Easter Festivities, etc.

We haven't been up to much lately, but for some reason I have a lot of pictures to post. Here is what we've been up to lately...

Preston celebrated his 2nd birthday in the middle of March. It was a fun quiet celebration. I'm going to have to take tips on cake making from Michelle when I'm ready to start baking boy cakes.
Also this last month we've had to sadly say goodbye to the Carles. JT got a job in Idaho, which we were really glad for since Fed-Ex has been making some changes lately due to the economy and his job here was going to be non-existent in the next few months. However we were really sad to see them go. The girls have just loved having them so close! When Cora wants to play dress-up, she always asks if she can play dress-up with "Olivila." I'm not sure if it's clicked (for either of us) that they are so far away now. I'm still half-expecting them to be just down the road from us.

Here are some pictures of them the night they came to our Ward Talent Show with my cousin Jack, who is also getting ready to be deployed. The other pictures are of the girls when we went to eat dinner with the Carles at Minsky's the night before they left.

I didn't get one of Judson posing with the girls, but they played with him with all the games. I'm just glad they aren't old enough yet to know that the games actually take money. They are still ok with just pretending to play!

Then the Saturday before Easter Bass Pro was having a fun day with the Easter Bunny, an Easter egg hunt, and an Easter craft. The girls were excited about all of the events! When we first got there we started the egg hunt. Apparently it was just all around the store. Nick's first thought was "This is my kind of egg hunt, let's go to the hunting section first!" Well, no luck, so we ran into someone on our way off the elevator who said someone was putting out eggs in the camping section. Sure enough we found some there. There was a 5 egg limit, so it didn't take long for the girls to hit that limit. Then we headed over to the line for the Easter Bunny while Nick went to the shooting range. After about a 45 minute wait, it was finally our turn. I was worried Cora would be scared as she still got scared with Santa Claus this year. Surprisingly though she did great and even let the Easter Bunny put her up on his lap for the pictures. I think they turned out pretty cute!

Then Easter morning the Easter Bunny hid the girls' baskets with lots of goodies in them! They both got a June from Little Einsteins and a copy of Princess and the Frog and of course lots of candy! Then we all got to watch the "prophet movie" (General Conference) and then headed to the Walkers for the afternoon session and an Easter dinner.

We did an Easter egg hunt at the Walker's house too. Originally our plan was to have it outside, but it started raining a bit, so Nick hid all the eggs inside...there were a lot of them! The kids had fun finding them, so much fun that later that night they were just hiding the eggs and taking turns finding them! It was cute and a great Easter!

Disney on Ice

Last week we took the girls to go see Disney on Ice. It's come every year (which I think it does come every year to KC area), but we've (I've) been wanting to take Kayley especially since every year Ariel comes, but we finally went this year and I was glad we waited as Cora is now old enough to love and be into princesses too. She's not quite as much into Ariel as Kayley is and has been since she was 18 months old, but she does love princesses and loves Ariel the best only because her older sister does!

It was a crazy night! I started out driving even though I had asked Nick to because I hate driving in the city because he's more daring than I am and we always get into an argument! So, finally after driving around for 15 min, we switched and he dropped the girls and I off to get in line while he did the stressful parking. Note...he hates to pay for parking, so he will drive around forever until he finds cheap or next to cheap parking! It about killed him to pay $5 to pay for parking for Phantom and it made me crazy that he took so long to park because we were about to miss the show!! So he finally got a spot as we had finally waited in line for 15 min and found our seats. Then he calls me and tells me he has to run back to the car for the 2nd time because he left his set of keys (since he was driving with my set) in plain view and of course he parked in no-man's land because it was free...but the first time he had to take back his conceal carry gun because they had metal detectors at the door. So he actually only barely missed the very beginning and then we got to enjoy the show with him.

Here are pictures of Mickey and Minnie's introdution:
Here's pictures of Cars...they were pretty impressive cars I thought...

The much anticipated, Ariel. Kayley wouldn't talk to me during this, she was so embarrassed that she was liking it so much! It was cute to watch how excited she got!

