Happy Easter, Deathly Sick, and Happy Birthday Jelly!

Happy Easter!  I missed last week, and I sure have a great reason!  I got quite sick... but more on that later.  We... well, the rest of the family had a great Easter!  I headed to the grocery store with the kids on Saturday to pick up some things, and while we were there we found this huge Easter bunny display!  Pretty awesome!

We had homemade corndogs for dinner about two weeks ago.  Everyone loved them, and Grayson got his first taste of ketuchup.  He did a good job with dipping his corn dog in, though he mostly dipped his fingers...

One day I came up from work to find everyone exercising together!  It's kind of funny when the girls do the workout videos with us, because they keep making comments about how easy all of the moves are, etc.  I mean, just look at that deep squat Winry is in.  Rough. 

Brooke continues to love to read, and also loves to read to Grayson.  They are so cute together!  Brooke really loves to take care of Grayson.

Brooke has made a few signs recently when she's gotten mad.  It's a bit hard to read, but she wanted to play in the backyard, and ONLY Monica and Grayson were allowed to come out.

Grayson was playing with various toys throughout the week, and really enjoyed this stuffed cat we have with a really long tail.  The tail trailed out between his legs while he crawled around.  I took Grayson to Costco with me on Friday night to pick up pizza for dinner.  I guess whole pizzas go in a different queue and take longer, so we did a little walking around the store and found a really great chair that Grayson loved!

I caught Jelly getting playful with the corner of the rug.  It was out of nowhere, but there she was, getting her claw stuck in the corner of the rug.

Easter was a lot of fun for us (or some of us).  On Saturday, once we got back with the white eggs we of course got to dye them!  The girls had a lot of fun, and we made it through all the eggs pretty quickly.

On Easter morning the girls were excited to see what was in their Easter baskets, and then to go hunt for eggs.  We had eggs outside to go hunt for, and there was even a HUGE egg with a gallon of bubbles in it!  Easter bunny, you outdid yourself this time!  Also, Grayson didn't have shoes on, so I couldn't set him down to walk around.

Winry got a bubble machine in her Easter basket, and she and Grayson LOVE to play in the bubbles!  It blows a LOT of bubbles, so it's a good thing we got that back-up gallon of bubbles.

Monica had been sick on Thursday-Saturday and was just starting to feel better on Sunday.  Brooke had a fever and started getting sick on Saturday, so on Sunday morning I took Winry and Grayson to church.  Monica probably could have taken them instead, but she wasn't 100%, so I did.  Here's Winry dressed for church in her Easter hat!

The primary got to go up and sing for Easter!  That's the other reason I went, Monica doesn't sneak pictures like this.  It was great to get to see Winry sing, and I was feeding Grayson snacks through 45 minutes of sacrament meeting to get to this point so we could see her.  When Winry went up I stood Grayson on the bench and pointed her out to him and told him she was going to sing.  When I said this, Grayson turned to the people behind us and started singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" to them!

I spent the rest of church walking the halls and church grounds with Grayson.  He's been getting all 4 canines right now, and he always gets a runny nose with teeth, so I figured I shouldn't put him into nursery with a crazy runny nose, it'd just look bad.  While we wandered the halls I also saw this sign on the drinking fountain, which I thought was really funny.  Also, while I was at church... I got sick.  Oh yeah, while we were there I could just feel fatigue and body aches coming on.  We tried to avoid people while we walked around.

On Monday Winry went to preschool.  They made little planter pictures with bean seeds in them.  Winry's is the one colored blue.  She loves her preschool, and I love it because she's having such a good time!

Meanwhile, at home, this was my state.  Oh my was this a sickness!  Sunday I got pretty tired, etc. but Monday was the day it really hit.  The two key symptoms of this sickness would be body aches, and inescapable cold.  I took medicine before bed Sunday night, but woke up in the middle of the night FREEZING!  I tried to go back to sleep for like 45 minutes before I woke Monica up to ask her to get my jacket and some medicine.  I put my jacket on (it's also my winter coat, it's very warm), took some medicine and went back to sleep.  I woke up about 30 minutes later BURNING alive and sweating like crazy, so off with the jacket, etc.  

In my dreams that night, before I woke up I had been singing "Gethsemane" on repeat.  That's the song Winry sang in church.  When I woke up it was still in my head, and I sang it for most of the 45 minutes I was awake.  While I was laying there awake I thought about the atonement, and how Christ had suffered everything we do.  I thought of how terrible I felt, cold and aching, and how Christ had suffered that, and everything else anyone has gone through.  If I had magically been able to feel better for a few moments it probably would have been very profound, but as it is it's a very good moment to reflect on.

