Easter

We had the most beautiful Easter Sunday here in Boston. Unfortunately the day before was not as nice.  It was almost like the storms during the Crucifixion and then wake to the beautiful weather and knowledge of the Resurrection on Easter Morning. We had a nice dinner at a friends house, and it was just a lovely day.

Ezra got to do 2 different Eater egg hunts, one on Friday with primary kids, and another indoor one on Saturday with kids closer to his age. He enjoyed both of them, but still needs a little practice to be competitive. During the first one he would pass up on some eggs and grab others. I guess he knows which ones he is too good for. After he had found his limit he still just enjoyed running around with the other kids who were still looking. At his second hunt he seemed to think he had enough and was less into finding more once he had a few. Luckily we didn't come home with too much candy!

 Thank you to the Bullocks for letting us use their house!

Most of the candy from this hunt didn't even make it home.

While other kids were still looking Ezra was digging in to what he already had.

We also had our annual egg dying party. It was the messiest year to date, but I think everyone had a good time!

 Ezra really enjoyed putting the color tabs in the vinegar.

 This was Austin's first time coloring eggs, and it was pretty awesome to watch.

At first he would crush the eggs in his hand and then throw it into the dye.

Needless to say his mom ended up doing some very hands on helping.

 The Chase's were the only ones to make it to all four years of our Egg Dying Extravaganza.

Aren't they the greatest? (In others defenses they didn't live here all four years.)

I made the multi colored one and Bob did the Black Label and 2-toned one.The rest were all Ezra. 

He is trying to add stickers to them, but the stickers were too old and didn't stick.

On Easter morning the Easter Bunny left Ezra a trail of eggs to follow, which made it much easier for him to find his basket. Daddy was not so lucky and I had to practically tell him where it was. Ezra was pretty spoiled between us and Grandma and Grandpa. He seems to really enjoy all of his spoils though. All in all we had a great day!

 Following the trail!

 He got the rest of the Toy Story figurines he has been earning for cleaning his room.

He also got some Lightening McQueen clogs, Bambi, a new church book, a swimming suit,

some new outfits, and of course candy.

 Testing out his new recorder!

No need to wait for breakfast when you have plenty of candy.

I think he liked the ring pop the best though.

Congratulations are in Order!

In case you haven't heard Bob passed his boards. Both his written and the clinical portions! We are so excited/proud/relieved. He now only has one major hurdle left, and that is finishing his requirements. Thanks for all the support and prayers thus far, but please keep sending them our way!

It's long, but mostly pictures!

In our lack of posting we have been doing a lot of little things. We made rainbow cupcakes, or at least tried to. Despite hearing that these were hard and time consuming I couldn't resist making them anyways. I did the first batch all carefully while Ezra napped and then when he woke up we let him (and ourselves) make crazy ones. Turns out that they all ended up looking more tie-dyed than rainbow so I could have skipped the careful layering.

 He was really excited and did a good job!

 Enjoying their spoils!

I think it is funny that red was my bottom layer and is the most prominent on top.

Also it is in the middle of the done version and the blue 

and purple that were on top got moved to the bottom. Weird!

 See how the ones from this blog are perfect on top and have nice layers after being baked.

Mine did not turn out like that at all. No idea what I did wrong, but I don't really care.

It seems odd to me how often Ezra ends up eating an all orange lunch. On the day pictured below it was grilled cheese sandwiches with Tomato Basil Bisque (yummy tomato soup from Costco) and cheetos. Yesterday it was Mac-N-Cheese with oranges and carrots. He also often has what we call vegetable juice, but is actually Ocean Spray's 100% fruit and vegetable juice. Some of them are orange, and all of them are quite yummy to me and Ezra. He does get a variety of food, I promise. It is just that he never has an all red lunch or an all green lunch.

Yes, he often eats lunch while still in his pajamas.

Ezra has also taking a liking to exercising with daddy. He is actually pretty good, but gets in Bob's way a lot.

 Here he is doing "downward dog" in the brief yoga part.

 In this part they bring their knees up to their elbows, I told you he's good.

 Beside a nice view of Bob's behind,

 you also get a nice side shot of one of Ezra's lunges.

Ezra has been more into play-dough these days too!

In fact as you can see he wears his p.j.'s a lot. 

That's what happens when you can't go out much.

While Bob was doing his WREB Ezra and I went to the park. I could have sworn that I took a picture of him standing up because it was the first time (and only time) that he got to wear shorts this year. This is the only one I had on my phone though. He is swinging with our friend's baby Lyla. We had a picnic lunch, but had to cut our trip short when Bob needed me to be his patient. Allison and I loaded up the kids, walked home, and then I dumped Ezra off on her and stole her car. Luckily I qualified to be a patient and it all ended up being worth it. We owe them big time though.

