Happy Easter

Well we all made it home safe and sound in time to enjoy a lovely Easter weekend! Of course it started out by ALL of us sleeping in until noon on Saturday after 2 days of traveling and getting in at close to midnight the night before. Coming home was harder than getting to Canada for some reason (even with the help of mom)...I was so thankful to finally be out of cars, ferries, and planes! Some of our Easter traditions had to be compromised due to traveling, but we still enjoyed our teaching moments with the kids in celebrating what Jesus did for us. On Easter morning we made resurrection rolls (the marshmallows -AKA. Jesus- while baking to leave an empty tomb in the rolls). Asher says "AWESOME-we are eating melted Jesus! Hey, Grammie! You want a grave?". Ah, how we love the words that come from children. We hope you all enjoyed a day praising Jesus and His empty tomb so we can be ALIVE with Him!

Sweet Josie, who now giggles

Asher coloring Easter eggs with his cousins

Anna

Jesse and Luke, partners in crime and best buddies now!

Our Easter egg hunt that we were able to get in between showers.

Our first family photo since Josie has been born!

Oh Canada

We made it to Canada! It was a long 2 days of traveling..2 planes, 3 hour car ride, a hotel stay, and a ferry ride. I survived a 9 hour plan journey with the 4 kids by myself. There were many bad moments (like the 2 men separating Jesse and I from Anna and Asher on a 4 hour flight, unwilling to change seats-its OK, they were very involved in passing things back and forth between us) but there were many blessings bestowed that helped us along the way. Security let Joel go to the gate with me in the beginning and sit with us until we got on the plane and at the end of the 9 hour journey, I was standing at Starbucks glassy eyed, dying for coffee, with a screaming hungry infant, and 3 children grabbing everything off the shelves and begging for cake pops, when a transit authority man in line in front of us bought a dozen cake pops, paid, and turned around and offered them to my kids. I wanted to cry! But yes, we made it! And you know what, it was worth it. My sister and I have kids the same age and sex, and to see them all together joined at the hips, it such a blessing! I hope the pictures show how much fun we are having amongst the chaos of 7 kids.

My niece Brooke turned 6 right after we arrived and celebrated with an "Under the Sea" birthday party. Even Josie got dressed up for the occasion!

Jesse and Luke enjoying some of the party decorations.

My sister lives on a very secluded island outside of Vancouver that you can only get to by ferry. It is a beautiful place full of hidden charm. We spent an afternoon exploring one of its beaches.

Anna and Brooke

The fearless foursome

My sister Nikki and I

Berdon and Asher cave exploring

The six pack

Josies

This is Jesse

This is Jesse with his "Josies"
That is what he calls his baby sister. When he sees her, he runs to her calling "Josies! I love Josies! I hold Josies!" He is completely smitten with her, and we love the nickname.

But who wouldn't be smitten with this?

Candy Heaven

Grandma Thorson came to visit for a long weekend and what does she bring with her? Yes, candy. Not just one type of candy but just about every sweet thing you can think of: peeps, jellybeans, life savers, peach wheels, sprinkles, fruit roll-ups...all with the purpose of building peep dioramas with the kids. What is a peep diorama you ask? Yes, I asked the same thing. A cake decorated with peeps and candy to tell a story from the bible. I think this may be a new "preparing for Easter" tradition in our family as the kids had a ton of fun. We won't mention how much candy they ate in the process (or how much cake we have eaten since!).

Anna chose to tell the story of Queen Esther. (It has to be a girly Bible story of course). Neither her or Asher could zone in on the Easter story so we were a bit flexible in the stories they chose to tell.

Asher did David and Goliath. He was super creative and even made sheep out of giant marshmallows to stand next to David (since he was a shepherd). The peep you see in the foreground is holding a "Bible" (the peach wheel) since it is a Bible story, he says. I just loved how he did his characters!

And Jesse did the Ascension. His main purpose was the cover every inch of cake with candy but here he is telling his story.

Big Night Out

Happy Spring Break for Joel!! We kicked off his break with a big night out. His school sponsored a "Spring Fling", a semi-formal for students and faculty. Since he had been busy preparing for finals I literally had only seen him for an hour or two every day for two weeks. It was super nice to finally have him all to myself! Plus it is always fun to get all dressed up. It was a wonderful night of great food and company, and lots of dancing (YEAY!). Of course, all the guys kept disappearing at intervals to watch basketball.

