Easter

Easter week, which means Logan had a few days off from school and Easter Egg hunts were in full swing. A neighbor wanted to put on an egg hunt for the children and below are the boys with many of their friends (Shanel and Brian's new house is the brick home in the background on the left). 

Alyssa loves being outside and she was happy gnawing on a toy. Can you believe her curl?

Logan raced to get as many eggs as he could.  He wanted to get more than Grace.

He must have gotten enough candy.

Landon doesn't have the same sense of urgency as his older brother.  You can see Hudson in the background finding candy.

This week Landon began playing baseball.  His uniform drowns him, but he loves baseball.  You can really tell which boys have older brothers.  Landon hit the ball when it was thrown to him, while many boys hit from the tee.  He also knows to get the ball and throw to 1st base.  Our Landon sure has the coordination to be really good at sports.  

Here he is in the outfield with his coach in the background.

Grandma and Grandpa Bunkall came to watch Landon play his game. 

The new appliances are in and Jill has loved them.  She especially loves that the microwave can thaw meat, the freezer has so much space, the dishwasher is so quiet, and the oven plays "happy sounds" when it's warmed up, timer expires, etc.  Here is Jill browning meat, her first cooking act on the new stove.

Friday night the family colored easter eggs.

Alyssa wanted to crawl around.  She is crawling everywhere and even climbing up the stairs on her own.  She is so much more difficult to keep track of now.

Watching the eggs turn colors was fun for the kids.

Saturday the running group went for 19 miles!  The marathon is 4 weeks away and we still need to be racking up the miles to be able to finish strong.  It was 2:53:19 of running (almost 3 hours), and surprisingly I wasn't completely exhausted the rest of the day. Next week we will try and run 21 miles to reach the peak and then taper the last 2 weeks before marathon day.  

The J.L. Sorenson Center just opened a couple of weeks ago in Herriman to service the South Valley.  Saturday after the run, the family went swimming.  

The boys had a great time, Logan loved the low dive and the blue slide.  Landon wore a life jacket and used the other slides.  We swam for just over 2 hours and had a blast.  Alyssa was so good in the pool.

She loved the water, and as long as she could hold her brother's goggles she was happy.  The minute anyone tried to take them from her she would cry so loud and long that we would have to give them back.  We couldn't believe she held them the entire 2 hours, but it kept her happy, so we were happy.  We may attempt to let her sleep with goggles to keep her happy.

Sunday was Easter, and the preceding family home evening was dedicated to speaking about Christ's resurrection.  A neighbor girl fell out of her window a week ago while playing on the bed, and ultimately passed away due to the head injury.  It was a tragedy that we hope nobody else will have to go through.  We taught our boys that people die, but through Christ, all will live again.

On Easter morn, the boys woke up and didn't realize there were chocolate confections to be had downstairs.  Once everyone woke up we reminded them that today was Easter.  They darted downstairs in the hunt for candy.

Watching the boys took me back to a simple time when finding candy was such a big deal. 

Alyssa found her Easter basket.

So did Logan.

Here are the kids and their baskets.  Along with candy they also got a Sunday outfit and a movie ("Megamind" and "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs").

Easter Sunday family pictures.

Sunday evening we went to Great Grandma and Grandpa Bunkall's for a delicious dinner.  For as long as I can remember everyone has an Easter Egg with their name on it and you have to hunt to find it.  Here is Logan finding his.

We were able to eat with and visit with Grandpa Bunkall.

Two Grandma Bunkalls working on a strawberries and creme dessert.

We are so blessed to have such a large and close family.  We look forward to these annual traditions every year. 

If He Only Would Have Turned Right

The standout event of the week hands down occurred one night while Jill and I were just about getting ready to shut things down for the night.  For a while now before bed we wake Logan up and have him go to the bathroom one last time.  We've found Jill has to do less laundry this way.  A couple of times this week Logan actually woke himself up around 10:30 p.m. and he was going to the bathroom by himself.  This is a huge step forward in his progress to being completely dry at night.

