April in Review and a Birthday to Boot

So much to say, so little time! Where does it all go? A week ago, Elia had her final ballet recital. She loves dancing and is always making up dances at home. She's the one in the middle of this picture: Hip Hop routine:
So, this picture is pretty cute, but it would be even better without her tattoos. Grandma sent them to her for St. Patty's day and they are still on her arms a month later! I guess their idea of temporary is different from mine!

We have a fun little splash pad at a neighborhood park. The kids had a great time and Ethan got to sport his new birthday swimming shorts.

Don't forget our littlest... growing fast. She's already 8 months!

My new favorite picture:

Eric is always like one of the kids, he just jumps right in (at Ethan's birthday party he was the one dad up jumping on the trampoline and playing games with the kids.... I love it!).In other news... we now have a three year old! Today (April 18th) is his official birthday. We just invited some of Ethan's friends over and had cake and ice cream:
He requested a Spiderman cake and as usual, I do my best to comply. The hardest part of this cake was making sure the frosting was RED and not pink... Some cupcakes to go on the side and then some presents. We told people not to bring presents, though a few still did. He had fun opening them. He got some money from his Nana and Grandpa, Grammy and his Uncle Earl (and some from us) and we purchased a rocket, a scooter, and the baby doll he requested (I think he was tired of having to share Elia's all the time and always getting the one she didn't like at the time).
His Grandma sent him, among other things, a new pair of "Cars" tennis shoes...He is in love with them! You want proof?
Here is a miscellaneous picture we thought was fun... Is playing a puzzle on the computer that tiring? And finally, a few pics from Eric's trip to London. I was so jealous! Someday I'll get there too, but I really was excited that he got to go someplace cool... a lot more interesting than his usual Peoria, Illinois trip (no offence Illinois friends).
Oh, one more. Eric and I went to a friend's wedding last night. We never have pictures of the two of us, so here we are. Don't we make a handsome couple? In June it will be nine years! Nine, wonderful years! (Awwww) Now...

Then...

Strawberries Picking and Easter Egg Hunting

We've had a great week with lots of fun activities! It's been nice to spend some extra time with Eric since he was gone the week before.

On Monday he met us at this indoor playground that is at a baptist church up the way. It is awesome and free! Since it was 5:30, we had the whole place to ourselves. We played hide-n-go-seek and tag (well, the tag lasted about two rounds). The kids mainly were just happy climbing and sliding with Papa.

On Wednesday we went with our neighbor Emma to a nearby strawberry patch to pick our own strawberries. We walked out $45 and 25 pounds later. I'm not kidding! Funny thing is, less than a week later, they are almost all gone! We are loving us some strawberries! There was a shirt there that said, "I had a berry good time at Froberg Farms." I think they should have had a shirt that said, "I went berry overboard at Froberg Farms." Seriously, who eats 25 pounds of strawberries in 5 days! I did make my first-ever jam, but most of the berries we just straight out ate. Yum!

Emma and Elia

On Friday we decided to go on the rare eating out activity. We don't go out very often, but it's nice to go out with the kids, teach them that napkins go in their laps... or even what napkins are.

We also had a nice Easter weekend. On Saturday the kids found their easter baskets hidden in the dryer...

And opened a giant egg my mom had sent...

Then we went to church and participated in the ward Easter egg hunt... Here are a bunch of Elia's friends...
Here is the picture of the day... This is pretty much what the kids did all day... Eric and I have decided that it is a lot easier to have the kids eat what they want in one day and then get rid of the rest. So, maybe they had almost no nutrition, but one day won't kill them... I hope! We donated the rest to the missionaries who came over for dinner Saturday night. They could either eat it themselves or give it away to some of the kids they see when they visit families. Our house is once again candy free. On Sunday we went to the church to watch General Conference in the morning. I also showed the kids some of the videos on the church website about the real meaning of easter. I wanted Sunday to sort of be separate from the Easter Bunny stuff. We had a nice relaxing day and even went for a bike ride in the evening, though I think those days are coming to a close. It's 82 degrees right now and we even had to turn on our A/C this weekend! Sad :(

Well, have a great week everyone!

Alligators, Friends and Fun Photography

I've become one of those bloggers that I used to scold. The kind that post once every other month! I can't believe it's been six weeks since I posted. Where does the time go?

