Here Comes the Sun

I hesitate to say it, but I think spring is here for good! We've been to the park almost every other day for about a week or two - the kids LOVE it! Ava especially, since this is her first spring to be able to swing in the swings. She can't get enough of them!

Here she's sad because I won't push her anymore...

She got over it, though, and started to play on the bigger swings by herself:

And now exploring the jungle gym:

This is Cole and his buddy, Isaac. Don't they almost look like twins?

Darling Daisies

My dad is so cute. He was at the mall with Madeline and saw the most adorable dresses that he just HAD to buy for my girls. He ended up buying Claire three other outfits because he thought she'd look so cute in them that he couldn't help himself. He bought Cole some pjs, too, but we all know that boys aren't nearly as fun as girls are to shop for! My mom said that my dad is the grandma I always wished she was (because she hates to shop!). I thought it was so sweet of him to think of them. He's such a great dad and grandpa.

So, of course I had to take some pictures of my girls in their dresses together. Here they are.

Rocky Mountain Fever

I got to go spend last weekend in Denver with my bestest friend, Shannon! It was SO much fun! Grant was so sweet and let me take a much-needed trip. I had such a blast, although it made me miss Shannon even more. I took Ava along with me since she didn't cost anything and since the Dickmans had never met here and most especially since I don't think Grant would have been as willing to let me go if I had left her with him! He was so great to take care of Claire and Cole while I was gone, though, shuttling them to school, babysitters - he was Mr. Mom! He took Friday off of work to stay home and have fun with them, too, so it was kind of a vacation for him as well.

So, my initial flight out of Milwaukee was delayed four hours, but my ride had already left by the time I found this out so Ava and I camped out at the airport. It was actually not as horrible of an experience as I anticipated. Ava thought running around the terminal was the funnest thing in the world, so I just read magazines while she played. By the time we got on the plane, though, she was so tired that I couldn't get her to sleep and she screamed most of the flight. We survived, however, and landed in...ATLANTA. Why in the world was I flying through Atlanta to get to Denver? My husband's question was why in the world hadn't I noticed that when I bought the ticket? I hadn't even checked where I was flying through, I'd just bought the cheapest ticket. I'll never do THAT again! The flight from Atlanta took over 3 hours! And I had a lap child who REALLY did not want to stay in my lap! Luckily, though, we found a seat that didn't have anyone next to it and Ava was so sleepy by that point (I'd also given her some Benadryl, just to make sure) that she just curled up on the seat next to me and fell asleep. So, it wasn't as bad as it could've been. We got to Denver, though, at 11 pm, which was midnight our time and we'd gotten to the airport in Milwaukee at noon. So we'd basically been traveling (or trying to) for 12 hours. Let's just say that both of us were ready to crash that night.

The Dickmans' home was SO beautiful. If I didn't know we were buying a new home I would've been so jealous that my skin probably would've literally turned green. And Denver was such a fun city - so sunny, I loved it. We had lots of fun. We got our nails done, went to a movie, a ward party, went shopping (at Sports Authority - Tim gets a great deal there!), went downtown and hung out with some of the Dickmans' awesome neighbors. It was really fun to get to know Shannon's new friends. Now I can know the people she talks to me about. It was weird to hang out with her in a different city and a different house. It was a little twilight-zonish at first. It also REALLY made me sad to be with her kids without my kids there to play with them. Our kids used to do absolutely everything together (because Shannon and I did everything together and drug them around with us!) and they were almost like siblings. It made me sad that they weren't all together again and to know that their memories of each other were fuzzy. We're definitely going to have to do some family vacations together.

Now, I know this is a shock to everyone, but we did take lots of pictures. Thanks to Tim we were able to get a lot of fun ones together. Here's some of my favorites:

I love this one:
We took some fun ones of each other, too: In these next ones we were trying to turn our heads and get our hair flying in a "sexy, tousled" look. Not sure we succeeded.

And then these are some pictures of Ava from the trip:

Porter was trying to give her a kiss in this next one:

I had SO much fun. The weekend ended way too soon. Shannon and I cried and cried at the airport. I finally had to tell myself to stop while I was waiting in the check-in line because people were starting to stare at me. Shannon and I both ended up calling our husbands bawling and they then called each other to laugh at their wives. Thanks for the sympathy, guys! It kills me to think that we probably will never be able to hang out every day with each other and our kids and eat cereal all day off the floor and surf the internet and work on pictures or on our business or watch Gilmore Girls. Those were the days...

I love you Shannon! Thanks for being such an awesome friend!

WE SOLD OUR HOUSE!

I know, most of you didn't even know we were trying to sell our house. We were kinda keeping it on the down-low and then we had some friends in our ward that had some friends who are moving out here in June. They came out for a week to look at houses and ended up buying ours! We didn't even have to put it on the market or anything. We feel so blessed, especially in this market. There are 8 houses for sale on our street and we know many families in our ward who are trying to sell their homes, too, so we cannot be more thankful. We are planning on buying a new home around here, probably in Germantown for those who are familiar with the area. I can't wait to have a new home that is bigger and newer! Yay! I'll keep you posted as our house hunt progresses...

