These Days

We've had a fun month with family these last few weeks! Emmett has spent so much time with his cousins he doesn't really know what to do with himself anymore now that the house is quiet again. Every morning for about a month he had cousins to wake up and play with. Now when he gets up in the morning and we ask him what he wants to do that day, he says "play with Claire!" Poor Claire has gotten the 2 year old treatment thats not exactly fitting for her. But she usually just smiles at him as if she's just enjoying the attention.

We went to Island Park last week. My sister Kacey and her family made the long drive from Oklahoma and spent a week there, and since it had been 2 years since I'd seen her (and 1 year since I went to Island Park) a visit was necessary! My mom came (my dad is back in Korea right now), and so did my brother Eric and his family.

It was fun to have all of the 8 grandkids together:

From L to R: Rebecca, Isaac, Emmett, Daniel, Henry, Claire, Ella, Lillie (with Grandma W. in back).

Our "hooray!" shot.

I saw 3 moose (meese?) while we were there. Emmett saw 1 of the three that I saw and he got excited and said "Wow! Like Bambi!"

This little guy was right off the back porch. Mike thinks he looks starving. Maybe he was looking for our leftover s'mores.

This picture was earlier while we were in Utah. Emmett and Lillie decided to take the recorder and electric keyboard and give Henry an impromptu music recital. Henry very much enjoyed it I think.

See for yourself:

(Also note, the recital was in no way put together or arranged by me or my mom) :)

Now that the company is gone we've been working on our next challenge.

And doing a lot of sittin around.

Our California Adventure

Here's a few fun pictures of our recent trip to California. We drove up with my parents and spent a week vacation with my brother Eric and his family. My brother graduated from Dental School at USC which was the main purpose of the trip, but you can't go to southern California without making a few pit stops at these places:

Sea World

Emmett and Lillie are either the best of friends or each others biggest enemy, (usually when one or the other's toys are being threatened). Towards the end of the day at Sea World Emmett was getting tired and starting to throw a few fits, he wouldn't let anyone carry him, but he was ok with one thing and that was letting Lillie escort him around Sea World, as he would tell us "Hold, Lillie, hand!"

Our end of the day group picture at Sea World

Disneyland

My parents with the 4 grandkids outside Mr. Toad's Wild Ride

One thing I've learned about the trip is traveling with little kids is HARD, and everything takes twice as long. There's always a lot of crying going on, and sometimes you wonder if it was worth it since they won't remember a thing about the trip anyways. But on the positive side I love watching Emmett play with his cousins, I love spending time with my family, and I love seeing the happy look on my child's face in anticipation to get on Dumbo, or giggles on rides, or the amazed look on his face when he saw Goofy in real life.

It all makes up for the running around with big strollers, changing poopy diapers or nursing a baby in between waiting in line for rides (or having to exit a line right before I was about to go on because of a blow-out by miss Claire) and dealing with major meltdowns in public. In the end we had a blast and wouldn't trade it for the peace and quiet of home.

Claire's Blessing Day

Here's a few pictures from the weekend. We blessed Claire on May 1. Mike's mom crocheted her beautiful blessing dress. It was white with a soft pink ribbon woven through the sleeves and the neck. I loved it. She made the booties too. My parents flew in on Friday just in time for the blessing on Sunday. It was great to have our family and friends there to celebrate.

And also, I guess my "maternity leave" is officially over because I finally got a calling in our new ward: Primary Secretary. Best calling in THE WORLD! I'm so excited.

Easter

I ordered Claire's Easter dress on sale through OldNavy.com. I was hoping it would arrive on time (I ordered it 5 days early) but every notice I got in my email said it wasn't supposed to be delivered until the Monday after Easter. I was so bummed. I even went and bought a backup dress at Wal Mart for her. Well, much to my happy surprise it arrived on Saturday!

The next day as we were getting the kids ready for church I went to take the tags off of her dress and it turns out they sent me the WRONG SIZE! I ordered 3-6 months, and they sent me 6-12 months. Mike convinced me to have her wear it anyways. It was humongous on her, but I still think she looked beautiful. I'll have to take another picture of her when she's 6 months old and it actually fits just to see the difference.

On Saturday Grandma G. put together a fun Easter egg hunt for the grandkids, Emmett and Pixton.

This Easter Egg hunt was taken at my Aunt Kris' house who is so kind to invite us every year for Easter dinner.

The two above shots are funny to compare because I was starting to get the impression that Emmett thought his Easter basket was a purse like mommy's.

Lost and Found

Mike lost his wedding ring 2 years ago. At the time Emmett was only a few weeks old and we were in our house in Bountiful. I remember on the day he lost it he had spent the morning outside working on his old 4Runner. There was a lot of snow on the ground (it was January) and he walked in the house a few hours later and said "I lost my ring". I was bummed, but not too upset, because I knew how much he paid for it: $50 on Ebay. (When we got married we had no money, and we found a jeweler selling mens titanium wedding rings for next to nothing so we bought one). Anyways, I was more sad because of the sentimental value to the ring, not the actual value itself. We looked everywhere for that ring, and searched even after the snow melted, but never found it.

Fast forward 2 years later, Mike has since bought a new wedding ring, (happily purchasing it through Ebay again) and this past December we moved from our house in Bountiful into my parents home in Saratoga Springs. In January we found some great renters to live in our house. Literally 2 DAYS after they moved in Mike got a phone call telling him that their 4 year old son found a wedding ring and wondered if it was ours. At first Mike told them no, and that he didn't know who's it might be (hello?!) but I quickly reminded him of his lost wedding ring and told him to have them hang onto it until we could pick it up and see.

We had to go to Bountiful this weekend to do a few things and they gave Mike the ring their son found. Sure enough. Its the one. Count on a 4 year old to find what we couldn't.

The original ring is the one closest to him on the left.

My Sweet E"claire"

I took this picture this morning. I could kiss those cheeks all day long.

• She's finally starting to get some peach fuzz on her bald head which is cute. It reminds me of when you see baby chicks with all that crazy fuzzy hair.

pic by google

• She's going to have blue eyes, and so far seems to have light blonde hair.
• She's a cat napper during the day, and will only sleep about 45 minutes, unless I put her in the swing, which then she can sleep for hours if I let her. She loves that thing. I finally get what sleep deprivation feels like though, (cause Emmett was the best sleeper, and he still takes a 2 hour nap everyday) but I think the last time I got a nap was when my mom was here after we brought her home from the hospital.
• I call her my little diva. She hates being ignored or put down when its her awake time. She will get near hysterical in only a matter of seconds that makes you wonder if she sat on a pin, and as soon as I pick her up she's immediately happy again. She also haaaates her carseat. Trips in the car always include her crying until she falls asleep. And visits to the store always include me holding her in the sling, while an emtpy carseat sits on the cart because she will not sit in that thing happily. Ever.
• When she got her 2 month immunizations she cried pretty hard for about 5 minutes. Later that night, she cried for 2 more HOURS. I felt so bad. Tylenol didn't even do much for her. No doubt she was tender and sore where they put the shots in her legs, but I remember Emmett hardly even whimpered at his 2 month shots...?
• I love having a girl. The boys went to Moab last week for a quick 2 day camping trip, and me and Claire went shopping at the mall and made hair bows. I'm glad I'll always have her for company when the boys have the urge to get dirty.

The boys in Moab, UT