Lion King pictures...neither one of our girls have actually seen this movie, so it wasn't as exciting to them...but Nick got a little bit of his own excitement about this time as a kid behind him ended up throwing up on the back of his head. I didn't hear it and he didn't say anything about it until Cora mentioned that she had to go to the bathroom and Nick said he'd take her so he could wash out the throw-up. Apparently the parents didn't even apologize, but I'm not really sure they knew their kid had thrown up on him either. I was just glad Nick didn't throw up trying to clean himself up in the bathroom.

The Tinkerbell pictures...it was actually the longest of all of them. I think just because it's the newest of all the Disney movies. By the end of it, both my girls were ready to go home. They should have ended with Ariel and they would have wanted to stay the rest of the night!!

And the MAIN EVENT...our girls! Cora dressed up as Tinkerbell and Kayley dressed up as Ariel, or at least wore her Ariel dress. I forgot to get a picture of them all dressed up before we left, but I did get a picture of Cora in her outfit, Kayley refused to take her jacket off during the event. And at the very beginning some small fireworks went off during Mickey and Minnie's debut and Kayley from then on until the very end plugged her ears. It was cute and took lots of coaxing to get her finally take her ears down. It was a great night and we all had a lot of fun!

Rice Fun

Well, I can't take credit for this at all as I got my idea from my cousin's blog http://hersheykissed.blogspot.com/2010/03/preparations-for-rainy-day.html She had done this with her girls and it was a huge hit, so I thought it looked pretty easy so I thought I'd attempt it. Anytime I mention doing any type of craft with the girls, they both get SO excited! But they had tons of fun making the rice and even watching it dry! Once it was dry and I was ready to let them play (I have to have the floor completely picked up so that it's easier to clean up afterwards)....they dove right in and couldn't stop playing!! They ask me to play with rice almost everyday! You would think that I would make it easier on myself and let them play outside and let the birds/animals pick up the mess, but our dog likes to eat the rice too, so I had to nix that idea! So that means I get an extra clean carpet each time they play with the rice, which is almost everyday...but that's good for me too because I know some of you might think I'm crazy, but it's very therapeutic for me to vacuum and I love nothing more than a freshly vacuumed floor...especially with a dog in the house! So here's some pictures of the rice drying after we dyed it (by the way, you can find all the directions on my cousin's blog above). Here's some pics of the girls enjoying watching the rice dry as well as playing with the rice! It really is one of their favorite things to do now! It even replaces chalk with a water paintbrush outside...which they love to do too! Thanks for the idea Sarah!!

Welcome Emmeline

I didn't want to post about this until I for sure had the correct spelling, but on Monday (the 8th) our newest niece was born, Emmeline Sarah Reall or "Emme" for short. Katie was induced on Monday morning and everything went well with everything. Emme definitely looks like a Reall to me, apparently baby pictures she looks more like Sam...either way, she's just cute! She was 6 lbs 14 oz and 20 in long I believe. Perfect size in my book!! Here are some pics of the family meeting Emme...apparently Ellie still calls her "Baby GG"....which was what she called her the whole time Katie was pregnant with her! She's a funny girl! We are glad all went well and are excited to hopefully meet her soon someday! She's the first born of the three due in my immediate family this year...so far anyway, apparently Mallory has been working on Edward telling him she wants a real baby! We'll see what happens!!

Aloha!

Ok...I'd like to say that we are saying Aloha after coming back from Hawaii, but we aren't! Sadly we'll have to live through the experiences of others until we get to go to Hawaii someday ourselves. Grandma came back from Hawaii this week and brought the girls some souvenirs. They both got a shirt and a necklace. Well, of course Kayley would be the one to be a sour puss about the color of the shirt. She wanted Cora's pink shirt so she wasn't a good sport about taking a picture with them on. Cora on the other hand could have probably cared less, but her shirt would be too small for Kayley and vice versa. So here are pictures for Grandma of the girls showing off their prizes! Cora even tried to get Kayley to smile, but it didn't work. Sadly, I'm afraid to say that she got that from me. Oh well!

Once Upon a Time...

Last week Grandma (Nick's mom) was in town so we decided to meet Michelle and Grandma at the Crown Center for their "Fairy Tale" display. I really wasn't expecting much of a display as I wasn't as pleased with the last display we went to with Legos. I was mistaken on this one though...it was pretty much a play place of make believe stories. It was great and the girls loved it! I'm now looking forward to the Clifford display in May as well as the girls...we love Clifford at our house!

Here's some pictures of "The Three Little Pigs" (upper right), "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" (two bottom right), "The Princess and the Pea" (bottom left), and our cute Cora (top left), which is not make believe cause she is really cute!
Here's pictures of Kayley, Ashlyn, & Cora (top left) in Cinderella's Carriage and Cora and Preston also in the carriage (bottom left). The girls trying to climb the beanstalk from "Jack and the Beanstalk" (top right) and the girls holding onto Rapunzel's hair (bottom right). Then Kayley just being cute (left middle) and also not make believe as she is really cute in real life too! The girls were way excited about Rapunzel's hair as almost every night they request Nick to tell them this story as their bedtime story once they are tucked into bed. It's pretty cute! So we took this picture for Daddy who had to work while we were having fun!

Summer Anyone?

I don't know about you, but we're ready for summer here at our house!!
Also a funny thing that Cora did the other night...Kayley and Cora went visiting teaching with me during the day and one of the sisters I visit taught gave them a brownie and a cookie. Kayley's not a big dessert person, but Cora is. So Cora ate her immediately and all day was asking Kayley to eat hers, but Kayley was just waiting to eat hers later. Finally at night Cora asked again and Kayley finally told her (with some coaxing from me) that Cora could have one bite. So, while Kayley wasn't looking Cora's one bite consisted of her trying to shove the whole thing in her mouth. She got in trouble and Kayley of course then wanted all of her brownie. But that little Cora is really sneaky...thanks to Nick that is!!

Happy Valentine's Day!

We had a fun Valentine's Day/Weekend. On Saturday we took the girls to the Events Center to go Ice Skating. This ironically was mine and Nick's first time ice skating together ever. Apparently that was one date he never really liked to go on with girls and we just never went when we were dating or since we've been married. I think it's cause he just doesn't want to admit that I'm WAY better than him!! So, it took Kayley a while to be ok with ice skating. She mostly just wanted to stay in the box and rest. But towards the end she did really like to skate, we just had to be holding her hands tightly the whole time!
Cora on the other hand seemed to love it! Nick actually got her to try and skate a bit by herself without us holding her hands or coat or anything. She actually did pretty good skating by herself too...we were impressed. She wouldn't let me let go of her hands at all though...must be a Dad thing. But boy was my back tired after skating with her...not only did I have to bend over the whole time with her being so short, but if he skates got mixed up or crooked or anything, she would just pick up both of her feet letting me carry her the rest of the way!

Then later that night....ok don't laugh, but let me just start with the fact that you all know that Nick and I are cheap. So for dinner we had found some Captain D's coupons and I just LOVE their jalepeno cheddar bites, so we decided to do dinner there. We get there and waited at the counter for at least 15-20 minutes waiting for someone to come and take our order. Nick even got on their microphone that they use to call out the order to the back and said that we were up there...still no one. We could hear them in the back talking, but no one was coming up. We wanted to wait and let them know they lost our business because of their bad customer service. So as we were waiting we went ahead and called Texas Roadhouse to do call ahead seating. They finally came out and asked us what we wanted as if we had just walked in. We told them how long we had been waiting and they apologized....there were 3 workers!! Apparently one was training two of them and she told the trainees that this was why you never left the registered unoccupied. They again asked us what we wanted and we told them we weren't giving them our business b/c of their bad customer service. We even told them we got on the microphone to let them hear us and no one came! Needless to say, it felt good to walk out, but I was really sad I didn't get my jalepeno cheddar bites. Nick said I should just order through the window and then I could eat them on my way to Texas Roadhouse, but I didn't want them to have the satisfaction of getting our business. Anyway, so we went to McD's next door to pick up our movie from Redbox and headed to Texas Roadhouse. We received GREAT service there!! And yes, I know you're wondering...we also had a coupon for there too and they didn't even take our coupon, so we get to go and use it again...with the great service we got, we may just go there next week! :) Then we headed home and watched Love Happens...such a great movie! It was pretty predictable, but I was just so relieved to finally watch a movie where you're not having to screen the scenes...there were absolutely NO inappropriate scenes! A little bit of language, but nothing like most other PG-13....for instance, no F word! I hate how it seems like they feel like they have to put in the F word only b/c it's a PG-13. Anyway, I highly recommend this movie to anyone it was a really good movie. Nick even dreaded watching it, but actually enjoyed it!

