What we've been up to...

Eating chicken nuggets with honey bbq sauce while playing with friend Liz. Jon was good at helping babysit.Playing outside during the warmer weather hoping to not get this sticky sap stuff all over our clothes. The sticky stuff is around the sand box which happens to be the facilitie's drain, yuck.Eating crepes with fresh strawberries, but mostly just eating the whipped cream on top.Dumping plates of food for absolutely no reason onto the kitchen table or floor, mom loves that.Being adventurous and making recipes from online, feast your eyes upon Zuppa Toscana "figure friendly version" well as freindly as sausage and bacon can be.Easter morning, I tried and tried to get Maddie to smile. Who is this kid and what has she done with my happy little baby?Maybe she was more interested in her sandbucket "basket" instead of mom that morning.Jon blew her bubble wand that morning and she was totally disgusted by the bubbles and did not want them to land on her. So funny and....girly.Saturday was spent in Sandy where Jon's first power lifting meet was held. It was a LONG night but very exciting. Maddie had it the roughest, she was tired, sick, and wanted to go home. You can see their extreme sound system in the back ground. Probably too loud for babies.It was an interesting experience they held the meet in a conference room in the dark and in the front of the room their was spot lights and a platform where all the lifts were performed. Jon did bench, squat, and finally deadlift.Blurry sorry, my camera is not very good. One day one day. But you get the general idea and this is not heavy weight for Jon. These were his "token" lifts. The big lift was the deadlift and to my dismay I did not get a picture because I was too busy yelling and cheering. Jon deadlifted 425lbs to break a state record. He missed the next lift, out of frusteration he went to practice in the back and picked up 495lbs more than the lifts he missed. The crew was proud of him though, especially to break a state record his first meet.Dinner we had Easter Sunday, I made creamy spinach fettucine and grilled chicken. The fettucine is a Rachael Ray special, it turned out ok. I had to improvise and used fat free half & half instead of whipping cream.Did I mention we got tickets to conference? We were as gitty as school girls and couldn't believe how close we were to the pulpit. No kidding we were about 25-30 rows from the pulpit. If you know how big the conference center is you know we had primo seats.Looking back, 10 years ago I and Jon were sitting on the top balcony in that area. We were not sitting next to each other back then though, even though I had a big crush on him. Looking straight back, I'm sure those people were wondering why I was snapping a picture of them.A nice man took this picture for us, he also called to us to let us know they had two open seats next to them. I love when people are curtious. Not a good picture of me, good one of Jon though do you like his tan makes me look extra pastey?

April Fools

Happy Late April Fools! That doesn't make any sense I know. I just wanted to jot my little trick down. I didn't think I'd do anything all day, but then I read a blog which reminded me of a really good trick I wanted to pull on Jon. I waited all day until we were watching Scrubs and I turned off the lights since it was late at night anyway. I excused myself from the room to fetch some black tiny rubberbands out of my bathroom. I then went to the sink and wrapped them around our kitchen spray hose. So that the nosel was pushed down, then aimed it straight forward and walked away. The rest of the right I kept saying, "Jon I need a quick drink to take my sleeping pill". I was sitting on our bed when I said this. He said "get your own drink." Dang, he wasn't buying this act. So to make it more dramatic I threw my head down on the pillow and said, "But I'm so tired". Please just go get me a really quick little drink just out of the sink. He said, "Fine but you owe me". So I laid in bed waiting, waiting, hiding under my covers. I looked up and he said you're so dead. I saw the front of his shirt, soaked. He started to pour a glass of water on my head or the blankets away. He was so mad. He said I betrayed him. I laughed so hard until I fell asleep.

This time last year...

This time last year I began my job at AA Alpine Storage. I remember getting the phone call for the interview and I immediately started crying. We had been so stressed about finding a new apartment. All we could afford were the GHETTO ones. You know the ones where the neighbors have two pitbulls that are barking and snarling at the flimsy fence that is seperating you and fate, the brown shag carpet, the dirty nasty fridge, and small window air conditioning unit/or non existant air conditioning. So heres to you Alpine Storage its been a good year, mostly and we are sure grateful.

Also, this time last year during the week I started training Maddie had contracted RSV, influenza 3, and had a bronchilolitis cough. She was such a sick baby and that RSV virus was nasty it gave me the worst runny nose of my life. So of course to honor the virus we have contracted it again thank heavens it is not as severe, thank goodness Maddie is a year older, and praises be that I'm not enduring my first week of job training. Although she has not been herself, I'm aware it could be much worse. Guess we really need to up our vegetable and fruit intake.

So my question for "mothers" is how do you get you children (toddlers) to eat veggies and fruits? I know now that I should have feed them to her much more when she was young and ate everything. Now all she wants is candy and cookies. I mean I can't even get her to eat a dang fresh strawberry so you see something is not right.

100th Post

Ok so actually the 100th post was two posts ago. I just wanted to mark somewhere that we've actually hit 100 posts. Unfortunately I don't have much good to say, Yakima Police Dept. has contacted us for an oral board and Jon will be doing this April 8th. Kennewick Police Dept. decided not to let us continue on and we've been so disappointed. It seemed so perfect and felt so right. We had fasted and prayed and gone to the temple and hoped that we had done everything to deserve the job, but we can you do? We'll just move on and learn from the experience. Hopefully this will be in the end an answer to those prayers. Thank you to those that have prayed for us and kept us in your thoughts.

Grandpa Walkers Farm

Lulu and Maddie jumping on the tramp, Maddie giggled the whole time Lulu bounced her.Lulu was such a good sport and pushed Maddie around for like 30 minutes this girl is strong.They would be going along and all the sudden the door would fly open. Lulu would pull the brakes and make sure to shut the door. They were hilarious.Weird flash, can't wait till we can have a real camera that takes good pictures. I really enjoyed spending time with my brother's girls while he and his wife were vacationing. I hadn't held Lulu since she was a newborn.Sweater obviously a bad choice for pictures. Lulu would have jumped all day with Mimi and I if I hadn't snuck off after 30 minutes, it was so fun to jump on a tramp again. Later when I stepped on it again Lulu immediately looked up, ran over, and wanted to hold my hand to jump.They were so giggly in the bathtub, I got some good pictures but I wanted this one to be internet appropriate.

Grandpa Merrells Farm

Maddie drove this teeny four-wheeler while Jon rode behind, she loved it.There was so much to do in so little time, she pretty much escaped outside whenever she got the chance.She loved Uncle Marlo's animals including cats, dog, and horses. She was fasicinated.She looks afraid but she actually really loved driving the tractor, it was sure noisy.

Grandma Jeanie's Home

Waiting....waiting...Spotted......Hugs....Tears.....

Thats right and I'm sure you've heard Grandma Jeanie came home February 17th from her 1 1/2 year mission in Australia. We had a lot of fun that weekend full of visiting, delicious foods, emotional drainage, and laughs. Its felt as though she had never even left us, although it had been weird to think she had never seen Maddie before that day. So much fun. Jon got to fly home with Jeanie and took his physical test up in Kennewick. He did wonderful and so we got to drive up the following weekend so that he could interview, which he thinks went well. We have been busy! My next post will be all about that trip but I figured I needed to catch up since it is now March. Maddie was Grandma Jean's little side kick she loves to sit on her lap and soak up the attention. So excited for all the fun memories to come. Oh I so hope we get this Kennewick police officer position, I would be so happy and relieved.