Easter 2011

 This Easter was a lot of fun! Most of it was celebrated on Saturday.

Easter started off with a free pancake breakfast and egg hunt for the Parkridge neighborhood.  It was yummy and there was no long ling, like I thought there would be.  It started at 8:00 so Erik got to come with! Poor Gabe had a bad spill on our way to the park, that's why he looks sad in some of the pictures.  He enjoyed the egg hunt but was only able to get 3 eggs, the big kids were too fast for his little legs! He would spot an egg and say "Gabe's egg!" and then some other kid would pick it up and Gabe would start crying!  Poor Gabe. 

The next Easter even we went to was the Midwestern Easter party.  We as in me and Gabe--Erik had to be at his rotation.  Gabe went with his friend Kade but we met so many other friends there as well.  Gabe loved the big slide they had. 

    

 He was a little weird about the egg hunt though...he ran out in the field as fast as he could when they said "go!" but then stopped just a few yards shy from the other side and started crying.  All the eggs in his basket I picked up for him. 

 I like the Midwestern Easter egg hunts because they have mostly toys and fruit-snacks in the eggs instead of just candy.

  Gabe obviously didn't care too much for the Easter bunny!  Silly boy.

 

There was also a bounce house that Gabe enjoyed, along with snacks and cookie decorating.


Next we went to was an Easter party hosted by some friends.  Thanks Riddles! Good food, fun, and friends!  Gabe really enjoyed himself, besides the falling 6 feet off the playground and getting his face and head ground into the sand.  As much fun as Gabe had that Saturday, he sure had a hard day!  Gabe really got into the egg hunt this time and got tons of candy (most of which Mommy ate)!

 

 

 

Easter Sunday Gabe woke up with his right eye completely crusted over with boogies.  I noticed his eye had a little bit of discharge the day before but I didn't think anything of it.  I've taken him to the pediatrician and it is just from congestion.  Poor Gabe crawled into my lap before church started and fell asleep on me.  He slept all through church...I luckily was able to find a sub to play the piano for me and I stayed home with Gabe on Easter Sunday, of all days! I also missed Erik's choir performance...oh well.

Church doesn't start till 11:00 so we colored eggs and gave Gabe his Easter basket.  Grandma put it together for him!  You can see how tired he is in the pictures.  At least he enjoyed that part of the day.  After church I made a ham dinner (of course) with rolls, deviled eggs, mashed potatoes, and green beans.  Yum! 

Erik's Week Off

 Erik is doing his Urgent Care rotation, which is 7 days on, 7 days off-12 hour shifts.  The seven days on are a bit rough but it has been SO nice having Erik off for the 7 days (14 total)! If he isn't working in the lab making a little bit of money, Gabe and I are enjoying spending time with him, which is great since we can get some fun things in before the baby comes!
Erik was able to get some "culture passes" from the library by his school.  Normally you can only get one pass a week but Erik borrowed a friends and got two: one for the Phoenix zoo and one the the Arizona Science center.  Culture passes let you in free to a variety of museums around the Phoenix area!

I retardedly forgot the camera for the trip to the zoo (I did take some with my cell phone, but I have no idea how to upload them!) It was a lot of fun; slightly hot but not too bad.  Gabe had tons of fun seeing all the animals, he loved the petting zoo and especially the awesome splash park they have. 

A few days later we went to the Arizona Science Center.  Gabe never had so much fun in his life! I highly recommend it to anyone who has kids!  His favorite parts were the stomach slide and the balls that were held up by an air stream.  Erik and I enjoyed the fact that Gabe had so much fun and the computer station/exhibits about the body.
The best part was the fact that we were able to go to the Body World Exhibit, not entirely free, half-off since half of the ticket price includes admission to the Science center.  It was very cool, slightly morbid and disturbing, but I think something everyone should see at least once in their life.  I won't post any pictures because for one, photography of the bodies was prohibited and I certainly don't want to bother anyone! The bodies were preserved by a process called "Plastination" so they didn't stink like an anatomy lab, which I was afraid of. There were a bunch of fetuses in various stages, very cool to see but still saddening, not to mention the 5-month pregnant lady with her uterus cut open so you can see the baby inside! The guy who took our tickets warned me about that but it was something I wanted to see, even though it was disturbing.  Plenty of other cool things to see, they probably would have been cooler if I hadn't seen it all already in anatomy lab. 
We left the Science center way past Gabe's nap time; he fell asleep immediately so instead of eating in at a place called Lo-Lo's Chicken and Waffles in downtown Phoenix like we had planned, we got it to go.  It's soul food-aka black people food.  It was yummy, I was sooo hungry by then that just about anything would have tasted good, but I think I would like to try this place again! 

     

 The stomach-slide

 A retarded picture of me

Gabe's Swim Lessons!

I put Gabe into swim lessons at the local public pool last month.  I thought it would be good for him to learn some swim skills and have fun with his little friends, Eva and Kade (and fun for me to be able to chat with friends while we watch our kiddos swim!).  Gabe and his friends started preschool A for the first class (they were all below the age limit--oh well!).  They went for two weeks (March 21-31) Monday through Thursday starting at 5:15 and lasting a half hour long.  They were super cheap too, only $18 for the two weeks (each lesson was roughly $2 each!)
Preschool A was with "Miss Alicia" and except for the first half of the first lesson (we decided to skip the very first day--60 degrees is way to cold to swim!) Gabe absolutely loved the lessons and passed the class with flying colors!

Here is a photo dump of his swim pictures:

 

 

  

 Gabe and I had so much fun that I decided to put him in Preschool B.  He loved the lessons as well; they were with Trevor-both swim instructors were so good with the kids! Gabe didn't come out of swim lessons learning how to swim, but he did learn how to follow basic instructions and dunk his head and kick his legs better! Gabe and his little friend Kade didn't pass preschool B, not even close! They were both at least a year younger than the rest of the kids in the class, most of whom didn't pass either.  Oh well.  We'll try again next year with preschool B!

Happy Birthday Erik!!

I know this is a month late, but better late then never!  Since we celebrated Gabe's birthday the weekend before the actual date, it was nice to celebrate just Erik's birthday on the day.  It was fun but unfortunately didn't turn out exactly how we wanted but that's okay.

I got Erik a wallet.  Exciting I know.  And do you know what Erik got himself?  Guns.  Not just one, but two.  Like we really need them, and seriously, they are not cheap but Erik has been wanting guns since we've been married, so whatever.  I'm not excited about them...I would rather we spent the money on something we need, like a new fridge or a nice propane grill.  Plus we have to buy bullets now and hopefully the shooting ranges are free (these are NOT hunting or psycho killing guns, btw).

I also got him some apple fritters, glazed donuts, and IBC root-beer instead of making him a cake.  I know he loves donuts and I thought he was sick of cake, but looking back I guess I should have made him a cake after all! I think he was slightly disappointed.

For dinner we wanted to go to a Japanese grill, but accidentally ended up going to a mediocre Chinese restaurant. Whoops.  And then afterward Erik asked if I made him a dessert, and I said no (because I didn't make it) so he takes us to Krispy Kreme (I did mentioned that he should open his presents first!) and buys a dozen assorted donuts! So we had two dozen donuts.  Which is okay because I love donuts too.  But I gained two pounds that week when I went in to my OB appointment, obviously doughnut weight and not baby!

Happy Birthday to my Erik, he's 28 now--only two more years till the big 3-0!