Hellos and Goodbyes...

Say hello to our new playground...We are SO excited to have this lovely jungle gym join our family! It has been so hard to walk through Costco and have Brody say, "But I need that play ground" The best part about this play ground, is that it was given to us by some friends of ours...for free. We were so grateful! Brandon and Troy loaded it up in three loads in an F150 truck (in a thunderstorm) and got it to the house. The next night a different Troy, and Casey took apart our fence to get the tower into the yard. For a few days we had to sit and look at it in pieces and dream about playing on it, but we were able to have the playground guy come out and put it together for us and make it all level and pretty. That was money well spent!

The bummer about the playground was that it was given to us because the Whatcotts are moving away. We are excited for them to get settled in their new house, but we will all miss them. Today we had a picnic at the park to play one last time and say goodbye.

Brody and Drew are good buddies. They both love trains and could spend hours together playing. We will miss having him around!

Miss me much?

Today I am thankful for two things...(really many more things than that, but especially these two things):

1. a computer that works again; and

2. we were able to save ALL my pictures that were on it when it crashed!

Our computers (our home desktop and Brandon's laptop) decided both to poop out on us at the same time. We are thinking it was a virus, but whatever it was...we are better now. We had to wipe Brandon's laptop clean, which is really no big deal. The big deal was potentially losing all my pictures on the desktop again! (last happened in November 2008) I learned my lesson and we haven't deleted any memory cards since then, but I would have lost all my pictures from 2008 that we had recovered from Brandon's ipod. One external hard drive and one new internal hard drive later, we are up and running again.

Here is an older picture - that I am grateful I still have!

It is a perfect representation of Ella...she is into everything, and going outside, and causing trouble. We had my Aunt Lori and Uncle Larry in town for the weekend and I thought Ella was going to give my Aunt a heart attack. She kept sneaking off and going outside (front and back yards). She is becoming very quietly mischieveous - a dangerous combination. We'll be getting additional door locks and a few more child proof handles.

Other Random Happenings

Bike riding outside! It is finally warming up and we can ride our bikes outside! Brody is pedaling like a champ and tells me " Hey mom, Im getting more and more muscles"

We thought it had warmed up...Saturday the 20th it snowed for most of the evening/night. We woke up again to a lawn covered in snow. Fortunately it melted by the time we got home from Stake Conference with our special guest...
None other than Dallin H. Oaks, a member of the Quorum of the the 12 apostles. It isn't often that LDS church members are able to have an apostle visit their stake. The last time for Denton Stake was 1989. We were afraid of the crowds and getting to church so early, so we went to a broadcast in another building. It worked out well for us. All the speakers were really good, it was probably one of the most touching meetings I have been too. What was funny was Elder Oaks! He was so laid back compared to what you see at General Conference. He touched briefly on what everyone else had talked about, but then he mostly told stories. One of the most important things I learned was...if you celebrate Christmas and are going to send Elder Oaks a Christmas card it had better say "Merry Christmas" and have a Christmas message inside.

More time at the park! The sun is out most of the time, but it still is windy. My kids love to play at the park with their friends...and I love watching them get worn out! Im enjoying them so much right now...Im down to an umbrella stroller when we go out, and once Ella is solidly potty trained, we'll have no more diapers! They are becoming so independent and imaginative together. It provides us with many laughs - and sometimes a lot of messes. We are enjoying every day of spring weather and looking forward to summer and swimming!!

St. Patty's Dollar Day at the Zoo

The Frank Buck Zoo in Gainsville (about an hour north of us) celebrated it's birthday on St. Patricks Day by letting everyone in for $1! Mind you, it was our spring break, so there were lots that turned out for the event. The zoo itself is really small. It took us about an hour to get through it and then we had a picnic lunch outside the zoo. It was perfect that it didn't take too long because it turned out to be super cold and windy, and I forgot Brody's jacket so he wore mine (and looked ridiculous in it). I was able to use my friend Lisa's jacket so I wouldn't freeze! (Thanks Lisa!) There is a train that goes around the park too and being a train loving family, we had to ride. Our friends came along and we squished in the handicap car so we wouldn't have to wait another half hour for a ride. It was a morning with lots of fun, good friends and being outside.