Then Sunday on Valentine's Day we exchanged our Valentine's Day gifts. We got Nick some candy and made him Cashew Chicken for dinner (without him helping me at all!)...it's a big meal to make and clean up for those that don't know it! He got me some perfume that I've been wanting for a long time, but wasn't wanting to spend the money on it. Then he got the girls each a small gift. He got Kayley a little bowling set...she loves to play it on the floor, table, chair, everywhere! He got Cora a small basketball goal...that is all she talks about since our new McDonald's has a little basketball court. I am very excited to say that I think she may be our sports child! Overall it was a great Valentine's Day and we hope everyone else had a great day/weekend as well!

Ta Da...

Well...I've hit 18 1/2 weeks already! It seems like forever long, but yet so fast that we're already at this point! Anyway, I'm for the most part feeling pretty good, however I've continued to have headaches everyday still. Thank goodness for Excedrin Tension Headache!

We had our ultrasound appointment today. Everything looked good and healthy, which we are grateful for. I had originally wanted to make this one a surprise, but this last week I've been worried that if I kept it a surprise and we had the baby and it happened to be a girl, that at the hospital I would be upset that it was a girl and feel guilty as a mother to be upset about my baby girl. So I asked the ultrasound tech to put the answer in an envelope so I could have the opportunity to find out if I felt I needed to. Well, Nick thought it would last until the end of the night and I have to say he was wrong as it only lasted for about 4 hours until I gave in. When in the ultrasound room, Kayley said it was a boy because the baby didn't have any hair. Well.....

She was right...but not because of the no hair thing, but luckily that is what she still thinks for now!! :) We are excited and to be honest a bit relieved, however let the record show that we both would have been ok with a girl, it may just have taken me a bit longer to be ok with the idea of it. Now I have to get over the fact that we are actually having a boy, which means a total change of scenery for us! Oh well, we are excited either way!

Pictures of our boy

Well, with all the excitement of finding out it was a boy the other day, I forgot to post pictures of his actual ultrasound. There are not any "boy" pictures as obviously the ultrasound tech just put the answer in an envelope so the pictures she gave us wouldn't give us any clue about the gender...which, I think makes them a bit more lop-sided than normal baby ultrasound pics, but anyway, here they are.

Typical front profile here on the left and then the right is a side profile with an emphasis on his baby belly!

This group is my favorite group, the one on the left looks kind of funny cause he was just caught at a bad angle and then the one on the right looks like he's scratching his head trying to figure out what we are doing to him.

Then here are some more side profile pics on the left and a pic of his backside on the right, which I don't ever remember having of the girls...I guess of the spine. Also, I didn't get a pic of it, but the tech was able to show us a picture of one of his ears, it was funny cause it already for sure had Nick's shape of ear. Funny that at such a small age and being so small...he was only 10 ounces...he's already just like his Daddy! :) We are so excited to have a boy, but I'm still in a bit of shock that we're having a boy! Now I have to get boy toys like trucks and things for him otherwise this kid will have a complex playing with all our princess stuff in this house! :)