Excitement in May

Is it sad that the whole new blogger interface update was new to me and I'm pretty sure it happened a while ago?


Anyway, May has been great! At the beginning of May, Justin had his white coat ceremony (more pictures to come, I hope). Basically, at Iowa they do it at the end of the first year instead of right when you start because they consider it kind of an "initiation." The students will now be working on actual patients at the clinic...starting today, actually. Yay! Ironically, Justin's first patient canceled. But, he gets to work on me in a couple of weeks! Just a cleaning for starters, so it'll be great.

Part of the celebration included a visit from Grandma and Grandpa A. Caleb LOVED seeing them again and soaked up their attention and love like the best of them. Mackenzie liked Grandpa more than Grandma, but even Grandma grew on her towards the end. All in all, it was a fun visit!

 
May has brought some nice warm weather, too, so we've been enjoying splashing around in the pool. This is in the backyard part of our complex and all the kiddos enjoy the cool water on a nice hot day!

We took a random drive to North eastern Iowa last weekend. It has a surprising amount of hills and trees and rivers and such: not what you imagine Iowa looking like. It was beautiful!! Very rural, but we found a quaint little town, Elkader, Iowa, that had an AWESOME quilting/fabric store.  Plus, we ate fried chicken on the drive!

 
 We had an FHE activity that Caleb was in charge of (of course, I helped a lot). We did The Little Red Hen story, and the copy that we checked out from the library happened to have a cake recipe at the back of it. So, as our activity/treat we made cake. And that involved flour. And that let to a flour fight and flour-covered children and kitchen floor. It was fun! It was a great activity, too.

And last but not least...May has brought a special birthday. Next post on that!

Spring Break...so long ago!

It truly does seem like Spring Break was so long ago...and it was so short! Justin worked the Thursday and Friday of it, and we were all sick at the beginning, so it was not much of a break. But, we tried to have some fun.

In addition to the Niabi Zoo we visited on Saturday that I already posted about, we took a trip to Bass Pro Shops (things are exciting here in Iowa).


It was actually really fun! There was a big aquarium and a race car arcade...and the undersea bowling alley! Super cool! The lanes kind of glowed with fish and obviously our ball return was a shark. Caleb made us laugh because he wouldn't use his little ramp thing and would just sit and push the ball. It went SO slowly but he only scored a couple of points below me! He's go some sort of hidden skill there!

We also had some fun just going on bike rides and playing outside. Mackenzie has such a goofy grin here!

We also went swimming that week and the kids LOVED it! it was sooo fun (indoors). We're looking forward to going again! Spring Break was fun...and we are counting down the weeks until Summer break!

My crazy little 10 month old

Just a few picture series showing how crazy Mackenzie is.

She loves to eat food...and lately she's enjoyed spiking her hair up with the food on her hands. So fun!! I can't believe she's almost 1 year old!

Hide and Seek!

Caleb is always doing things that make me laugh...

He's taking hsi nap right now. Can you guess where he is? Not in his bed...not in the crib...not on the floor...

Inside the froggy hamper of course! Sweet dreams little boy!

Happy Easter!

Neighborhood Easter egg hunt. Caleb and his friend J are about 2 months apart and it's so funny how similarly they do things.

We had a grand Easter. I loved preparing for Easter baskets and Easter egg hunts this year because Caleb was so much more into it. I likewise enjoyed focusing on the Resurrection of Jesus Christ because Caleb responded and comprehended (sorta) what that means. It was so special during Family Home Evening when we asked, "What happened after Jesus died for you?, he, without reminder or prompting, answered, "He was resurrected!"
I was stunned, but so happy that he'd at least heard that word, that phrase often enough to be able to reproduce it. I am so grateful for my Savior and it was wonderful to think about how much I want my children to understand how much He loves them and everything He did for them.

Well, here we are coloring eggs.


Justin helping the pro...


And the casualty.

Easter morning: The Easter bunny brought Caleb some sunglasses. He knew that Mommy was going crazy hearing Caleb complain about the sun everytime they got in the car...smart little bunny...

Doesn't he look snazzy? haha!