Monday, May 21, 2012

Church Changes

Sunday March 25th Daddy was called into the Bishopric.  We were able to have both sets of grandparents here so that Popo could ordain Daddy as a High Priest and Papa could join in the ordination. 

We have been adjusting to Daddy on the stand every week since and are doing fairly well. Mommy was released from Primary President April 15th and was called as the Gospel Doctrine Teacher. She had no idea how easy she had it before...kind of, but really I am enjoying my new calling and the increased depth of study that has been sent my way.

here we are in our cute spring/summer church clothes...Logan loves his ties.
We are also adjusting to Daddy being at meetings fairly regularly...Logan and I seem to have the same conversation each Monday-Thursday morning:

Logan:  Where is Daddy?
Me:  Daddy is at work.
Logan:  Daddy not at work, Daddy at church.

cute little kiddos :)

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Ward Campout 2012

Rain or shine the Esquivels like to camp when it is not too hot outside.  The campout started off nicely.  We had lots of friends gathered around the fire cooking their dinners...as we were finishing dinner it started to sprinkle for a second...and then it started to POUR...the kids were under the Smiths sports brella until we got our EZ up that Dadddy thougth might be good to bring in case it rained...thank goodness.  We learned lots of we should really add to our camping gear list...including a manual pump since our rechargable one was malfunctioning.

Playing while dinner is cooking

cheesing it up for the camera

waiting out the rain...soaked

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Tuesday May 1st 2012...

will forever be remembered as the day Logan caught his first fish :)

WAY TO GO LOGAN!!!



Saturday, April 14, 2012

Decorating

the kids love to paint...I need to take a picture of what the painted without permission as proof.  They decided it was time to put a little color on their walls...up until now we only had the one side done...


Logan concentrating really hard

Alyssa adding a little something here

Logan taking a step back to see how well he has done

Alyssa adding a little bit more

they did a great job didn't they!  And they each got to pick a bird and what color they wanted theirs...of the vinyl colors Mommy had on hand :)

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Easter 2012

We spent this Easter in Austin again with the Ruske family.  Since joining pinterest I have seen tons of cute ideas and there were a lot of Easter ones...so here are a few I catually got to do this year.


Carrot chicken salad sandwiches
Chick deviled eggs
Carrot shaped carrot cake cookies


Chilling at the lake house


And of couse the hunt!!!






Saturday, April 7, 2012

Easter Bunny & Firetruck 2012

The kids had a great time seeing the Easter Bunny, but especially the fireturck.  It has been over 2 months now (now that I ma finally posting) and even now when they see a firetruck they talk about Jenny's house and Elizabeth & Brody and easter eggs.





Friday, March 9, 2012

About time...

I was just thinking it is about time for another post and I looked down and sure enough it is the 9th.  They are now 27 months.  I know you are supposed to stop counting months oncethey are 2, but I still count them :)

I wish I had been good since the last post and wrote down a list like I try and do, but nope notthis time...have to try and think of the top of may head so I will miss lots. 

The last 2-3 days I swear all I have heard from Alyssa is, "Watch me, Momma, watch me!" so cute.

To tell you the truth I almost wish I could forget this whole last month.  Not because it was all bad, but not all of it was great.  I am glad that we have our two little kiddos or else I don't know how I would be getting through this...the this I speak of is the miscarriage that we found out about a month ago.  Luckily we are blessed with the most loving family and freinds and they are a big help. 

I think the kids (especially Logan) could tell something was wrong.  It really messed with their sleep schedules and he was really hitting the binkie hard for about 3 weeks...that is until we went to the Dentist and they told us he should have been off it since he turned 1.  He has not had it since we left the Dentist office, but he has still been a little grumpy.

We had Grandma, Jenny, Momo & Popo come and visit to help out immediately.  Grandmastayed and helped for almost a week and then a week later Grandpa and Cyndi came and visited.  Next weekend I think we will have my side of the family come to finish out Spring Break with us...all except Stephen I believe are planning on being here.
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The kids now LOVE to play on "Momma Dadda Bed" as they call it, but it is only fun when Mom & Dad play too so we are constantly being drug back into our room to play with them.  Alyssa has made a little potty training progress, but not much.  She likes to sit on the big potty so for V-day she got a kids toilet seat for the big potty.  She does not use it, but as soon as she uses her diaper she wants to sit on the potty and wipe and wash hands.

