Animals, animals everywhere!

This long, frigid winter I've been trying hard to keep the kids busy.

Elijah loved this stuff-the-fuzzies-in-the-hole game...until Miles broke it. :P

For Valentine's Day Alan made me cinnamon rolls and eggs and bought me a card and Reese's PB heart.

He knows the way to my heart. :)

I didn't do anything for him. What a bad, bad wife!

Elijah was in heaven splashing in puddles one day.

LOOOOOOVE this sweet smile. :)

This is how we clean up spills around here. They were bending down and picking them up with their mouths. Who needs a vacuum?

We took our second trip to the Pittsburgh Zoo. It wasn't nearly as fun as the first time we went.

No pictures with the elephant...

And the giant sting rays that came up to us from the touch tank were gone, replaced by small shy ones. :/

The polar bears were exciting, though, playing right in front of our faces and eating fish the caretaker threw down to them from above. :)

Christian was invited to a Birthday party at a roller skating rink. He used the granny-walker thing most of the time but had a blast.

Miles was able to skate, too. He LOVED it! ha! They were wobbly and fell a lot, but all they could talk about when we left was how they wanted to go again.

My friend and neighbor, Shannon, came over for a visit. Elijah tried on her daughter's shoes and LOVED them. :D

Wore them around the house until the baby girl was about to burst because she wanted them back. haha! Preeeeeetty.

Elijah drank some of that water. Yep.

 Ate at 100 Degree Hot Pot with our good friends, the Chen's. Love them!
And the food is sooooo yummers!

Winter has finally left us! The boys were in heaven the other day, helping our neighbor fly his new kite.

This STINKER woke up several times during the night, thinking it was time to get up, for DAYS after Alan took him to WA for 6 days. Totally screwed up his schedule. Just the past few days he's been sleeping through the night again.

 We drove to IL, a whole 12 hours, to look at homes. It'll be nice to get a home and KNOW where we're going to be living the next 3 years! This was Elijah, pretty much the whole trip. I hate that pacifier but MAN it sure makes him a happy boy!

And this wast the two older boys the whole time. Constant touching-laughing-fighting-laughing-squealing. :)

Overall they did very well because they're pretty darn good kids.

I'll keep you updated if we close on a house.... :D

CATCHUP! Hold the mustard...

Thanksgiving we went to our friends, the Moore's, in Virginia. We love them! We stayed a few days and had many delicious food adventures.

 And some park ones, too. And we played board games every night. FU-UN!

Poor Elijah got a staph infection but we got him on antibiotics and he got better fast. :(

Here's the babe with his staph. Pobrecito. We put up our Christmas tree right when we got back.

What? You can't see it? Yah, it was 3' tall and the bottom lights burned out this year. It's been retired but it served us well. Oh and there's the boys doing what they love best: video games.

 Miles completed his Pre-K workbook (it's a fat book!) so I took him on a date (his promised reward). We went to Fun Unleashed (a Chuck E Cheese's type place) to play arcade games, then got ice cream at McDonald's...

then went to the library and saw Where the Wild Things Are play. It was a very fun night! My how things are better when you are with your kids one-on-one.

 At the library I took the boys to do The Polar Express. They read them the book, then we took a trolley to "Santa's Workshop," a store they transformed with toys (they got to buy one with a coin they'd received after the story). 

Santa was there, of course. They really liked it. This library is pretty awesome.

 We drove to the Washington D.C. LDS temple to see the lights...

 ...and one of our favorite pianists, Paul Cardall, played there for free. Elijah was loud, of course, but otherwise it was a very fun time!

We wanted to surprise my family for Christmas but the tickets were ridiculously expensive. So we hung out here and chillaxed. The boys opened slippers and jammies on Christmas Eve and drank hot chocolate and watched a move. It was great to be together.

New Year's Eve our friends had a barn party. It.was.freezing. Otherwise it was good fun with lots of yummy treats. :D

HAPPY 2014!!

This winter has been pretty darn brutal here in PA so this is the main thing we've been doing.

Snuggle time!

Even with the heat at 74 or 75 (hey, utilities are included in rent) there is such an awful draft that is so.dang.cold!!!

They've cancelled school a couple of days because it was so cold (below zero cold).

brrr...I hope this winter won't last much longer because I am READY for my 3 active boys to get out of our 650 sq. ft. apartment and play outside already!!!

I love them.

I promise. :)

BUT GET OUT OF MY HOUSE! :)

Memories with Dad

My daddy dearest visited us in State College, PA on Tuesday, Oct 29th.

