The Joint Party and extras

We'll start with the extras and work our way to the party pictures. Elias is happy. He's often happy and is generally very photogenic. Enough said.
Addilyn was taking a bath and Elias thought he'd keep her company. He also decided that while he was hanging out, he might as well have his slide with him in case he got bored. Good thinking.
Now for the party photos. This year was the year of the rainbow party for Miss Addilyn. She and Ollie celebrated their 5th year of life with a rainbow/rocket party. Aunt Courtney made the cupcakes. They were tie dyed. One design was this lovely rainbow (of which Addilyn ate 2).
The other design was these adorable rockets. I'll be honest...I preferred the rockets but that might be because I'm a sucker for some chocolate frosting.
Aunt Kendall decked everything out in rockets and rainbows. Here is just one aspect of the decoration. To keep with the rainbow theme, we had rainbow fruit kabobs as well. So good!
The birthday girl and boy.
The birthday song.
The birthday gifts.
And lots of fun was had by all.
The End.

Spring

As most of you know, today is the first day of spring. The weather has been trying to fake us out for a week or two now but today it is official. The tree in our backyard got a head start last week and gave us these beautiful blooms to wonder at. They are already gone but they were fun while they lasted.
The beautiful weather gave us lots of chances to explore Clay Center. We did our first of, what should be, many walks/bike rides through town.
With the coming of Daylight Savings Time, came a reprieve from Asher's overly bright breakfasts. He came up with a simple solution to the problem though so he should be fine when the sun rises that early again during the summer.
We are seeing more and more of Elias' climbing fascination. This was his conquest of one morning. He brought over Addilyn's booster because apparently the chair by itself just wasn't enough.Addilyn got this awesome outfit from our seminary friends as they came through (twice) over their spring break. Isn't it adorable? She's pretty excited.
We had loads of fun exploring both Clay Center and Manhattan with Adam, Jessa, and Alicia and can't wait to see them again (even if it means that we have to move back to Chicago to do so).
Finally, here is Elias enjoying some chocolate hummus. I made it for Asher but he won't even try it. Addilyn and Elias both love it though. Who wouldn 't, though? It basically tastes like really intense chocolate frosting. He was trying to figure out how to get all of it off the concave part of the spoon.

The Desk

Here is the promised post about Addilyn's art desk. It was Tyler's creation and labor of love. It started out as this:
This was the best "Before" picture I could find. We found this desk out by our dumpster in Chicago and decided it was too good to throw out. It certainly wasn't pretty but it was decent wood and would serve our purposes (as Tyler's desk) well enough.Here is the first "After" picture. Another shot. Notice the tilt. Tyler made so it can be used at different levels. Addilyn seems to prefer it up as high as it will go. You will also notice the roll of paper that threads through an opening in the top. Addilyn has already gotten a lot of use out of this feature.
Tyler made spaces for lots of art supplies. The cup on this side is supposed to be used for water for her paints and he even cut the opening at an angle so it could be used more easily when the work surface is tilted up.
This was my one contribution to the desk. We wood burned in her name. For the first time wood burning, it turned out pretty good. And, as Tyler pointed out, it made for the first art project for the desk.
As we mentioned in our previous post, this is Addilyn's very first piece of art produced on the desk. Let us know if you'd like your own original piece because I'm sure Addilyn would be more than happy to oblige.

Addilyn's Birthday...part 2

Addilyn did a lot of playing at her desk on her birthday. Here is the very first piece of art made at her art desk. We have prominently displayed it in our dining room.
For her party we invited over a few friends. Chelsie and Jason Crook and Addilyn's friend, Tori, were all here to help us celebrate. We started with what is becoming a traditional meal of barbeque meatballs and oven fries. After that, it was on to cake! Tori and Addilyn are admiring the cake.
This year Addilyn's cake was a rainbow cake. I'm not really very good at the huge theme parties so I just pick a color (or in this case, series of colors). Look how cheerful!
That is one flamboyant Pac-Man!
Addilyn professes to love cake. I'm not so sure though. She mostly ate the frosting. She at least did it in an interesting manner...by separating out all the layers and eating all the frosting with her fingers. It's her birthday and I guess she'll eat her cake however she wants. Thanks for the entertainment, silly girl!

Here's the birthday song!

And here is Addilyn "unwrapping" the desk.

Addilyn's Birthday...part 1

This is technically the day before Addilyn's birthday. They celebrated her birthday at preschool on Thursday. She helped decorate the cupcakes. Look at that concentration!
Her finished masterpieces.
Look at our pretty five-year-old! This is on her actual birthday. They made her a birthday hat/crown at preschool and she wore it almost the entire day.
This picture will come back to haunt her some day.
So cute...and so big!
A run down of her day...she ate breakfast. She had Lucky Charms.
Then she opened her cards and her gift from us. Tyler made her an art desk (we will have a full post on that later) and she played with it for the rest of the morning.
More about her big day and her party coming soon.

Photos from My Phone

As the title suggests, here are bunch of pictures I took or at least had saved on my phone. They are all from the past month and a half or so. Enjoy!Asher jumping in a pile of pillows at Grandma & Grandpa J's house. He most definitely built that pile all on his own. Crazy kid.
Tyler took this while we were out on a walk in our neighborhood.
Cutie face.
Addilyn and Asher getting comfortable at Chipotle. They talked for at least 5 minutes to a guy while he ate his lunch.
Enjoying the playground in Clay Center.

Swinging!!
Grandma's glasses. Styling!
Elias' new trick. He can climb the ladder and get into Addilyn's bed all on his own now. Great.

A Whole Lot of Catching Up

A long time ago...we moved. It was Christmastime then. Since they were tearing down our building and we were going to be the last tenants...and since it would have been silly to get a real Christmas tree when we were going to be moving 3 days before Christmas...I decided to staple a christmas tree to my wall. I enjoyed it.
We have a lot of stuff.
Here is the first of the 3 stages of loading up the truck. Tyler is a really good packer.
Here is stage 2. We don't have a picture of stage 3 but you get the idea.
Here is our master bedroom in our new place here in Clay Center. It's really long.
Now contrast that to the kids' room. We call it the barracks.
Before we moved, we built a tower out of all the Elecare formula cans we saved from when Asher was so sick. This is the formula we used from the time Asher was released from the hospital until he was cleared to eat/drink soy. We ended up using $7000-$8000 worth of the stuff in that time period. Eesh!
Elias helped us unpack our box of hangers.
The kids enjoying their bedtime story with Daddy.
Elias immersing himself in our container of matchbox cars. We found him in that box quite often there for a while.
Playing a game with Daddy.

Addilyn rocking with Elias in our glider.
Addilyn's very first letter to her penpal, Alicia. I just helped her with spelling (oh and keeping things straight since we didn't have any lined paper).
Eliasman with his hat and the car.
"How did I end up in the bath with my socks on?" That's a good question.
Happy faces!
That should have gotten you all caught up.