Beatnik party and other March marvels

April has already been so busy, March seems like a distant memory.  But here it goes. March! 

The month started out with a field trip to the Fire station.

While we were wrapping things up, the fire fighters got called out, which was pretty awesome to watch. 

Fun hand-me down sweater vests.

Eliot's getting pretty good at dressing himself. 

It's sort of the year of the wreath at our place, so here are my St. Patrick's results. 

The boys are hopping on the band wagon as well. 

Those little rectangles are dragons.  Surprise surprise. 

Even though it's still pretty chilly, the boys love running around "naked."  They keep their under pants on fortunately.

Then we threw our 2nd annual Beatnik party.

Here were some of the treats.

(Po)lickable Cookies

inspired by Jackson Pollock's Convergence 

Ellsworth Jelly

Jell-o inspired by Ellsworth Kelly's Blue/Yellow/Red

Candy Warhol

Candy inspired by Andy Warhol's Banana

I forgot to get a pic of our Hot Rothkoco, Hot Chocolate inspired by Mark Rothko's Violet, Green, and Red.  It was hot chocolate with Mint Ice cream, and whipped cream on top of that.  Mmmmm...

The poetry slam was way better than the food though.  Here are some of our poets and performers.

I look pregnant here, but I'm not. :)

Us looking contemplative...

And relatively normal.

The boys had a pretty intense stomach bug, but fortunately the throwing up only lasted about 12 hours, and stopped right before Anthony had to leave on a 4 day business trip.  Huge blessing!

And finally, I had a pretty rough week mid-March and the boys went out of their way to arrange some cupcakes we made to let me know that I'm extra ordinary. Ha!  There are worse things to be.  

Alright, we're off to go watch a session of General Conference at the church.  Happy April everyone!

February. So short, yet so, so full.

Ah, February.  It's been a month full of....

Valentine's Morning.  The boys were thrilled to find chocolates at their seats and some home made valentine's. 

Ira coloring a valentine from Grandma Quinn. 

A party with our Ypsi friends. 

Ira was very enthusiastic about his pre-school party as well, along with a little girl named Abigail who's been giving him lots of attention. :)

 It's also been a month of repairs, service opportunities, babies, and snow.  Lots and lots of snow.

This is what our house has looked like most of the Winter.  Our little tree is disappearing. 

Ant and the boys made a couple of really fancy snow caves. 

 Eliot: We got his hearing tested and all seems fine.  His speech is relatively behind, but the day after we got him tested he started experimenting with new words.  We're not too worried, but it would be really convenient if he could communicate more effectively.  He generally seems to be having fun with life, and his little sense of humor keeps us all laughing. 

Eliot found the laundry pile and put on Dad's "exercise unders" on all by himself.  He was pretty proud.

This is one of the church playdate activities I organized.  The firefighters came to the church and let the kids check out their Engine.  Ira was too cold, so he was chilling inside.  Eliot was loving it!

Ira: As long as he gets enough sleep, he does alright.  This month hasn't been light on the emotional melt-downs.  But he's been more affectionate which is fun.  He's just so fun to hug and kiss, when he lets me. 

Typically younger siblings want to imitate their older siblings, but Ira wants to do everything like Eliot... 

 especially if it gives him an excuse to do things like, spread blueberries all over his face. 

The boys are still obsessed with boxes.  Ira wanted to sleep in one, but this was as close as he got. 

Anthony:  Still keeping busy with work, and making time to play with the fam.  This month we've had to get our fireplace fixed, dishwasher fixed (still under warranty!), our garage fixed (annoyingly expensive), and then our garage fixed again.  Anthony decided to do fix the garage door opener himself, which saved us a few hundred dollars.  Such a handy guy to have around. :) 

Sharon:  We've started a new session of birth classes, and only have 3 couples this time.  They're a fun group, and it feels less crammed in our family room than the 5 couples we had last session.  Our last group of students are having their babies and it's been exciting, and pretty dramatic to see how things pan out.  So far they've had two c-sections, both of which were after about 2 days in the hospital, and the 3rd was an induced labor due to pre-eclampsia and then 40 hours of labor!  I wish all of my students could have ideal births, but it looks like they're all effectively applying the knowledge they've been gaining as well as they can in the circumstances permitted.  

We are also excited to welcome a new nephew to the family!  Anthony's sister just gave birth to cute little Pete a few days.  And yes, this is a different sibling and a different baby than last month. :)

It was an honor for me to be a semi-doula for one of my couples and friends.  I was there for about 9 hours before I had to come back home and teach.  I never thought I'd love it so much!  The spontaneity of being a doula doesn't fit into our lifestyle very well right now, but maybe I'll do it more when the kids get older, or here and there if people ask me to.

We've had lots of other opportunities to serve lately, assisting in Ira's preschool, teaching with the missionaries, helping stranded drivers, babysitting friends' kids, driving neighbor kids to school who missed the bus, a night of helping out at the homeless shelter, taking meals to families with new babies, etc.  We're always looking for opportunities to help people out, and February has definitely presented those opportunities.  When it rains it pours.  Oh, how I'd love it to be warm enough outside for real rain!  Anyway we're feeling very blessed.

