Our newest path.

March 31, 2012
The month of March has proved to be one of many changes. The first change, where is my husband? For the majority of March Willie was traveling to different parts of the country to find a job. He had about two interviews every week. We were lucky to get to travel with him to Indiana. That's when we visited Jared and Rachel. We wish we could have gone to Boston but we reaped a reward for it being the last of his interviews (Mike's Pastries, cannoli and extra large m&m cookie YUM). The decision was difficult. Willie and I (I include myself because we have both sacrificed much over the years to get our family to this point) were given three offers with one other offer on the benches. We were terribly grateful to even have one. In the end we decided to move to.... I will tell at the end of the post.

A change that came before all the interviews was one of excitement, but seemed to be clouded over by other life changing decisions. Our newest addition to the family, though we wish it were a dog at times this time it will be a baby! Yes, we are very excited to have a baby coming to us in July. Another point about this baby that makes it more exciting is that we will be having a little girl. I'm still in awe when I see the ultrasound and there isn't anything there. I'm used to seeing boy. Perhaps in another year we will add a dog to our lives and maybe it can be a girl too.

Another question we had to ask ourselves this month was will we stay in our current apartment for the rest of our time here or will we move for three months? Our lease will end and we had to make our decision 60 days before the termination date. In the end we decided to stay. We have a baby on the way, we have a graduation and all that leads up to the graduation, we have a big move planned.

We made another realization this month and we have realized that Parker is going to be old enough for Kindergarten. Oh my. This will be such a big change for our family. August will be difficult but I hope that we all come out with smiles on our faces as much as possible.  So we are in the process of finding out where the best schools are in our next city.  We are grateful that we get to go to Colorado Springs, CO.  The move is closer to home and closer to much of our family.  We have heard only good reports about Colorado Springs.  At times it's a bit overwhelming to think of all the changes and how it will effect all of us, especially the kids.  

Lesson learned.

April 17, 2012

Give the kids a time limit in EVERYTHING. Even if you need to be gone right NOW it's still best to say to the kids you have 30 seconds and then we are leaving.  It works with adults as well.  I need to give myself this reminder quite often (and we are still 10 minutes late).  I once asked my visiting teachers what to do to get my kids to sit for prayer and scripture time.  Sister Abamonte's suggestion was to give them time.  I have loved this advice ever since.  She also once told me in her wonderful accent 'little people, little problems; big people, big problems.'  I have always loved her wisdom.  Thank you Sister Abamonte!

Slippery Fish

March 13, 2012
Lincoln has been coming home from Joy School with many songs that are new to him. The first time he came home he really loved the song 'Slippery Fish.' He has also fallen in love with a couple of others 'Walking through the Jungle..what do you see?' and 'Mr. Sun, sun, Mr. Golden Sun.' He really loves when he gets to sing. Thank you Dani for the songs you have taught him.  I have a cute video that won't load but let's just say all the kids love the songs.

A Visit to Indianapolis

March 14, 2012
Willie and I were excited that we could take our family with us to Indiana while Willie did an interview. The best part and really the only reason we took the family was so that we could see FAMILY! The boys were happy to travel 9 1/2 hours to see their cousin Tori and her dog Prince. Sorry Garrett we hadn't met you yet so you weren't top priority in their minds. Although I would have to say Garrett was one of the main reasons we traveled so far. We were happy to see Jared and Rachel as well, but most of us should admit that once kids join the picture the adults become less exciting. *

We started the day off by going to the doctor and getting the ultrasound. Girl! When we got home we packed a few of our remaining things in the car. Our neighbor who was watching the boys had said that Henry jumped in the love-sac from the bed and that he immediately started crying. This was about 10 minutes before we came home and since that time he didn't want to walk. She was really worried and I was kind of brushing it off. I did get a little more worried when I did realize that he wouldn't even walk to me, he would just crawl. I made the decision that we would just continue on with the trip and not make a doctor visit. Henry slept through the journey and we made it to Jared and Rach's around 9:30pm. Henry did walk again during the day so we knew he was okay. Linc wanted to see Tori so Rach let Tori come out of bed time and come see us. It was great!
We woke up and the garbage trucks were making their rounds.  The kids loved it.

Our first adventure in Indy Jared and Rachel treated us to the Children's Museum. Thanks you guys!  What a sight to behold. As we walked in there were these huge dinosaurs crawling into the museum, WOW. When we walked inside we saw Bumblebee from Transformers. Now my kids aren't into Transformers and Willie and I have seen the movie a couple of times, but I did think of my nephews and made sure to take a picture of it. So this was just the foyer we hadn't really officially made it in the museum yet. We did make a short visit to the gift shop that had way too many cool things. Luckily we were in and out or I would have been seriously tempted to by a few things. The first part of our visit was the cafeteria. A nice homemade lunch. Yum. Sadly Henry had an accident where he slipped on his chair, because he prefers to stand on a chair like his brothers but he's not nearly as coordinated. Anyway he slipped and hit his chin on the table which resulted in a bloody mouth because his three little teeth when right into his lip. Ouch. He cried for a little while, but was soon over it once we headed into the cool attractions at the museum.

