Lazy Sunday, potty training and "flowers"

April was a great month, due in large part to George's schedule. He took a break from his usual crazy, hectic shifts to teach med students to do procedures on cadavers. It was great! He worked Monday through Friday, 9 to 4 each day, somedays getting home even earlier. I loved having him home at the witching hours of dinner time, bath time, and bedtime and for once the weekend really felt like a holiday. He even got to come see one of Lance's baseball games (although it was in the rain and got called short for the weather... sad).

One of the many great things about George being home is the food. He is a much better cook than me and while I can cook, he actually loves to cook and it shows.

Making fried rice, asian version of left-over casserole, on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

See what I mean about Raven? She just makes herself at home.

Potty training. Ugh. I thought for sure potty-training Cole would be a cinch: he was three, the oldest of any of the kids, it's my third child doing it and Cole seems to just "get" stuff most of the time. Apparently potty training is not one of those things.

The walls, the carpet, the sink, the floor, countless pants, loads of underwear, and even our neighbor's yard. Twice. After two months, Cole has successfully gotten his #2 on every surface known to man except where it belongs. He has yet to make a clean deposit in the porcelain target and there isn't anything we haven't tried. I find it interesting that my quietest, easiest and happiest baby has turned into my most stubborn toddler. He's getting closer, though, and I'm less stressed with every passing day. One day soon, it'll happen, although that day can't come soon enough. 

Until then, I'm going to take every chance to laugh and smile. Because honestly, this is pretty funny.

Little Lily continues to bring joy to our lives. She is very loudly opinionated and doesn't hesitate to share exactly how she feels with anyone within earshot. She is a firecracker. It's hard to believe this tiny body has so much personality. I love it!

Lily recently discovered flowers. And by flowers I mean dandelions.

She begs and begs to go outside everyday and most days are spent with our back door open all afternoon while the kids and Bender run in and out at will. I am loving the warmer weather and the glorious absence of mosquitos.

She usually scouts out a flower or two and walks around smelling it. 

She is also obsessed with dogs. Our neighbors on every side of us have one so she's never without a puppy to play with. She has no fear which isn't always a good thing as she'll approach barking and growling dogs thinking they want to play.

I'm lucky if this little boy has any clothes on at all now that it's warmer. He's taken many a trips outside in his Birthday suit before I realize he's starkers and usher him back in for a set of underwear.

Such a stinker!

Benefit #42 of having an Emergency Medicine doctor for a dad

When you come home from playing like this:

...and get your head stapled back together in the comfort of your own home.

Sweet.

The downside? No numbing. Jude took that staple like a champ, though, once George showed him it was no big deal. By stapling his own forearm.

Spring Break

Lance spent his Spring Break having a great time with Abbey and Scott. Scott still had to work, but Abbey took Lance around town with her every day. They went swimming, ate out at night and went to Jump, the trampoline park here in Charlottesville. They invited us to join them one day so I took the kids and we all had a fun time together.

Lance was so cute jumping with Lily and making her bounce. She was laughing the whole time.

These kids spent about 80% of their time in the foam pit, which meant most of my time was spent hauling them out.

Showing off his tricks. :)

It was a blast!

Afterward we all went to Chick Fil A together to get lunch. It was fun! So kind of Abbey to invite us to hang out.

Lily is enthralled with bugs, mostly stink bugs. Probably because we have a never-ending supply of them in our house. She loves to point at them and touch them. Stink bugs are great for that--they're slow, they don't bite and their fairly robust so she doesn't kill them with her little finger. I finally found something stink bugs are good for!

Our neighbors recently got a dog named Raven. She's about 8 months old and super sweet. She is a digger, though, and managed in about a week to make a hole under the fence that we share big enough for her to squeeze under. She comes over almost every day to play with Bender. It's been nice for him to have a playmate and makes me feel better when he doesn't get a walk every day. They wear each other out. Some days I come down to let Bender out in the morning and she's already sitting in our yard waiting to play.

Many days she spends more time at and in our house than she does at her own. While I'm not a huge fan of the exponential increase in dog hair or the occasional "accident" that I have to clean up (still not sure who's doing it as I have yet to catch one in the act), I'm glad Bender has a friend.

Lance and I also got to tour a well-known chocolate factory here in town called Gearhart's Chocolates. It was fun to be there with just him. We got to see how they made the gourmet chocolates, boxed them and even got to sample the different chocolate they use to make them. I took a couple pictures on my phone, so when I learn how to download them, I'll post them here.

Baseball is well underway for Lance. He has the same coach he's had for the last two seasons which is wonderful. I'll be sad next season when he moves up to the Minors and gets a different coach.

He made some good plays this game and was an asset to the team.

I now understand why parents get so riled up at games. You just want your child to be happy. It is exhilarating to see them succeed and devastating when they fall short. The whole time Lance is up at bat, I'm probably more nervous than he is.

Lily was enjoying her view of the game. Thanks, Scott!

Jude and Cole ran around during the game with a couple girls, siblings of Lance's teammates. 

It was all fun and games until one the little girls hit Jude in the head with a stick. I found Jude curled up on the ground holding his head with a bloody hand. I didn't see it happen, I only had Jude's explanation of what happened and another mother who mentioned that this little girl was the last one with the stick, so I didn't say anything to the girl's mother, but I was pretty upset. Jude was upset, too, although the part that bothered him the most was that she "didn't say she was sorry!"

Poor guy. It didn't look too bad once the bleeding stopped, so we played a bit on the park after the game and then went and got Chick Fil A again with Scott and Abbey before heading home. I planned on having George take a look at it when we got home (he was finishing up a shift and would be home about the same time we were).


Lily is lucky to have such a great big brother!

Happy Easter!

Easter morning came and brought with it baskets full of goodies for the kids.

Cole was the first one awake and got to enjoy his basket in peace before the other kids woke up.

He was most excited about this awesome school bus.

Lily remembered about the candy eggs and immediately started to open hers. She was also very excited about the dog book in her basket.

And Jude couldn't wait to open his Sick Bricks the Easter Bunny left for him.

Nothing like candy for breakfast!

I took a picture of Lance's basket with my phone at texted it to Scott so Lance could see what he got. He's currently working his way through the Harry Potter series on his own (I read the whole series to him a couple years back) and was excited that his basket had the 4th book in it, one of the two we were missing.

Group shot?

Nope. 

Candy is better than pictures.

We went over to my Mom's house for a bit that morning while George stayed to help his family with Easter dinner. 

Jude and Grandma watching the Easter story.

It was nice to be with Mom and talk about the real meaning of Easter with the kids. I also got to see the first half of the morning session of General Conference before I got the call from George that Easter dinner was ready.

We drove back to the Glass's and enjoyed and beautiful afternoon of food and good company. The kids insisted on playing outside and spent a good hour running laps around the house chasing each other in their game of bad guys vs. good guys.

Cole fell in love with this blue (of course) ninja sword and Callie was sweet enough to let him play with it.

We then had another delicious Easter dinner at my Mom's house with Mom, Glenn and Amy before hitting the road back to Charlottesville that night.

Happy Easter!