Knock Knock

Brinley has learned how to tell Knock Knock jokes. She made this one up. I know, I know- could she be any more cute??

Jack likes a good knock knock joke too (ok he likes them even if they aren't good)

Spring Break

Friday night the 12th we took the kids out on a date celebrate our anniversary. We went to Texas Roadhouse. They could not get over the whole dropping peanut shells on the floor thing. Jack doesn't like peanuts but he sure enjoyed shelling some for the rest of us. Saturday we wanted to go into Houston to just see what we could see. We ended up at the Houston Rodeo without the camera. This picture of Jack sums up our experience... Hot!!! and sunburned! We had a good time anyway. We vow to return next year and actually see the rodeo and not all the rides. It is really neat that they do a rodeo and a concert each night. Your ticket for the rodeo is good for the concert too. Brad Paisley, Rascal Flatts, Keith Urban, Lady Antebellum, Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw... some really big names. We're excited to go again next year.
We had some really grand plans for Spring Break this year. We were planning 5 days of new adventures. Well... Monday we spent the morning working out a new chore and zone chart for our new house. And the afternoon we spent here

Brinley, Jack and I went to this park with our ward playgroup a couple of weeks ago and as we were driving Jack said, "It's like we are going camping or hiking." There are so many wooded areas here it's beautiful. They clear the forest to build a park. There are a couple of places where you can fish and trails you can walk on. The kids wanted to look for treasures and we found this

I should have taken a picture of the sign 20 feet further down the trail that said "No Horses".

We had a great time!

Tuesday Brinley woke up and threw up once so we stayed in and waited to see if she was really "sick" or just gagged on her fingers! Kayla wasn't feeling too great either so Redboxed a movie and had a picnic in the family room for dinner and pretended we were at the drive in.

Wednesday Kayla woke with a fever and feeling pretty achy. She took some ibuprofen and felt great by 11:00 so we braved the TRAFFIC and met Lars for lunch and Murphy's deli. It was delicious and fun for the kids to see where daddy works. By the time we got home we were all pretty worn out. Kayla started to spike a fever to 102 at about 6:00pm. Again we gave her ibuprofen and she slept great but woke Thursday with a terrible sore throat. Took her to the Minute Clinic at CVS. + Strep Throat and terrible allergies. Henry started the same thing by about 4:00pm on Thursday. I called my bro. in law (the Dr.) and he saved me the $50.00 copay and called Henry in a script.

Saturday I spent the morning at CVS with Jack crossing my fingers that it was only Strep for him. Yep! Thankfully it was only strep. The Dr was so nice at the clinic she swabbed Brinley's throat for free and she had strep too (we found out that one of the symptoms of strep in little kids is vomiting... hmm). We are so ready for that new insurance to start in a week! $15.00 copays here we come!!

Sunday we went to church and stayed just for Sacrament meeting since Jack and Brinley were technically still contagious. We went to bed early so we could get a good start on the week!

CUTE!!

Henry just came in from playing outside singing, "First is the worst, second the best, third is the one with the hairiest chest!" He makes me laugh and pull my hair out at the same time!!

Anniversary

I was thinking that I wanted to post some pictures from our wedding to celebrate the 10 years of marriage but that was pre digital age in photos so I just took some pictures of the pictures. Enjoy. ( I enjoyed looking back at them.) I mixed in some pictures from our last Sunday in Las Vegas.

These are the doors we came out of after the ceremony.


Apparently I thought something was pretty funny - maybe that zit on Lars' forehead... I remember waking up on the day of the wedding and running to the mirror - NO PIMPLES!!! Then when Lars came to pick me up and I saw that thing on his forehead... all I could think was, "Better you than me!!"

10 Years and Going Strong!!

We took this picture our last Sunday in Las Vegas at the Temple.Lars and I celebrated our 10th anniverisary on March 11th. Since we are still in the trenches of little kids and young family it isn't always easy to go out to celebrate so a few years ago we started celebrating our anniverisary with the kids as a birthday for our family. We had a special candelight dinner of chicken and rice, steamed asparagus, wedge salad and Shipley's donuts for dessert. We took a drive to the Houston Temple afterwards.

I love this picture because it shows all the personalities of our kids... Henry pushed Jack so Jack yanked him back and lost his balance so he grabbed Brinley who in turn grabbed him back and Kayla is posing.

Backyard

These poor kids have been confined to a little tiny backyard for way too long... They are loving this backyard. They are working on soccer skills, basketball skills, tag,.....

Lars very willingly bought a lawnmower last week and put it together in the garage while the rain poured down outside. He was pretty bummed about not getting to use his new "power tool". He will have plenty of opportunities this summer!!

Brinley was the first to find one of many ant hills in our backyard. OUCH!!! She had over 20 bites on her hand and arm. Thankfully Lars saved her before more damage could be done. Needless to say I'm pretty good friends with Eduardo, our pest control guy. He already been here twice in the last 2 weeks and I think they are finally on the way out. I can't get the pictures and words to load right so good luck figuring this post out!!

My Favorite Thing Today...

Kayla and Henry started school last Thursday and they LOVE it!! Henry goes to all day kindergarten and Kayla is in 3rd grade. The program for the school district is a split schedule for 3rd, 4th and 5th grade. Kayla has 1 teacher for Language Arts and Reading and another for Math and Science. She is lovin' it!! They are a little bit ahead of what she learned in Las Vegas but that gives me a chance to work with her and help her. I'm lovin' that!! Henry loves the independence of the bus and lunch at school. Kayla was really worried about Henry the first day because she was a little late to get to the bus. When she got on, there was Henry already sitting there waiting for her. It's good for a big sister to be impressed with her little bro. sometimes.

Soooo my favorite thing today is the school bus! It picks the kids up right in front of the house. I know you carpool moms are absolutely DROOLING!! (If I had known such a thing existed I would have been!!)

We are loving our new house. I wasn't really sure what to do with a "gameroom" but now I know. It's like a second family room. The kids were upstairs playing in the gameroom last night and Lars and I were having a conversation downstairs... and we could actually hear each other. New concept for us.

Our neighbors are great. Because Henry likes to kick and throw balls over the fence we have gotten to know our next door neighbor pretty well. He finally told Henry, "You just go in the back yard and get the ball anytime you need to". He's been really great.

Our ward is great... I think. I've spent the last 2 Sundays with Brinley in the nursery. Get this... Her nursery teachers are both men and they are GREAT!! I think next week she will be ready to go solo! The kids love their teachers but really miss their Las Vegas teachers too.

More updates later - I only have about a dozen boxes left to unpack!!

We Made IT!!!

Just a quick note to let everyone know we made it to Spring, Texas!! We had a great road trip and arrived last Saturday. Here are some photos of our last days in Las Vegas. We took a trip to the Las Vegas Temple on our last Sunday, I'll post those pictures later.

The Chapins came over on Tuesday night for a final goodbye. They brought us donuts and chocolate milk - our favorite!! The first person I met at church on Sunday was from Washington state. I thought, "I can survive here! I've got a friend from Washington here too!"

We couldn't have pulled off leaving when we did if it wasn't for my sister Annalee and Lars' dad there to help us on Wednesday morning. Thanks for everything!!

Technically this was the last day of our trip - we stopped and stayed with the Rabners in Dallas. It was so good to see them. We spent maybe 12 hours there but it was time well spent. Miss you guys!!