Monday morning I felt okay but still sick, but by around noon I was so tired I just had to go to sleep.  I went to sleep in my jacket and blankets, as you can see below.  Thanks Monica for the picture!  I woke up from my nap freezing (medicine wore off) and a fever of like 102.7.  Medicine quickly dropped my fever, which ironically made me feel burning hot in all those layers.  By the time I was done with my nap, I needed a shower!  I don't know what was going on, but this sickness was super rough!  While I was sick I was thinking about this being my "once a decade" sickness.  I can distinctly remember A time getting sick in the 2010's and the 2000's (appendectomy in Mongolia), and hopefully this will be the worst sickness of the 2020's.

Jelly's birthday was on the 18th, and she turned 5.  We all sang happy birthday to her and gave her treats.  I don't know if any of use realized it was her birthday until Monica did on the 18th, so we weren't very prepared...

Grayson still climbs onto the chairs sometimes.  He had his snack sitting up on a chair once recently.  This still isn't common, but at least he doesn't always have to be tied down to be safe.

Grayson loves to climb onto the coffee table and sit on the window sill.  It's just a perfect little seat for him.  He climbed up there this morning even.  I was doing something in the kitchen, and I looked up and he was just sitting there watching me!

Today was Grayson's first day in nursery alone!  He crossed 18 months this past week.  Oh my the feels today.  It was a bit crazy to lose my church buddy.  I was thinking about it today while he was in there.  I spent the first long time of his life holding him and pacing the primary room to get him to take a nap.  I'd go to the primary room so I could turn on the chapel audio and listen to sacrament meeting still.  And there we'd be, pacing and falling asleep.  I don't miss my back aching after holding him for an hour and a half, but we still had a good time together.  Once his nap phase ended we started exploring, and Grayson is an outside explorer.  I've spent quite a bit of church wandering the parking lot and touching the trees around the church building.  It was kind of crazy to just sit in church, listening to the lesson.  It's basically the first time in 18 months.  I've even taught Elder's Quorum while holding Grayson!  I went to check on Grayson part way through church, and he was doing superb!  When I came to pick him up they were all playing Ring Around the Rosie, and his back was to me in the circle, but he seemed to be having fun.

Well, I think that's everything I've got for now.  It's nice to be caught up!  Looking back, my oh my there was NO WAY I was going to write this last week.  It was such a day, but I'm glad to be feeling better now!  Have a wonderful week ahead!

Grayson the Climber

Oh boy Grayson... He's started climbing more.  If we leave the chairs away from the table he'll climb right on them and head up for the table.  So now we've gotta keep the chairs tucked in so he doesn't get up.  However, he did one time still try to get up on the chairs.  He climbed on the wood chair on the right, and was trying to crawl across the chairs, however once his knees were in between chairs his progress stopped.  While I was grabbing a picture he looked over at me and started saying "stuck" which is when I realized he crawled his knees in between the seats and couldn't keep moving.

Winry got a fever for a few days this past week.  She didn't have any other symptoms, just a fever for a little.  That means we got the thermometer back out to Grayson's delight.

The kids continue to enjoy dancing, and recently love It's Raining Tacos.

We've gotten some Easter things out, and the kids have enjoyed playing with the Easter baskets.  They apparently make decent hats, and then Winry and Grayson took laps around the table.  

Wednesday night I headed over to Joe's house for some golf.  I took my Optishot with me, and Joe, Forrest and I played the Master's course.  It's only available for the week of the tournament, and we had a great time!

Brooke and Winry found a new love, goldfish stuffed in a raspberry.

On Saturday our ward had an Easter egg hunt.  All the kids had a super great time.  There were some snacks and crafts, and then the egg hunt.  I went around with Grayson holding his bag, and after the eggs were all picked up, I started tossing his eggs out in front of him so he could keep "finding" them.  Also, they said all the kids could take 12, and Winry counted her own and ended up with 7 :).  The weather has also been decently warm, so we've been playing outside a lot.  Grayson really loves our little pine tree that's growing in the backyard, and he was nurturing it with a stick!

Grayson has been having a hard time staying in the building at church lately.  I kept him in until after the sacrament, but then I let him out.  We wandered around the back of the building, and while we were out, we came across a woodpecker on the street lights.  We followed it around, and whenever we got to a light it would fly to the next one.  Grayson enjoyed it for quite a while.

