Happy Easter

We went to the park where the Fire Department had an Easter Egg "hunt" for the community. Rylee was up all night with a fever and runny nose so I wasn't sure if I should make her go and play or not. I figured we would have to wait a whole another year so might as well try. They had the 0-2 year olds in the tennis court and just had a whole bunch of eggs laid out and every one circled them. When the siren sounded the kids could go pick them up. I had BJ grab Rylee and put her right in the middle so she could pick them up without having to fight the other kids. We were the only smart ones so Rylee had her choice of what to pick up. We only got about 10 or so but we didn't help pick them up like some of the other parents. Rylee had more fun sitting and opening each egg and seeing what was inside. The fire department used some pretty sweet candy. Better then the stuff we bought. It lasted about 5 minutes but she really enjoyed it.

 I remembered that  Barnes and Noble was having story time so I thought that could be fun. Since the weather has been amazing with the sun shinning and in the 60's we rode our bikes to the mall. It was about half a mile ride. They took forever to start and when the lady showed up she had a really boring book and Rylee wasn't interested. We colored a picture while she read the book then she got more candy.

 The Easter bunny gave Rylee a Bubble gun and water guns. She had a blast and went through all the bubbles already. The Easter bunny didn't get the memo to buy the big refill bottle too. Rylee loved getting a purple basket. The night before I told her all about the Easter Bunny and how he might bring fun toys. She was so excited. When she woke up I asked if the Easter Bunny came. She ran to the window and looked to see if he was there. I told her to look on the table and when she pulled down her basket she shouted "FUN TOYS!" She sat and opened all the eggs and was excited to see fun orange colored juice. She has yet to stop talking about him and what he brought her. We have filled the eggs up several times just so she can open them. She is walking around with the basket still talking about how nice the Easter Bunny is.

Matt, Camille, and Lilly came down and we went to Red Robin for dinner. We are obessed with Red Robin. We split a Royal Red Burger (has a fried egg on it) get endless fries with campfire sauce and ranch and endless root beer floats all for $14. We love it. We introduced it to Matt and Camille then headed back to our house to let the kids pick up Easter Eggs again and Dye them. Lilly is just crawling and wasn't too into picking up the eggs so Rylee showed her how it was done.

Kerri told me to use the muffin tins to boil the eggs and dye them. She said they don't crack in the oven but 5 of ours cracked. I didn't mind since we were using food coloring. The muffin tins work great!! No one spilled other than a few drips here and there. Rylee is really into colors and had fun watching the egg go from white to a color then to brown. She just wanted to keep putting them in the colors and since they were for her I let do what ever she she wanted. We ended up with camo eggs. The down side to muffin tins are colored fingers. Rylee's were brown and so were her arms from drips when she held it up to show everyone. Since she is sick and can't go to nursery I figured it didn't matter. Kerri said her hands were only dyed for a day or so. After bath time though it was all gone. I was super surprised.

BJ got a four wheeler with his truck and he and Matt spent the day getting it to turn on. They finally got it up and going and had some fun riding it around the yard. Rylee had a blast riding with her Daddy. Camille, Lilly, and I stayed inside and sorted through all of Rylee's clothes and finding the baby stuff.


It was one of the best days we have had in awhile. BJ pointed out how nice it was to have me home on a Saturday. For the last year all of my Saturdays have been spent at the hospital and when I had time off it was snowing outside so we couldn't really play.

I'm glad we did all of our Easter fun stuff on Saturday so that today we can have a normal Sunday and color the picture of Christ next to the tomb and be more focused on Him then the Bunny. Holidays are a blast with a kid. I can't even remembered what we did last Easter.

And of course it isn't Easter Sunday without a new Easter dress. Thanks Grandma She loves it so much I can't get her to stand still enough for a decent picture!

Gender Reveal Party

 The new hip thing is to have a gender reveal party. I thought it would be fun to announce the gender in a fun way but with family living far away that could be expensive so I asked some friends if they wanted to do a party. A mutual friend of NaElle and I is only one week behind me and they found out the gender the same day I did. So we combined our news and got together on Sunday.

I have been dying for something char-broiled and Cody got a smoker for Christmas so I bought ribs for him to smoke. We told our ward we would teach primary one more time and since we already moved wouldn't be able to make dinner so we all had ribs and mashed potatoes. They were so yummy!

Sarah and Alex brought cupcakes with filling inside and one of them had the color of the gender. We brought a pinata with candy the color of the gender. First we ate dinner. Then we all picked what we thought we were having. I made bow ties and bows and you had to wear what you thought the genders were. Then we put a bunch of Old wives tales to the test. We tried them all out to see what they all said the gender was. Then we ate the cupcakes and hit the pinata. Such a fun night and it was on St. Patrick's day!

 I cut the meat off for Rylee thinking she wouldn't want to eat it off the bone. I was helping BJ with his meat since he had surgery on his lip and needed the meat cut off too when I turned around and saw her going to town on one of the ribs. She loved it! She even ate most of the left overs the next morning.  She loves meat.

