Happy Easter, and our adventures in the ER

Dear Michael,

Cousins playing in Little E's "dog house" together Mon.

A lot has happened in the last week. Little E's cousin moved to California this last Monday for the summer. We are sure going to miss her and her whole family. But I look forward to them coming back in the fall. Little E and Princess will hopefully get to be in the same Preschool class. Can you beleive she is going to start preschool? Time sure does fly! Anyways, we had a busy week while my Mom was down in California helping them all settle in.
Monday we went to FHE with the singles ward. I wanted to just check it out and see if there was anyone I knew and it seemed like a good week to try it. They were doing a service project and cleaning out a local cemetery. So we went and helped. It was sooooo windy! But Little E saw where we were and said "look mom, its Daddy's place!" and got all excited. I had to explain that it was a different place and we could visit "daddy's place" after. She then thought that it was a "dying place" and I had to expain that it was where we bury people who died, but they didn't actually die there. I think it was all a little confusing to her. Anyways, we went to visit you after and she was pretty excited to lay a little rock and seed case on your grave. She changed her mind about the rock and brought it home after but it was still cute to see her giving it to you.
I think she has been having a hard time lately. She threw a fit yesterday when I talked about dying the eggs. I tried to explain that I meant "color" the eggs but she just cried harder. I finally said, "Why are you crying?" and she sobbed "because my daddy died!" She used to use that as a tool to try to manipulate me, but I could tell when she was faking it. This was definitely not a fake. She really does miss you honey. I don't know why its been so hard for her lately, maybe its playing outside so much because she remembers doing all these things with you? I know spring coming was hard for me because of that. Maybe she is the same way?

Anyways, back to our busy week...

Tuesday we got to go swimming in the hotel that you and I stayed at for our honeymoon. It was so much fun. Little E had a great time, especially in the hot tub because she was tall enough to touch the bottom and walk around in it. It wasn't too hot for her so that was a nice place for her to play (while being very closely supervised.) Little M got to wear his new swimming suit Nana bought for him. I thought he was pretty styling. :) Afterward we drove through BK and I tried their new cowboy kind of dollar burger. The whole time I ate it I couldn't stop thinking "Michael would have loved this! I would have bought it as a surprise lunch for him sometime at work with a great big root bear..." Sometimes the little things are the hardest you know?

Check out my new swim trunks! I am such a stud. :)

Little E had a lot of fun in that tube and Little M just wanted to eat anything within reach.

Hangin with Aunt Jen

Wednesday morning I decided to just hop in the car and visit your sister. We drove down to see her and had a great time making cookies, watching her oldest run in a track meet, and enjoying an episode of psych together. It was so much fun to just hang out with her and enjoy each others kids. She hadn't see us since October I think. I wanted to to get to spend time with Little M before he started crawling everywhere and got to be totally uncontrollable. ;) Plus they were getting ready to list the house and I wanted to visit before they move. We did have a crazy thing happen on Wednesday night. Little E had a run in with the "corner of doom." I asked her to go get in the bathroom so we could give her a bath and she tripped over a baby doll I think and hit her head on the baseboard. It cut her head open and ran into the kitchen with her head covered in blood. I couldn't beleive how much she was bleeding. I put her on the sink and got a towel from Jen to help stop the bleeding and then we took her to the ER to see if she needed stitches. Her neighbor was the doctor on call and he told us we just needed to super glue it instead. Little E was so brave. After the initial shock she calmed down a lot and just wanted a green sucker because she was visiting the doctor and she always gets a green sucker at the doctors. She did get upset when she saw blood on my hand. She started crying again when I tried to wash her up and when they put the numbing stuff on her. However, she was pretty good for the whole gluing process. She still cried but continued to carry on a conversation about all kinds of things like favorite colors. She was amazing. You must have been so proud of her, I know I was. She has left the injury alone for the most part, but tonight after I put her to bed she peeled all the glue off, so I had to use a butterfly bandage on it instead. Hopefully she will leave that alone for a while. But it looked like it was healing nicely and it going to be ok, after all it has been a half a week now.

She hit the corner on the left.

The corner of DOOM!!!

Pretty ouchy huh? It hurt me just looking at it. But she was a trooper and seems to be fine. What a strong little girl.

Thursday was a day filled with making cookies, the drive home, visiting teaching appointments, and a play date with her cousin G. We didn't have much time for anything else, but it was a busy day just with that much to do.

The cookie she made (while tasting all the frosting after I told her not to double dip. lol)

Friday we actually went to the store, all three of us! I was very proud of myself. We made it through the whole trip without a single meltdown or me forgetting something on our list. It was a miracle. :)

Saturday we went down to the Baby convention and participated in the "great cloth diaper change." Basically we were part of a world wide cloth diaper change for the Guinness book of world records. They had to have 25 people participate. I thought little E would be too tall to participate (over 39 inches) but she was just under the mark and saved the day because they needed every one there to make it count. We even grabbed a friend off the sidelines at the very end to make sure there was enough. It was kind of fun and I hope to buy the book for them both and put a picture of them participating in it for them to laugh at someday. You know, for bragging rights when they start dating in the future right? "Did you know I am in the Guinness book of world records? Yah, my mom changed me into a cloth diaper along with thousands of other moms at the same time. Pretty cool right? Wanna be my girlfriend?" lol Or maybe not.

Right by where we did the "great cloth diaper change". I love that stroller. It made the whole outing possible! :)

Little E had a fun time watching all of the girl dancers doing their performance and also enjoyed jumping on the little mini trampoline. We all had a pretty good time considering we were tired from our busy week and flying without a copilot (my Mom couldn't go with us). I was pretty proud of us after I got home and realized we had made it through two outings in a row without a major fit/mishap happening. I hope we can keep it up. Maybe things are going to start getting easier for a while. Little E has sure become a helpful little girl and Little M is still his sweet easygoing self. Hopefully we can keep this up through our big trip this summer.

Little E was mesmerized by these dancers.

I couldn't beleive how high they got. It was crazy, they were like little monkeys!

Sunday we had a wonderful time at church. Little E really enjoyed learning about the Easter story and how Jesus came back to life. She also loved her Easter basket and "Easter treats". This year she got 1 cad bury egg, 2 marshmallows, a few jellybeans, and a basket full of animal cracker and goldfish filled eggs. She also got a new pair of gardening gloves to help me plant flowers and a little bunny toy. After church we went to Nana's for nap time and a family get together. She had a great time on the Easter egg hunt and a bike ride with her cousin G. Little M enjoyed flirting with Grandma "Fishy" who loved his new Easter suit. However, he was more cranky than normal and wasn't napping well. Papa looked at him for a second and said "is he getting a new tooth on the right side?" Sure enough he is cutting his first tooth on the bottom right side. Leave it to Mr. Observant to be the one to notice it. What an amazing grandpa. He caught it before me, and I am nursing the kid! Little M felt a lot better after he got a little Tylenol and a nice walk outside to calm him down. All in all it was a beautiful Easter that helped me remember that all of the promises we have been given are thanks to the original beautiful Easter Sunday. Thank goodness I have a savior who made it possible for us to live together forever. No matter how long in the future that is, I can always look forward to it. :) (Sorry, no pictures of Easter tonight. I need to upload them first. Hopefully I can get them up before a month goes by...)

Sorry for the novel, but like I said it was a busy week. I love you and wish you could have been there to help me hide the eggs and teach Little E to ride her bike. But I am sure you are teaching us all even more important things. Thank you for all you do, even if I don't get to know exactly what it is.
Happy Easter honey!

Love,
Jenny