No offense to anyone else out there, but I feel so lucky to be my children’s father. They are the greatest.

On Saturday Evelyn went to a friend’s (Ethan’s) birthday party. She had so much fun. The theme of the party was super heroes and they made capes and shot silly-string (Spider-man) and had a Batman cake and everything. They really did a great job and Evelyn loved it.

Jack has been doing so much better with his rash and he mostly looks like a healthy little boy now rather than a kid who just walked through a briar patch. This is good, because he is so cute and it is hard when all people see are his rashes and scratches. We’ve gotten a lot of comments that go something like this:

“Your little daughter is so cute- and healthy! And the big one has the prettiest hair! Oh you have a boy too- what happened to his face? Is he sick?”

This is why I was so happy the other day during our weekly institute lunch when a friend made the comment that “No offense is intended, but the boy is way cuter than the girl today.” No offense was taken; Addy has had her share of cute comments.

The sad part is that he still scratches himself at night. I think it has become a habit. Sometimes he wakes up looking like he got in a fight with a barbed wire fence. This is why we still wrap him up for bed, so that he looks like a hot dog bun with his little head sticking out of the top. Well, the other day during nap time everything was nice and peaceful when suddenly an unearthly scream was heard from the bedroom. Rach ran in to see what the matter was, and there she found Adalie with a maniacal expression in her countenance, beating Jackson with a pillow. Our poor boy didn’t have any arms to defend himself with so he was just taking it full in the face. It was one of those times as a parent when you don’t know whether you should laugh or be concerned.

Well, that’s not the end of the story. See, we have started putting the babies to bed in the crib in Evelyn’s room. This has brought about its own share of frustrations, but we won’t focus too much on that for now. Let’s just say that we hope it won’t be too long before they can all sleep through the night without us having to worry about them waking each other up. Anyway, Evelyn is very excited about this new development, and sometimes likes to lay down with the babies in the crib. This morning she was laying with Adalie while we were out tending to Jack. When we went back into the bedroom we saw Evelyn, with a very familiar maniacal expression, standing on Adalie’s stomach and preparing to jump up and down.

It all came full circle the other day though, when Evelyn was playing with the babies, and they both decided to coordinate an attack on their older sister. Simultaneously they reached out and grabbed her hair on opposite sides of her head. Evelyn was surrounded and had nowhere to run.

It looks like our kids are starting to act like siblings are supposed to act. Not that this is always fighting and picking on each other. There have also been several very sweet moments when they are playing with each other and comforting each other and I am so excited to watch our family as it matures. It is very rewarding to have such wonderful children.

Our mixing bowls provided for a full afternoon of fun

Evelyn loves the song "Popcorn Popping" and she does a very good job with all of the actions. This week, while Rachel was visiting teaching, Evelyn and I made our own popcorn tree. She was such a good helper, and she liked eating the popcorn too!

Jack and Addy's new favorite activity: Eating solids (and then spitting it out and smearing it in their hair, ears, nose, and eyes with their hands).

We've mentioned this once before, but here is an actual picture. This is Adalie's signature move. While she makes this face she is also breathing in and out through her nose as fast as she can. She does it whenever she gets excited.

Our little man. So cute.

And here is all the fun that Evelyn is missing after she goes to bed. Oh Baby!

There is nothing like coming home from church on a Sunday afternoon and putting all the kids to bed and having a clean house and putting on some soft music and just enjoying the peacefulness of it all while writing a blog post.

Anyway, it’s that time in the semester again when everything starts getting busy. I have a bunch of papers, competencies, and finals coming up and all I can think about is how nice it is outside. Summer is finally here and I want to just throw some meat on the grill, sit back and relax. That’s what Saturday evenings are for. Except for here in Cleveland. We had a beautiful week with plenty of sun every day-except for Saturday. On Saturday it snowed. I tell you, it is a cruel world we live in.

I am sitting here writing this with a box of E.L.Fudge cookies on my lap. These elf cookies somehow have the magical ability to take a rotten situation and make it better again. Thank goodness for that.

…Never mind- I just read the nutrition facts. I tell you, it is a cruel world we live in.

Our big news this week is actually about this blog that we have been keeping up. As many of you know, every year we print out all of our blog posts and we send all of the pictures to Wal-Mart to get printed and we put it all together in a big 3” binder to have a hard copy of The Hazard Chronicles. It is quite the project and we usually don’t finish until about April. It’s worth it though, because we will have these books forever.

