Bye Bye Blankie

It was a sad day today at our house. T.J. lost his blankie. The only time he ever sucks his thumb is when he is holding his blankie and I would like him to stop before he gets too old and it gets really hard to make him stop. So I decided it was time for the blankie to go. As you can see, it is pretty ragged, or should I say well loved. He cried for probably 15-20 minutes for it when I put him down for his nap. And then he woke up after only being asleep for about 45 minutes crying for it again. But tonight he went to bed without crying so hopefully I didn't traumatize him too much.

Egg Hunt

Our neighborhood has an Easter egg hunt every year. It was Saturday. You drop off 12 filled eggs for each kid and then the day of the hunt they each get to find 12. It's nice because the kids all know they can only find 12 and so it's not overly competitive. Here is the hunt.

Checking out the goods.

And us.

Easter Pageant

We went to the Easter Pageant last night at the temple. The weather was perfect. I didn't even have to wear a jacket. T.J. and Addy's attention spans lacked a little but Emmy did pretty good. We had a good time. I didn't get any pictures of the actual pageant, but here are some before pictures.

Eating dinner. (We don't eat McDonald's for every meal. I promise.)

And inside the visitor's center. I don't know if this was the first year they have done this or not, but inside the visitor's center they have a room set up where you can take pictures with the cast members before it starts. Emmy, of course, didn't want to get her picture taken. T.J. on the other hand made a new friend. He is such a flirt!

Man Purse

T.J. was playing yesterday and walked out looking like this.

Nervous Ears

Funny things that Emmy said to me today:

T.J. was throwing a little fit and crying and Emmy said, "Mom, he's making my ears nervous."

Then later she walked up to me and said, "Can you take my necklace off 'cause I'm relaxing on my bed with my doll."

The Good and Bad about Living in a Desert

Yesterday Jamie took the kids out back to play. I went out about 15 minutes later to see what they were doing and this is what I found. It is still way too cold for me, but they didn't seem to mind.

Everything seemed to be going good until T.J. all of a sudden started crying and Jamie looks down and sees a scorpion right next to his leg. I think it got him twice because he had 2 little spots on the back of his leg that swelled up. This is dad holding a cold compress on the back of his leg. Nothing a movie and some dad time couldn't fix.

Taylor

Me and the kids headed to Taylor on Wednesday morning to stay for a couple of days. There is something about going there that always makes me feel grounded and like I can face whatever is going on. It is nice to go somewhere that I don't have internet access and there aren't any TV stations (yes, my parents live in the dark ages and I love it.) and where I can remember where I'm from and what I loved about growing up. I think we chose one of the best days we could have picked to go. The weather was beautiful Wednesday and the kids got to ride horses.

And play outside.

Grammy always feeds them fun snacks. Notice T.J.'s cheeks. I blistered them the first day we were there. I felt so bad. I really didn't think I let them play outside for that long but the poor kid just has such sensitive skin. Emmy was barely pink and he was completely fried.

And me, I got my first Harley ride. Each one of my brother's have such different personalities and distinct characteristics that endear them to me. One of Tommy's is being a bargainer. It seems like he always has some deal going on. Well he was going to build a deck for a lady and this was his payment. I was a little bit nervous about going with him, but it was a lot of fun.

Night in the Park

Last night the town put on a free concert in the park with a band that covered mostly 60's music. We thought the kids might enjoy it. So we picked up McD's. on the way and headed over. Here is the band.

Here are the kids munching down on dinner and listening to the music.

And here they are getting out on the dance floor. They had a really fun time. We got a little bit cold towards the end and Emmy was getting a little bit frustrated because she wanted "Buddy to hold her hand and dance with her." (Jamie calls T.J. Buddy once in awhile and Emmy has picked it up.) I guess it's a good lesson to learn while you are young that boys don't always hold your hand when you want them to.

Look at Me When I'm Talking to You

Me and Jamie were doing the dishes tonight and the kids were in the other room playing. I heard Emmy and T.J. say "Kick her. Kick her." So I run in there and they were both kicking Addy. They must not have been doing it too hard because she wasn't even crying. After they both got spanked and sent to their rooms this is how the conversation between Emmy and Jamie went.
Jamie: "Why were you kicking her?"
Emmy: "I was just trying to play with her."
Jamie: "You can't kick her."
Emmy: "I just wanted her to look at me."

Pictures from the big dance

We picked up Emmy and Jamie's pictures from their daddy-daughter dance today. Jamie said when the photographer tried to take the pictures that Emmy just kept ducking her head into his shoulder so we weren't sure how they would turn out but I thought they were pretty cute.

The Zoo

Jamie's family gave Emmy season passes to the zoo for her birthday this year. They got them for her last year and we were so excited to get them again. It is nice to be able to go whenever we want and not feel like we have to stay all day if we don't want to. We picked Jamie up from work about 3 yesterday and went for a couple of hours. This is the way we roll...

It was a zoo so of course we saw lots of animals.  A komodo dragon.

A warthog

A lion

Sea creatures

Turtle shells

Okay. We saw lots of real animals too. It was the first time we had seen the komodo dragon and that was pretty cool.

But I think the kids favorite part was definitely the monkeys. The mom orangutan was feeding the baby and Emmy thought that was so cool.

And T.J. and Addy definitely loved the little monkeys. It was one of the only things that Addy seemed to really focus on and her eyes followed them everywhere.

It seems like everytime we go we find something that we haven't seen before and yesterday was no exception. The weather was perfect and we had a great time.

Mancub

We were watching Jungle Book tonight and the narrator called Mogli a mancub. This is the conversation that followed:
Emmy: "He's not a mancub."
Me: "Yes he is. They call him a mancub because a man is a person and a cub is a baby animal. So he is a mancub."
Emmy: "Is Addy a mancub?"

Bowling

A couple of weeks ago we went bowling with Jamie's family for Nana's birthday. I would have thought Emmy and T.J. were too young but they loved it. However, they couldn't quite figure out the rolling the ball down the lane.

So then we got this little contraption where you just have to sit the ball on top and the kids can push it and it rolls down. From then on we were set.

And here is T.J. with the birthday girl.