Our first real Easter

This year I felt justified in going all out for Easter, since I felt the girls would actually have fun with it. And they did. The only thing I would have changed was doing the festivities on Saturday instead of Sunday, that way we would have more time to focus on enjoying our little morning family celebration. And we could reserve Sunday for focusing on the real meaning of Easter, the Atonement and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.


We got the girls up early and we told them the Easter Bunny came, and led them out to the front room. They were both trying to figure out what was going on.

Jilly was very excited once I showed her what was inside the eggs of her easter basket. She does the best surprised face.





Evelyn just wanted to dig into the candy. I think she ate 1/3 of her candy in about 20 minutes.












Here they are pleasantly reading their new books. Jilly was excited about hers because it has a picture of a cat. She loves cats. Unfortunately, we will never own one because Ben is allergic. Evelyn's book was about shapes, and she wasn't so excited about it. I think she thought is was too educational. :)





We had an easter egg hunt after church outside our apartment building. It was a lot more fun that last year, when we hid them inside the house and Evelyn still had no clue what to do with easter eggs.








Jilly caught on really quickly as to what she was supposed to do in the Easter egg hunt. She found just as many eggs as Evelyn.
She would say, "Egg!" every time she saw one on the ground.

Sorry the pictures are placed all weird. I forgot to center them when I was adding them. The only easter tradition we did not accomplish was egg dyeing. I thought I would save that potential disaster activity until next year. Yesterday I bought an egg dyeing kit at Wal-Mart on clearance to put away so I would remember next Easter. It's a lot of fun to see my girls finally getting into the spirit of holiday celebrations.

No intro needed...

Nosotros que profesamos el culto de los libros

I had a crazy weekend. I cam home Friday night, spent some time with the girls and with Shaunie and after Evelyn went to bed and Shaunie was rocking Jillian to sleep I hopped in the car and went to my office. I stayed from 9pm to 3am. The funniest part about it, I wasn't the only one there. I went in Saturday at about noon and Shaunie and the girls picked me up at abut 8pm. After they all went to bed, I was up until 5am. Reading, grading papers, writing outlines for my term papers. Strange is the life we lead, nosotros que profesamos el culto de los libros. Here are some pictures to document the weekend that was lost forever in the pages of fiction...


This is the top of my desk, a lot of these books will be used in my thesis. I'll be reading many of them this spring. The papers are tests and writing assignments that need to be graded. And of course, there is my mate (pronounced mah-tay), it's a beautiful thing.
I share a desk with my friend Jared. He's sane though so he was at home when I took this picture. Jared filled his candy jar with M&M's on Thursday and they were gone on Saturday. He used to have Atomic Fireballs but those lasted longer because nobody likes them.
Here is my picture of Shaunie, I need to get a picture of the girls up there too. When I'm at school the real Shaunie can't be there so I have to settle for a simulacrum.
Here is the full view. In the lower left-hand corner you can see part of blanket because I thought about sleeping there that night. The two gentlemen in black and white would like to remain anonymous but if you can figure out who they are you can earn a gold star!
This is the community electrical hot water kettle (We all use it for our mate) that will disappear in the spring, then I'll have to heat my water up at home
This is my friend Cody talking with his fiancé Karina (she's in Chile) on Skype. On top of the desk is the community pillow, Mr. Penguin. Whenever someone takes a nap, Mr. Penguin helps them soften the harsh reality of sleeping on a hard desk/floor. I guess you can call him the office mascot, and Cody is kind of like the office little brother, everyone either teases him or gives him hugs...also, Cody is one of the few people Jillian likes more than Daddy. Whenever he comes over for dinner or movie night, both Evelyn and Jillian will let Cody hold them, he's like an uncle.
This is my buddy Chris who I met in the MTC many years back. Destiny has brought us together in the same field of study, one year apart. We hope to one day have offices right next to each other at Harvard...or wherever we get hired.
This is someone's desk. I thought the mess was exemplary, it's always a work in progress. This person told me today that in a "good" month, a good month for books that is, he will drop about $200 on books. Sometimes I'm jealous of that, but I don't read as quickly, and I get to come home to this every night...
In the mind of a two year old this makes sense, Mr. Potatohead ears go in the holes on the side of his head, so they should also go in the holes in the side of my head. AWESOME!!! I love my girls!!!

Ben's Birthday Present

So my birthday isn't until August but I thought I'd take a cue from Mom and take advantage of a good deal when I see it. If only I could get down the part where I buy stuff for other people. This was 70% off the list price though and it's been on my Amazon wish list for two or three years, so I couldn't pass it up.They are a really cool edition of Tolkien's books with illustrations by Alan Lee. Peter Jackson used his drawings a lot when making the films, in fact, Alan Lee was one of the art designers that worked on the films.