That's everything for this week.  It was a bit short, but it was a bunch of fun.

Go Griffins!

Hello!  We made an emergency vacation run to Colorado Springs on Friday, and had a chance to go hike around Garden of the Gods!  We had a bunch of fun, and there were a lot of deer there too.  These deer are "far" from the path.  There was another spot (without a fence) where the deer were literally standing adjacent to the path eating some plants, so that's about as close as you can get.  It was fun, and the kinds enjoyed climbing around on the rocks.  Also, somehow when we took this picture I did NOT notice those poses, but they are amazing!  Thanks kids!

I came up from work one morning to find Brooke sitting on the couch reading a chapter book!  She REALLY likes these Magic Treehouse books.  Her dance studio put in one of those little library book swap things, and she saw it there.  I'm still not used to her being able to read so well.

On Friday Brooke had school in the morning (as opposed to afternoon kindergarten) because it was their Spanish cultural day and all the kindergarteners were performing together.  Brooke did great, and she even ended up in the front row!  It was a lot of fun to watch her sing.

Grayson managed to get his hands on a tissue box...  This shouldn't be too surprising, as one of the highlights of his birthday was getting a roll of toilet paper and getting to unroll it, twice!  He's a little trouble maker!  Also, I don't have a picture to go with the video, but I was playing with Jelly with the laser pointer, and Grayson decided he wanted to grab it himself!  I believe he's only chased the laser this once, but now he laughs really hard when Jelly chases it around.

The great thing about Brooke having a single day of morning kindergarten is that we could escape Friday afternoon to Colorado Springs.  Why was it so important to make it Friday afternoon?  Because Niki was coaching a lacrosse game there!  The kids made it through the game alright, but it was all worth the wait when we got to see Niki afterward!

After the lacrosse game we headed to Garden of the Gods.  The kids really enjoyed climbing around, though I did have to be extra observant of Grayson.  He was definitely willing to try climbing around, for better or worse.  Fortunately he never fell.

I climbed up on a wall and asked Monica to take a picture from down low so it would look like I was up high.  In the end I feel like it looks like I grabbed the wall and lifted up my feet... which is exactly what happened...  I think the picture's funny, so it still made the cut.

Since Grayson seemed to have some climb in him, I put him up high on a ledge that I saw.  He was alright with it for a little bit, but I think he got a little nervous being that high up after a minute or two.

After Garden of the Gods, we went out to dinner, and then to the hotel room.  We could have just driven home and been fine, but the girls LOVE staying in hotels, so honestly, a big part of coming on this trip was to stay in a hotel.  We've been to this one before, so we picked it again cause we knew it fit everyone well.  Here are the girls sleeping.  Brooke came in after a little to tell me the mattress was too uncomfortable, so I put the couch cushions on top of it, and she said that was great!  Also, we put Grayson's pack n' play in the closet, and I wish I took a picture of that...

Grayson slept REALLY great in the closet.  He slept in till 8 if I'm remembering correctly.  He was very happy the next morning, and was also excited to run around with his "ganky."  We actually have two videos, but the first one didn't turn out quite as well because he found Brooke's water cup from dinner the night before and HAD to steal the straw...

The kids wanted to watch a little TV in the morning, so we let them while we were getting things ready to leave.  They seem to be enjoying Sponge Bob.

Niki's team had a game in Colorado Springs on Friday and another on Sunday in north Denver, so of course they stopped in Parker for lunch on the way up!  We met Niki for lunch and had a great time.

I got out my golf sim on Saturday night to play Valero with the tour.  Jelly saw her number 1 enemy, my golf net, and got straight to work.  I wonder if she'll ever get over this.  As it is, I always have to close her in my room when I want to play.

I think I mentioned Monica getting plants ready for the garden, but I'm not sure.  Here's our indoor setup, with seeding trays and grow lights.  Things are going GREAT right now.  I'll have to get an updated picture for next week, but there's something growing in almost every spot now, and some of them are pretty big too.  The biggest challenge currently is keeping Jelly and Grayson out of it.  Grayson has pulled one plant already (but we think there's multiple seeds in that one, so should be okay hopefully), and last year Jelly ate ALL of the plants when they sprouted.  Hence the lids on the side, and we now have a box taped to the short side as well to keep everyone out.

Of course, is as tradition around here, we had cinnamon rolls with conference!  I sure do love our semi-annual cinnamon rolls!

That's all I've got for this week.  Hopefully I don't forget to write again this Sunday, but better late than never!  Have a great few days.