DeeDee

She's here!  Our new little monkey, Daphne Darlene, joined us on April 28 at 4:45 p.m.  She weighed 8 lbs. 7.5 oz.

This is Lucas the day before I was scheduled at the hospital.  He was practicing taking care of babies.

 This is me on the morning of...waiting for the hospital to give me the all-clear to show up to deliver.  Blah!  Not a great shot, especially coming from below but I took this for her baby book because there's a page where there's supposed to be a picture of her in mom's tummy so it'll do because I have no others.

 Meeting our new sister for the first time.

 We love her dark hair and hope it stays!  Grace and Luke were bald so we were surprised to see so much hair!

Easter

I haven't blogged forever and so I am cramming everything I haven't blogged quickly on here before I don't get the chance again for a while.  Therefore, the pictures are not uploading in the right order but I don't care because I actually have a minute to even upload them!
These are pictures from our Easter egg hunt with our cousins and before going to church on Easter Sunday.  Lucas appears to be happy here but right after we took these pictures, we loaded in to the car to go to church and just as we pulled in to the parking lot, he puked all over himself and the car.  Poor guy.  He started crying because he was covered in barf.  Grace started crying because she still wanted to go to church and didn't want to go home.  So I took her inside and found someone that she could sit with and then told Buck she was there and he needed to bring her home cause I was leaving.  He ended up having to find her a ride home because he had to stay after.  Meanwhile, I was home scrubbing out the car and washing Lucas' car seat.  Why is it always on a holiday that kids get sick?  Lucas was most sad that he couldn't have any of his Easter candy.  He told me, "I don't want to eat the boring food.  I want something good."  Whatever it was that he had, it missed Grace and I. (Phew!)   Buck caught it a day or so later.

Hansel and Gretel

Grace was in her school's musical this year.  The New Adventures of Hansel and Gretel.  She had lots of fun being in the Jail Choir.  It was so fun to see her up there dancing and singing...mostly dancing.

More quotes

Seems like all I do is quote my kids lately bit they have been so funny and I've been too lazy to upload any pictures. Here's the latest I've been laughing about...
Yesterday:
Me: Lucas please wait for a minute til I can help you shell that egg (as he's trying to bite through the shell of a hard boiled egg).
Lucas: (with huge popping eyes) why? Is there a chicken in there?

Today:
Grace: mom, I want a pet.
Me: you have 2 pets honey. You have 2 cats.
Grace: well, I want a chameleon. I want a pink, sparkly chameleon.

An excerpt from Luke's prayer tonight...

"... And bless that our toys won't fall off the shelf because then our Mom will have to clean them up and she is really sick of cleaning up our toys..."

Brock Omama

Tonight I was playing the piano and the page I was on in the book had a cartoon type picture of Haydn on it.  He had one of those powder wigs that men used to wear way back then, you know?  With the curls on the side, etc.  Grace walked past, noticed the picture and said, "Hey, he was the first!  He is George Washington!"
I said, "He looks a lot like George Washington, but his name is Franz Josef Haydn.  But you are right!  George Washington was our first president, wasn't he?"  (She nods yes to that.)  I then ask, "Do you know who our president is now?" (I get a head shake "no.")  I said, "His name is Barack Obama."
She smiled and said, "Oh, yeah.  Brock Omama."

California...

 A couple weeks ago we planned a trip to go see Buck's Grandpa for one last time.  He was 91 and the doctors said at the end of his life.  Well, it ended up being a trip to his funeral because he passed away the morning before we left.  I'm glad we made it for his viewing anyway.
We planned a couple extra days to have some fun while we were down there and ended up spending both at the beach.  The weather was beautiful and this kids had so much fun.  Grace has been asking to go to the beach for a year and since we didn't make it this summer I was glad to make it on this trip.  Even though it was February, we lucked out with 80 degree days.  Perfect!
We stayed with my brother and his wife and little boy and that was half the fun too.  I think the kids were the more sad to leave Uncle Scott's house than anything else.

 Digging in the sand...

 Showing off [a tiny fraction] of the shells she collected.

 "Mom, take a picture of my sparkly feet."  I don't know if you can see it in the picture but the sand in Oceanside has little flecks of gold in it and Lucas thought it was cool.

 Sandy face.

Lucas digging nearby the spot where Grace wrote all our names in the sand.

 Buck and Grace braving the cold water.

Brrr!  I don't care if its August, you will probably never see me in the water in California.  Too cold!

 Getting ready to wreck our castle...

After the beach on Friday, we went down to Balboa Park to wander around and rode all the rides.

Riding the train with the panda bear.

Fun with Dad

I am not a huge fan of playing in the snow, but Buck is so good to go out with the kids.  I prefer to watch from inside where it's warm!

I am pretty sure that the concept of waxing as a means of hair removal was discovered in a medieval torture chamber. Yet, I continue to do it because it is way faster than sitting in front of the mirror plucking out half my eyebrows!

He says ta me, he says...

(This is Lucas again)
Today:
"Oh, Momma! You are the best cooker ever!"
"Thank you buddy."
"Can I have another cookie?"

The other day:
"Mom, are you doing your exercises?"
"No, bud. I'm just trying to get my pants on."