This is Helms Deep, they used this drawing to design the set in the film.

When I showed them to my friend Jared who just got accepted to PhD school he said, "Cool. I won't be able to read anything like that for about six years." That is sad but true. I think the summer between the masters and PhD school I'll read a lot of stuff like this just for fun. If I'm smart though, I will start on my reading list.

It's been a little while

It seems I go through blogging "feast" and "famine." Nicole told me I should update on her blog, so here I go. I've been meaning to for the last week, but just never got around to it. I've been waiting for the late-winter blahs to end, and after last week's really nice weather, it's really blah this week. I just want spring to be here! I am very glad we get Daylight's Savings Time this weekend. It will make spring seem closer. With the weather here in Utah though, you never know what Mother Nature may have up her sleeve.
We've been busy, but when I'm sitting here typing about the last two weeks' happenings, I can't think of much. I guess it's just been cleaning up one mess after another, shopping, etc. The day-to-day stuff that takes up time. Evelyn and Jilly are becoming expert partners in crime, with Jilly becoming the instigator about half the time with Evelyn gleefully following. Today's spotlight mess was squirting a quarter tube of my Bath and Body Works lotion into the sink. That stuff ain't the cheapest. I was able to salvage some of it, fortunately. Yesterday Evelyn shut Jilly's foot in the hinge of the door, LUCKILY, she only has a bruise today. I was only about 3 feet away when that happened, and could hear her little foot being crushed. I was afraid something was really wrong when Jilly kept crying for a while, but she wasn't bothered by it at all later or today. Ev got a BIG timeout for that one. Here are some random pictures:

Evelyn falling asleep before bedtime on the couch. Ben likes to take pictures of them asleep. They always look so peaceful.
Here they are in the apple box again. Check out Evelyn's hair! Isn't she stylin'?

These two love to bake goodies. Mostly becuase they like the dough, as you can tell from these pictures. Evelyn asks almost everyday, "Mom, can make cookies?"

These two love chocolate, just like their mother.

This is the toilet game, and they will play it for 20 minutes at a time, if I let them.

Evelyn unrolls the toilet paper, and they both grab some and throw it in the toilet.

Jilly is the official flusher, and flushes every 15 seconds or so. The toilet never has time to fill back up.
After Jilly has moved from her official flushing position, Evelyn has to clean the toilet. Which I didn't mind so much, except there was still toilet paper in the bowl, and then she tried to carry the brush around the house. Umm, gross? Later she actually got it stuck in her hair. I repeat what I said at that moment, with an air of exasperation, "Gross, gross, and triple gross!!!"

Jilly is looking and acting more and more like a toddler. This picture makes her look a lot older. Who do you think she looks like? She's also getting her top molars in, ugh. Evelyn didn't really get terribly grouchy teething, but Jilly has been a different story. I'm hoping they come in soon, I think we're going on four weeks now with bi-polar Jilly. She's still cute as a button, despite the crankiness.

Here's a request for all of you with little kids. I want to know which children's authors your kids like. I'm trying to venture away from the simple 'identifying' books and Baby Einstein. The only picture/story books I've found that Ev and Jill like are the "No, David!" books by David Shannon, and most Eric Carle picture books. I need to broaden their book horizons.

Alright Nicole, I think that is a pretty good update. Thanks for giving me a little push in the blogging direction.

Gayle, in memoriam

This is a picture of me playing my old trumpet Gayle. She was crushed in a car accident after I played a gig at the Church on the 4th of July in '99. She was a very nice, very expensive horn and I took good care of her. We were going to run away to Boston together until the accident separated us forever. I miss her and the beautiful music we played.

This is my new baby, I don't have a name for her yet. She's australian made and about 1/4 as good a horn as Gayle was. She'll have to do for now. It's been a long time since I played so I'm getting my chops worked up, but it was clear form the first note, she ain't no Gayle. I thought about naming her Grace because I'm going to need a lot of it to get back my old self. But I'm not sure I want to give such a classy name to a horn that is a filler until I can get a new girl. Maybe I'll call her Maude, a good classic name, but not too pretty, kind of like this horn...good, but not too pretty. We'll make music together but it won't jive as well, it will be hard to find the groove and stay in the pocket...Maude. I think I like it, it fits. To Gayle, in memoriam.

-El trompetista de la triste figura

Thinking Inside the Box

The other day Evelyn and Jillian decided that the apple box sitting under the window was a great toy. They sat in it and laughed well past their bed time. After Jilly was taken to bed Evelyn decided that she needed to sleep in the box. So I gave her a blanket and pillow and put the box on her bed. She popped up every now and again and she stayed in there for quite some time. I thought she might even sleep in the box but it became too much of a distraction. Enjoy the pictures!