 Sarah, Alex, Eli (their son), NaElle, Cody, Crue (their son was sleeping) working on the cupcake to see who had the one revealing cupcake.

 Matt, Camille, Lilly (their daughter), BJ working on their cupcakes.

 Sarah, and Jayze (NaElles brother and sister in law who is 14 weeks pregnant) working on theirs.

Rylee stole BJ's but Cody was the winner. It was filled with pink! They are having a girl! It was so fun to find out that way. The majority of wives tales said boy for her so she got a big kick out of it.

 We pulled our Mexican side out and bought a pinata. Who doesn't love a pinata??

 

I have a video of Rylee going to town on it. She laughed so hard. She would hit it and laugh and hit it again. She had a blast. We let her have at it for awhile before we let the adults break it. She thought it was the best thing ever. We will for sure do it again for her birthday!! 

 

  

Everyone was too cool to try so we had NaElle step up. Cody was in charge of pulling it out of the way so it took a few hits before she broke it open. Rylee was so astonished that she broke it. She said the rest of the night, "NaElle broke the colors!!" She kept looking at NaElle and saying that. It took a while to convince her that she was suppose to break it. 

 All the adults waiting to see the color of the candy. Rylee as the only kid old enough to hit the pinata.

 It's a BOY!!!!

Thanks Winco for having all Easter candy so we could have baby blue candy!

 

They might be too cool to hit the pinata but not too cool to collect the candy!

  

Rylee of course only grabbed one candy. She picked up 3 in total. We need to work on that.

 We spent the rest of the night just playing. Rylee took pictures of Daddy being silly

 And Uncle Matt being silly.

 It was fun to see the kids finally playing together. Rylee is the oldest and biggest but she still had fun.

 I love that everyone had green on. Great day to have a party. It was a blast. I think the gender reveal party really is a fun way to tell everyone.

Beating Records

Our fastest move was last year when we lived in a little house for 2 months before we found our last rental that I loved. This time we lived here 3 weeks. What I can say, we are awesome.

Once we finally got most of our living stuff into the house I really thought I could make it work. BJ was upset with lots of things from the start of our first night here but I thought I could deal with it. The space for the price just really can't be beat. I love big living areas, kitchens, rooms, and having tons of storage. Of course there are things about each place you live that you wish you could change, a layout, cabinets, flooring, but those are things you can live with.

Things you can't live with.... Smoking neighbors, animals, leaking pipes, landlords that don't care.

All of it I was dealing with, the stupid pig, the rude neighbor that took 2 weeks to get his stuff out of our garage, the not so nice but safe enough neighborhood, the bathroom upstairs while my bed was downstairs, I was dealing with it and making it work.

Then last week hit.

Worst week of the semester. I have competency on Tuesday which is THE most stressful test/experience of each semester. I was trying to finish cleaning our other place to be done there. I'm um 20 weeks pregnant, BJ is in school full time, I have an almost 2 year old. All of my stuff is 3/4 packed and trying to find everything I need. Then our living room starts to fill with smoke. I was so lightheaded that I could barely think. As I was sweeping I realized I was sweeping up kitty litter from the doorway that connects our places. I go to get dressed downstairs and it is leaking all over the boxes that hold very important documents. I had to hurry and rearrange the boxes to stay out of the water. BJ looks at it and sees water is leaking from the floor boards and an old pipe in 2 places.

That day we drove around looking for other rentals.

I really didn't want to move so I thought maybe I could make even all of that work. Then I woke up sore from cleaning tubs and floors and Rylee and I were playing when we smell smoke so we descend to the basement where it smell even worse! There was no escaping it. So we thought we would go to the park since its been 60 out. I thought I'd take the trash with me but didn't want to fight the pig so I figured I would just drive to it through the alley. As I pull up to our trash can the neighbors behind us have 2 huge dogs that were trying to jump the fence to eat me alive. I was so scared I almost didn't get out of my car. I then drove to the other side of town and looked for a place to rent.

I knew I couldn't handle living here anymore. It wasn't worth the savings and space to deal with other crap. The stupid pig guy yelled at me to be nice to pig. The landlord doesn't care that the pig is destroying his house. I'm done.

Luckily I found a very cute and cozy house in a great neighborhood.

I'm so glad BJ and I are good people. We have never been turned away from somewhere we want to rent. Out of all the applications people get we always get the call saying we can have the place. I didn't realize how great of a trait that was until I met up with Hal our new landlord.

I spent an hour just talking to him about his life and kids and when BJ came to look at the place he said he wasn't even going to call and check up on us and even turned down 4 people that day because he was hoping we would rent from him.

It's more money, and smaller, a bigger yard to BJ to care for but so worth it!

We will be in a house and no neighbors sharing any wall with us. We are a block from Church and the park. The neighbors all have kids that go outside and play. It is a 3 bedroom one story. It is right by the mall and walking distance for me and Rylee. The house has all brand new appliances and carpet. It has FANS in every room!!!!!! No garage but a carport and a brand new shed in the back yard. Plus the land lord is so nice. He even said he would ask around to see if he could help BJ find an internship.

I'm not looking forward to moving again in less than a month but I think its best.