April Highlights

Well, April certainly seems almost like ancient history by now, but here is a quick review.

One day I decided to let my kids draw with shaving cream. You can tell who liked it and who did not! ha ha. Lydia started crying about 30 seconds after she got the shaving cream on her hands. At the time, she really didn't like dirty hands.

 Ethan had a fun bike day at preschool where they had a local police officer talk about bike safety and then they had the kids practice on an obstacle course set up in the big room. They usually have bike day outside if the weather is nice. Ethan practiced looking both ways for cars and stopping at the stop signs.

Ethan on a borrowed bike

 One day we had fun at a free music class at the library with MOMS club.

 We enjoyed a beautiful day at the zoo to see the blooms and this handsome sloth, requested by Ethan.

Tulips are one of my favorite flowers

Ethan and Lydia loved riding this horse that only cost one penny to ride. A nice older woman gave them each 3 pennies so they could "ride Sandy for her." :)

This was the day that I made the mistake of letting Lydia ride this car all the way to the elementary school. It was exhausting for both of us and this type of transportation doesn't work well during tantrums so I'll be sure not to repeat my mistake. lol :)

One Saturday we went to the temple in Louisville in the morning and then visited the Kentucky Science Center after we finished. Our kids loved it and it was hard for them to leave.

model of blocks falling during an earthquake

kind of blurry, but still cute :)

Ethan was so proud that he lifted the hula hoop up over his head before the bubble popped.

The water play area was a favorite, and fortunately saved for last since Lydia especially was soaked!

I just love ponytails on little girls! :)

Getting some water at the "school park"

My favorite part of April was having Melody come visit us. She flew here for a short weekend and left Brandon and her three girls to fend for themselves. Thanks Brandon!! We had an awesome day of shopping, hitting a record number of stores in one day, and enjoying a delicious lunch at First Watch. We went to church together on Sunday and Monday we had a perfect weather day at the zoo before she flew home. We have lots of fun memories with Aunt Melody. We all just loved having her here!

Fun ride on the train

We miss you Aunt Melody!!

March--Easter

We had a good March in spite of crazy weather that just kept snowing and raining all month. The first weekend we went to IKEA and got a small set of shelves for Lydia's room. Ethan and Lydia helped me put it together later in the week and we cleaned and rearranged Lydia's room to fit the shelves in with the other furniture.

I love the cute outfit Grandma and Grandpa gave Lydia for her birthday!

 Ethan got all dressed up for a tea party at his preschool. They ate with real china, live music, and lots of fancy things to eat. Ethan loved being able to pour his own cup of milk. :)

Taking Ethan and Lydia to the grocery store is always an adventure. On this particular trip they both decided they were done with sitting in the cart and starting wandering around on their own, fortunately I was headed to the check-out lines. This picture was taken at their request. :)

Lydia got all dressed up to go outside and play in the snow with Dad and Ethan, but I don't know if she even made it out the door. She prefers a nice warm/safe spot inside to watch the action with Mom. :)

If Dad and Ethan had waiting a couple for hours, we got a few more inches of snow before the storm was over. But they had fun on the sled anyway. :)

Sunday's can be rough going to church and not getting a good nap, but fortunately, we can still get Lydia to smile. I think it's interesting how much Lydia's face changes when she's smiling versus not smiling. :)

 A fun afternoon coloring Easter Eggs. Ethan totally loved this activity and can't wait to do it again next year! I decided to test out Lydia's egg allergy with some hard-boiled egg yolk after a year and unfortunately she still reacted and broke out in hives on her hands and arms.

We enjoyed our Easter weekend and watching General Conference! It's definitely one of our favorite weekends, and this one was no exception. We had a really neat experience sustaining President Russell M. Nelson as the new prophet and are excited about the announced changes. What an exciting time to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints!

We were going to have professional pictures taken this weekend, but Lydia took a face dive off of a slide at the mall, so we cancelled those and took a few at home instead. Even with sores on her face, she is still adorable!

 We kept the trampoline upstairs while watching Conference and it got some good use. :)

Ethan got to have Murphy Moose visit us from preschool for the weekend. Ethan was so excited that he got to spend Easter and General Conference with us. He said, "I always dreamed for Murphy Moose to be with us for Easter and General Conference. My dreams came true!" The picture below is the one Ethan picked to be included in the journal for his Baptist preschool. :) We're glad we could represent. :) He's turning out to be a good missionary.

