Easter, Mother's Day, and Wheels!

As always, click on any images to EMBIGGEN (or, if you prefer, ENLARGE).

Let's start with a brief anecdote from last week:

We were talking about how when Jesus returns, he will come in power and glory and will destroy the wicked. Abe asked if Jesus would kill robbers. When we said yes, Abe responded with, "Then I can help-- if mom makes me a rhino suit with a wooden horn on my head that I can attack them with!" Robbers, consider yourself warned.

Let's start with Easter. Of course we decorated eggs:



We tried to keep Easter simple, and even tried to cut down on the amount of candy we bought--but we still got too much. Elliott, in particular, ate too much chocolate:



and too many Robin Eggs:



The 3 older kids each got new church clothes for Easter:



And Abe's been having fun with some of the leftover plastic eggs:



Elliott got decorated for Easter as well (we even dyed his eyes red!!):



Instead of a Pinewood Derby, Joel's Cub Scout troop did a Raingutter Regatta, where they made wooden boats that they raced along raingutters (by blowing into the sails of the boats). Here he is, all decked out for his turn as boat captain:



Maddy had some of her artwork shown at a district art exhibit. Here she is with her certificate, medal, and the picture, which is of an invisible dragon (it's somewhat surreal, but if you look closely, you can see the dragon's head/teeth in the top-right and the end of the tail in the bottom right):



As mentioned last time, Elliott likes climbing on everything and getting into stuff he's not supposed to. Here he is trying to get to the stove:



He's only gotten a knife a couple times.

My insurance had the annual Open Enrollment, and we were able to get Dental and Vision insurance (but still can't afford Health insurance, which means we can look at and chew junk food, we just can't digest it).

It also means that when the time comes, Elliott can get glasses; we already know he'll look awesome:



We've also got our newest Disneyland Incentive Chart up:



We fill in boxes every night on the chart for different things, such as healthy eating, exercise, having Family Night, reading scriptures, etc. There's even a spot for a nightly 5-minute clean-up (where the kids each spend 5 minutes cleaning up in their bedrooms or front room--it really makes Saturday chores a breeze). Even though we already do pretty well on some things (like having family prayer, going to church every week, etc.) this gives us a daily reminder to do the things we should be doing and helps establish good habits. Obviously, when the chart is full, we're going to Disneyland.

Amanda used her Yankee Ingenuity and made a sandbox for the kids to play with:



Today was Mother's Day. Amanda got to have a fairly relaxing day (though she was in charge of grilling burgers--but I did just about everything else). We got Amanda a wooden windchime for the backyard, a special pan to grill vegetables on the BBQ, a Hobby Lobby gift card, and a couple other little things.

Oh, she also got a van:



That's right, we bought a 2nd car--one we ALL fit in without Maddy and Joel squeezing into one seat together! It's a 2006 Ford Freestar, meaning we now own a Ford AND a Chevy (But we'd rather push a Ford AND Chevy than drive a KIA--AMIRITE?!?!) We're so excited to have it (and the kids love that it came with a DVD player!) Now we can even take trips down to Tucson!!!

Well, that's about it for now--school is winding down; Amanda and the kids are planning to head up to Utah for a couple weeks in the middle of June; I'm getting excited for Summer Movie Season (the boys and I saw "Thor" over the weekend and really enjoyed it!)

Really brief blog update

Sorry, this blog seems to be gathering dust. I've been really busy with life, but it's all been pretty boring stuff, so there hasn't been much worth writing about. I was going to do a nice, big blog update this past weekend, but on Tuesday evening, our computer (which we've had since June 2007) finally gave out and died--not sure what the problem is, could be something as simple as a fan going out to the hard drive itself dying; at any rate, we bought a new computer and hopefully we'll be able to retrieve our files off the old computer (we hadn't backed up our photos or many of our documents for a year or more (though I did back up all my freelance/animation projects fairly recently).

Elliott's getting big enough to climb on chairs and reach the kitchen counter, which is endlessly annoying. The other night, he pulled down the bowl of sauce for the chicken we were going to grill. When not in use, the kitchen benches and chairs look something like this:



(No, they were not put that way by "the TV people.")

Now that my workload at work has slowed down a little, I decided to take a couple days off for a much-needed vacation. We didn't do anything spectacular, but it was just nice to be able take some time off, relax and watch some movies, etc.

Amanda bought a pool for the kids to play in--they've been loving it, especially since we've been in the 80's and 90's lately (the temperatures, not the decades, THANKFULLY).



So that's all for my short update--hopefully I'll have a better update with lots more pictures soon!

Sergeant Peterson’s Lonely-Hearts Club Blog

With that haircut, you look just like one o' the Beatles!



In honor of Joel’s performance (seen in the video below) I decided to make this blog entry Beatles-themed (I even changed the blog color to the "White Album.") We’ll start with this [As always, click on any image to enlarge]:

“Whatcha doing lyin’ on the floor?”



“I’m tired.”

Elliott’s been teething AND has had a cold, which has made him really irritable and he’s been waking up a lot at night. But thankfully, he seems to be doing better.

Can’t Buy Me Love

We were hoping for a tax return by Valentine’s, but because TurboTax messed up on a form, we had to MAIL in our Federal return. But we got our AZ State return soon enough that Amanda and I could go out to lunch for a Valentine’s date. The kids watched Elliott (who was SUPPOSED to be taking a nap, but SOMEHOW woke up right after we left, even though the kids PROMISED they weren’t being loud…hmmm…)
Anyway, we went to the Cheesecake Factory, which was delicious, especially the cheesecake slice we got for dessert: Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Cheesecake:



Also, Amanda drew a chalk picture for me on the driveway one day:



And as is tradition, I bought her a sack of flour and some flowers (daffodils this year, which she planted in the backyard):



I Feel Fine

We bought the kids some self-inking stamps from the $1 section at Target. Elliott ate one.



…but he feels fine.

I Wanna Hold Your (Balloon) Hand

Abe, as you know, is a candy-hog, sweet-tooth, foodie. So you won’t be surprised to hear that he had to get a rotten tooth pulled. Here’s how Medicaid works: they send you to a dentist for a tooth-pulling, and they take your hand instead. At least they replaced it with a balloon:



Help!

Finally, Joel was in a school music concert, where he played a special role in one scene: John Lennon in a performance of “Help!” Hint: he’s the one in the black jacket and glasses who actually plays a pretty convincing Lennon: