It has finally been warm here. Yea!! We set the trampoline up this weekend and Noah is already a pro at getting flopped around when Arwen jumps. No one has fallen off yet! They did whack faces yesterday and Arwen ended up with a bloody lip--now it just matches Noah. He has a blood blister on his top lip from falling on his face and a cut lip on the bottom from being a crazy monkey on the swing set.
I had recipe club this week. Heidi, I made the Spinach Poppy Seed salad we made when you were here. It was hit. All the ladies liked it the best!
Saturday we decided to go South. We went to the Temple first to see all the flowers. It was really pretty. The kids just wanted to play in the water though. Then we continued South to hit the Tulip Festival. The traffic was pretty bad, and then after stopping at the McDonalds play place, it was a little too chilly to go. We just went to the outlet stores because they have this awesome tree house that the kids like to play in. They must have had fun, because they slept all the way home. We also had really yummy ice cream cones there. It was a fun day!
Sunday morning, Aaron and the kids made cookies, then we all played on the trampoline in the nice warm sunshine. Church was nice. Noah was a wild man in Relief Society. It must be because we spiked his hair. I don't know, but he was out of control. He kept throwing all his toys and cheerios and screaming and laughing at himself. What a cutie! Then that night we went to a big Ward Choir practice. Our ward gets to sing at the dedication of our new Stake Center next Sunday. It should be great!
Happy Birthday Kelly! We hope you have a great day!

Happy Easter!! We had a nice day. We had a yummy ham dinner before church since our church is kind of late and when we eat dinner after, it's always at the kids' bedtime! The kids had fun hunting for Easter eggs in the morning and playing with their new little toys. Our choir did a really nice job with the Easter program. Aaron was in it--I stayed out this time to watch the naughty kids. After church we came home and made lava cakes. I think the last time I made them was when Matthew and Bethany were living up here. We wish they were here yesterday to share them!
Arwen gave her very first talk in Primary yesterday. She did so well. You could understand every word she said. It was really fun. Then, when we got home from church and we were eating dessert she looked really serious and started telling us about this movie they watched in sharing time. Her eyes got real big and she said, "Did you know Jesus died? The bad men hurt his body and back and tied him up and killed him. Then the people cried." It was so sweet that she was so concerned and really neat that we could talk with her about the Atonement. She wants me to call the Primary President so we can borrow the movie so she can watch it again. What a neat thing!
Noah is talking like crazy just in this last week. He brings me books and toys and says, "Open it." We finally fixed our doorbell that has been broken for 2 years and now he walks around pushing things and saying, "ding dong." When ever we tell him it's time to say the prayer, he folds his little hands and then will say amen at the end. What a silly. He's as crazy as ever though. When he and Arwen were supposed to be in bed, he climbed into Arwen's and then dived out and hit his nose on the book shelf. He gave himself quite the bloody nose--the second one this month! He's going through another stubborn phase and won't eat (well, unless it's dessert or ketchup!) It is driving me crazy.
That's all from us. Congratulations Matthew and Bethany! We can't wait to meet Dallin!
Love, JANAS

Arwen has said some really cute things lately. She has this theory that she has tried to convince me of a few times now. We were shopping for new clothes the other day and she found some care bear panties that she REALLY wanted. I told her that she really didn't need them--that she already has three pairs. So, she tried her theory out on me. She said, "Just give Noah peanuts, he will turn to a girl, then he can wear them when he is big." For some reason, she thinks if we give Noah peanuts (remember he is allergic to them) he will turn into a girl. Nice try Arwen. Then a while later she found some "best friend" watches. It was a pack with two care bear watches--one for you, one for your best friend. She told me that she really needed them. People were walking by and thought it was so funny and cute. I kept telling her that she really didn't need them and that she needed to put them back. Then she said," Well, if I don't get them, then who will? I really need them. If they are not mine, who will get them?" It was really cute, and it broke my heart to tell her no, but what does a 3 year old need with two piece of junk watches?? After she put them back, she walked back to me so slowly with her head hung low, looking so dejected.

Noah really loves to go outside. He says, "Side," and stands at the back window. He also says, "Play," a lot. He says it really cutely. We have a hokey pokey Elmo doll that he loves to death. When he is upset, I ask him what he needs and he perks right up and says, "Elmo." Too bad Elmo is so loud and obnoxious!! He is doing such a good job sleeping in his big boy bed and taking naps there too! Our sweet little boy only has three more weeks until he gets to go to nursery! Yea!!

I had a stake Relief Society luncheon yesterday where Janis Kapp Perry and her husband spoke. It was so good and so fun. Then Aaron had choir practice in the afternoon. Before he left though, we made shortbread cookies and dipped them in chocolate. So yummy!

Love, JANAS

We have had lots of fun since we have been home from our great trip down to CA!! The weather has finally been warm and dry enough that we have been able to play outside occasionally. Noah has learned how to climb the stairs at the park and go down the slide by himself. He loves it. Arwen makes a new little girlfriend everywhere we go and is sad to leave. She makes up fun little games with them. On Saturday, during conference, we made homemade toasted almond icecream, jersey topping, and carmel sauce. It was so yummy! Then on Monday me and Arwen made an angel food cake and we had strawberries, whipped cream, and cake for FHE. On Monday, we went to the zoo. Noah had lots of fun growling out the word, "Animal," at all the animals he saw. We all had fun riding the zoo train. Arwen really wanted to see the lions, but we never actually made it there. They both had lots of fun watching the sea lions swimming. We could watch them from below. They kept swimming in circles so we saw lots of them. Today, we went to the Children's Museum. It was pretty fun--tricky with two little kids wanting to run in opposite directions all the time! I think their favorite room was the water room. Noah managed to get soaked despite the fact that he was wearing the little rain smock. I think he had the most fun licking the tubs that the water was in. They also had fun in the Sesame Street room. Noah kept yelling, "Elmo," over and over. They both had so much fun they immediatley fell asleep in the car on the way home! Tonight we are going to play ultimate frisbee with some friends (well, I'm sure that means Aaron will play and I will run and yell and try to keep the kids from disrupting the game!).

Arwenisms:
Whenever anyone asks Arwen her name, she tells them her FULL name. But once at the park she said, "My name is Arwen...or Sissy. Yeah, you can call me Arwen or Sissy."

Noahisms:
Noah is now officially a big boy. He has his very own big boy bed in Arwen's room. He loves to play on his "jungle" bed. He has succesfully slept in there every night this week with Arwen. Yea!!
Happy Birthday Matthew (a little late!). We hope you had a great day!!
Love, JANAS

PenangMalaysia Trip:
Kean Lee a guy from work took me to the other side of the island to Batu Ferringhi. It sounds like a big Star Trek convention but it’s just a bunch of "Hawker" food and street venders. I guess Hawker is a people, like Gypsies, but famous for food not for steeling your children. We found the black market DVD’s and I bought the re-release of Bambi for the kids for a dollar. We’ll see how it works. We ate all kinds of good and interesting food, the coolest was a 100 year old egg, or “country egg”, I took some pictures, it was pretty amazing looking, and not half bad. As far as finding something that Sarah the kids would like…well, all the clothes are American brands albeit knock-off’s, no local brands or anything.
The Muslim guy’s are singing their prayers outside right now, reminds me of Israel. Driving around here is scary, well driving myself would be crazy but riding along is bad as well. They drive on the wrong side of the road and every once in a while I’ll get startled when I look up and see that were on the wrong side of the road. The motorcycles are like flies, it looks like they are constantly in a motocross race, swerving in and out of traffic and passing cars on either side. The drivers here even make Israelis look like good drivers. I went out to lunch with the guy's from work every day to some new place. It was all good food but I’ll never remember the names of any of it. I ventured out at night and went poking around one of the shopping malls close by. Again nothing great, I got a waffle cone with chocolate and mint ice-cream. I don’t think it’s that they have great ice-cream here in south east Asia (I remember the ice-cream in the Philippines as being really good too) it’s just that when it’s as hot as it is any ice-cream is great. The language sounds familiar like they are all speaking Pig-Tagalog or something. Reading the signs I can tell a lot of the words are similar. It’d be fun to spend enough time here to learn the language. Anyway it was a fun trip, other than getting there and coming home. If any of you ever fly to Asia try to get a Singapore-Air flight, they are great compared to any other I’ve been on.

Aaron

Hi Everyone! We have been having a super time at Grandma and Grandpa's house this week! Arwen and Noah both love the kitties to death! They love to play with Uncle Josh. He does a good job (unless he has to share a precious treasure, you know!) Noah finally loves everyone and will let them hold him. I hardly ever even see Arwen, she is so busy having fun! Yesterday we a really fun tea party. Grandma went to Berry's and got lots of really fun, yummy treats for it. She made us homemade hot chocolate with whipped cream and little baby cookies. Both Noah and Arwen ate none of their dinner, probably because the treats were at the table, tempting them. When tea party time came along, they had so much fun.

We went down to the public swim center on Saturday for it’s grand re-opening and went swimming (it was free) with 1000 dirty kids. They have this giant kiddy pool and we splashed around with the kids. The kiddy pool is kept at like 85º but skin and bones Noah was blue lipped and shivering after a few minutes. Arwen will need to relearn all her swimming bravery this summer, but she had fun. Noah just broke a glass full of water and though it was the greatest thing, naughty little boy. Arwen was assigned to give the closing prayer in primary next week and was very proud of it, I forgot that Sarah would be in California, the poor little girl cried and cried when she had to give it back. Sarah finally got her new couches, they actually look good, and we were able to give our old couch away easy enough. They are the same easy clean (we’ll see about that) microfiber type couches that Matthew and Bethany have. I’ll be heading off to Penang Malaysia (just below Thailand and above Singapore) this Friday, I’m not looking forward to the jet lag, but it’ll be fun to check out a new country.