I also made these cute spring rose balls. If you want to see how you can see the tutorial here. Mine are bigger than the ones in the tutorial, and I think I would have liked them smaller, but what can you do. They are still cute and cheap. Me and my friend also enjoyed making them, and so did our kiddos since they got to play together.

My glue gun drips a lot, but I never thought too much of it. 

However when doing a project like this and leaving it on for so long it really wastes a lot of glue.

Good thing you can buy refills at the dollar store!

WREB

Last weekend I challenged the Western Region Examining Board.  It was a nerve wracking and exciting weekend.  The exam consists of a written portion, and doing 2 root canals, 2 fillings and a deep cleaning.  I took the written portion at a testing center a few weeks before.  The weekend of the exam was for the clinical portions.  The exam was on Friday, Saturday and a half day on Sunday.  The only part of the weekend that was scheduled was the root canal portion.  It is done on extracted teeth on manikins so there is limited space for the this part.  I was unfortunate to have it scheduled on Saturday, the day most of my patients could come in.  I worked things out with my patients so that I could seen one Friday afternoon, one Saturday after the root canal exam and one on Sunday morning.  I lost the leeway since I could get anything lined up for Friday morning so everything needed to go smoothly.   Fortunately for me, I have a wonderful wife.

My lovely assistant and I in our garb.  (Sorry for the low quality phone pictures)
I think that I tried to smile for this picture.

The my assistant for the weekend ended up being my patient on Friday.  EmmaLee first saved me by being my clinical assistant that day.  Everything was going fine until Saturday afternoon.  My patient for the deep cleaning didn't show up and I couldn't get a hold of him!  When he finally called back he said that he had been to the hospital but promised up and down that he would be able to come in the next day.  I called my patient that I was going to treat on Sunday to come in, but he out of the city and wouldn't be able to make it on time.  It was the same case for the other patient that I had screened for the exam.  I started asking my classsmates if they had any back up patients I could use for either a filling or a deep cleaning to no avail.  EmmaLee had a really small cavity that I was afraid that the examiners would not accept, but I had run out of options.  She totally saved me again by dropping what she was doing and coming in to be my patient.  The examiners approved her as a patient and I was able to get the filling done in time.  Sunday went smoothly because my patient did make it in and I had an assistant.  I also need to thank the Van Dusen family for their help.  I couldn't do it without them either!

Hard at work saving the world!

The Jury is still out on whether I passed or not, but I think it went well.  At least I didn't have any automatic failures (like not having a patient) but only time will tell.  I did, however, find out that I did pass my national boards.  If I did indeed pass the WREB, the only thing I need to do is finished my requirements for school.  Thank you so much for the love and prayers from everyone.  Please keep us in your prayers.

To sleep or not to sleep?

We recently charged the battery in our camera that takes video, and I am so glad that we did. I was able to catch this gem on camera tonight!

This reminds me of BYU. I often wanted to say to the student falling asleep 

"Just give up and put your head down!"

It was always funny to watch though.

To explain this video, I must reveal a bad parenting moment. We went to our monthly game night last night and stayed until 11pm. Ezra was a champ, but very tired by the time we got him home and into bed. Despite the late night he still got up at 7am and then refused to nap even though he was clearly tired. Once Bob left for dinner with the Elders Quorum before heading to the priesthood session of General Conference I made Ezra a simple dinner of frosted shredded wheat and fruit (it was what he wanted and I wasn't in the mood to fight). He didn't make it very far, as you can see and we called it quits. He was in bed by 7:15. FINALLY! Tired boys are not exactly fun boys.

As I looked at what else was on the camera I came across this funny video. It is supposed to be all black because it is Bob and I standing outside Ezra's door at like 10:30pm. It was a few months ago and Ezra was obsessed with hot lava. (Don't ask me, he just thought the words sounded funny and liked to pretend the heat coming out of our vents was hot lava. I even overheard him playing with some little guys saying "Oh no, hot lava! Run Away! Run Away!"). Anyways he had been in bed for an hour and a half and I could hear him talking. When I got closer to his room this is what I heard. Listen closely over Bob's laughing and you will hear Ezra saying hot lava and then laughing his head off. What a funny boy!

You might need to turn your  volume up all the way to hear him!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

I made these cute shirts for Ezra and I last night. It was super easy, and I am happy with the result. I just did it with freezer paper and fabric paint. If you want to see exactly how you can check out this blog. I wanted them to be little momentos of our time here in Boston and not just St. Patty's Day shirts, and I think I got what I wanted. The best part was that I got my shirt on clearance at Old Navy for $.97! It is a small, and I really should buy mediums, but for $.97 I couldn't resist. So for a total of about $5 Ezra and I have super cute shirts.

