Mother's Day

Every year, I like to take a picture of me with my kids on Mother's Day. It's just kind of fun to see how we've all changed (well, it's fun to see how the kids have changed - I don't love seeing myself getting older).

So, here we all are on Mother's Day 2009. I am such a lucky mom!

Boating, Buns, and my Baby Boy

During our phone conversation today, Brad chastised me for not updating the blog in so long. I think he likes to look at it so he can remember what we all look like. So, here are a few random happenings from April:

After the snow melted, we had a LOT of water in our back yard forest - which we affectionately call "Lake Bitner." One afternoon, Pepper and Adam had the brilliant idea to take their sleds out and see if they could float. I guess they were in the mood for some spring boating. Well, unfortunately, the sleds floated, but not with the boys on them. So, after an hour or so, they came into the house freezing with sopping wet boots. Nice try, though.

Luke is in the thick of the "I'll do it myself" phase. One night, I put him to bed in a perfectly normal pair of pajamas, and the next morning I found that he had gotten up sometime in the night and put on two more sets of pj's on top of the original pair. I'm sure he was plenty warm.

Not long after the pajama incident, he told me one morning that he was going to get dressed himself, or as he put it, "I'll get my dressed on myself!". This is the outfit he came up with - the Lowe's apron and Batman mask.

You can see he was missing some key elements!

Even with all his craziness, Lukie is still my baby.

OK Brad, is that better? We love and miss you!

More Easter

After the kids finished hunting for eggs in the neighborhood, we came back inside the house and colored some real eggs.

I boiled a dozen eggs for each kid to color, which makes a LOT of egg salad afterwards (needless to say, I threw about 1/2 of it out - don't tell the starving children in China). The important thing was that the kids had fun coloring eggs.

I had to laugh at this egg. Pepper was experimenting with dipping his eggs in 2 colors - first half in one color, then half in another. This egg ended up with a little white showing, as you can see. He showed it to me just like this, and said, "This egg looks like a fat lady." I think he meant it looks like the back end of a fat person whose pants and shirt don't quite meet - especially when she bends over. For those of you who don't know Pepper, he doesn't have a mean, judgemental bone in his body. He just calls thing like he sees them - a simple observation. I chuckled about this all afternoon - he was right!

The next morning, the kids were delighted to see that the Easter Bunny had come...

Luke especially couldn't believe his luck - there was candy everywhere! A two-year-old boy's dream come true.

That evening, we had Easter dinner up at Jeff and Jodi's house. Once Erik and Luke found their way outside, we couldn't drag them back in the house. These two little boys just LOVE each other! They call each other "Geeker" and "Owek", and I have never seen two-year-olds play together as well as they do.

A lovely Easter, although we missed Brad all day. Sigh...

Happy Hunting

Every year, my neighbor Michelle organizes an Easter egg hunt in our circle. This year, Michelle had the brilliant idea to have the older kids hide all the eggs the night before, so us fuddy-duddy grown-ups didn't have to leave our warm houses after dark to go hide hundreds of eggs. It was magical for me to walk out this morning and see that all the eggs were just waiting for us!

Here are all the kids ready to start hunting. The snow was mostly gone, but it was still pretty cold this morning.

This was Luke's first year to hunt eggs, so he was a little confused at first. Once he figured out the rules (you know, see an egg, put it in your basket), he had a great time.

As an eight-year-old, Adam is a seasoned egg-hunting professional. He went for it hard core.

Pepper was also all-business. When you're ten, you know that it is all about getting the maximum number of eggs in the minimum amount of time.

Now that Jess is 12, she is officially "too old" for stuff like this. But it is still fun to be the big sister and help Luke.

Happy Easter!

Grumpy Spring Break

OK, so after a too-short visit, Brad left last night to return to work in Germany. And then, as if to kick me when I'm down, this is what I woke up to this morning:

Just be warned, Jill is grumpy today!

Buddies

Yesterday we had a house full of friends here to watch General Conference, and it was a great day. Brad and I both grew up in families that get together to eat massive amounts of food while we watch conference. Since we've lived here, we have been lucky to find friends that enjoy the same tradition.

This year, we invited some friends to our home for the Sunday morning session, and Luke was in heaven because his favorite buddy Landon was here to play with all day. I couldn't resist taking a couple of photos of these two cute little buddies.

unser Haus

The good news of the day is that Brad signed the lease papers for a house in Berlin this morning. Yay! We officially have a place to live! I would have hated being homeless in Germany.

The house isn't available until July, so Brad will be staying in a small furnished apartment until then. Hopefully, our furniture will arrive early in July, so he won't be rattling around an empty house for too long. I have already Google-mapped the neighborhood, and I know where the nearest McDonald's is, so that is a comfort. This house is actually very close to the first house we picked out, so that helps me feel like I kind of know what to expect.

How weird is this? We are going to live there!