Lexie shared some of hers with a boy who was crying because he didn't get very many. She's a good kid.

Then we got Lexie dressed up as her favorite princess (Princess Lexie, of course) for a birthday party.

While she was gone, I got eggs ready for a hunt here at home. Gratefully, it warmed up a bit.

Then we dyed Easter eggs & Liza was happy to watch.

Lexie thought she was pretty hot stuff with her styling new sunglasses that she got at her party. Here she is rockin' out while waiting for the eggs to dry.

It was a good, fun Saturday!

Moo, Moo Here!

It's so much fun to see how much Andrew loves his little sister.

6 Months Old

Our sweet little Eliza is 6 months old today!

Where has the time gone? She got to go the doctors for her check-up. Her doctor came in & told me, "Sorry, I've got some bad news, your daughter is not as high on the charts as she used to be. She's gone down from the 85 & 90th percentiles to the 75th & 80th now for height & weight." I just laughed & said, "I guess we can start calling you 'Slim' now!" He sure got a chuckle out of that one. She's growing perfectly & is so happy! It was fun this evening watching her laugh & jump with excitement watching her siblings play. She just couldn't get enough of them. She's not sitting up on her own or rolling over even, but I know it won't be long before she's able to keep up with them. For now, we're thrilled with immobility & sweet smiles & laughs.

We love this little girl so much!

(And we are so excited that our friends across the street had their little girl today so soon Liza will have another fun little friend to play with.)

The Belt

So,um, every single day, Andrew wears this belt. He's been wearing it for, oh, a few months now. He wears it to bed, to school, to church (he's even been known to buckle himself around his chair in primary with it). For whatever reason, he loves this belt & it cracks me up! So, here are just a few pictures of him wearing it.

I'm sure there will be many more to come.

Just Stuffs

Lexie made a sea sculpture in art class.

Andrew is having lots of fun writing his name in creative ways.

And Lexie is such a super big sister! Her siblings (& her parents) adore her!!

Lexie's FHE Lesson

Tonight was the first time Lexie gave a Family Home Evening lesson completely on her own. (Well at least in recent memory.) Yesterday in Primary they talked about having faith in the scriptures & planting seeds & gave out a little lesson they could share with their family. She did it & did a fabulous job!

Way to go Lexie Love!

Thanks, Janae!

I love this outfit you got for Eliza & she looks so stinkin' cute in it!

Ahhh, Spring!

We do have some flowers blooming around outside, (I guess I should take pictures of those) but, I really wanted some inside. So, I bought some & my house smells so good because of them.

I don't know what it is about fresh flowers, but everything looks cleaner & brighter & smells so much sweeter. I really like spring.

Craftiness

One of Rick's co-workers is having a baby soon & they threw her a little shower. I love that he thought to make her a diaper cake. She's not saying if it's a girl or a boy, so we just went basic & gender neutral.

I think he did a great job for his first attempt.

Andrew's Field Trip

Andrew's class is studying insects right now. We got to head out to the Morrison Wildlife Center for a fun field trip. It was humorous to see how Andrew would go away from wherever the class was supposed to be. But, at least he got to do whatever he wanted without a crowd.

He really loved this long snake pillow & almost got swallowed up by it.

He also had to put on the snake tail for himself. This boy & belts...

We saw a turtle & Andrew touched the bull snake, which kind of surprised me.

He measured up pretty well to some birds.

And then we went outside to catch bugs to feed to the turtle. We caught a beetle.

Andrew was pretty bummed that we couldn't take the box with his bug home to show Daddy. Guess we'll have to go bug catching around our house instead.

Air Eliza

Back in the day, Rick really liked Michael Jordan. So, Rick's mom, got this outfit for Eliza.

She's almost got the moves down, too.

Ahh, Ahh, Kansas!!

I loved that slogan as a kid.

For Spring Break this year, we headed out to Kansas! We had such a good time playing with cousins, Grandma, & some of my siblings!

Here's Eliza with Grandma & with Uncle Nathan & then the kiddos with Grandma.

One day we took the kids bowling. They had a good time. Rick won!

I did a 5K with my sister Janae at the Kansas City Temple site. It was really fun & hopefully next year we'll be able to run the whole thing.

Here's me before the 5K & Janae after.

We came home & Eliza was still happy (after crying herself to sleep, but at least she woke up happy again).

The site & the temple are beautiful & we're excited for the dedication (sometime next year).

Lexie got to meet her pen-pal. They share the same birthday. They had a good time getting to know each other.

Eliza really got some good laughing in at her siblings. It's a video of her laughing at her goofy siblings.

I should have gotten more pictures of the kids outside playing in the backyard because that is where they were almost the whole time. But suffice it to say, they had a great time playing outside pretending & being good little kiddos.

And just before we left they had to jump off the front porch like I used to do as a kid. Ahh, memories.

Super Lexie!

Super Joseph!

We had a great time & it wasn't long after we left that the kids asked about when we could go back. Hopefully, it won't be too long before our next visit!