Jay and Julie: Easter, Steve's Family Visit

This year Theo proudly announces that "Egg starts with E!"

"E-gg, E-gg. What is the next letter in e-gg."
"I don't know."
"E-gg, what makes the sound Guh?"
"G says Guh!"

I just remembered last year (here are videos) where I was so proud that he learned to say the word "egg" and now he can almost spell it. What a difference a year makes!

Steve's family came to visit. Theo had a fantastic time. It was nice, even if Clara was getting over being sick and Jonah got sick while here. The poor parents.

I did not do a good job at taking pictures everywhere.

On Saturday we had an Easter egg hunt with Jared and Lisa's families. Theo found lots of eggs by himself. Sometimes his cousins helped, but I mostly just followed him and documented and hovered.

Then we watched a session of General Conference together (a broadcast by the LDS church).

On Easter Sunday I got Theo up, asking him what he thought the Easter bunny brought him. He ignored this entirely and started hunting for eggs. He couldn't seem to care less about the basket. This was the first year he had a basket. Eventually he got around to it and was happy with the car and other things in it. He was so very excited and jumping around.

Then we watched more conference and stayed home and Jay slept a whole lot.

On Monday we went hiking at the end of Broadway with Steve's family. We went a short way, but Theo seemed to have more energy than the other kids and kept running.

At one point he got ahead and I caught up with him. My 4-year-old nephew Jonah was following me. I turned around to see that he was next to a snake with a diamond pattern on it's back. We got him to walk away. Later when we were farther from the snake it crossed the path and it showed it's rattle. It really was a diamond back rattler.

We were glad to not see any more snakes after that. We stopped for a snack. Later Theo was talking about Steve and Stacy and said, "They like carrots." He was watching them.

On Tuesday my parents took Clara and Jonah to the Pima Air and Space Museum with Theo and me. Everyone had a nice time, but Theo was just so excited. I think when Jay and I went there a few years back we didn't even go into the hanger with the space things. The lighting inside wasn't good for pictures, but Theo was so extremely excited. He was just sad that there wasn't more on his favorite planet, Jupiter. Sorry kid, this is about artifacts from space and humans have never been to Jupiter. There were things like the Mars rover replica and lots of models and places to play.

Clara was really excited for the aircraft you could sit in. There wasn't a lot, but that was what she wanted.

My dad told me how his dad's job in the Air Force was to take care of aircraft. He had certain specific aircraft he was supposed to continually maintain. He also worked as an air traffic controller for a few years, but he didn't like that.

Clara and Jonah were ready to go home after a few hours. Theo was not. We left anyway. He was giddy with all the planes.

After Theo's nap, Steve and Clara came over for swimming. My mom came too. Theo again had the best time. He just revels in everything we do. He often said, "This is so much fun!" over and over throughout this week.

On Wednesday my mom took Clara and we met them at the Children's Museum. Again, Theo had a fantastic time. Clara wanted to color and create in the art area, which isn't something I've ever done before there. Theo liked it too. His favorite may have been a toy train track to set up and push trains around.

Then we went to Wendy's for lunch with all of Steve's family and they left from there. I don't think Theo had ever had a Frosty before. He really liked it. He did not fall asleep on the 25 minute drive home, quite possibly because of the sugar in the shake. The other days he napped well.

This was at a friend's house. They have a very nice kitty named Jack.
Oh, the pacifier story: Theo never liked a pacifier much as a baby after the age of 4 months unless he was teething and then he chewed on it. Well he told me one day recently, "I have something in my mouth. It hurts. I need my pacifier," and then he pointed to the gums behind his 2-year-old molar. This is the first time he has teethed with good language skills.

I heard him getting into the fridge (and apparently the cupboard) and he brought this to me. I guess he can help with making a pb and j. (Note, before his allergic cousins came from UT, I hid the peanut everything way up high).

We got a book called Alphabet Everywhere which Theo called his favorite for a long time. In it someone has taken photos of regular objects that look like letters. We saw this and so I took a picture for him of the T he found.

I told him that I used to be little like him, but I grew up. One day he will grow up too. He replied, "I'm going to grow up like DADDY!"

I put that sweater on him since it was cool. This was at my parent's house and we left around noon and it was hot in the car, but Theo refused to take his Batman sweater off. He loves that thing. He fell alseep and I carried him in in his car seat. I wondered how he was feeling with so much on him, so I took his shoes and socks off and then took the stuffed animals he had insisted with cuddling with off of him. He would have woken if I'd taken the sweater off.

Coloring while watching LDS General Conference

Our house was a mess, but it made finding eggs more challenging -- since so many of our cabinets have child locks.

Easter morning

In front of Kennedy and Johnson's aircraft at the Pima Air and Space Museum. Theo is between and behind his cousins.

The next 4 photos are all of the Super Guppy which is massive and used by NASA to transport rocket parts or something

Even the playground looked like a rocket ship

I stopped filming too early.
Me: What is that?
T: A rocking horse.
M: No, it's an airplane.
T:, Mommy, it has eyes and a mouth.
Well I guess I got told.