Grandma and Grandpa Glover Came to Visit

Grandma and Grandpa Glover came in town for a visit.  The kids were all super excited and even gave up their beds and camped out in their sleeping bags in the toy room until grandpa left.  What sweet kids.

Jonathan is still a little cuddle bug, but is slowly getting better about being put down.  It was awesome having grandma around to pass him off to.

We met up with the Parentes at a park one morning and at a trampoline jump house another morning.  There were wall to wall trampolines, a foam pit, balls and even a dodgeball trampoline court.  Wednesday mornings is toddler time so for two hours it is just younger kids and they have the whole place to themselves (plus it's just $5 a kid for the two hours).  After wearing the kids our there, we followed it with the kids favorite: Chick-fil-a. 

My favortie thing about having grandma in town was that she would just take the kids and do something fun, leaving me and Jonathan with a quiet house.  They picked up some happy meals and went to the park for a picnic, and played at the tubes. I think the highlight was getting to spend two dollars at the dollar store.  Kherington picked out a matching game and a princess kite, while Kevin opted for a water squirter and a ball that lights up when bounced.  They were both super excited about it.

Grandma also made cupcakes with the kids. During one of my shopping trips I was trying to get in and out of Walmart with a whiny baby and two other tired kid and they both really wanted frosting tubs so they got them.  Now they got to actually use them.  They mad normal and mini cupcakes and they turned out pretty cute.  If I'd been more on top of things I would have given some away, but I wasn't so most of them ended up in the trash a couple days later.

It was fun having Grandma in town.  She planned her stay well and left the day before our weather dropped back down to freezing.

Jonathan's Baby Blessing

Jonathan had his baby blessing on February 16th. In addition to our immediate family who came in town, the Parente families were also able to join us.  It really is nice to have family near by and very kind of them to come support us.

Here we all are at church. Kherington had already beelined to class even though we tried to be really quick (we teach the Youth right after Sacrament meeting).

Family In Town

With Grandma and Grandpa already in town, the part got even bigger when Jason, Tiffany Eli and Kyah came up from Houston.  We spent a couple hours at the Tubes.  Think Chick-fil-a playplace times 10, plus way less crowded and more clean.  They are inside a huge church but open to the public and free.  The kids loved it and the adults got to relax and chat.

After the tubes we enjoyed some true southern food at Babes.  Chicken, biscuits, green beans, creamed corn, and mashed potatoes with gravy.  Delicious.  The places was packed so we had a bit of a wait. Grandma took the kids down the street to a coin operated horse for a little fun. The kids also took turns playing on the ipad.

Kevin the Barber

Ryan needed a haircut and since the kids love the monsters haircut books so much, we figured Kevin would have a blast being a barber like the monster.  I just stuck a 7 on and let him go to town knowing it would be impossible for him to mess it up :).

Valentine Day - Some ups and downs

Kevin's Joy school had a little Valentines day party.  He took some valentines that Kherington helped make.  We re-used the 'you light up my life' idea from last year and attached a finger light an I wrapped up a box to hold his Valentines.  Pretty cute and easy.

I was really tired the night before and didn't ever finish decorating for Valentines day (I had put out the table cloth a week or so ago).  Kherington was a little disappointed when she woke up that there wasn't any heart attacked room.

We rolled out and cut sugar cookies while Jonathan screamed in the background.  Then I waited until Jonathan was asleep to have them frost.  Just as we sat down to frost, he woke up and started to scream.  So we had more background noise.  Kherington and Kevin both still had a blast.  Kherington is quite the artist.

Kevin really like making piles of sprinkles on top of each of his cookies.

We also made heart-shaped pizza with the same background noise.  I couldn't find my normal dough recipe so I used a different one that I wasn't a huge fan of.  After the pizza was cooked, I cut the hearts up into slices.  The kids liked taking the heart pizza puzzle apart and putting it back together.

Ryan left super early for work and stayed at the office until he left to pick-up his parents at the airport at 10pm (hoping that would make it so he could actually enjoy a work-free while family was in town).  I did my best to make it a fun Valentines day, but it was definitely the lamest one we've had since having kids. By the end of the day, our house was a disaster.  I asked the kids to pick-up their toys while I fed Jonathan (the picture below is just the toy room, but every room in the house was at least that bad plus the kitchen was a disaster from our food fun during the day).  Well, I came our from feeding Jonathan to the house still a disaster, about an inch of water in the bathroom and down the hallway plus a soaked playroom floor.  They found some plastic containers in the playroom closet and had been filling them up and dumping them out in the playroom. I can't think of the last time I was so angry.  I put every single item left out into a couple boxes and put them up in the closet, moved some toys to find some dry carpet to roll their sleeping bags out on in the playroom and left them there.  So much for a fun end to a fun day.  At least reinforcement were on their way into town.

See how he grows: 1 month

Jonathan spends a lot more time awake, sadly he isn't always the happiest of babies during that time. He is sometimes hard to burp but if you don't get a burp out he just whines and whines. Also a new development, he actually cares if his diapers is wet or poopy and expects to be changed.

Breakfast with Daddy

Moving back to the US and going through busy season has definitely been hard on the kids (not to mention adding a baby to rock their world).  Ryan leaves around 5:30 and gets home between 9 and midnight so sometimes comes home earlier and works from home, plus has been working every Saturday.  Bottom line, the kids don't get to see him much.  Ryan is so good with making the time he is around fun.  Sunday morning he woke up with them and decided to dress them up in their cooking outfits and let them help make German pancakes.  The both love being helpers in the kitchen and it is a definite bonus if that helping includes cracking eggs.  They're lucky he's their daddy.