February--Short and Sweet

A lot happened this month, but not many pictures were taken compared to my normal amount. So this is what you get. :)

We celebrated Jason's birthday popper gun style. We let Ethan and Lydia help find his gift with a treasure hunt. Both Jason and Ethan love having popper gun battles so it adds an element of fun to our otherwise normal and sometimes boring daily life. ;)

Valentines Day followed and we celebrated with pizza and chocolates. Very romantic, I know.

But of course the most pictures this month were of Lydia who turned 2. She is so fun to have in our family. According to her 2-year-old Well Check she weighs 23 lbs 13 oz (15%tile) and measures 33 inches (30%tile.) She may be little, but she sure packs in a lot of playfulness and expressiveness. She enjoys trying to make others smile, and gives the cutest eye rolls until you smile and laugh. I also love her cheesy grins where she closes her eyes for added effect. She eats and sleeps well in spite of her allergy to eggs and intolerance to milk and peppers. I recently reintroduced eggs to see how she was doing and she gave a pretty good reaction so we'll have to continue to avoid eggs for the time being. She likes to play with dolls and stuffed animals, put together puzzles, dance, and copy Ethan in any way she can. She gives the sweetest hugs and kisses. It's kind of funny when Ethan gets hurts and starts crying so Lydia rushes over to give him hugs. Ethan is usually grumpy after he gets hurt and won't let Lydia give him hugs, so Lydia then becomes unhappy that Ethan is denying her hugs and starts trying to hit Ethan. From hugging to hitting in 30 seconds, she is funny to watch! She is talking much more now and will just jabber on with her words and phrases. It is cute to hear her start learning to pray by copying word for word what we say. She has to have her Lamb and pacifier to calm down and is currently really scared and anxious about getting a bath and anything related to her new froggy potty chair. Hopefully we'll work through those issues sooner rather than later because bath time is a very traumatic event these days.

 On Lydia's birthday we went to an indoor play place in Cincinnati called Pogo Play. Both Ethan and Lydia had a lot of fun there. After a morning of playing plus a nap, Lydia opened her birthday presents. Ethan of course was even more anxious than Lydia about opening and playing with her new toys. :)

I'm so glad Jason is willing to play and have fun with Ethan and Lydia. He is such a great dad!

 We got her a little Strider to ride. She a little young for it still, but hopefully she can use it this summer when it's warm.

That night we celebrated the Chinese New Year by eating a lot of authentic Korean food with our friends, the Bjarnsons. We miss living closer to them. We enjoyed the yummy food and fun company!

Later in the month we were also treated to a nice restaurant on a date night with the Huxels. Again we ate yummy food and enjoyed the company....as well as the chance to eat and talk without our children this time. Yay for friends!

January 2018

You would think this post would be about March or February, but we're a little behind over here. :)

We welcomed in the new year by trying out a local gym that had a racquetball court. Jason and I love to play racquetball, but unfortunately we seem to be some of the only ones. This is the only court in this area and there is only 1 court! Pretty crazy after you've seen the line of courts at the BYU Richards Building and had a hard time reserving one.

Future racquetball players

Life is so unfair!

Lydia loves trying to put her own clothes on now. I often find her in the morning with her pajamas already taken off.

Ethan loves playing with the magnet tiles he got for Christmas!!

Ethan had an awesome day at the mall in January. Because we were with friends he got to do lots of things he typically doesn't get to do and he kept saying "this must be my lucky day!" It started with a MOMS club activity with Auntie Anne's pretzels. A man talked about the history of pretzels and showed how to make them and let the kids play with some dough and practice making their own, and then we got to eat some and they were yummy!! They also let us ride the carousel in the Food Court. The cool thing about this carousel is that it has two levels and of course Ethan wanted to ride on the top!

After that, Ethan's friend Claire also got to ride these motorized animals and Ethan got a turn too. Claire could hardly steer the animal but Ethan rode it like a pro. :)

All dressed up for the first big snow storm. Lydia lasted about 5 minutes. :)

Ethan's first time roller skating at GV's birthday party. He couldn't go 5 feet without hanging on my arm, but he was determined!

Ethan came home from the neighbors looking like "a robot"

Building his own train tracks

A day warm enough for a little frisbee.

We celebrated my birthday by going to an Escape Room with friends. You are put in a room for an hour and have to solve several puzzles to get the door unlocked in time. It was my first time and I really enjoyed it.

Afterwards we ate appetizers and cheesecake

On my actual birthday I had a couple friends stop by with flowers and a cake. The flowers were beautiful and the Raspberry Lemon cake was out of this world! Super delicious!! Jason gave me a really nice necklace that I liked too. And Ethan gave me a Twix candybar for my birthday to replace the one he ate from my church bag that I got at church a couple weeks earlier. :)