Most nights when we wake Logan up, he is so completely asleep, that he has no idea what is going on.  He will go potty and then fall right back to sleep.  While watching TV,  Jill heard his door creak open and she thought that Logan had woken up.  We paused for a moment and I said, "I'll go upstairs to check on him."  I could see his bedroom door was ajar .... but he wasn't in the bathroom.  As I tried to think for the life of me what was going on, I heard him cry out.  The sound came, not from the bathroom, but  from Alyssa's bedroom.  I opened the door and in the dim night light, I could make out my son sitting in his mother's rocking chair like this.

His jammies were at his ankles and there was water EVERYWHERE!  The carpet was wet, the gliding chair that Jill rocks Alyssa to sleep in was wet, and books near the chair were wet!  I immediately called for backup and poor Jill had no idea what to expect.  In the meantime Alyssa woke up and began crying at the top of her lungs.  I gave Logan a bath while Jill surveyed the damage.  Logan went right back to sleep, and I held Alyssa while Jill cleaned up the mess.

When Jill was done and came out of Alyssa's room she said sternly, "one day we will laugh about this... but not tonight!"  Alyssa went back to sleep, and by morning we asked Logan if he remembered what had happened.  Of course he had no memory of what occurred.  When he woke up to go to the bathroom, if only he would have turned right into the bathroom, rather than left into his sister's room.  I'm not sure when the day will come when Jill actually laughs about this experience, but it must be remembered.

The weather is finally looking like spring.  It has been a bit warmer and it's been great to go outside. Alyssa's cheeks even turned pink after going outside on Saturday.  It was so nice to be outside enjoying the sun.

Logan is wearing his soccer uniform.  It's a few games into the season and he keeps scoring goals at every game.  He's so good at scoring goals; it makes me proud.

Quarter of a Dozen

Eight years ago Jill and I went to a movie that received positive reviews and we expected it to be pretty great.  We couldn't figure out why we were the only ones who didn't love the show.  We thought the show was predictable, poorly written, and so over the top it wasn't enjoyable.  My mom loved the movie Cheaper by the Dozen, and at one of the holidays gave the DVD to us as a gift.  We watched it once, then put it on the shelf with the other DVD's.

Flash forward to 2011 and the boys have been wanting to watch some of the shows their cousins have been watching, i.e. Tron Legacy and Star Wars.  Problem is we aren't ready for the boys to watch this level of movie, and they really only like cartoons anyway.  So Saturday night we had a family movie night and picked a non cartoon.  The boys chose Cheaper by the Dozen.  While I'm not prepared to crown the movie one of my all time favorites it's amazing how funny the show was this time around.  I suppose the first time we saw the show we were childless, and now with a "quarter of a dozen" of our own, it's amazing how close to home the show's theme was.  Chaos at dinner, non-stop talking, making messes (more on that later) and no privacy, were just a few of the themes that rang true to us.

Another show we started watching a few weeks ago is American Idol. It's not an every week show, but occasionally we turn it on.  Logan has taken to liking a singer named "Scotty".  Scotty is a young man with a deep voice and he mostly sings country songs.  Logan likes Scotty so much that after this week's show Logan wouldn't let it rest until I actually placed a vote for Scotty.  It's the first time I've actually voted for a singer on the show. 

The next night on the elimination show Logan was so nervous.  It was cute to see him care so much.  When they announced that Scotty was "safe" the look of relief on Logan's face was priceless.  Because of Scotty, I'm sure we will be watching more of the show with the top 8 remaining. 

Alyssa is crawling now.  She has been rolling for a while, but now she can really propel herself to where she wants to be to get into things.  Here she is getting into Easter decorations.

And here she is, removing shoes from Jill's shoe rack.

It's been a terrific week because our baby is back!  For the last few weeks (like 6) there have been colds, fevers, and teeth coming in, making Alyssa very unhappy.  This week she is sleeping so much better, she's been happier, and now she has her lower teeth!  All is well in the world when the baby is happy.

New Renters

After a few quiet weeks, I'm not sure I can post all that has happened this week.  I knew this week would be big, luckily most everything went according to plan.  The only thing we didn't count on was Alyssa getting sick.  She has a tooth coming in, she also got a bad cold.  It was the perfect storm, and made life miserable not only for her, but for everyone in the family. 