Premier Avril

I was gone last night to a photography convention (which wasn't as good as I'd hoped), so this morning Claire told me to check in her backpack, which I hadn't done last night since I was gone. In it I found a typed note from the principal that said basically that due to all of the rain we've been having lately there has been a spider problem in the school and while most were not dangerous, they had found 12 black widows in the main bathroom so school was canceled so they could spray for spiders. I came in to the kitchen where Claire was eating her cereal and said she didn't have school today. She smiled big at me, so I asked her if she knew that's what the note had said. She just kept smiling. Then Grant read it while Cole was trying to convince me that he shouldn't have to go to preschool if Claire was going to stay home. Grant told me I should call Martha Taylor, the girl I carpool with, to make sure she got the note. So, I did, which was good because she hadn't gotten the note since she hadn't looked in her son's backpack either. She was in the middle of telling me that she was relieved since they were running really late this morning when Grant and Claire yelled, "April Fools!" They totally got me. And, as a result, got Martha, too. My two little conspirators were delighted to no end that I had fallen hook, line and sinker. They had planned it all during Family Night last night, the little stinkers! I wish I could come up with something clever to do to them, but I'm never good at those things. Anyone have any good April Fool's jokes they've pulled off or had pulled off on them?

Eggs-celent Day

Happy Easter! We had a great day full of easter-egg hunting (in the house of course since there's a freakin' foot of snow outside!!!!!) and TONS of candy! Every single year, Grant is appalled at how much candy the kids have. My family always sends some candy, and then two of our neighbors give the kids full-on Easter buckets filled with candy, and then of course "the Easter Bunny" (wink, wink) brings candy. Every year Grant acts like he's never seen so much candy in his life. I've seen his dad act the exact same way, so I think it's a learned reaction that will continue every year the rest of our marriage no matter the actual sugar quantity (he does the same thing every Christmas, too). Then, we went to church for our Easter program. It was great, although the best part, as usual, was when the Primary sang. You know how there's always a memorable kid when the Primary sings, one who everyone is laughing at and then talking about the rest of the day? Well, this time that was my son. This was his first time to go up with the Primary to sing and you'd think he would have been shy or at least try to blend in a little. Oh, no, not Cole. He screamed the entire song at the top of his lungs. When I say at the top of his lungs, I mean the top of his lungs. "DID JESUS REALLY LIVE AGAIN, YES WHEN THE THIRD DAY CAAAAAAME!!!!!!!!" He was louder than all of the other 50 kids combined. He was yelling so loudly that his face was turning red. And his facial expressions were top-notch, too. Eyes big, head tilted, mouth wide. The congregation could not have been more delighted. There wasn't a dry eye in the room. I would give anything to have been able to videorecord his little performance since words do not do it justice. The best part is that everyone in the audience thought that he was just innocently singing his little heart out, which I'm sure added to the charm. Only Grant and I knew that he was singing like that to deliberately stick it to me. I was the one who conducted the kids and when we were practicing the week before I had talked to them about singing loudly, but making sure they didn't scream. So, during practice all Cole did was scream. I talked to him about it that day and I talked to him about it during the week, trying to get him not to scream. I thought our little discussions might have worked, but nope. Cole had to show me who was boss. Oh, well. At least it was entertaining. One more element I forgot to mention was that standing next to Cole was Claire, who was crying the whole time. She had thought she was going to stand by me when they were singing and so she cried the whole time because she couldn't. So, you have my one child screaming his lungs out and next to him was my other child bawling her eyes out. I'm sure everyone thinks we're quite the melodramatic family. It made for a very memorable Easter for us, at least!

Grant is being "the bunny monster"

The only bad part of our Easter, the snow:

Or Not...

Ok, so forget about seeing grass. We just got about a foot of snow during one of the worst snow storms of the season on Friday. WISCONSIN WINTERS BITE!!!!!!!!!

Our Little Ava LuLu

I have a few videos of my sweet little girl that I need to post, especially for my family. The first one is of her throwing and running after a ball. The second one is of Grant reading her a board book with flaps - her favorite. The last two are of her saying "hi." Enjoy!

Let There Be Grass...

Yes, we've seen the first sightings of what we seem to remember is called "grass." It's brown and mushy, but hey at least it's not dirty white snow. Cole pointed out the window of the car the other day and shouted in amazement, "Mom! Look!" I couldn't tell what he was talking about until he finally said, "I see grass!" Yes, that's how long it has been since we've seen grass - it was as exciting to my son as if a dinosaur was stomping around outside or a bulldozer was tearing down our house. We definitely all have spring fever. Saturday was sunny - it was still only at most 40 degrees outside, but it felt practically balmy to us. The kids dressed in shorts and kept saying "It's summer!" I remember growing up in Houston and wearing huge winter coats when it was 65 degrees out. It's all relative, huh? But, we'll take anything even close to Spring that we can get out here!