He dressed up and trick-or-treated. What a trooper! A storm trooper that is. :D The kids had a blast and he actually enjoyed wearing the costume. So cute. :)

We drove to the Johnson home, Hiram, OH, Nov 4, 2013. Actually I drove. I drove the whole time. I don't drive. It was a different experience and I thank the heavens I didn't fall asleep and kill us both!

 This is the School of the Prophets, second story of the Johnson home. Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ visited Joseph Smith and Sydney Rigdon in that room. There was an awesome spirit there on that hallowed ground.

Touching where Joseph Smith had preached each Sunday during the year he'd lived there. Front porch of the John Johnson home, Hiram, OH.

 Joseph Smith went to Hiram and walked straight into this store and said something like, "You prayed me here, Brother Whitney. What do you need of me?"

 Above the store, Emma and Joseph's dining table.

 Sidney Rigdon's marking in the Bible while making corrections. Pretty cool.

Kirtland, OH temple. Nov 4, 2013. It was closed, but was still cool to see, even in the dark...

 I was sad to see it cracking in parts. I laid my hands on the surface, wanting to touch where so many early saints had worked and sacrificed so much to build a temple to their God. It was bigger than I'd thought. What a sacrifice!

 That evening we drove to Columbus, OH and ate at Texas Roadhouse. We shared a rack of ribs--my favorite! My dad is about to blow his straw in my face...'cause that's how we roll.

My dad writing in his journal. Such a good example. :)

 A huge rose garden in Columbus, OH. Nov 5, 2013. Yes I positioned my dad and made him pose for pictures. :)

 The rose garden wasn't in season, but the area was still pretty.

 Afterward we did a session in the Columbus, OH temple. It was so small, yet still the house of the Lord. :)

 Taking a walk with Grandpa on such a beautiful Fall day, Nov 6.

 I <3 elijah.="" p="">

 My dad had as much fun playing in the leaves as Elijah did.

I rest my case. :) 

Elijah insisted on helping Grandpa take the garbage out.

 Walking down to the boats to explore Penns Cave, Nov 8, 2013.

Entering the cave.  do-do-do-do! do-do-do-do!

The caves were beautiful. I could've stayed down there for hours.

 Pennsylvania Military Museum. Nov 8. They had cool cannons and tanks scattered around outside...

 And inside. Cannons from WW I, WW II, and Civil War eras.

 They had cool footage of the Navy guys doing their thing in the early 1900's.

 The stickers say, "Please don't touch torpedo". Elijah bonked his head on it. I think he broke the rules.

National Cemetery, Gettysburg, PA. Nov 10. It was sobering to see so many names on so many graves.

 On top of a lookout tower. Gettysburg, PA. It was freezing cold!

The Pennsylvania Monument. There are monuments for each state that had soldiers fighting in Gettysburg. This one is the biggest.

Nov 11. Intercourse, PA, "Amish country"

 We took a buggy ride on these bad boys.

 Beautiful countryside. There were farmers harvesting cornstalks using horses, it was hard to get pictures!

Our driver was none other than "Big Steve" from Amish Mafia. I've never seen the show, but he was pretty darn cool. He bought me chocolate chip cookies and offered to dress me as an Amish woman so I could be on the show. (He was filming the next day.) He said he'd never had to use his fists to protect anyone, but would if he had to, even for a "public woman" like me. He cracked jokes, was bad-A and all around cool and down to earth. A lot more liberal than I thought Amish were supposed to be (his arm is tight around me here). ha! :) A highlight of the trip, for sure.

I am so grateful my dad came to visit us! He originally came to help me with the kids because Alan was going to be gone. Alan didn't end up leaving, however, and had a work schedule with random days off so we could enjoy these awesome trips together. To building memories! :)

Pee Stain on Mattress Magic

So over the years we've acquired two twin size memory foam mattress pads. They're usually about $100 each but we got both for free. They transform the boys' okay mattresses into slices of cloud heaven to sleep on.
Tonight I discovered that one of them had a pee stain. A PEE STAIN! Well I was not happy about that so I went online to see what I could do about it and what do I discover? The mad scientist cure for pee stains on mattresses. I'm sure it could work on white cloth couches, too.
Put away your mad scientist gloves and safety goggles b/c the solution is easy and non-toxic.

1/2 c hydrogen peroxide
1 1/2 Tbsp baking soda
drop of liquid dish soap

Place ingredients in spray bottle but DON'T MIX. Spray onto mattress. Stain will lift within 15 minutes. Seriously, like magic. Just vacuum away any leftover powder and wa-la!
Now buy one of those vinyl mattress cover that cost $5 at Wal-Mart so you don't have to feel the need to pull out the mad scientist gear again. :)

Yeeeeeer welcome.