Happy Easter

Happy Easter!  We hope that everyone had a great day today.  Before we get started in our Easter activities- we have some catching up to do.

So, let's set the Wayback Machine to St. Patrick's Day.  Jodie her traditional corned beef patties with beans.  I believe this was the first time that Joseph had it- he loved it!

In fact, here is a video of his reaction.  As some background for the video, he smacks his lips when he wants to eat something.

For those who haven't heard, we also found out that we are going to Dallas for the summer.  I accepted a summer internship offer with Texas Health Resources and here is the pie that Jodie made in celebration.  We are very excited for this great opportunity.

Over the past couple weeks, Joseph has found his new favorite place to sit.  If he can manage to find the remote, he'll even turn the tv on and climb up on his chair.  We've come along way since this.

Last Saturday, we went to the play area at the mall so that Joseph could burn off some energy.  Unfortunately, we had a little tumble going down the slide.  His shoes caught on the slide and he was catapulted face-first into side of the slide.  It left a pretty good mark- it reminded me of Tommy boy with "not so much here or here, but right here".  Anyway, he is quite the trooper- once he calmed down, he went running right back to go play.

On Friday, the MBA Spouse Association put on a family Easter activity.  Joseph really enjoyed the "fishing".  When he saw it the first time, he said "agua" and ran over to it, cutting in front of the long line of kids waiting.

We also did a bean bag toss.

We also discovered lollipops. We've never given one to Joseph before, but he won a lollipop at one of the stations.  He knew intuitively what do with it.  He took the wrapper off and just sucked on it.

The only downside was that we were very sticky afterwards.

Joseph decided to go back to the fishing activity again.

During that fishing trip, Joseph won some bubbles.  It was a very handy win because we had to wait about 15 minutes for the Easter egg hunt to begin.

Oh, how we love bubbles.

When they started the hunt, it was really cute to watch all the kids dart out searching for eggs.  Joseph did a pretty good job at the beginning.

However, he grew tired of the crowd and started looking for greener pastures.

Needless to say, we didn't find any eggs.  However, we were fortunate enough to have a friend who was willing to share some of his eggs with Joseph.

At the end of the event, Joseph found some more aqua.  He got so dirty playing in it, but he loved every second of it.

Now for a quick update on Chad- he's doing really well and starting to get back into the swing of things.  On Saturday, he decided to take down the ramp that his Dad built after his accident.  Afterwards, he decided to build an extension to his shoe rack because we needed some more space.  Here he is working on his projects.

We are all so excited and happy with the progress he is making.

Meanwhile Chad was working on his projects, I had a few of my own.  Like a true helper, Joseph was a constant shadow.

Now for Easter, we started of the day with an Easter egg hunt.  Joseph did a really good job with this one.

However, we quickly found out that there was something inside the egg.  So, we started taking a break after each egg to open and find out what was inside.  Anything that could be easily unwrapped, quickly was.

Here are some of pictures of Joseph searching for his eggs.

Here is short video of Joseph finding some eggs.  It shows him shaking each one.  If it rattles, he knew that it had a chocolate egg inside that he could open.  If it didn't rattle, it had a bigger candy inside, but he couldn't open on his own.  After a while, he would discard all the eggs that didn't rattle because he couldn't open it.

Oh how we love chocolate.

We had a great time hunting for Easter eggs.

After the eggs, we next had to find our Easter basket.  With a little bit of encouragement, Joseph found his basket.  Want to guess what first caught his attention- bubbles.

The tricycle was pretty exciting too.

Still working on how to drive though.

After Joseph finished with everything, Chad and I had our Easter egg hunt.

Jodie took us all over the backyard.

Thankfully, we had some great weather and got to take advantage of the sunshine.

Joseph also had a lot of fun just being able to hang out in the backyard and burn off some energy- we have been very anxious for it.

Happy Easter everyone!  We hope it was a great day for you!

On one final note, we had a big day today in church.  Joseph stayed at nursery for the entire time, all by himself, for the first time ever.  It was a great day and we are all very excited.  In celebration, we had some fun goofing around after church.  Somehow our ties go switched up in the process...

Happy Easter!

Spring has sprung

I know this is a little late, but I couldn't resist putting these pictures up from Valentine's Day.  Here's Joseph with his cheesy smile.

He loved playing with the rose- he would whip it around and brush the snow with it.

Just kickin' back on the swing.

We hope that you all had a great Valentine's Day.

Moving along- Spring has finally sprung here in Provo.  As the temperatures have warmed and the snow melted, we've been able to do a lot more activities.  Here's some of the highlights over the past few weeks.

Joseph got to have some brownies- he's definitely a fan and has been added to his "o-kol" (chocolate) list, which includes chocolate milk, m&m's, and other highly desirable items- even his pacifier, at times.

One day when Jodie was making cookies, Joseph desperately wanted to help and wouldn't take no for an answer.  So, Jodie got him set up with an old cake mix packet and his own mixing bowl.  He tried to copy everything that Jodie was doing- even rolling out the dough into balls and putting them on his pan.

He loved it almost as much as eating the cookies- and yes, Joseph has a serious sweet tooth, maybe even a few of them.

We also introduced Joseph to Bugles- one of my favorite snacks growing up.  He even loved making the witchy fingers with them too.

We also got to visit with Grandma and Great-Grandma.

We had a lot of fun and wish it could have been longer.

Joseph has been getting into pillows in a big way.

Almost every morning, he will come into our room and grab our pillows- the end result commonly looks like this.

But really, who could blame him.

Thankfully, Joseph has also started to help put away the pillows too.

Although when he tries to put away the big ones, the most frequent outcome is him bumping into the bed and falling to the ground.

The smaller ones are definitely more manageable, but still hard to see over too.

We definitely appreciate him picking up after himself.

Joseph is learning how fun it is to hop on pop.  At night when we read scriptures, Joseph will come hop on my back most nights.  Whenever he does, I'll do a few push ups- much to his delight.

Joseph also got a fun celebration for Dr. Seuss' birthday- green eggs and ham.  Ironically, Joseph hardly touched the ham, but completely devoured the green eggs.

A couple weeks ago, I went to California for a few days to tour some hospitals with a small group of MBA students.  During some down time, we went to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and they happened to have a special Disney exhibit.  In the gift shop, they had Mickey Mouse ears with "Mr. President" embroidered on the back.  With how much Joseph loves Mickey, I couldn't resist.  Here's a picture of our little Mr. President.

We've also had some fun finger painting.

And laying in the hammock.

Joseph also found Jodie's shoes that Uncle Brian gave her at our wedding- he loved walking around in them and making them squeak.  Although, he usually would just wear one at a time so that he could really stomp down with his foot.

We hope that everyone is having a great start to Spring too.