Happy March everyone!

Birthdays, Blizzards, and Big Ben

Now that our kids are old enough that they can't sleep through wild parties we take them to, we've started a new family tradition.  Celebrate New Years, at least 5 hours early with another country, and invite friends who also have little kids.  This year we chose England. 

This is us after the party when we thought to take pics, as evidenced by Ant's pj's.

There were still a few people when we remembered that we owned a camera.  It turned out to be a full house!  Including us, there were about 40 people!...(I sort of assumed half of them would be gone for the holidays, but not so!) :)

Some of our friends even came as Dr. Who and generic Beetle. 

(Sorry for all the details.  I'm taking note for next year's party, just in case we're not creative enough to choose another country.)  We provided scones, english muffins, a bowl of British slang phrases for people to try out, games, and then at 7:00 p.m. (British midnight), we counted down to the New Year, crossed our arms, held hands and sang Auld Lang Syne.  I read that that's English tradition, so it must be true, right?  

1/1/14, Anthony brought in the new by shaving his beard, which means it doesn't hurt to kiss him anymore!

Almost immediately after putting away Christmas decorations, I was going through holiday withdrawls and decided to get crafty.

Sock snowmen!

And Valentine's wreath

This one looks like it should be a lot faster and easier than it was.  I couldn't find envelopes that I had in my mind, and I was also in frugal mode, so I guess you could say I made it from scratch.  Except the most important part.  The LOVe sign I found at Joann's for $3.50.  I cut the base off, sanded it down and painted it.

With the start of 2014, Ira started Primary!  This is his I Am a Child of God crown from his teacher, and also a random book.  Also, he is obsessed with these pajamas he got from Grandma and Grandpa.  He wants to wear them 24/7.

Ira turned 4!  Anthony's had to travel a couple times in January, and was gone for Ira's b-day, so we spread the celebration out over a couple of days.  This is presents on his birthday eve.

Ira's only birthday wishes included a dragon, and a dragon cake.  So I made some time to whip this together.

 

Melting chocolate fire.

I used a grapefruit spoon for the scales.

 On is actual birthday, Ira had a field trip to a pizza parlor where we got to make our own pizzas.

Then back to the preschool to eat our cake and pizzas.  It was actually really convenient since throwing a party without Anthony sounded too exhausting.

He's eating the head, very seriously.

Then we had a Mom and boys night at Ira's favorite place on earth: Steak 'n Shake.

Here's the harmonica that Grandma sent.  Ira calls it his "tune," and loves using it for family jam sessions when I play the violin.

He also lets Eliot try it, but only when he's behind bars.

Tiny Abdomen Ira.

When Ant got back from his trips we were in need of a family date night.  Going to the theater to watch Frozen, and going out for frozen yogurt.  So fun!  Speaking of which, it has been sooo frozen here.  We're getting antsy for the Spring to say the least.  Thanks a lot Puxatony Phil.

On Monday, Eliot woke up with some scary symptoms, and because our doctor's office didn't have any openings, we were told to go to the E.R. "Now!" (Next time I'll try the urgent care center first, which I'm sure will be a nicer bill to get.)  He was a cooperative sweety.  And Ira was in t.v. and new toy heaven. 

But on the up side.  The Mott's Children's Hospital is amazing.  The kids loved it so much they didn't want to leave.  He was diagnosed with Balonitis, and they gave us the option of giving him IV's 4 times a day while staying at the hospital for at least 3 days, or heading home with some oral antibiotics that he loves the taste of.  Hmmm...that's a toughy.  Feel imprisoned while my son is tortured with a needle, or go home and taste sweet freedom again.  His symptoms started improving after two doses of the oral stuff, and he is looking normal now.  Yay!

This is us at the Children's Museum the day that school was cancelled for the extreme temperatures.  I guess school isn't so cool....da dun ching!

And we finally went sledding on a day when frost bite wasn't a risk.

That pretty much sums it up for the boys.  Anthony's trips went well.  He went to Dallas, TX and Norwalk, CT and has been working on a new fun and challenging project.  And while hanging out with co-worker got to eat this!

It's appropriately called a sushi boat.  

He's started his experimental year of being pescetarian, and says he doesn't miss eating meat...yet. 

Anthony was just released today as the assistant cub-master, and was called as 1st counselor in the Elder's Quorum. 

I've been busy with teaching Sunday School and had a talk in Sacrament meeting last week.  And our first 3 month long session of birth classes is wrapping up.  One more class!  I'm going to miss our current students.  One of the couples actually just had their baby, and I'm dying to hear the details.  I didn't really anticipate having my heart on the line so much with teaching this topic.  At least 2 more couples will probably have their babies in the next couple of weeks.  

Speaking of babies, Anthony's younger brother and his wife, just had their first baby.

Isn't he beautiful?!?!  He's a lucky boy, because his parents are incredible people and will be amazing parents. 

So that's life:  Birth, celebration, sickness, healing, (tantrums), and happiness.