My wonderful mom drove up from WV just to watch the 4 kids for our big night out (God bless her!). She barely survived. After working with Josie on a bottle for 2 weeks, we left fairly certain the bottle would not be a problem. However our night ended with a phone call that she had not eaten in 5 hours and I believe my mom was stretched pretty thin. Turns out Josie will only take a bottle from Joel. But thank you mom for handling it all for us!!

The rest of Joel's spring break went by in a whirlwind: a friend stopping by on her drive cross country, a 2000 piece puzzle that ended up with only 1999 pieces, a cold passed around the 6 members of our family, a trip to WV for the boys to go fishing, and then plop...here we are with Joel back in school. Now it is Asher's spring break and I have found it quite hard keeping up with life with all 4 kids at home. So please forgive me for those phone calls and emails not returned. I am doing my best to pull my head out the sand!

Day by Day

Sorry about the lack in blogging! I have nothing really exciting to talk about (guess that is what happens when you leave Hawaii!) but thought I could catch you all up on our daily lives through photos.

Asher continues to swim with his swim team, growing in skill and confidence. It has been a source of real joy for our family. Twice he has even placed second overall in a back stroke race!

My days consist of playing with Josie and Jesse at home while the other 2 are at school. I must admit that Josie does consume most of my attention and Jesse has been a real trooper. He has always been amazing at playing by himself. However he is reaching that hard age-where tantrums reign and he has been the hard one to adjust to at the moment (not the baby)! I have finally been cleared to exercise so my IPOD running list has been used again and that time alone has done wonders to my patience at home with the 4 kids.

Who needs patience to enjoy this?! Josie started smiling around 5 weeks but you had to really work hard to get one...now they come frequently and freely. She is sleeping a 7 - 8 hour stretch just about every night now...do you hear the angels singing?!

Asher got a new haircut. Yes, I know you are looking at this picture and saying "what haircut?", but we really did get a lot cut off in the back. Joel and I are in disagreement...I like this style while he likes the old look. I may win since I am the one that takes him to the barber :).

The kids after a "Daddy day". Why do they never do this after a day with me?!?!?!

Joel enjoying his sweet Josie.

Anna is the best sister! She loves holding Josie and singing to her. She once even got Josie to sleep for me by singing to her for 15 minutes while I was making dinner! She has been super helpful.

and now that I am cleared for exercise, Joel and I are starting P90X next week. The kids are enjoying the pull up bar...not sure Joel and I will be "enjoying it" but that will be for another post another day.

Adventures in Grocery Shopping

There are many places a woman with kids in tow dreads going...for me there are 2 places:

1)The post office
2)The grocery store

I was the main grocery shopper pre-Josie. This was not an errand I ever enjoyed as I always had at least 1 kid with me. Racing through the isles as fast as you can is always interrupted with at least 1 trip to the other side of the store for a potty break, 50 "no" you can't have that chocolate cereal or oreo cookies or potato chips or ice cream (wait that means Joel was with me too), break downs at the check out counter because they can't have a treat, smashed produce, knocking boxes off the shelves, the disappearing kid trick, and 1 exhausted mommy. For the past 6 weeks Joel has taken over this errand as I have dreaded taking Josie and Jesse together. However last week I puffed up my chest and decided "This is it. I can handle getting these 5 items with the 2 of them." Joel jokingly tells me if he doesn't hear from me in 2 hours, he is calling 911. I placed Jesse inside the cart, and Josie, asleep in her car seat, placed in the seat portion of the cart. Jesse is rearranging all my items and trying to reach for things on the shelves but I am booking it (before Josie wakes up) trying to move before he can reach anything. I am DONE-woo hoo- Feeling so proud because I have been successful and can't wait to brag to my doubting husband. Still racing around a corner, heading to the check out counter, I hit something and come to a dead stop. I can't see what it is as Josie's car seat covers my frontal vision. I peer around her to see...NO WAY...I hit a guy in a wheel chair, shaking his hand from my cart smashing it! I start apologizing profusely but he quickly moves on waving me off. Maybe he was as embarrassed as me? I felt terrible but then just started laughing hysterically. How do these things happen to me?

So yesterday, I had to go grocery shopping. A BIG trip. I left Jesse with a friend and only took Josie. We were successful...no major accidents. I was still racing trying to keep an eye on what lay ahead. I was only stopped by a nice woman asking me a million questions about Josie. I am sorry to all those grocery store chit chatters our there, but couldn't she see I was in a hurry?! She just prolonged the torture and increased the chance that Josie would wake up before I was done. But it is done and I can enjoy 7 pleasant days until the next grocery store run.