My Birthday & Easter

I had a great birthday this year.  Joe and the kids woke me up with breakfast, cards and a decorated house.  They always make me feel so loved.  Later that day, while Nate was at preschool, Eli and I went on a bike ride.  It was a bit chilly but a beautiful day:

Eli loves bike rides, even if he kicks me in the back a lot.  :)

That night we went out to eat at Outback so I could get some cheese fries.  :)  It was a bit of a ridiculous outing with Eli being crazy and because Nate and Eli both managed to spill their full cups of lemonade all over the floor.  Luckily, we had a super-nice waiter who made up for it.  We went home and I got to have carrot cake and ice cream and open my presents.  It was wonderful.  

I got this painting that I love so much:

Just a couple of days later we drove to Utah so I could run in my race.  I stayed with Kari and Katie the night before at Katie's cousin's house which was right by the race so we didn't have to get up too early (still before 6, though).  We had a blast talking and laughing the night before but we still managed to get to bed at a decent hour.  I was so afraid that I would sleep through the race (especially since I had a dream that I did just that a couple of nights before) that I kept waking up to check the time on phone.  Finally, it was time to get up and go.

Before the race:

It was a pretty cold morning and I couldn't feel my toes for a couple of miles but after that I warmed up and it was a nice day.  I tried to stick by Katie for as long as I could and made it about 4 miles (Kari was running the 10k).  She was much faster than me.  I think that was good because it pushed my pace a little bit.  After that, I just tried to hang on the best I could.  I was a little depressed when the 2h15min pace runner passed me.  I was hoping to finish faster than that.  Luckily, I was able to pass her in the end so I felt pretty good.  My time was 2 hours and 12 minutes.  It was a great experience even though I felt pretty dead afterward.  It was a big boost to me to accomplish something so difficult.  

Right after the race:

We got cleaned up a little bit and then had a super delicious brunch at Cafe Zupa's.  Then we parted ways and I drove to Joe's dad's house to meet back up with everyone for Easter/Conference fun.

The kids got to color Easter eggs:

Later we went to a local school to let the kids burn some energy.  We had fun playing wiffle ball, flying kites, and having an egg hunt.

On Easter morning, everyone was so great and humored us in our sunrise devotional tradition.  Unfortunately we didn't take into account the mountains right by their house so sunrise was actually much later than we thought.  Oops!  It was a great little devotional, though, and the kids were quite good.

We had our cinnamon rolls and watched some Easter videos before Conference started.  It was a great way to feel the spirit of the day.  We had such a blast being with family.  It was a great weekend!

Talking

One of my very favorite things in the world is watching a toddler's face while they struggle to formulate their first sentences.  It is awesome and adorable and quite miraculous to watch, I think.  Eli is starting to talk more and more and coming up with some awesome words and phrases.  I wanted to record some of his current sayings that I love.

-"B, E, N": Eli loves letters and knows all of them already, even most of the lowercase letters!  It's kind of surprising since he still says "ga" or "ga-ga" a lot of the time.  Anyway, whenever he wants to color he usually wants to try and write letters and he will say, "B, E, N!  B, E, N!"  I guess those are his favorite letters.  We think it's hilarious.
-"2 ga-mas": When my mom had her surgeries we started praying for her every night.  Eli was very adamant about praying for his "2 ga-mas" and still whenever anyone says grandma he says "2 ga-mas" over and over again.  The funny thing is that any number that is greater than 1 is 2 to Eli ("Two fishies! Two cars!" etc) so I think he means all of his ga-mas.  He loves them all. He frequently points to random older ladies in stores and says, "Ga-ma!" I'm just hoping he doesn't offend someone at some point.  :)
-"{yuck sound}":  It's hard to describe this sound but it starts with a "d" and kind of rhymes with the Scottish "loch".  It's the sound he makes whenever he thinks something is yucky.  It has cracked us up on more than one occasion.  Especially the first time he tried mustard.
-"Piggie and Pfff":  Eli still calls lots of animals by their sounds, including his favorite elephant, Gerald, that he got for Christmas.  He loves Piggie and Pfff and sleeps with them every night.

-"Baby":  For awhile, Eli wouldn't say his own name and whenever we said that he was Eli he would say, "No, baby!"  He would point to himself in pictures and say, "baby!"  I thought it was adorable.  Sadly, he doesn't really do this anymore and can now say "E-yi" for his name.  It's pretty darn cute, too.
-"Mama, big":  Eli loves to classify things as big and little.  According to Eli, everyone in our family is big except him.  This makes Nate feel pretty good.  :)
-"Ga-pooh":  This is what Eli calls Winnie the Pooh.  He loves it when Lizzy lets him borrow the Winne the Pooh stuffed animal that she got when she was a baby and lets him sleep with it.
-"ice":  This means a number of things: actual ice, but also a drink of water, or snow.  He likes ice like his mom.  :)
-"Soo-why!":  He takes after his Harry Potter-loving siblings and loves to wear a cape and go around with his wand pointing it at people and yelling "Soo-why!" or "Stupefy!"
-"Pop!": Whenever the toast pops up and is done cooking, Eli loves to yell "pop!"  This has since progressed to anything that is finished or any timer that beeps--if the laundry is done he will say, "Mama, pop!" If the microwave or the oven timer goes off it's the same.  He makes sure that I hear those timers.  :)
-"Pee-cool":  This is how he says "preschool" and I love it. i.e. "Nate go pee-cool?"

Just since I first starting composing this post, he has been talking more and more.  He finally decided that he wanted to communicate and now he says some new word I haven't heard before every day.  It is such a fun phase to be in, but also a little sad because you recognize how fast he is growing and changing.  We sure love our little "E-yi".