 We visited the train area first.  Parker's excitement was great.  He was running and jumping around as he looked at all the trains.  They loved it.  I have more videos of this portion and not so many pictures.  Oops.

 We headed over to the Mr. Potato Head exhibit.  Awesome.  You really could spend the whole day just in this one spot.  This place is seriously huge, especially compared to the Atlanta Children's Museum.  
  

 I love Linc's expression.

 Cousin group shot.

Next we headed on over to the Lego land.  
 

 A couple of the kids thought it would be fun to use the ramp as a slide.  The ramp was used to race their custom built (by themselves) lego cars down.

 
Henry really loved this Lego car.  He kind of hogged it for awhile and he was super sad when he had to leave it.  One day buddy, you will have a car of your own.

 The last area we headed into was the playscape.  This area was comparable to what Atlanta has, in size and a couple of features.  The sand table was awesome.  Kids really do love to play in the sand.

 Even better, the water table.  I loved the little aprons for the kids.

 This is the site as you are walking into the Children's museum from the garage.  Awesome dinosaurs climbing into the building.  What a treat.  Thank you so much Jared and Rach for treating us to such a fun place.  Parker was so sad to leave that he said we had to move there and get a pass to go all the time.  He seriously commented on it many many times as the days went on.

*I remember once having my sister walk in a room after her kids and instead of saying 'hey Jordy(my niece)" I said "hey Jess!" She said that was the best part of her day because she had been recognized instead of her little girl.

The Leprechauns.

March 16, 2012 
At night Willie tells the boys a story. Usually it involves the magical train named Bilbo. Bilbo can do many things such as fly, go under water and recently he has even traveled back in time to visit Nephi. Sometime in January Willie re-introduced the boys to Ireland.  The new stories involve catching leprechauns.  The leprechauns have magic salad that they give the boys if they catch them.  Magic salad gives the boys a special power to use for the day such as swimming like dolphins, flying back home to Atlanta, etc.  Leprechauns can be tricky though and they can snap their fingers to get away before the boys catch them.


Needless to say this St. Patrick's day we had to celebrate and try to catch ourselves some leprechauns.  We had meant to go to a nice St. Patty's day parade downtown so we all got dressed in our greens.  Unfortunately we had an accident.  We were only about a half an hour away from leaving and I had just plugged in the flat iron to do my hair.  Right after plugging it in I went into the bedroom to grab some things when I heard Henry cry out.  I ran back into the bathroom to find that he had grabbed the flat iron and burned his fingers.  The poor kid cried for at least an hour.  He wanted to suck his thumb and twist his hair but his injured hand was the one that went into the hair.  Ouch.  He wouldn't let me put anything cold on it either.  He really had a rough time.  At first I didn't think it was that bad but he did end up burning four of his fingers pretty good.  We decided to stay home.  Henry went down for a nap and slept for over three hours.  We spent some time outside in the yard.  A yard with grass, how wonderful!  

 One reason I love this picture of Lincoln is because of the way he counts.  I love when he looks closely to see each finger go up as he counts his five fingers.  He is three years old in this picture so it works for the number of fingers he's holding up.

 Aunt Rachel had some fun cookie cutters to use and the kids were really excited to make some cookies.  They each had turns to cut the shamrock cookies and then we baked them, let them cool and covered them in frosting.  The kids enjoyed the frosting a lot!

  

 Uncle Jared made it home in time to make some cookies.

 Allen Family.

 Yeah Garrett!

Parker helped Uncle Jared with the pizza.  Parker knows how to put the pepperoni's on so that there is a piece without any for Linc.  Parker loves to make the pizza and he does really well when it comes to the decorating part.

 
We had some time to make the trap for the leprechauns.  There were some great tricks that Parker helped us to come up with so that we could try to disable the magical power of the leprechaun.  We used gold glitter to attract the leprechaun and it also had some power to trap him.  Parker also put a pillow (cotton ball) inside so that he couldn't get out.  The big leprechaun hat can be really enticing for a small little man in green.  Jared and Parker built a ladder out of toothpicks so the leprechaun could climb up then once he got on top he would fall into the trap.  Fool proof! Right?

 The boys in green.  By the way Willie was interviewing this day but he did get home late into the night and was able to be there on Saturday for St. Patty's day.  

 The boys woke up and were excited to find gold coins in the hallway from the bedrooms.  They waited very patiently for Tori to wake up when they were allowed to go down the stairs to see if the leprechauns had come.

 Disappointment came when Parker couldn't find a leprechaun.  He was excited though to find that the leprechaun had left some goodies for their attempt at catching him.  He left a little bit of a rainbow and gold for the kids.

 The green in this picture is from the streamers that were by the stairs.

 The kids with their rainbows from the leprechauns.

 Breakfast: green princess waffles.  Yum!

Thank you so much Jared and Rach for letting us come and celebrate St. Patrick's day with you.  We are glad that you were up for some of our craziness.  We had a great time and we were happy to spend a few days with you.  We love you guys!