Spring Vacation!

Dan had an end of semester break so we decided to make the most of it! His break just happened to coincide with his half brother, Alex's birthday party. We were so excited to be able to see his Dad and Venus, and Alex, since they're living in Hong Kong right now and it's been over a year since we've seen them. So immediately after Dan's clinical at the hospital (well, not immediately, I guess. We did have dim sum with Brandon and Emilyn first), we hopped on a plane to Chicago.

Alex had his birthday party at Pump it Up, a fun place with lots of inflatable jumpy things. At first jade was more interested in the drinking fountain

and the arcade games.
I was nervous that she would fall down the steps up to the slide, or get up there and not want to slide down, but she had the most fun on the slides and kept going over and over again.
Dan helped her through an obstacle course.
Here's a group shot. That's Venus and Alex on the left. :) Thanks for the cool party, guys.
We had to visit our favorite crab house in Chicago, Bob Chinn's Crab Shack. Dan enjoyed the crab and I enjoyed some pasta, and a melt in your mouth steak. Thanks Dan and Venus for taking us. It was so nice to see you both.
After our weekend in Chicago we went to visit Stef and Kevin in Denver. We had a lot of fun, although, Jade got sick while we were in Chicago and had a tough plane ride. The night we got to Denver, we went with Stef and Kevin to a Rockies game. It was Jade's first major league game and really fun!


Jade sort of passed on her sickness to everyone else in the house or we all just picked up something gross. We ended up being sick for the last half of our trip there.

Here are the girls, watching Dora, of course.
We played a lot of Wii while we were there. It was a lot of fun, especially when I schooled everyone in Mario Party.
Cousins!!





We went bowling. The girls spent their down time watching Dora.

We took a tour of a candy factory.
Here we are, just killing time, waiting for our tour.
Ring a round the rosie!
All you can eat sushi! Or in my case, all you can eat teriyaki chicken.

Playing at the mall.

We had a really great time, and it was so nice to go on vacation! Sorry for bring sickness upon your house, Stef and Kevin. We had a blast!!

Brrrr!

Yesterday Jade wandered into the living room rubbing her hands together saying "brrrr" (as in, cold). I asked her if she felt something cold, and she said "Yeah!", so I asked her to show me. She lead me back into our bathroom and put her hands into the toilet water and said "brrrr"! Such a cute/funny/gross 2 year old!

A weeks worth of a visit crammed into a few pictures I took at the Olive Garden

The title sort of explains it all. Dan's family came to visit last week and we had so much fun. Enough fun, apparently, to not pull out the camera. So here are a few pictures I took while we were having dinner at Olive Garden.

Stefanie, Me and Mike (Stef is holding Sophie and Mike is holding Jade)

Our cutie pie neice Sophie. She is the sweetest thing ever.
Jade and Rylee coloring.
Jade, Grandma Lou, and Rylee. Thanks for coming to visit everyone! We had a blast!

I suck at commitment

So I dropped the ball on the whole, picture a day for the month, thing. Sorry :( But I got some really cute pictures out of the process. It has inspired me to whip out the camera more frequently, even for the day to day stuff.

Here we have Jade, enjoying a delicious spaghetti dinner with her hands. You'll notice the fork is there, but no, she prefers her hands.

This is a sad one. Time out. I don't remember what this particular one was for, but she's breaking my heart here.
I just had one of those days where I thought I looked pretty good so I snapped a picture. Who knows how much longer I'll be having days where I think I look good. Better record them now.
Spending Sunday evening playing the Wii. Jade is still at that great age where she thinks that she is playing, even when she's not. That's why I can take her to the mall arcade and let her "drive" one of the racing games without wasting my change.
Jade walked in here and said "cheese". That's how she'll tell me she wants her picture taken. The other day she walked up to the door at Target, which had an Easter bunny picture on it, and said "cheese".
This past Tuesday we went to Mall of America for Toddler Tuesday because they were going to have a Yo Gabba Gabba day. DJ Lance Rock and Brobee were supposed to be there. When I pulled up to the mall I noticed there were a lot more cars than there usually are, but I thought, 'No, this can't be for Toddler Tuesday', boy was I wrong.

Here we are on the second level of the mall, looking down into the rotunda. There was a long line down the hall, just to get into the rotunda. It's probably a good thing we didn't wait in that line because as soon as we saw DJ Lance Rock, Jade started crying and covering her eyes. She was so scared!

Busy Bee Tuesday

I knew this morning was going to be a wild one because we had an early morning doctors appointment. So Jade got to eat her breakfast in the living room, while watching cartoons. (Ok, it happens semi-frequently).

Three weeks ago Jade started walking like a drunken sailor so we took her to after hours care. She had a double ear infection so her equilibrium was off and hence the unsteadiness on her feet. She had a check up today and everything looks good!

A Picture a Day

I thought I'd take a picture every day this month. Jade will be two and a half this month. I can't believe how fast the time has past. She is really an awesome girl.

Jade is, for the most part, a really good sleeper. We moved her into a toddler bed soon after her second birthday. She snores and occasionally talks in her sleep. She's not particularly attached to any of her blankets or stuffed animals. We try to get her to love her snuggle bunny that Dan and I picked out for her before she was born, but she just ends up chewing on it's ears.

Jade loves robots!

Jade is into robots right now. When Dan brought home an ear piece for his stethoscope and placed it in his ear she pointed to him and said "robot". She loves it when we pretend to be robots and

she'll even pretend to be one herself. Here's a video of me making a fool of myself, and Jade being adorable.

Let's play catch up!!

We have had a really great year so far! To start thing off, our friend Laurel got us tickets to see Imagine 1-2-3 Elmo and Friends (she was part of the cast). We went with our friends, the Smiths. Jade and their daughter Samantha are only a week apart and they've become great friends.

We had great seats and even got to meet some of the characters before the show. Jade wasn't too happy about that, although she warmed up to Abby Cadabby, and even blew her a kiss.

Dan and I have been having date nights, thanks to another couple in our ward who we switch babysitting nights with. Thanks guys!
Jade is getting so grown up! She just looks more like a toddler/kid, than a baby. She is hilarious too. She has this one joke she tells it goes like this "gibberish, gibberish, gibberish" then "MOO!!" She laughs so hard, and we laugh too, of course, even though it makes no sense whatsoever.
We played Settlers of Catan with Stef and Kevin over Skype. :) We just set up our boards the exact same way and played for them on our board. Anyway, it was a lot of fun and I won!
Toddler Tuesday at Mall of America has once again impressed us by having something fun to do on a Tuesday. Jade and I went for a Chinese New Year celebration. They had a dragon and martial artists did some cool routines.
And we got to meet Kai-lan. Ni-hao!
Dan turned 30!! We had a big celebration with some friends. Dan's mom sent him some Louisiana craw fish so we spent the night dissecting those and playing games.
Here he is feeling sorry for himself.
Not to worry Dan, I hear 30 is the new 20!
Jade got a double ear infection so we let her hangout on the couch watching Elmo videos on youtube.
My sister Katrina got married last week! She's been together with her boyfriend for over 4 years and they finally decided to make it official I guess. So I got to surprise her by showing up for the occasion. We had a fun girls night with my sisters and mom. We had dinner at The Gateway (my favorite mall), and shopped for lingerie!
My dad got to come for the wedding as well.
My sister and her husband Kyle, killing time with my younger brothers before the wedding.


Batman was the ring bearer.

Congrats guys!

They had a party at the bowling alley afterward, it was so much fun. I bowled a 127! Ok, that was with bumpers.


Jade is so imaginative. Here she is, feeding her babies string cheese.