Catching up - Spring

Wow, it's been 3 months and SOO much has happend. For documenting sake, I am going clear back to April for some highlights. Sorry if this bores anyone.
EASTER: Okay, so I had to put a plug in for decorating eggs with little ones. It was the most nerve racking experience as Mike and I watched quick little fingers and hands moving eggs from one container to the next, with eggs and dye splashing, cracking, and sloshing. We both held our breath and tried to remain as calm as humanly possible. Elsie was especially funny to watch. She really had a blast, and Mike and I are just glad to have a table that still looks like wood.



SOCCER: This was Peter's first year to participate in soccer. He had so much fun and we found out he is a competitive little guy. Peter is small for his age, but he has never seen that as a deterrent, only as opportunity to squeeze through tight places. I could tell when he would get serious about playing because he'd get the "eye of the tiger" look that every parent on the soccer team learned to recognize. When he got that look, we knew he meant business. It was so fun to watch a bunch of 4, 5, and 6 year olds run around in a herd, chasing after a ball. Some players were all about scoring a goal, while others were mostly excited about their uniform. Whatever the motive, the kids were cute! My favorite was when one little boy was playing 'defender' and got so caught up in playing in the net of the goal, that when the ball came his way, his head was stuck in the net and he couldn't get to the ball. They all had their moments. Peter even spent his hard earned money on new cleats. He said they made him run really fast. I was just so proud of him for working hard and sticking with it. Good neighbor family friends came to his last game and took some great pictures.

Do you see him going after the girl almost twice his size? That's my boy! Notice the action shot down below and imagine how fast those cleats are making him run.


CAMP FIRES: So, the snow had mostly melted from the canyons and it was a nice, warm spring day, so Mike and I decided to take the kids up the canyon for a nice dinner of roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. The kids had a blast. We finally had to tell Elsie no more dogs when she reached for her third. We diverted her with some marshmallows instead.


Peter loved helping Dad build the fire. We had a great time and whetted our appetites for a great summer ahead.


SISTER RETREAT!: In April all my sisters and my mom(she's like a sister, right?) escaped our families and met-up in Salt Lake to do some shopping for the weekend! It was a lot of fun, but I don't think it was quite long enough. We had all gotten a little inheritance money from our Grandma who passed away about a year ago. She was a lady for sure and loved jewlery. So, we all decided to get a little "bling" in memory of our Grandma. We all got a ring except Becky. She's the most practical and went for a watch instead. It was a lot of fun to go shopping and actually have some money to spend. We had a blast going from store to store, eating out, checking the church sites out, and bringing up old memories together. My mom went to Spain about a month previous and brought us back all scarves. So here we are in our new fashionable scarves.

Yummmmmm! Here are our slices of cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory. The best food I have tasted in a long, long time! Michelle's smile here represents all of our faces.

We had a fun time perusing temple square together. This was one of the places we had to stop to take a picture.

By the end of the week, we all had some beautiful jewelry to wear! Trust me, this was hard work to find the right piece for everybody! We all had a great time. Thanks Grandma!


ANOTHER BROKEN ARM: Well, almost exactly one year later, Elsie did it again. This time its the other arm. She was trying to climb into a back-pack carrier I had just taken Kimball out of that was on the table. It was quite a fall. Poor girl. We couldn't decide if it was broken or not, but I decided to take her in the next day to make sure. It was a brake all right. They call it a 'buckle fracture' where her two top bones by her wrist compressed rather than broke. I guess this is fairly common among young kids with softer bones.
This is right after she got it put on. Look how nice and clean it is!

The day it was time to take it off, we realized no one had signed it. We all did our token signatures and then took a picture.


When Elsie got her cast off, I was surprised at how little training the doctor had. I don't think he'd taken too many casts off of little arms. It was an awful experience. He only made one cut down the cast, he pried it open and told Elsie to pull her arm out. Well, she tried, but to no avail. She pulled her arm just enough for her skin to raise up into the crack of the cast. The cast started cutting into her arm. Now Mama was helping. I took a hold of that cast and pried it open as much as I could to try to help my little baby. She was whimpering, I was prying, while the doctor was doing who knows what trying to "help". Finally, he gave up and helped me with the prying. When we were both prying as hard as we could I yelled to Elsie, "Now pull!" Elsie quickly responded and pulled her arm free, all scraped up and cut. A couple months later, she still has a little scar from the traumatic event. Hopefully that will be our last cast, at least for a long while.