Kurt did another half marathon in April. There were suppose to be a bunch of people running it from his work but it ended up being 3 of them. I sat this one out with it being such a hard winter to train since I was so sick for many months and then dealing with our house move. We went downtown to stay the night before. While there we walked around the new City Creek Center. It is very beautiful. We walked into a few stores including Tiffany’s, Disney, Steve Madden, H&M, etc. It was very crowded. Kurt got up really early the next day to get to the start line. I slept in and then walked over to the finish line. He had his best time yet of 2 hours 13 minutes. Good job Kurt!

Kurt is now another year older. He and I celebrated the Saturday before by eating at Market Street Grill. He picks this place every year for his birthday to get his fish craving filled. On his actual birthday he went to work. It is so hard to be a grown up and have a birthday. When he got home he got to open his gifts. We got him some binoculars. The boys all spent some time looking out our windows at different things. Then we went and got frozen yogurt at one of our favorite places. We are so thankful for Kurt in our family. He works so hard to provide for us. He is the best dad and husband that anyone could ask for.

We have started on getting our yard put together. We hired someone to come in and level our gigantic hill and make a rock retaining wall. Those rocks are expensive. It is coming together nicely and will be finished soon so we can move on to the next yard thing. We also had some concrete poured to extend our patio. When all the rocks are done then it will be sprinklers, trees, shrubs, plants, and grass. All that might have to wait until the fall because the money is going fast!

We have seen so many animals in our yard. All winter long we have seen deer. We even saw foot prints close to the house. We have all kinds of birds flying around. The other morning we had the windows opened and Jake came in and said that the birds were so smart because they knew and were singing the Mario song. So funny what kids come up with. He loves listening to the birds. One Sunday afternoon when my family was over there was a huge snake. He was hissing at us and not happy that we were around. My brother shooed him away with a stick to the other side of the fence. I even saw a gopher running across our yard. I hope they all go away when we get more put together so they don’t eat everything.

We did so many fun things for Easter this year. We decided that we wanted to have the neighborhood kids come over to a Fondue Peeps Party. We only have 3 other families in the neighborhood and one family couldn’t come so it ended up being just a few kids. Jake helped me make the invitations, deliver them, and plan the party. We planned 3 different activities/ games before doing the fondue. The kids dipped their Peeps in chocolate and then in sprinkles, Oreos, PB bites, or sour gummy worms. It was so fun and the boys really enjoyed playing with our new neighbors.

On Friday afternoon Josh had been complaining, crying, and screaming that his eye hurt. I thought he got something in it but would not see anything. When my mom got over to our house to do some activities she said maybe something got up under his eye lid and it wasn’t being washed out. I took him to InstaCare and they couldn’t see anything. They put some drops in his eye and put up a special light and it showed that his eye had a large cut on it. They called it a cornea abrasion. They sent us upstairs to the Primary’s unit to see a Pediatric Opthamalogist. She said it wasn’t as bad as some cases she had seen but it was very painful. Josh would be fine for a few minutes and then start screaming. She said as the eye moved the cut would catch and then hurt causing him to scream. She prescribed some drops to help seal the cut and prevent infection. They ran all kinds of tests to make sure it didn’t affect his vision. Most of the cut was on the white of the eye so he checked out ok. While they were doing all the tests I asked her to check for color blindness. He gets his colors so mixed up and thinks everything is blue, green, or red. As I suspected, he is color blind just like his grandpa. I am glad I know so I don’t stress out so much about him not knowing his colors. It was a long night of him sleeping and then screaming and holding him down three times a day for drops. But on Tuesday when he had a check up it was all healed and no cut was to be seen. Good thing eyes heal fast!

When we got all done with doctors it was finally time to dye Easter eggs. The boys love having this tradition and having grandma Camille come help us every year. We had mostly green and red dyed eggs since that is the favorite colors of Jake and Josh and lots of dye coloring on hands. Grandma then had the boys help with the sprinkles on the PB eggs.

Saturday we had our annual Ware Easter Egg Hunt. I am so happy for this tradition so that I don’t have to fight the crowds and worry about the boys getting eggs at hunts. They were so lucky and got lots of candy filled eggs and a few money filled eggs. It was so nice of a day that we stayed outside on grandma Carol’s patio to socialize and watch the boys play with my cousin’s kids. Grandma Camille even brought stuff to make these little guys that grow hair out of a nylon and some super sized frisbees.

Sunday morning we woke up to see what the Easter Bunny brought. The boys got lots of candy, a sling shot, new toothbrushes, and Lego’s. Legos took up the rest of the morning so I went back to sleep since I had few hours the previous nights with Josh’s eye injury. The afternoon was spent in church. I did feel really guilty when Kurt got in the car and he said in Elder’s Quorum as part of the lesson each person shared what they did that morning to celebrate the real reason for Easter. We had done nothing that morning because I was so tired. We did however during the week talk lots about the Savior’s Resurrection as we were reading 3rd Nephi and His visit to the America’s. And on Monday I did a whole FHE with the eggs and little things inside the eggs that represent the Savior’s crucifixion and resurrection. I wish Kurt would have remembered all those times. Next year I will have to do a better job.

I saw an idea on the internet to make Conference flowers. While Jake was off track he helped me color and glue the flowers on card stock. He said that we needed grass for the flowers so he and Josh cut up some grass too. For FHE the week before Conference we talked about listening to the prophet and apostles. We went over each person and and taped the flowers to the wall to help us remember during the week. As each person talked at Conference we wrote on the flower what they spoke about. As someone came to the pulpit to talk I had to tell Jake whether this person was on a flower or not. He did good with some of the talks in listening and figuring out what to write and on others we had to help him. I think this was the most that he had ever listened. I made each one of them a Conference binder too with activities to keep the quiet. Now, if I could only get Josh to stop wrestling and listen next time….