A Nice Long Post For My Mother With Lots of Pictures

Dear Mom,

Today is the first day of spring! We are very excited for the warmer weather. Living here with lots of snow during the winter by the time spring rolls around it's like you can feel a charge in the air. Everyone is excited and anxious for the beautiful weather. You start to see bikes and strollers and joggers everywhere. You can hear children running and shouting and playing so excited to be out of the house and enjoying warm sunshine. I'm sure we could walk over to Porter Park and see tons of college kids laying on blankets and making out. We took advantage of the weather and walked to the Nature Park yesterday, well I walked with Rex and Colby in the stroller and the other kids rode their bikes. It felt so good to be out getting some fresh air and a little exercise. I have quite a bit of extra insulation that helped keep me warm all winter to get rid of and now that shorts weather is almost here I better get cracking.

While we were walking there Gracie said, "Mom, do you remember when we came on that adventure with Grannie and Pops? We came to the Nature Park and played on the island, we were the Island Kids. It was so much fun!" I thought it was so cute that she was thinking about that time. Then later when we were watching the ducks Matthew said, "See that island over there Mom, that's the one we went to with Grannie and Pops." He hadn't even heard my earlier conversation with Gracie. Then Owen was talking about how much fun you guys all had out there. I was happy that they were having so much fun reminiscing about your adventure.

I took lots of pictures so I could share them with you.

Of course the kids all found some sticks to play with.

Gracie still has her walking stick that she made with Dad.

I tripped over it in the family room the other day.

Rex said, "Look Mom, I found a STICK!"

like it was the coolest thing he'd ever seen.


Owen saw these ducks and said, "Look at those ducks they're

getting married!" (The boy being in a black "tux" and the girl all in white.)


Colby sat happily and watched everything from the stroller.

On Monday night we went out to LeeAnne's and played on the Wii. The kids love it. Bowling is especially fun. I was thinking that you would probably like it because you love to go bowling, and since you're not supposed to go anymore it is almost as fun as the real thing. I can see some really fun wii bowling parties in our future!

Tuesday, of course, was St. Patrick's Day and I'm sure you saw the post about that. The kids had so much fun that day. For lunch the boys wanted something green so we turned their ramen noodles green. I let them each put a drop of food coloring in and Rex got a little carried away and shot a long stream of green into them, as you can see in the picture they were pretty green.

Looks like we did catch our own cute little leprechaun after all!

This morning we enjoyed Matthew's birthday donuts (a day early) since apparently the grocery store does not make fresh donuts on the weekends. Lame, huh! But that's ok because Matthew is mostly celebrating his birthday today anyway. Tonight he is going on a special boys' night out with his dad. Bowling and dinner, fun!

Even Colby got in on the donut action.

It would seem that Rex snuck a donut into the family room and

left it on the floor and Colby found it. Sticky, gooey, smushy fun!

Last night we went out Grandma and Grandpa Walz' to pick up this beautiful dresser and nightstand that LeeAnne gave to us. We had to wait until the snow melted enough to be able to get into the driveway. These belonged to Grandma Walz when she was a teenager. Aren't they beautiful and I love that they have a history with my family. I'm so excited, when I saw the dresser I was like "that's mine!" LeeAnne had just asked us if we wanted a dresser and I said sure thinking we would just use it for one of the kids, until I saw it...not to mention the fact that it's about twice the size of my current dresser. Yay for me!

My lovely little Sexy Rexy model!

We also got this desk from LeeAnne, the kids were all fighting over who

gets to do their homework on it. The verdict...we're sharing it, of course!

Rex found this hat in Colby's drawer, put it on and came running into me saying, "look, it fits me!" He was so excited. I'm afraid he's still experiencing some growing pains at not being the youngest anymore. Luckily, he's figured out how to make Colby laugh so now he's more interested in doing funny things for him instead of poking or pinching him.

Today at school they had dress up as your favorite book character so Gracie dressed up as Tinkerbell. Not exactly her favorite character but she really likes fairy books and she HAD to dress up, you know...

Our busy week does not end here as tomorrow we will be spending the day going to Nathan's wedding festivities. Then on Sunday Kris and I both have to teach our classes then Kris has to speak in sacrament meeting and I get to give the opening prayer. After church we will have Matthew's birthday dinner with cake and ice cream with Hayley, Dan and Michelle. It should be a nice weekend but I think we will be exhausted by Monday.

I am so looking forward to seeing you in just a short little while. I hear you've been having a really good day, that's such great news. Hopefully, you won't have to get that feeding tube put back in and soon you can be eating some real food! Although, Colby has really started to enjoy HIS baby food!!!

Hang in there, keep working hard with your therapists. We love you SOOOOOOO much!

Love,

Eliza and the gang