Easter Week

Elijah had his first dentist appointment on Monday. He was so good! He's a little shy when he's in a new surrounding or around new people, but it makes him the perfect little patient because he doesn't move and does exactly what he's told to do. Elijah also loves to brush and floss his teeth, so he really liked the dentist giving him a brand new toothbrush and toothpaste and his very own floss. He had a lot of fun and got stickers and a balloon so he keeps asking to go back.
They gave Elijah sunglasses to block out the bright lights and head phones so he can listen to the movie he was watching while they brushed his teeth.

Monday was also the beginning of Passover. Jed is reading the Old Testament and a month earlier had read about the passover and he thought it would be fun to actually do it this year. (The dinner, not the entire week and getting rid of our yeast and breads and such). We have a friend who is Jewish and he offered to help us with it and so we had our first passover meal this year. It was a really cool event and I think it really helped us to get ready for Easter and really appreciate the Savior's role in our lives (that might be a little ironic though). Elijah tried so hard to stay up but he was so exhausted that he waited to eat his egg then put himself to bed. The egg was all that he wanted lol

A friend from church put together a playgroup with all of Elijah's and Chloe's friends, and this week's activity was an egg hunt at the park. Thursday, I took the kids and Elijah's friend, Bella. Elijah is already obsessed with eggs (he loves eggs and chickens) and so he was really excited about getting to find them. He did a really good job too. He found a bunch on his own (he started to find too many and I had him put some back for the other kids to find). Chloe had a blast finding the eggs too.  She also is so happy just having one in each hand.

 Chloe finding her first egg

 This is Elijah with his friend Bella. If I could set up an arranged marriage, I'd be setting these two up. They are so cute together and they play really well together. He always gets so excited to play with her.

Saturday, Bella and her older brother, Ethan, came over and we dyed eggs with them. All of the kids had fun coloring them. Chloe got a bit overly excited and cracked a few of them. They're eggs still turned out really cute and very colorful.

Easter morning, Elijah was so excited to see what the Easter Bunny brought him. I felt a little bad though, because Elijah wanted to actually meet the Easter Bunny. (I've tried taking him the past few years and he screamed and cried and with Chloe's reaction to Santa, I thought next year might be better to try again)

I have been looking forward to Easter for a couple of weeks. The main reason was because I actually made Chloe's Easter dress. I have a bunch of fabric left over from the various parties and since we're moving Jed wanted me to do something with it. Plus, why should I spend $20 on a dress when I can make it for free? This was my first dress that I've ever made (I made a few more right after this one), but I was really excited with how it turned out. And of course, I had to make her a headband to go with it...a little over the top, but I wouldn't have it any other way. lol :) I also made Elijah a bow tie to match (I was going to make him a suit but ran out of time) but he didn't want to keep his tie on long enough to get his picture taken. (You can go to my other blog if you want the tutorials for them.)

It was such a beautiful spring day and it was a great and spiritually uplifting too... the perfect Easter Sunday. We had a nice day at church where Elijah and Chloe got to participate in an egg hunt with nursery and then we went to Grandma's house for another egg hunt with Elena and Devin and spent the rest of the evening with family and friends. By Sunday, Chloe was getting really good at finding eggs too. She found a few of them on her own and she even knew to put them in her little basket. She just spent most of her time getting one or two eggs and then put them back then collect them again.

I hope everyone had a fun Easter as well. :)

Just a few more months...

So yesterday, Jed talked to our apartment office to see when exactly our lease was up, and we found out that it's up at the end of May. After that our rent will go up almost $200 (ridiculous!) so that turn of events has pretty much decided our plans for this summer.
We wanted to stay until July but we wanted to take a couple family vacations before we moved to Utah.
It is a little frustrating to try to figure things out, just because we don't even know where we'll be stationed after Jed gets out of Basic Officer Training School and what he has to do before reporting.

But our tentative plans right now are:
Jed graduates May 21st
Move to Roseville by May 31st & stay at my mom's house for part of June.
June 6-11 Catch a hop to Guam with the kids (since they have passports which need to be used)
June 15-18 Go camping with my family
Move to Utah mid-late June
Spend all of July getting settled in at Jed's parents' house with Jed reporting to Hill AFB (he still has to see if that can be done)
July 25th Jed reports to BOTS

It hit hard that we have less than two months until we move. I was planning on three months, so now I have to rush around and start getting the house prepped to move... if anyone has boxes they can part with that would be a HUGE help!

I just wanted to also add, that I loved conference! I've been having some apprehensions about moving and making sure it was the right thing to move to Utah instead of staying in California. That and just having to deal with Jed being gone for three months and what I would do to keep myself busy. (I know I'm such a big baby about this especially when other wives have to send their husbands overseas for a year at a time or don't have their husbands with them anymore) But we went to the temple over the past month and prayed and fasted about things and we had our answers of what to do. Conference and the talks and testimonies that were shared really helped to confirm those answers, since most of my answers were the topics that were covered. I love when that happens. (It's nice when you can feel Heavenly Father's and Christ's love for you through personal messages and testimonies of their chosen leaders) Besides, I'll get to spend all of my time with my little loves and they'll keep me busy :)

Elijah figured out that peanut butter is sticky (this is what he does instead of taking a nap)

Chloe can now climb on top of everything 

(seriously there's nothing she can't get too, 

she even knows to push chairs over to counters/tables so she can climb onto them)

The Sun Came Out to Play

After weeks of stormy and rainy weather, finally there was a break in the rain so we were able to go out and play and enjoy the sun. We like the rain but with two hyper and active kids we need the sun to come out so we can get out of the house.  (Elijah learned about rainbows a few weeks ago and has been obsessed with them ever since and when it would rain he always looked for one)

Although it's nice just to get out of the house, it's more fun when Elijah has his friends to play with also. Thursday, earlier in the day, I took the kids to the park for a play group and the kids had so much fun playing with all of the other kids. The kids were still restless after spending the morning at the park so I promised to take Elijah out to ride his bike. He loves riding his bike. We bought it for him for his 2nd birthday and he has been trying to learn to pedal his bike. The pedals are a little hard to turn and even though he has been trying his hardest to turn them he never was able to get very far. But Thursday he finally did it! He was so proud of himself too. Of course the only thing he could say about it is "I'm like Calliou". (It's pretty much what he always says when he accomplishes anything) But I was so proud of him (and prouder that he finally learned it when Jed was gone.... that's horrible, huh?) and he was having a blast and when Jed got home Elijah got to show Jed his new accomplishment. When he went fast he kept saying he was going "super hero fast". lol

To celebrate Elijah's new accomplishment we decided to go to Applebees for dinner (Jed had gotten a gift card for his birthday and this seemed like a great time to use it). Elijah's response on hearing where we were going was "I don't want bees on my apple! I spit bees out of my mouth!" (For some reason, and we don't know how it started, when Elijah needs to blow his nose or has a bad taste in his mouth he blames it on bees) It took a little bit but we were able to convince him we wouldn't feed him bees and he could have a hamburger instead. I think it's hilarious the way that his mind works.

The next day we were supposed to go to Daffodil Hill, but Jed decided it was too long of a drive to just look at flowers, so instead we took the kids out to play golf. It was the first time we took the kids out to the driving range. We bought Elijah his own little golf set from Walmart (is it sad that Elijah can point out Walmart before we point it out to him? lol) He loved it. He thought it was a vacuum cleaner and would "vacuum" everything around him.
Elijah and Chloe both had so much fun at the driving range. Chloe loved to collect the balls. She would chase after them and put them back in the bucket.

Elijah had fun trying to hit the balls, but tired of it soon and went to rake the sand pit and build a sand castle.

Something else that Elijah's started doing over the past couple of weeks is completely dressing himself. He's been getting his clothes from his dresser and picks out all of his clothes on his own and dresses himself (even down to his underwear). But the thing that I love about this, is that he's actually really good at matching his clothes... he might even be better than when Jed picks out clothes for him. The kid's got style! So all the above pictures he picked out his own outfits.

As an added bonus to our weekend, my grandma sent Elijah a package. She sent him the Boy's Day fish flags. Now don't be jealous of our huge fish flags... they are pretty sweet! lol Elijah and Chloe both LOVE watching them fly into the air when the wind blows, and at least they'll make it easier for people to find our apartment.

Boys Day is celebrated May 5th, (and you typically only fly the flag the day of the celebration) so we'll probably have this up until then. The flag is called koinobori. Koi was chosen to represent boys because they are thought as strong and most spirited fish and so they hope the boys will grow up strong and healthy and spirited. The big grey fish is to represent the dad, the red one is the mom and the small blue one is the first born son. You can add fish to represent each additional boy. (We might try to celebrate Boy's Day on the actual day)