So since I last posted, Elia broke her arm while running around the kitchen with Ethan. To make a long story short, we didn't know it was broken, so we waited almost two weeks to take her in. She got this sweet cast in time for Valentines Day, then, less than a week later (thanks to a very naive mother who believed she could keep her arm on the edge of the tub), got her cast soaking wet. We managed to slide it off, blow it dry, but couldn't get it on the next morning... so we cut the cast open, pried it open and slid it back on her arm. It sounds simple, but it was definitely NOT easy. The original cast cost $800 and if we could make the old one work, then we were going to! Thankfully, when we took her for her post cast x-rays, her arm was completely healed. As a side note, following this experience, I thought it would be very interesting to add up exactly what you spent on each of your kids over the year (besides food). I'm not organized enough to do this, but I sure think it would be interesting.
Elia also lost her first tooth on February 23rd. We were all pretty excited. The toothfairy decided the exchange for the first tooth would be a silver dollar.

Also new to me is joining facebook. I think I'm just about the last person I know to join, it's nice to catch up on people I haven't seen for a very long time.
Nana and Grandpa finished their wonderful visit... It only took a little persuading to get Ken in a photo :)

By the way Ken, we found the secret to watching the Olympics. Someone has to stand holding the antenna in this exact spot to get NBC. If only we had known that when you were here! :)

It's sad, but true, Eric spent much time in this position so we could watch speed skating, figure skating and bobsledding. I think the Olympics inspired Eric and one afternoon we spent some time in the back yard watching Eric do trampoline tricks.My dad came for a visit at the beginning of March. We had a great time visiting some of Houston's best sites. Including the San Jacinto monument
I love this family... These two girls were sweet to come up to a photo shoot for the magazine and watch the kids while I helped with the shoot. The kids had a blast... If anyone else has a 10-year-old they would like to farm out for a little bit. I'll take them! And finally, our most recent activity. Camping with the Forbushes at Brazos Bend. We saw a ton of alligators and some awesome birds. The weather was perfect and getting out into nature was exactly what my spirit needed to refresh itself...

It's hard to believe that this...and this...
Grew from this:I loved the birds too. This one caught a crawfish...
After it's meal...

I think I took about 20 pictures of this cardinal. His bright colors against the drab scenery were just so striking to me. This image is SOOC (Straight out of camera) with no color pops.

The kids (notice Ethan's new haircut):

I've been getting into playing with my nature pics.

Maybe a little too bright... especially compared with the last one, but I like it.

And so you can see what it used to be:

These girls are like cousins... It doesn't matter how long they go inbetween visits... When they get together they are like best friends.

I LOVE the expression on Elia here. It is just so peaceful and sweet, though it makes me

realize how much she has grown up. Kindergarten is only 6 months away! Now we're done with the setting sun,

If you hung in there, congrats! Here's to a new week. Eric's gone to London (how exciting for him) and I am totally jealous, but I'm so excited for him that he gets to go to such a cool place. I'll get there someday... soon hopefully! :)

Happy 6 Months Kara!

I feel like I live in a whole new house! Nancy and I have been sorting and organizing many areas in the house. It is SO much easier with someone else. We have sort of a system where she sorts the items in an area and then I put them away where they go. It's so nice to have an extra opinion and have someone tell me that I really don't need the key chain I've never used but have had for a year. The below picture is all the things that were in our kitchen "junk" drawer. Last Sunday Ethan slid off the bench and did a face plant into the corner of the hymn book holder. It immediately swelled up and he looked like he had no curve on one side of his nose. Eric wouldn't let me take a picture it was so ugly. The Hunchback of Notre Dam came to mind. After the swelling went down, I did sneak in a picture of his black eye.

A funny thing about those pennies on the counter, Ethan has a penny holder, and gets one penny per day to "pay" for a snack. This was to prevent him from asking me five times in the morning if he could have a snack. The other day Grandpa told him he couldn't have lunch, so he went and got a penny and tried to pay for it. If only food really did cost a penny!

Well, our baby is now 6 months old! How time flies.Don't you wish our skin could look like that?! ... her feet on the other hand, are always purple no matter how much we cover them up.

A few more...

I love this expression!

Here's a video of her crawling effort of about a week ago. It is already out dated, because she now can take 5-6 crawls without face-planting.

Also new this week, Jen discovered Facebook. It's sad, but true, her mom even beat her on. She decided to do it more to expand her photography business, but found it's kind of fun seeing what people are doing.