3 years!

Happy birthday to my big 3 year old!  We love you Alexander!  You are a sweet, funny, helpful little boy!

holding his seaweed treasure at Corona del Mar

What is your favorite...
color? blue
food? Cheerios
toy? bristle blocks
show? Sesame Street
animal? horses
comic book character? Spiderman
song? Batman
What do you like to do? play outside
Who is your best friend? Mom
What do you want to be when you grow up? Policeman
Do you have a girlfriend? No! (I then asked 'Are you sure?' to which he replied 'You girlfriend.'  Sounds good to me!)

I have loads and loads of things to catch up on... and it might not happen until after we get moved.  But in the meantime....

Happy Anniversary Rich!  It has been a wonderful 9 years!  I love you so much!

We recently had a few visitors stop by our house and we enjoyed every second!  Rachelle came for a few days and I'm sure we wore her out!  (Thanks Dad for letting her use your last ticket!)
Once a month at our fantastic library (we are going to miss the library here!) we have a performance from Kids Co Theater.  They are a husband and wife team who put on a show (usually a fairy tale) and use lots of audience participation.  (Just a side note: once we went and were the only ones there... my boys would not participate so they did it themselves.  Very funny when one person has to be the wolf and the grandma in Little Red Riding Hood)  This time, however, Alex decided he wanted to participate. Alex usually takes a while to warm up to people... but he feels very comfortable at the library. So when they asked for a volunteer he raised his hand.  They asked him to play the frog.  Perfect!  This boy loves to jump!

At first I was just taking pictures... but the longer he was up there the cuter he got so I shot some video too!

Rachelle is a good aunt and read them stories every night... even the really horribly long stories.

Unfortunately William had several games the weekend that she was here but she was a good sport and watched them with us.

William in the middle

After the game on Saturday we had a house showing so we decided to escape and check out the Arts Fair happening downtown.  We enjoy going every year and it was nice to have Rachelle there with us!

After buying some snow cones we even got the boys to watch the ballerinas with us!

At the boys' request we headed down to the river walk at the Myriad Gardens.  (And how could we deny them after they watched ballet with us!)

While Rachelle was here, Uncle Austin (Elise's husband) came to visit too!  He had an externship at OU so he slept at our house when he wasn't working... and he'd always come home with some awesome stories from his day to tell the boys. 

We are grateful we had visitors!  We had so much fun with them (and I was especially grateful for some adult conversation!)... and are excited to see you again so soon for the wedding this weekend!  Hooray!

A long time coming...

5 years ago I was called to serve with the Young Women at church.  At that time I started working on my Personal Progress.  I had completed it as a youth but the program had changed (and then changed again!) and I found that this was the best way to familiarize myself with it as well as encourage the young women to do it themselves.  I started and stopped many times over the years... and I'm pretty sure I started some of the same goals over and over but never finished them.  Fast forward to now.  Except for about 1 year, I have been serving in Young Women in some capacity or another.  When Rich left for North Carolina I needed something to keep me busy in the evenings after the boys went to bed--there were only so many movies I wanted to watch on Netflix.  So I took a good look at my Personal Progress again.  I made a goal that I was going to finish it up before we moved and I was released from my calling in the stake Young Women.  And I did it!  I finished up last week and was awarded my medallion at church today.  I will wear my medallion with pride and be reminded of the goals I set and things I learned each time I put it on.  The Personal Progress program is truly inspired and really will bless all those who participate in it.

Last week I had to get our brake pads replaced.  Since the auto shop is near the temple and an LDS bookstore I figured that Henry, Alexander, and I would spend the hour browsing books and walking the neighborhood.  So, after dropping the big boys off at school the rest of us headed to repair the car.  I didn't realize, however, that the hours of the bookstore had changed and it wasn't open that morning!  Drat!  As we headed to the temple I was a little worried how we were going to keep ourselves busy for such a long time--and then we passed the golf course.  I don't know what the proper golf course etiquette is about walking on the trail but I figured we'd give it a whirl and hope that no one got mad at us!

Henry fell asleep within minutes.  Alex and I had such a fun time talking and enjoying nature during the quiet spring morning.

 I was amazed that Alex lasted the entire hour walking on his own!  We ended our walk with a snack at the temple grounds until we got the call that the car was ready.  We were extra lucky that the fountain was going and the gates were unlocked that day!

I realized that I need to spend more one-on-one time with Alexander.  He is so good at playing by himself and all too often I let him do just that while I get things done around the house.  Maybe we'll have to make morning walks part of our routine!

Daily Sunshine

I walked into the bedroom and found James reading to Alexander.  What a good brother!