More Easter Fun

We had lots of Easter fun--not the smallest of which was new Easter clothes! :)

Final Snow Day?

We had snow a few weeks ago...we're hopeful it was our last snow day of the season!  (At least, most of us are hopeful.  As you can see, Josh wasn't too impressed.  I don't think Katelyn would be sad one bit to have another day to play in the snow!)

  

Let's hear it for more Popcorn Popping!!

Happy Easter!

I know He lives.

I know He loves me.

I know He hears me and He answers when I pray.

I know God's Son, is my Redeemer,

and that He died for me that I might live eternally again.

Storage!!

A few weekends ago Mike and I (with a HUGE help from my parents) installed food storage shelving in our laundry room! YEAH!!  This was one of the things that made it on our 2011 goals, so how awesome to have it done in the first quarter of the year! Whoop!!


Here is the before.  Sorry for the poor images, both pictures were taken on our phones.  Our whole basement is finished except for this small portion.  We've had some dumb utility shelving storing our food--well, that and the floor.  We should have gotten a picture of the before-before...when food was piled in bags and falling off shelves!

And here is the after!!  This is one of those projects that is REALLY nice to do when you have an engineer for a husband.  He figured everything out before hand, pre-cut most of the wood and then just put it together like a puzzle.  No re-cuts, no mistakes, and can I just tell you...this thing is STURDY!  Like, can hold two or more grown men sturdy.  We need to install some sort of something to the front of the shelves to help earthquake proof them, but...awesome!

  

Now we just need to fill it up!

Can you guess?

1. 

 2.

 3.

 4.

 5.

 6.

7.

 8.

 9.

 10.

 11.

1. Josh

2. Katelyn

3. Katelyn

4. Luke

5. Katelyn

6. Josh

7. Josh

8. Katelyn

9. Luke

10. Luke

11. Josh

How'd you do?

Survival!

We survived...week 1 that is! :)  

Mike went back to work this week, although not completely for the full 40 hours--and boy was I grateful that he didn't feel the need to get all of those 40 hours in!  We had a 30 minute span yesterday where there was simultaneous crying, temper tantrums, blood, diarrhea, AND throw up, plus spilled milk and a good deal of hitting (none of which I took part in!)  Luckily, today was better and tomorrow is Saturday! :)  Soon enough, I'm sure, I'll have the hang of this 3 kid thing...in the meantime, I think I'm going to let this 'recovery' phase drag out as long as I can!  

"I can't get off the couch, dear, I'm still recovering!" :)

(Don't worry...we had good moments too!)

Ode to Max...

We sold our car this morning! It was a bit of a shock, actually, since the thing was completely falling apart and we disclosed all the problems.  But, a mechanic picked it up and says he does stuff like that so I guess it's all good, right?  And the money is always nice--even if it is just going towards responsible stuff and nothing fun! :)  

I'll be honest though, it made me a bit sad.  Not that I would want to trade back, but...lot of memories in that car.  Lots of driving in that car...it was the car that Mike had when we first met. The car payment that Mike had me deposit for him after we'd only been dating for a little while--trust!  It was the car we drove to Texas in for grad school--while I bawled the whole 1,300 miles and the car we drove back to Utah after the job layoff--while I bawled the whole 1,300 miles again. The car we house hunted in, the car we brought Katelyn and Josh home in, the car we paid off with our tax return to follow the prophet, the car that was our only family car for 2 years, the car that fell apart every month but somehow kept running.  All in all, I was actually sad and teary to see it go...!  Silly me! Let's chalk it up to post-baby emotions!

So, farewell and Ode to Max!!

Conference Weekend....

I think I'm going to have to time all my babies to come home Conference Weekend! This was perfect!!  What a great excuse to sit and not do anything for 8 hours...something of a feat for someone like me who is always on the move (and who feels SO MUCH BETTER after giving birth that I tend to run myself a bit ragged!)  We just hung out this weekend, and to be honest, there was a good deal of sleeping through talks, and chatting with company that came to visit little man...but it was perfect.  I have already checked when I can get Conference downloaded so as to catch up on what I missed.  Can't wait!!

We named our little guy Luke Joseph Williams, in case you didn't know.  I have always wanted to give a son the middle name of Joseph, after Joseph Smith.  It's one of the middle names that we tried to pair with every name we liked.  As for Luke, we just liked it.  I think everyone knows a Luke, but there aren't so many of them that our little man will be one of 10 Luke's in his class forever, and we had good name associations with Luke--one of our dear friends from Texas is named Luke, and the senior class president in Mike's high school won on the slogan...'Luke Likes Llamas!' :)

Coming home from the hospital.

Being home has been great.  We had our first rocky night last night, which is to be expected, but our first two nights home he sleep 6 hours straight! Bless his little soul!!  Do you know what 6 hours of straight sleep does for a recovering mom?  Wonders!!  I'll take the wakeful night last night cuz I'm already so far ahead of the game!!

I'm not nursing Luke either...and for us, it is FABULOUS!! I know that 'breast is best'--I really do believe that, but sometimes, some things are just too much.  Nursing, for our family, is one of them.  I feel so much more emotionally prepared to be back to real life...I'm not having to lock myself in my room every hour and half to have a 40 minute stress session with tears--from both baby and mom--, I'm not having any of the pain I had with Katelyn and Josh (which NEVER went away), I'm not worried that he's not getting enough, that I'm a failure as a mom cuz I can't figure it out, that I'm going to have a horrible bond with my baby cuz I'm not feeling any of those happy nursing feelings...it's wonderful! I wish I could nurse better, but I am glad that I have reached a Zen place about it and that for me, this is a good alternative.  

The kids are doing great too. Katelyn just loves Luke and is actually quite helpful.  We haven't seen any of the jealousy issues that I was expecting from Josh, but it helps to have both parents here so we'll see what this week brings.

All the Kiddos...

Josh and Daddy making bread...yum!!

Mike is going to go back to work this week...not full days yet, but we'll work up to that.  I figure by the end of the week I should be back to mostly normal--especially if I can get back those 6 hours of sleep a night!  We go to the Doctor today to check on jaundice (which, he looks yellow to me) and such--plus little man hasn't pooped in 3 days!  I don't think that is normal...poor little guy.  That's a major downside to formula!! :(  

We've had visitors and sat outside in the sun and slept...it's been great!  

Jennifer and Becca came

Aunt Jenny, Uncle Tom, Aunt Becky, Uncle Chris and Cousins Aly, Kayla, and Carter came to visit.

 

Come on over and see us--he's cute!

 First Family Photo...ah!