Lunch at Taco Bell and Easter

4/13—For dinner we went to Mike and Tanya’s to celebrate Reagan’s blessing and Mike’s b-day.  Super yummy food!!

The kids had fun jumping on the trampoline.  Andrew’s hair would stick straight up whenever he got on.  lol.

Awe.  Cute baby Reagan!  Ella loved her to pieces. 

4/14—Princess Ella in her carriage on our way home from the bus stop. 

A couple moms in the neighborhood put on an Easter egg hunt for the kids.   The weather was beautiful and the kids had a lot of fun.  I love our neighbors and neighborhood! 

Ready, set, GO!!!

Ella thought she was a cool girl and insisted on wearing these sunglasses at dinner. 

4/15—I spent most of this week cleaning and organizing the house in preparation of getting it on the market.  It’s definitely been a lot of work, but hopefully it will be worth it!  We got a storage unit to put our clutter in while we’re showing the house. 

Luke had a soccer game.  His team played Darrin’s old boss’ team.  Everyone had fun, and Luke scored 2 goals.  I’m pretty sure we won, but the score got so high it was hard to keep track!

In the middle of everything Josh and Andrew have been working on their pinewood derby cars.  They are super excited about the race this week!  I’ll be glad when the mess can be put away :)

4/16—We took a break from our work and went to lunch.  Luke got selected to be in all day kindergarten for the rest of the year,  so I let Luke pick the restaurant for his last lunch date with mom.  He picked Taco Bell.   We will definitely miss our Luke during the day!!

Josh brought home his salt dough map of Oregon that he made a couple weeks ago.  Nice work Josh!

4/17—We spent the morning at the other house while the inspection took place.  Ella went to play with Katie for an hour or so.  In the afternoon we got the carpet cleaned. 

I LOVE freshly cleaned carpet!

4/18—We had Bingo Night at the school.  Josh and Luke came with me, Andrew had soccer practice, and Ella stayed home with a sitter so I could help.  We had fun, but none of us won anything. 

4/19—Josh and Andrew each had soccer games.  Ella loved picking the dandelions all over the field.  I swear she picked 50 of them. 

In the evening we had a family history ward activity.  I helped with the primary kids.  Different people from the ward came in and told the kids stories from their own family history.  Josh got to help Sis. Kovanda tell her family story.  We watched home movies of the ward members as well as Mormon messages.  It was a fun night. 

At the end, Bishop played basketball with the kids.  Josh thought that was pretty cool. 

4/20—Easter Sunday

Pictures before church.  Ella usually eats a waffle on the way to church cause she never wakes up early enough to eat breakfast.  Hence the waffle in the picture. lol.

The Easter bunny brought chocolate bunnies and peeps. 

We dyed Easter eggs.  They were out of the dye kits at the store last night so we had to use food coloring instead.  It did the job.  And we only had one spill. 

While we were waiting for Ella to wake up from her nap, we watched some of the bible videos the church has made about Jesus Christ and His life.  We had some great discussions with our kids about His life and death. 

When Ella woke up we did an egg hunt in the backyard. 

CANDY!!!

For dinner we had ham, potatoes, beans, and deviled eggs.  For dessert we made resurrection rolls.  The kids really got into them, and they sure were yummy to eat!

What a busy and great week we’ve had!

A house and more visitors.

Whew!  What a busy last couple of weeks.  The day after we got back from the beach I noticed a house for sale in our neighborhood.  I fell in love with the pictures right away and could not get it out of my head.  In the days that followed I spent a lot of time going to look at 3 difference times, researching all different kinds of things (loans, housing market, etc…), convincing Darrin that it was a good idea to buy it, making them a offer, taking a counter offer, lining up repairmen for our current house, and working on getting it ready to sell.  It’s really been a whirlwind.  I love that the house is very similar to house we have now, that’s in the same school and ward boundaries that we love, that it’s 1000 sq ft bigger and 5 bedrooms, and that the price is right :)  The purchase of that house is contingent upon the sell of our house, but we’re confident that it won’t be too hard.  There is a chance that it won’t work out, but we’re going for it. 

So that explains my absence and lack of presence in the cyber world.  Here’s my attempt to record other things that we’ve done during the last couple weeks. 

3/30—Grandma was still in town.  We worked on a puzzle after church to entertain the kids. 

Darrin got in his Sunday nap.  Ella was sweet and covered him up with her blanket. 

4/1—We had ward temple night.  Darrin, my mom and I were able to go together.  We had a very nice time.  Darrin was the speaker at the chapel session and did a great job.  It made it extra special to hear him speak in such a sacred place. 

4/2—Ella is obsessed with any handheld device.  I have to hide the IPod and my phone unless I want to hear a tantrum. 

Josh was able to go to the rock museum to fulfill some Webelos requirements.  It was pretty fascinating! 

His favorite was this big piece of pyrite or fool’s gold. 

4/3—Before the beach trip, I started having extreme knee pain and tingling in my leg.  I finally got fed up with it and went to the dr.  She wasn’t much help and just told me to stay off of it for a couple weeks and see if it would heal on its own.  Even though that’s not the answer I wanted, it’s worked and it is feeling quite a bit better.  I’ve desperately missed my chat time with my good running friend, Jenae.

4/4—Friday Grandma left.  We were sorry that we weren’t much fun to hang out with and sad she got a bad cold while she was here. 

4/5—Saturday conference was great.  During the priesthood session I took the kids on a bike ride to get out.  They were incredibly wired from being cooped up all day. 

Luke stopped and picked any flower he found along the way and gave it to Ella.  Even the pretty yellow ones that are all over lol. 

4/6--We went on a walk Sunday night.  Ella has fallen in love with slides and will go on them over and over and over. 

4/7—Ella finally started walking down the stairs! 

I got my final acceptance in the BYU Bachelor of General Studies program!  So excited to be done and be a real college graduate!

4/8—The weather has been beautiful the last week or so.  The kids have been into catching bugs.  This is their latest “bug house.” 

Luke had his first soccer game and had a great game!  Pics to come next game. 

4/9—We had Katie, Ethan, and Matthew over to play for a while.  Ella and Katie were super cute together.  They danced to Frozen music, looked at books, and shared the red chair. 

During piano Luke practiced the monkey bars. 

4/10—To help Ella be happy during a diaper change, she used my phone to take pictures of me.  This was the best one. lol. 

I started cleaning and organizing Ella’s room.  She’s obsessed with Toy Story right now, so I got those toys out for her.  She loves them!

4/11—Grandma and Grandpa Hancock came into town.  Ella warmed right up to Grandma, but is definitely more hesitant with Grandpa. 

4/12—Josh and Andrew had their first soccer games of the spring season.  Grandma and Grandpa were able to come to Josh’s game. 

Darrin worked most of the afternoon on 2 pinewood derby cars.  I cleaned up the garage and took some stuff to the DI.  Last night we went to a big family dinner at Godfather’s where the kids spent tons of Grandpa’s money on the toy machines where they got these slimy, stretchy hands (yuck) and then we went to Chad’s to hang out. 

4/13—Today we went to Raegan’s baby blessing.  She’s such a cutie, and Ella’s loves her.  Grandma and Grandpa came over for a bit and played a couple games.  We’re always glad when they come for a visit!

That’s been our life the past couple weeks.  Whew.