cracks me up

nuff said.

Easter Bliss

Easter day #1

 The Easter Bunny visited us! Bradley was thrilled to see so many baskets just for him!

 While no one was looking, he grabbed a candy and managed to open it no prob. This, it turns out, was his favorite part of Easter. For days afterward he kept track of the candy bowl and would point and cry at it ever time he remember it was there.

Then we dyed easter eggs! Grandma was an expert halfsie egg color-er.  Brad was fascinated for a few minutes, then he just liked trying to tip the cups over.

Day #2!

Grandma & Grandpa flew out Sunday morning, but we had a nice Easter afternoon together.

 We came home from church and began cooking our easter feast! Potatoes, ham, salads, the works! Then one by one our dinner guests called and told us they each had someone in their family that was sick and they coudn't joins us. However... they wanted to bring their food over for eveyone else.

So we divied up the food and sent most of it back home with our friends.. and then ate a HUGE dinner with the works!

 Then we had a little easter egg hunt for brad. He remembered that candy is inside easter eggs, so he eagerly gathered all the eggs up! I don't think he minded that I forgot to give our dinner guests their portion of the easter eggs. Oh well.

Happy Easter!

Sick Babies are No fun.

We started off the week so chipper and fun!

I call this, ode to Mickey. We start off each week pretty much the same. Brad wakes up, we eat breakfast, and then we go upstairs and print off a new Mickey pic to color. This takes up a good portion of the morning. I highly recommend it.

 Then we play trains for the next half of the morning! Then snack and nap! It is a very excellent way to start out a week, and usually yields a very happy baby.

 I guess most of the week was good. But on Thursday Bradley had a fever.
And Friday wasn't much better.

 I don't mind high fevers... 102 ish. Much higher than 102 is scary, and much lower is painful for more than just Bradley.
I don't know how your families respond to sickness, but as soon as the lower fever sets in that is when my guy is inconsolable.  Every little thing is actually the end of the world, and further, all the things that I cannot interpret also equal the end of the world.

So you do everything in your power to keep your sweet, sick little guy happy for as long as possible. (And send many prayers to heaven hoping to keep your patience in check while your toddler screams for no curable reason.)

 

 There was a lot of Disney Channel playing in my house this week. I try not to watch too much tv during the day, like none, but when I have a sick little boy who only wants to sit with mom or dad (mostly mom though), mom and dad NEED something else to distract Brad.

 

Daddy was very good about entertaining Brad while I ate my food, but this was too cute to miss. Apparently the "Leader" climbed on the coffee table and started to dance around when he was tired of singning "following the leader."

 

 

 Dad's entertainment tricks went so far as putting the puppy on the slide. (yes that is me with a mouthful of food trying to hold back the laughter.) Bradley was more than happy to help push Portland down the slide. Sweet boy, helping the dog overcome her fears.

Naked Baby Morning

Some mornings just need to be fun. So after Brad insisted on a diaper change I just let him run wild. Then he peed on the floor. Then I put a diaper on and let him run wild once more.
He definatly prefered the full monty side of life, but he was quite content to run half free also.

I had my nice camera out so I thought I'd snap a few artistic shots of my little toddler playn around. This is pretty much how most mornings go. Breakfast and then play time. What a life.

Then we had to get dressed for the day. Naturally we had to celebrate the Blazer's victory over the Jazz with a little Blazer fan power!!

Good Mornings are the simple ones.



See more photos on our web album. Here!

Hope for Japan

When a huge disaster occurs like the earthquakes in Japan, or hurricane Katrina, I often feel helpless and a little detached because I know all my sad feeling and wishes for things to get better won't help. I watch the news reports, share with people in the feelings of saddness and amazement of the survivors. And that is it.

I don't know what changed this time. I guess I saw other people on Etsy donating a portion of their sales to the relief efforts and I decided- I could do that too. (maybe I saw one too many disney "you can make a difference" commercials, i dunno.)

So my sister and I decided to design and offer a special scrabble tile pendant in our Jubilation Studios store,  devoted to helping those in need in Japan. It isn't anything over top, just a simple statement of Hope.

The Japanese characters for "hope" are in the background, and the english word "hope" is in the foreground, reminding us that no matter who or where we are, we can have hope. 100% of the proceeds are being donated to relief efforts for Japan. The pendant is currently $6, though we have taken special orders for $10 pendants.

If you want to order one- click on one of buttons or links in this blog or on the side bar. If you hate Etsy and want to order via well, me, or if you want to donate more than $6 and still get a pendant, shoot me an email at jubilationstudios@gmail.com and we can set it up!

Family

I could not figure out what to do with my Sunday today.
I wanted to blog, but if I blog on my crafty blog that is probably "working" on work stuff. So I can't do that.
I really really want to start making all the Japan Relief Pendant orders we received this weekend, but that is really really working on the Sabbath, so no go there.

So I wandered around the blogs for a while till I came across this photo:

WHAT HAPPENED TO MY FAMILY! Everyone looks very odd in this photo to me.

See, my dad should have A LOT more facial hair, and maybe a few more pounds. My mom should have WAY POOFIER hair, and bangs that rise a few inches off her head and she should be wearing some printed flowery shirt that is tucked in with a belt. MY BROTHER SHOULDN'T BE THAT TALL. Nor should he have a thick boy neck or look "hot" in any way.

Blech.

This is how my family should look, minus my mom who is taking the photo. (And you are so lucky mom that I couldn't find that perfect 80's photo of you!)

Awe. Now doesn't that remind you of how your family is supposed to look! I feel much better.

Good Weekend

It seems like we've been pretty busy nearly every weekend since the start of the year. Last weekend was Stake Conference, and though it added to our list of weekends that were already planned, it ended up being cool because we had Elder Anderson of the 70 come and talk to us. All the messages were focused on the family and how to raise a righteous family in these latter days. 

However, my favorite message was: Men, help out around the house. Women: Be thankful for the help.

Or at least that is what my ears heard. ;-)

Brian's ears must have heard the same thing because when Saturday rolled around he decided that we needed some more clean clothes for the weekend, and so...... He Did the Laundry! It was glorious.

In return, first, I didn't worry or stress over how he was doing the laundry.

Second, I started the yard work for the spring! I cleared out all leaves in the front area and along the pathway. A most excellent and satisfying way to spend the day.

Better yet, we got to end our evening at a Hawks/Blazer game! Brad stayed home with a babysitter, and we jetted off to the Phillips Arena! Brian wore his bright red Blazer shirt and I wore a Hawks shirt so we were balanced, but we both sported Blazer "3 goggles" to show the love. (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you aren't a Blazer fan.)

We had wicked seats gifted to us by a friend. So this pic, yea I took it from a few rows back. These are the two cutest guys on the team- no contest. Aaaaand they are pretty talented too.


Just to make our weekend extra wonderful, we had beautiful weather on Sunday, so we spent half the day outside enjoying fresh air. Brian was a bit sick, so he stayed home from church and kept Brad with him so I could enjoy a day of church without the kiddo.

Brian may have set up our new slide for Brad while I was gone.


The weather was sooo nice we heeded the council given the weekend before and spent some much desired family time together outside.

Brian even felt well enough for a little bbq outside. Although he did give me the annoyed, "why do you have to document every part of our life" look while I took his picture. He said he perfected it earlier in life thanks to his mom.