A few things lately

Here is a quick update of whats been going on the last month or so.  April was pretty much just survival mode.  Paul was on night float during the month of April and then because of the way his weekend call shifts fell at the end of March he ended up doing 5 weeks of night float.  My good friend Allison and I actually spent a lot of time together because her husband was on night float with Paul.  We had each over several times for dinner, spent a lot of time at the park or just letting our kids play together and traded off watching each others kids on the weekends so we could have date night.  Night float is just hard because we get very little time with Paul, trying to keep the kids quiet during the day is nearly impossible and basically never getting any kind of break from all the responsibilities of the home is just so tiring. I also have had to take all three kids to church by myself for two months straight.  We have to get there early so that we can get a bench, my kids tend to do much better when sitting in the bench plus Greydon always falls asleep on the way to church and will stay asleep but I need a bench to lay him on.  I even got super lucky one week and all three kids fell asleep during sacrament and I was able to sit back and enjoy.  Thankfully Grey sleeps each week, it's about the only way I survive church by myself.  

Paul had a week of vacation scheduled at the beginning of May, we had originally planned to visit Ariane in Washington DC.  We thought about going somewhere closer to home but because Leila had missed school while we were in Utah for the funeral she really couldn't miss anymore.  So we ended up just hanging around at home.  We went and bought a new dryer and it has been awesome it no longer takes me 3 cycles to get our clothes dry, I can get laundry done so fast now.  We had some friends over for a BBQ and roasted marshmallows around our fire pit.  Paul went golfing and both Paul and I were able to go have lunch with Leila at school.  Not a very exciting vacation but it was nice to just relax and have Paul around.

I went to the doctors recently for shoulder pain I've been having.  I have had issues with my should for years but the pain usually comes and goes so I've never had it checked out.  But for the last couple of months it has really been bothering me, like constant pain, it's hard to lift things and the pain even wakes me up in the night.  The did x-rays and everything came back normal, so they think its just bursitis which means there is nothing that can be done other than heat and Ibuprofen, kind of frustrating.

Asher is now old enough to go to nursery, thank goodness.  The first week he went right in and was as happy as can be, the second week he cried when I dropped him off but that could be because he had just woken up from a nap.  He thinks he is such a big boy, always trying to keep up with his  brother and sister.  If they are doing something Asher wants to be doing it too.  He doesn't like his high chair much anymore.  He stands up in it and tries to climb out or just straight up refuses to get in it. He can even wiggle out of the buckles.  Most days he wants to sit at the counter or the table with the rest of us.  His other new thing is refusing to go down the stairs on his stomach, he thinks he can walk down them facing forward.

We are so ready for some nice weather around here.  We have had a ton of rainy and cold days and even got a freak snow storm on May 2nd and 3rd.  We ended u getting 7 inches of extremely wet snow, they said if this storm would have come in January when it is much colder it would have been several feet of snow but since it was pretty warm the snow was melting as it hit the ground.  It was super annoying having to pull all of our winter gear back out and I refused to shovel the snow, I just waited for it to melt.  

We have enjoyed some park days just not as many as I would like.  I guess there is over 30 parks here in Ankeny and so me and the kids decided we would go to each of them this Spring/Summer.  And speaking of summer we can hardly wait for school to be out.  I'm so ready to have a break from getting Leila up and ready for school every morning at 6:15.  Although I' not sure my kids will sleep much later since they are so programmed to get up at this time.  We bought our swim pass for the Rec  center pools and our counting down the days until we can use it.

Mother's day was really nice this year.   Paul had to work Saturday night into Sunday so on Saturday he let me sleep in and cleaned the house.  And when I say cleaned he did all the things I hate doing or never get around to doing like washing the window, scrubbing my kitchen down and dusting.  

When he got home on Sunday he and the kids gave me some nice gifts and cards.  Later that night he did all the dishes and cleaned the kitchen again and got the kids to bed.  My favorite gifts are always those of service, its so nice to get a break from my everyday tasks.  The only thing that could have made the day better was to be with my mom and mother-in-law.  I'm so thankful I get to be a mom to my 3 beautiful children.

The boys can play really well together most of the time but then sometimes Greydon can be a real pest.  He likes to bug and hear his siblings scream.  But on this particular day they were getting along really well and they built a fort that I was not allowed in.  

Easter

On the Saturday before Easter we went to an Easter egg hunt at the Gardunia's house (they are in our ward).  The kids had fun searching for eggs and then we had a potluck picnic but because of the rain we  had to move it inside their home.  Later that afternoon we dyed Easter eggs.

On Easter morning the kids went searching for their baskets and Easter eggs.  Greydon quickly found his but the Easter bunny hid Leila's pretty good so it took her about 5 minutes  to find it.  Asher had been up in the night throwing up and he had just fallen back asleep when the other two woke up so he found his basket later in the day.  Asher was sick all day long and so he didn't go to church.  Paul was working nights so he was sleeping and thankfully my mom was still in town and so she stayed home with Asher while I took the other two to church.  The pictures in their Easter clothes are from the next week when everyone was feeling better.  These are not the original Easter clothes I bought them, I actually bought blue and green ties for the boys and a blue dress for Leila but then we ended up buying pink for the funeral and that is what they wanted to wear for Easter.  That afternoon we had a yummy Easter dinner of Ham, potato salad, fruit, rolls and cream cheese pie with blueberry topping.  Connie and Sean were driving from Washington DC to Utah with a moving truck of all of Ariane's things.   We got lucky to have them stop and stay with us Easter night.  The kids loved having them here and they finally got to show their NiNi their house and some of Iowa.