Or will we? How long can we really expect a book to last that consists of loose-leaf paper and pictures all thrown together in a binder? I guess it could survive for some time if we (or our kids, or any one else) never look at it. But that would totally defeat the purpose.

Thinking about this dilemma, we came up with a brilliant solution. We ran into this site on the internet called U-build-a-book. The name pretty much says it all. We used their free software to make a digital layout of The Hazard Chronicles and then sent it for publishing. This week we received in the mail our very own 200 page hard-bound copy of our documented lives for this past year. It looks great and this is something that will stand the test of time. The best part? The whole thing actually costs less than it would to print all the pictures and buy sheet protectors and supplies and go through all the trouble of putting it together ourselves.

We totally recommend u-build-a-book to anyone and we are already putting together books of past years so we can have them match our new standards of quality. And it is so fun to go back and see it in print and read it. It’s sort of like getting a yearbook at the end of a good year of high school and remembering all the fun times you had. We will treasure these books for a long time.

Evelyn’s big news is that she is learning the letters. Rachel has started to do “letter days” with Eva, where each day of the week is centered on a specific letter. This week she learned E, D, and S. She recognizes capital and lower-case letters and knows their sounds and can give you a couple of words that start with that sound. It is so cute to watch her pouring through books and pointing out all of the ees, dees, and esses (these letter words, by the way, are great for scrabble). We even think that she has started to try her hand at writing the letters. The other day she drew 7 or 8 shapes that could be loosely interpreted as lower-case ees and she kept pointing to them and saying e-e-e-elbow!

Jack’s big news is that he went to the dermatologist. We didn’t really learn anything new. He gave us a prescription for the same stuff we’ve already been using. That wasn’t very helpful.

And finally, Addy’s big news is that she has learned the art of happiness. She has become our little giggle girl and it is so cute.

Here is our book for last year.

Jack is a great dancer- and he is growing some hair! Such a cute boy.

Our night time routine. Sorry the last part is a little dark.

Evelyn has become Daddy's little sou chef. It's really cute, and I love making dinner with her. Tonight we're doing chicken tikka masala with naan bread. I can't wait. She loves making bread.

So, this week I am in pain. I had a root canal, and then it got infected, so now I'm popping pills left and right to try to control the pain and the swelling until they can go back in and fix the thing. I've never had a root canal before, but I've always heard about how horrible they could be. During the procedure I was thinking it wasn't so bad and figured that people were just babies- but then the novocaine wore off and I have been in pain ever since. I guess it's a good experience overall; it certainly gives me a greater appreciation for what my patients are going through.

Also, Rachel and I are still going to our Tuesday night dance classes. We were only planning on going for six weeks, but then we found another couple that is willing to trade babysitting with us every week so we decided to keep going. We have graduated into the "advanced" class now and we anxiously look forward to Tuesdays and the time that we can devote to each other without any other distractions.

Babies and Evelyn are all doing great. Jack and Addy are starting to show more personality and it is fun to actually interact with them rather than simply take care of them. Evelyn just gets cuter by the day.

The other day we went shopping and when we got home Evelyn was "helping" us to put away groceries. It was so incredibly cute. Of course she didn't put things where they actually go- those places are all well out of reach- but she would happily move things into the lower cupboards and shelves. The whole time she was singing and giggling and Rachel and I just sat gazing at her and contemplating how lucky we were as parents. And then Evelyn pressed the button to open the microwave and the door came flying open and whacked her right in the eye and knocked her over. Evelyn burst into tears and I ran over to hug her and thought about how there is nothing sadder than watching a happy child who is abruptly betrayed by a cruel world without any warning. Life just isn't fair sometimes. Bad things shouldn't happen to happy kids.

There really isn't a lot more that happened this week. I have to admit that I've sort of been a boring person to be around lately. I even bore myself sometimes. Stupid tooth. Now I think I'll go and get some more Ibuprofen and lay down on the couch for a while...

This is exactly what I am talking about. Addy was being so giggly and was bobbing up and down to the music and dancing and really getting into it. It was very cute. But then we go to take a video of it and sort of don't realize what is going on until it is too late. I repeat- Bad things shouldn't happen to happy kids. Even if it is sort of funny.