Potty Training Update

Despite my hesitations when we woke up on Thursday morning we put panties on Ella...and the potty training began. She is doing great, with two days in a row with no accidents. Mind you it hasn't been a piece of cake either...just ask the missionaries who saw the flood at the dinner table. Ella is a tricky one because she only goes pee a few times (like 2-3) a day, but when she does it is a lot. I tried filling her up with juice but it really didn't help. Brody has even sat with her in the bathroom singing water songs to try and encourage her to go. Overall though she is doing really great and getting the hang of it more and more. We are so proud of our big girl!

In Other News...

Brody ended his weekend with his cousins crying hysterically...almost all night. We knew it was probably an ear infection, but the Tylenol, Motrin and ear numbing drops didn't do much to ease his pain. So early yesterday morning it was off to the doctors to confirm it was a double ear infection. He seems to be on a comeback now, he took a good nap yesterday (as did I) and slept all night. Gotta love modern medicine.

Ella...where to start with her. She is an independent stinker. It is almost a constant to find her naked these days. She doesn't prefer to keep a diaper on. Last week she cried and cried because she was in her crib, and she had undressed herself and then in the course of her playing ended up peeing on all her babies. She was devestated. I laughed! We got everything cleaned up and the babies are now doing quite well. However, it has caused us to do what we are not ready to do...

Ella is now in a big girl bed. She did really well last night and slept until almost 9:30 this morning (we are still recovering from our weekend of fun). This transition is a pre-cursor to what I will be doing starting Thursday...potty training her. I am so not looking forward to it. She is ready, and has been, but I have tried to supress her independence for my own sake. She goes #2 in the potty quite a bit already, it will just be getting her to pee in the potty. Wish me luck.

Hrabiks Come to Town

I LOVE it when our family and friends come here! We were so excited at Christmas when the Hrabiks got for one of their gifts a trip to Texas! Sure they may have also come to see Taylor Swift in concert, but I am totally cool sharing them with Taylor Swift.

We met in Frisco on Wednesday night for a yummy bbq dinner at Spring Creek. Then on Thursday they spent the day in Dallas and went to their concert (which from the pictures I saw looks like a pretty awesome concert). Friday we played at Main Event to celebrate Michael's 11th birthday. We had a friendly family game of Laser Tag (minus Brody and Ella who they wouldn't let play and Mom who offered to stay with them so Brandon and I could) where the boys narrowly defeated the girls...

Cassidy helping Ella with a motorcycle game

Ella getting some quality Papa time

Brody not wanting to give me the time of day to take a picture with him looking at the camera

Then it was off to the movies to see Percy Jackson. It was a good movie, although precedent still holds true...books are always better than the movie. My kids liked it though and were really well behaved, which in a movie theatre always feels like a huge accomplishment.

After the movie everyone headed back to our house for cupcakes for Michael. The kids played, we skyped Stephanie in for the action and we all tried hard not to fall asleep on the couch. Brody was really disappointed when he realized that his cousins were going back to their hotel to sleep because he had made "bed spots" for them. It was so cute! He had taken his pillows and blankets and made beds in his closet for Dani and Michael.

Saturday we first went to what we politely call "Fake In and Out" for lunch. Then, it was off to the Stockyards in Fort Worth for their St. Patricks Day festivities. There was LOTS of people. We took a tour, looked at the shops and saw the St. Patricks Day parade. We topped it off with a yummy dinner at Cattlemen's restaurant and headed home to fall into bed.

Ella saw Dani climbing in the tree and had to do it too...she is a pretty strong little monkey

After seeing Ella do it Brody wanted to try, although he doesn't look as enthusiastic about it

We did remember to set our clocks forward and still made it to church on time. After Sacrament Meeting we went home and everyone came over for dinner. The time went way to fast! That night we said our goodbyes and the Hrabiks headed home early Monday morning. It was so fun having them here with us!