In honor of this holiday I just want to say that we are so LUCKY to have this sweet little guy! Approximately three years ago today we were blessed to get pregnant with Ezra (T.M.I. I know!) and what a wonderful three years it has been. (Minus the first few months.) It was just a week or so ago, that Ezra was totally in a terrible two phase. I thought we would get lucky and avoid it for the most part, but it was not seeming so. I felt like he forgot how to talk and only knew how to whine. I was worried we were going to move in with Bob's parents, and they would think I was the worst mom ever. Fortunately after a few days he snapped out of it, and is back to his wonderful little self. Not that he is perfectly behaved by any means, but he is so much more pleasant to be around!

Bikes, Boards, and Blessings

I will start with the blessings. Our apartment got taken!!! We only did two rounds of showings, and I am so relieved that I don't have to do it anymore. The best part is that it saves us $3900 that we would have had to pay in rent if we hadn't found someone. We have of course had countless other blessings, but this is the biggest one as of late.

I know this picture is random, but we have been making Ezra clean his room each night. 

For every two weeks of cleaning he gets a toy. The first week it was a construction set.

He really likes the hat, and he has a blast with the tools.

We also did our Miles for Miracles event. It was a lot of fun, and over $125,000 was raised. Thank you to all of you who supported us! I ate a ton of the food that was there, to be sure and not loose any of the calories that I burned. I also enjoyed the post-ride massage, which was more of a professional stretch, but it was still nice. We really appreciate Cate and Wyatt riding with us. I definitely did not want to do another hour on that bike. I had a hard time sitting for a few days as it was.

Bob gave himself much more of a workout than me.

I got a little sweaty, but took it pretty easy on myself.

You can't really tell, but our shirts have smiley faces with a little cleft.

This is right after Wyatt finished (he was last), that is why the rest of us look so rested.

And last but not least Bob has some big exams coming up. He is taking Part II of his boards on the17th and 18th and then the written part of the WREB on the 22nd and 23rd. He would appreciate any prayers you could offer up in his behalf!

Do we eat our bed?

To help Ezra understand when it is okay to do something, and when it is not, we ask him a lot of questions. These questions are usually about something that he just did wrong. For example, lets say Ezra colored on the wall...
Us:  "Do we color on the wall?"
Ezra: "nooo"
Us: "Do we color on our bed?"
Ezra: "nooo"
Us: "Do we color on the floor?"
Ezra: "nooo"
Us: "Do we color on paper?"
Ezra: "Yeah"
Us: "That's right, we only color on paper."

You will hear this for all sorts of things at our house. I often hear Ezra from the back seat of the car saying things like: "Do we kick the car? Noooo. Do we kick our friends? Nooo. Do we kick a ball? Yeah?", all to himself. I guess it is good reminding.

Lately we have had to ask "Do we eat our bed? nooo. Do we eat our toys? nooo. Do we eat Daddy? nooo. Do we eat our food? Yeah"! I think it works pretty well, but as you can see from the pictures it is not completely 100% effective.

These happened on at least two separate occasions. I think they happened when he should have been falling asleep for his nap, but needed a snack instead, I guess. The little stinker! You can see that I tried to color in one spot with a marker, but it clearly didn't work.

Wow, that was fast!

I just posted our apartment on Craigslist this afternoon and within hours I already had 4 people interested. I am completely shocked. With our apartment not available until June I thought it would be a month or so until I had any interest. Turns out I have to clean my house well enough to be shown by Sunday! AAAAHH! I am freaking out just a bit. It was easy to make it look nice for pictures, when I could move all the stuff from one room to another. Where am I going to hide everything while we show it?

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Amazingly I had a hard time finding pictures of my messy house. This is due to my great photography framing skills more than my clean house maintenance skills I assure you!
P.S. Notice the cute quilt I made for Ezra's bed. (click to enlarge) I was really nervous about it, but I think it came out great!

Will it ever end?

As we sit at home through yet another storm in one of the snowiest winters on record, I can't help thinking that California can't come quick enough. GET ME OUT OF HERE!

These were actually taken a few storms ago.

They don't do the amount of snow we have received justice.

There is nowhere else to put it.

I heard on the radio a few weeks ago that most towns in MA had already spent their budgets for snow removal and were having to pull money from other places. It said that the city of Boston alone had spent $11 million on snow removal so far. Isn't that CRAZY!