Spring Break

 

 This post has taken me forever to write.  I have a hard time expressing my emotions and things are still kind of unreal, yet so final.

When our friends took our family pictures a few weeks before Andrew died, we attempted a few of all five kids together.  You can see they didn't turn out too great, but it makes me smile to see how blessed we are to have these five kids sealed to us and to have these pictures of the kids together.

 We were watching Tangled the other day, and at the end, Flynn is dead and Rapunzel's tear brings him back to life.  Aubree walked up to me after this part and whispered in my ear, "Wouldn't that be so cool if that had happened to Andrew?"  She is missing Andrew a lot.  It breaks my heart to see her hurting.  She is drawn to all kids that are close to Andrew's age.  Our kids have cousins close to Andrew's age and Aubs, Tann, and Trav all interact with them so sweetly.  Aubree, especially, is constantly playing/taking care of/loving kids around Andrew's age.  

Oh, I LOVE Andrew's lips.  He is so perfect!

 We had a great spring break visiting our families and spending time together.  One of Eric's best friends let us come ride his horses.  

 Tanner showing off how strong he is.  We have been working on Tanner going diaper free through the night.  He was doing really well, but one morning he came into our room with his pj's all wet and a frustrated look on his face, and said (almost crying) "I smell meat!"   

 Jared is so sweet!

 The kids got to go on a bunch of "tractor" rides. 

 I even went on one.

 Travis LOVED riding the horses.  He would've rode all day if we let him.

 He kept asking Eric to let go of the reins, so he could ride on his own.

 Tanner got to ride bare back.

 Aubs couldn't stop giggling when the horse would walk.

 We put up our trampoline up over spring break and we have had lots of fun with it.  The kids especially love jumping on the trampoline with Eric and whenever he has a free minute from studying he makes sure to jump with them.  It was SO great to have Eric around for a whole week.  He is such an awesome Dad, and the kids can't get enough of him.  I appreciate Eric so much and am so grateful for the strength and comfort he is to me. 

We took advantage of every opportunity we had with Eric being home.  We got a lot done, and we were able to spend a lot of time together.  We travelled to downtown Seattle and showed Eric a lot of the places we have been to.  

Tanner and Travis' favorite part of the children's museum was painting.

Travis playing dress-up pirates with his cousin.  I love his face as he is saying, "Arrrrr."

 Travis loves coloring and writing.  He has probably colored close to 100 Woody pictures.

Jared loves the Johnny Jump-up.  The other kids think it is his swing...

For April Fools we made "hamburgers" again.  I like how these ones turned out better than last years.  The kids always love making April Fools treats and tricking people, especially their dad and his friends.  Aubree got some "ketchup" on her elbow.  

Tanner loved making the hamburgers and did a great job decorating them.

The kids pretty much decorated them all by themselves.

For the last few years Eric and I have really been into Crossfit.  With our house here we have a big enough garage to now have our own little gym.  We started out with one kettle bell, and now have enough equipment to do almost all the workouts.  I have even started training some girls from church.  It is a lot of fun.

The kids all love doing their own exercises.  It is really cute to see them write their own "workouts."

 I got out our highchair this week.  It brought back so many memories of our sweet Andrew.  He was our only kid who used this highchair.

  Jared is almost 7 months old.  He is growing too fast.  He loves eating fruit/veggies with rice cereal and has started eating crackers.  I'm so grateful for the comfort holding and kissing this boy blesses us with.

ANDREW MEMORY (by Eric): Andrew brought out divine characteristics in everyone in the family.  Even on difficult days, he could make me smile, and want to be better.  I would often interrupt productive study time, with the hope that I could get home to hold him before he had gone to sleep.  Putting him to bed created some of the most special experiences.  I got to hold an angel close to me, pray with him, and feel a unique outpouring of the spirit every time I put him to bed.  Occasionally, he would lift his head from my shoulder to smile at me, look in my eyes, touch my face, and rip my glasses off (if I had them on), and then he would plop his head back down.

My sister, Amy gave birth last night to her 5th.  He was 6lbs 14oz and 20inches long.  They named him Lincoln James Holding.  Amy is the greatest mom and gives me the best example. Congrats.