Logan is off track for a few weeks so Jill wanted to do something fun with the kids.  I was out of town, so she took the children to the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point. 

The boys love all of the interactive activities they have. 

Alyssa wasn't quite sick when this picture was taken.  She enjoyed eating the map.

The boys got to play with dinosaur's.

The highlight of the trip was a stream that passed through this area, letting the children sift through the sand and form it into shapes.  The water would then wash it all away. 

Another fun activity was using a brush to wipe away the sand to "discover" fossils. 

Lately Landon has loved running up to the couch and doing a head stand.  This picture is also significant because it was Logan who took the picture.  The boys love taking pictures so it was nice of Logan to capture this one of Landon doing his head stand.  

Shanel and Brian moved to their new home this week.  They moved on Thursday evening (the same night I flew home).  They had planned on moving on a Friday, but it turns out they were able to begin on Thursday evening.  It was nice to hear that so many members of our neighborhood showed up to help them move.  Friday morning I took the day off from work so I could work on projects around the houses.  I helped the Ludlow's finish up the move on Friday morning and then go to work fixing up the house for the Moon family to move in.  One of the things I needed to do was to fix some shingles on the roof.  The boys had never been on the roof before and so I took them up with me for a few minutes.  They loved it and made a comment about how cool the view was and you could really far from being up so high. 

Saturday night EnerBank had the Zion's Bank Suite at the Grizzley's hockey game.  Jill and I had a nice date planned and were looking forward to a date.  With Alyssa being so sick we decided to keep her home and I looked for someone to take with me to the game.  After calling a few friends, ultimately I decided to take my best buddies.  They had never been to a hockey game before, and having played hockey on the Wii video game they were pretty excited.  I only had 2 tickets, so I held Landon in my arms and the three of us walked right in.

The boys loved hockey and can't wait to sign up to play.  I told them we should learn how to ice skate first.  It happened to be Grizzby's birthday and he had all of his mascot friends at the arena to celebrate.  They played mascot bowling which of course Grizzby won.  

Part of the package deal included a little hockey stick and a Grizzly foam paw.  My former boss gave them to the boys, which of course they loved. 

We had a great time despite being so tired with everything we had been through this week.  We left early, after 2 periods, the score was tied with each team having scored 1 goal. 

Our new renters needed a refrigerator so rather than buying a new one for them, we opted to buy a new one for us and then give them our old one.    From the time we moved into this house we have hated the "new" appliances the bank bought for this house when it was foreclosed.  The dishwasher is so loud you can't hear yourself think when it is running.  The oven doesn't cook very evenly, and we wanted to convert to cooking with gas.   We ended up buying all new kitchen appliances, here is Jill in front of her new fridge.  

At EnerBank our independent contractor program is doing so well that the bank's board of directors wanted to meet us.  I spent the week in the Charlotte office working and then met up with the board for a nice dinner at the end of the week.  The dinner was very nice and the highlight for me was being asked to sit sandwiched between the bank president and the chairman of the board of directors.  It was a nice dinner and we had terrific conversation.  The night went late because after the dinner we met up in our hotel lobby and visited with the independent contractor members and two Executive Vice Presidents.  I didn't sleep much that night, but the time spent networking was worth it. 

The next morning we presented to the board of directors what we do and how we make contractors successful in our program.  They expressed their thanks and asked a few questions.  

After the board meeting we had a guided tour of the newly opened NASCAR Hall of Fame.  I don't particularly care for NASCAR, but it was pretty interesting.  Here I am standing in front of the Hudson Hornet.  It's not just a character in Pixar's film CARS, who knew?  

There cars are displayed on a portion of actual track.  This road demonstrates various tracks around the country.  It leads up to part of the Talladega's track which has a 31 degree bank.  You can literally touch the road just by putting your hand out at a 90 degree angle. 

The highlight of the tour was a simulated NASCAR race.  We all entered into a car and "virtually" raced each other.  

It was a great business trip, and now with so much focus on our business division we need to continue working hard keep the moment moving forward.

Logan started soccer again, I'll post pictures soon.  He scored a goal which always makes him happy. After such a busy week I sure look forward to a peaceful week where I have to really think hard to come up with something interesting to blog about.