Five days shy of seven months. Twenty-Nine Sundays. Accounting for Two Hundred and Four days of our life, my amazing husband, Logan, has written the weekly blog. Yes. I do understand how lucky I am that my husband would even think about typing a post, let alone be more eloquent, well spoken, and humorous than me. Don't get me wrong. I think I do a good job, but he just has the ability to captivate his audience. Other than the blog, Logan has also completely taken over washing laundry, cooking amazing dinners on many nights, cleaning the kitchen, etc. He has always done more than his fair share of cleaning, but he has really been amazing these last few months. I am one VERY lucky wife. I love you Logan!

We have celebrated Easter for the entire week. We just might make this a tradition because it was so fun! On Tuesday we used our ultra cool egg dying kit to teach Evelyn a thing or two about dying eggs. This kit came with glitter glue, stickers (Evelyn's soft spot), sequins, crystals, a miniature glue bottle, glitter powder, and of course egg dye. I love watching Evelyn concentrate while she is working. Her little tongue comes out (Just like Grandpa Kelly and myself) and her eyebrows scrunch up. She took this very seriously. By the end she was covered in glitter, stickers, sequins, and crystals. She had been bedazzled.

Throughout the week we have been having little Easter egg hunts with Evelyn . She is becoming quite the egg searcher. Holidays have been SO much fun with Evelyn around. She is finally old enough to grasp the concept and enjoy activities surrounding the special day.

Thursday we had a special play group. Everyone brought a few eggs and we organized a little Easter egg hunt for all of the kids. This was nothing like the hunts that I am old enough to remember. I remember ‘every man for himself’ kind of hunts where if you didn’t move quickly enough you would become an eggless trampled mess. I realized that egg hunts for two year olds are much different when we went to the Cleveland Heights Egg hunt in the Tennis court. Before that hunt I took time to explain the concept and develop a strategy for Evelyn, but as soon as the hunt began I quickly realized that the kids just wandered around in circles like distracted cats while parents offered encouragement.

The weather in Cleveland has been spectacular this week. The highs have been in the seventies every day. Logan and I took advantage of this and took the kids to the Zoo on Saturday. This was our first Zoo trip of the summer and I know there will be many more to come. We let Evelyn loose and our entertainment came from watching her (see video). She is one cute little animal!

In Cleveland, we don’t watch General Conference until noon. This means we have a full morning to get out and play. After our Zoo trip we settled in for Conference. Well, Logan and I settled in. Our three lovely kids didn’t get the concept of ‘settling.’ I think I heard about four sentences of Conference. It’s the thought that counts right?

In between conferences we successfully managed to get all of our kids to sleep. I went to 7-11 for a Slurpee run (This used to be a tradition for us on hot days after we went rock climbing in Rock Canyon). This time, we settled on the porch and talked for a while.

Easter morning has been very relaxing and fun. We hid Evelyn’s Easter basket for her to find, then we invited Luke over for a small backyard Easter egg hunt (we have had a lot this week, but Evelyn really enjoys them). We played outside and went for a nice morning walk.

Conference seemed to have two non related themes. I think I have heard more depressing stories this weekend than I have any other weekend of my life! On a more positive note, there were a lot of talks centered on families and children. Those were fun to listen to (except for the ones that coincided with the aforementioned theme).

Happy Easter everyone! I hope your week was as good as ours

Our Pictures: In reverse chronoligical order for this week.

An Easter morning snapshot of Evelyn as she searches for eggs.

Our little monkeys on Easter morning.

Checkin' out the goods.

We had our own 'brown pants day' at the zoo. We have the cutest kids ever!

Jackson's first time on a swing. He smiled each time he reached the apex of the swinging arc.

Evelyn and Luke were fighting over the swing. This was the obvious solution. Notice Evelyn's stylish cowboy boots! She loves them.

Meticulously coloring eggs. This is serious business!

Jackson can (and does) fall asleep anywhere! He is still gripping the basket.

We have begun the process of introducing Jack and Addy to the crib. And introducing Evelyn to the fact that Jack and Addy will soon be in her room. It will be interesting to see how this works out. Jack and Addy now sleep in there for morning naps only (without Eva in there).

Fun at the Zoo

Bath Time!

Where did it go?