Week 11 A farewell and a few surprises

Saturday, March 12: Memories of playing checkers with Grandpa Olson...We had the pleasure of having Grandma and Grandpa Olson for the weekend so that they could hear Chelsea speak at church.  Well, we have just been teaching Brendan how to play checkers so we broke out the checkers for him to play with Grandpa Olson.  Ryan Jones got a turn, too.  I am just sad that I didn't get to play a game with him for old time's sake.  I really enjoyed having them around.

Sunday, March 13:  Today was Chelsea's farewell at church.  She did an amazing job.  The other speakers were Andrew, who impressed us all and Neil who thanked everyone coming from afar to hear him speak.  They all did wonderful jobs on their talks on following the prophets.

Monday, March 14:  And Amber had puppies on Monday so we got to hold another family home evening around her to help her...well she didn't really need our help and did most of the work after we left to go home.  It was quite the educational experience for the kids.  This was sort of a surprise because we were not expecting Amber to have another litter of puppies, but she got pregnant when we were all busy with Sarah's wedding back in January.  HMMMMM.......

Tuesday, March 15:  The next morning we called over to Grandma's to see how many puppies Amber ended up having.  Lincoln knows and tells everyone who says the word puppies:

Nine.  We were trying to keep Lincoln inside most of the day because he has been having troubles with allergies.  This was pretty hard because he wanted to be out there with the puppies all day.  Well, not as much as Eliza.  This girl LOVES the puppies, but Amber was still being really protective about all of them.

Wednesday, March 16:  Has anyone noticed how long the boys' hair has been.  Well, it was time for a haircut, but I decided that after I had already stripped him for his bath.  So here I gave him a haircut and his bum was just so CUTE!  Whenever I give my boys a haircut, they grow up so much.  They look so much older...and much more handsome!

Thursday, March 17:  Have you ever seen so much laundry?  I have kind of been putting it off since I knew that I was needing to pack.  So I did all of the laundry in one day and then instead of having to put it all away and then packing it, I just packed it after folding it.  WOW! Then I had to get to bed early so that I could drive the next morning. 

Friday, March 18: Well, I didn't get to bed early and Neil never went to bed so he started out driving and dive until he got tired.  We were on our way to surprise Grandma Erickson for her birthday.  A lot of people knew that we were coming, but they had all kept it a secret from her.  We stopped at Wendy's on the way and the boys just had too much fun sharing a frosty.  They would steal the frosty off of each others' spoons and then just laugh and laugh.  We tricked Brendan that someone had stolen the car when Neil had just taken it to get gas.  Traveling is always just too fun.  The kids did really well in the car.  I think they were just too excited to visit Grandma and Grandpa Erickson to worry about anything else.  When we were close, we called Grandpa and drove in a different way so Grandma wouldn't see.  We sneaked into the backyard and let the kids jump on the trampoline and let Grandma "discover" them there.  We were pretty sneaky and were really glad when Grandma said that she enjoyed our surprises.  Thank goodness, because it seems like we have surprised her quite a bit lately.

Week 10

Saturday, March 5:  A miracle happened today.  For the last two days I have made myself sick thinking that I had lost these two cards that have more than a thousand memories captured by our camera.  I looked all over for these and couldn't find them anywhere.  While cleaning out all of the rooms in my house and not finding them and then realizing that I had lost them...I was just sick with worry...

Sunday, March 6:  Brendan gave a talk today in Primary.  He did a really good job.  He helped in the writing of his talk on prophets.

Moses was a prophet in the scriptures.  He used a staff when he walked—just like this one.  This one belongs to my uncle Christopher.  Jesus asked Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. 

The people followed Moses.  They came to the Red Sea.  They were afraid because they could see an army behind them. 

Moses told them not to be afraid.  He raised his hand over the sea.  A strong wind began to blow.  It divided the sea.  The waters went up.  The people walked through on dry land and they got away from the army.  It was a miracle! 

Just like the people in the scriptures we can follow our prophet today. Our prophet today is President Monson.  He teaches us to be nice and to go on a mission.  I want to be nice.  I want to go on a mission.

I will follow the prophet.

In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Monday, March 7:  Andrew turns 15.  We had so much fun celebrating with Andrew and the family.  We stopped at the dollar store and the kids insisted on getting him a great ball shooter that ended up breaking before it worked.  Gotta love the dollar store.  It was fun to come over and celebrate with the family and then watch the boys dance to double dream hands.  What memories!

Tuesday, March 8:  Who doesn't love lazy Tuesday mornings where Dad stays in his pjs and plays Candy Land with the kids in the morning?  I absolutely love it when my husband takes the time to play with our kids.  They eat it up, too.  Love it, love it, love it.

Then later on that day we were able to stop by the park on the way home from running errands.  The kids were good for us while we were in the Sprint store getting our new phones.  This was the first picture that I took with my phone.  By the way, we LOVE this park.  My children make friends at it every time that we go.  In the middle, there is a spaceship where they pretend that they are on a mission to mars.  In the summer time there is a little water place here, so I bet it will be a hit then, too.  AGAIN, Neil is such a good dad to his kids.  I'm not sure who has more fun at the parks-Neil or the kids.  One of my favorite things that we have been doing at the park is running races.  Usually it is the last hurrah before we go to the car.  Today's race was starting at the basketball court, running down to the other end, around the hoop, to the tree in the distance, and then along the tennis courts and back to the car.  I believe Brendan was the winner.  He has become such the runner.  Maybe we'll run a half marathon together someday.  :)

Wednesday, March 9: This little stinker named Lincoln kept on getting up after mom had put him to sleep.  This picture was taken at 10:45 at night after he had been asked to get back into bed several times.  He ultimately ended up in our bed and finally falling asleep there.  Bedtimes and naptimes...my favorite times of the day.

 

Thursday, March 10: It was Chelsea's idea for us to take our second trip to the $1 theater this year.  And we loved it! (Except for the fact that the last 2 movies have been shown in 3D and they charge $3 for each ticket.  I don't understand the fad with 3D movies that are not action packed...just cartoons for kids.  It really throws off--triples, really--the budgeted money that I was planning on spending that day.) But we all just fell in love with this movie.  I loved it!  It has a cute little message  :)  Thanks Chelsea for the idea for the fun afternoon.

 

Friday, March 11: Fun day at mom's.  We rearranged some things in the living room and brought out the cedar chest from my mom's room and put it in by the piano.  Of course this means that we needed to open it up and go through it and some memories, too.  The morning was a great one of reminiscing and sometimes I just think that you need those days.  Plus I loved that we were able to do that right before Chelsea getting ready to leave.  Man, I am going to miss that girl so much!