They are talking up storms lately.  Logan's storms are quiet, but they are there.  Alyssa's favorite song right now is the Barney Song and she just busts out with it all the time...well sometimes she busts out with "I'm a pirate, ARGH!".  She is a hoot.

Logan loves to read and is a whiz at puzzles.  He is one smart cookie.  I don't think this madeit into the last post, but Logan had his second febrile seizure just over a month ago and this time I was home with him.  It was a bit scarry, but luckily that was as bad as it got...February was just a really hard month for us this year.  Glad it is the shortest month of the year...unfortunately this year was one day longer :( 

With the miscarriage and the hope to still have more kids hopefully money has been on my mind a lot.  We had great friends come and feed us dinner for almost a week, yet February was extremely high in food expenses. 

March is already lookng up.  I have been bad about preplanning meals lately...pretty inconsistent or non-existant since we have had the kids, I tried Feb to do the month plan like I used to, but with everything that happened it didn't quite work so last week I decided to do a week at a time and spend about $100 a week.  I really don't like grocery shopping, but to eat at least a little healthier you have to go more than once or twice a month, so I am trying weekly at least for a few weeks. 

This last week has gone well.  I don't look at the clock about 4 PM and think OK what do we have soI can make something.  I have themeals planned out so we have been able to eat well this week.  Made bread twice...once rolls and the other was pitas.  Tried a new meatloaf topping and it was delicious...almost made me think "Meatloaf Monday" every Monday, but I will push it off to every other Monday for now...we had not eaten it in a long while until recently and I thought we needed to add it monthly, but now it is 2/month I am thinking.  We tried some beef gyros (pitas were for this) pitas were great, the meat was good too, not a fan of the yogurt/cucumber sauce...I was the only one that ate itas called for in the recipe.  I told Alex he had the American version...pita burger...with ranch dressing and an avacado...Logan scarfed down the meat, Alyssa had 2 pieces of meat maybe, but loved the pita.  When Dad & Cyndi were here we also tried out a cheesy chicken stuffed pepper recipe...it is being added to our rotation as well, I just need to find the right temp/time to get the peppers cooked all the way mine was not quite done on the sides.
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The kids learned how to pedal their tricycles this month and have really become monkeys at the park.  Not on the monkey bars...but I am sure they are not far off from them either.

They are very polite and have been not only saying thank you, but will sometimes say thank you very much, and are good about saying I'm sorry...even on their own in some cases.

They are doing well at taking turns and will count to 10 to switch.  I think Logan has down to 12 now.  He has a great memory...speaking of Alyssa is getting into the matching games more now and I think Logan is already getting a little bored of them.

We love to skype with the family and sometimes when I say lets call so and so...Alyssa says, "no, on the computer". 

A lot of the time Alyssa will throw on a back pack and/or her shoes and I ask where she is going...often she will say to Momo/Popo's house.  I guess we need to make a trip down there soon...especially since she is about to head downt here on her own with or without us.

We are learning a lot while we are driving now...we like to say red-stop and green-go which always makes me think they are saying gringo.  We sing the Cat in the Hat song too...Here we go, go, go, go, on an adventure.  When we drive up our street Alyssa will say at every house (since I taught her to do it) Alyssa's house? NO, Alyssa's house? NO...and we are the 6th house.  Then she says Alyssa's hous? YES, Momma's house, Dadda's house, Salie's (Logan's) house.  The other day she tried to throw in Jenny's house and Mommy had to say no, Jenny lives in Houston so sometimes she
says Jenny's House? No. 

Prayers have changed a little as well...along with family names, and toys, and movies...this week Alyssa has also been saying thank you for peepee & poopoo...kids are so cute.  When we were out eating with Grandpa and Cyndi after we went to the temple we said a prayer over the food and then we had to do another b/c Alyssa wanted to say it.