Love,

NASA

Big news. We finally figured out why we have a skinny little rash monger these days. At Noah’s 15 month Dr. appt, his Dr. convinced me that he thinks Noah has an allergy. Noah scratches himself like crazy anytime he doesn’t have clothes on and the Dr. said that’s not normal. Anyways, I took him to an allergist who poked his little back with lots of sharp things to see if he had any reactions. The poor little boy had to not scratch his back for twenty whole minutes. Even with a sucker and me holding his little hands and walking around in circles over and over again, he had hard times. He kept saying, "Owa,” and tried to scratch his back. After it was all done, we found out he’s allergic to peanuts and soy. By the way, soy is in EVERYTHING processed. So, thanks to the little boy, we are totally eating healthier—nothing that’s not made from scratch. It’s fun, but a big change. We have to put steroid creams on him everyday and give him allergy medicine if he is itching. But, the rash on his face is just about gone. And, even more amazing, he eats now. He eats A LOT! I guess sometimes a reaction to foods you’re allergic to can cause loss of appetite. Now, all day long, Noah stands at the fridge and begs for food. Yea for Noah!

Other than that, there’s nothing else new. I took the kids to Chuck E Cheese last weekend while Aaron was on a really fun Scout camp out. It was frozen outside and they all had tons of fun sliding on the frozen beach and hiking to the frozen waterfall. You should see the size of the rock he brought home that has a hole in it. It’s amazing!

I (Aaron) went to the beach on a “campout” this last Friday and Saturday. “Campout” because we slept in a beach house, but it was 100 years old and had no insulation (the boards used for siding were also the walls) so it wasn’t lavish or anything. We got set up, cooked some dinner and then around 10:30 went out to the beach to play. It was very windy and below freezing but we had to play something. Me and a few of the boys ran out first and were running on very hard sand toward the waves when we hit ice and went sliding. The beach was frozen solid, we skated on ice for a while then looked at the stars, it was perfectly clear and we saw a few meteorites and found it hard to find many constellations there were so many stars. We played tag and capture the flag till midnight. We lost a few leaders and a few boys to bruises and sprained ankles. It was pretty much the scariest environment imaginable for rough games. The sand was hard as cement with patches of slick ice, sticks and rocks were frozen into the ice and sand. Underground streams were bubbling up in places then freezing to make frozen ice mounds. The wind would blow gusts of sand from higher dry dunes in wisps out to sea. We lost enough boys and leaders to call it quits around midnight and played games until around 2:30. I introduced the boys to UNO for pushups so we added sore arms to sore legs and bruised bodies. I somehow made it out unscathed but sore as the rest of them. The next morning I took a walk down the beach. I wish I’d brought the camera. A frozen beach isn’t something you see to often. About a mile down the beach was what looked like a frozen waterfall. I walked to the end of the sand and went back to get some more people to check it out. I took the Rodgers boys and a Waters; I trusted them not to die climbing on rocks. I estimated wrong and it was a long way to walk on rocks, which gets painful after a while. We found some good treasures along the way and marked them. Mostly buoys and such, but just about to the waterfall I found a huge rock with a perfect hole in it. I marked it and trudged on. The waterfall was amazing, all icicles and weird ice formations. It was awesome to see, we went another quarter of a mile to a archway carved out by the waves. One the way back one of the boys wrapped an icicle to show the others and we loaded up with buoys. I found a stick that looked strong enough and when we reached the rock with the hole in it we slid it on and carried a 50lb rock on two of our shoulders all the way back to the cabin, with a few whispered comments as we walked by people. We were pretty proud of ourselves, but very tired.

Arwenisms:
During one of her prayers, she said, “Noah is tender, and I am tender. Mama, she’s big. She’s….like….ummm….14, so she’s not tender. But please bless me and Noah because we are tender.”

She runs around the house telling us she is going to “mermatize” us. Something to do with mermaids, I guess, but I have no idea!

Anytime I make a mistake, like today when I spilled some sugar while making cookies, she says, “Mom, are you sorry?”

We caught her having a talk with Noah the other day because Noah had just gotten in trouble for something. She said, “Noah, these are the consequences. If you are bad, there are consequences. You get in trouble.” We’ve had lots of talks lately with her about the consequences of wetting her pants.

Noahisms:
At Chuck E Cheese, Chuck E came up to say hi to the kids. Arwen thought it was great, but Noah was very concerned. Then, when the big mouse touched his cheek, he FREAKED out and tried to dive out of his high chair into my arms. Poor little guy.

Noah loves to tell us about “puppies and kitties” and make cute little tickle signs with his fingers. He loves animals.

He learned the word “No” and loves it. He uses it for everything while waving his little hand at whoever he’s talking to.

Love,

NASA

Hello! I am going stir crazy being home alone with two sick kiddies while Aaron is in CA on a business trip. We have had fun though! Noah had a well child appt on Monday. Do not worry--the Dr is not concerned about his weight anymore (Noah is still below the charts) but I guess after watching the little string bean climb all the handles on the drawers to try to get to the sink and then climb a chair to and sit in the window cell convinced him that he is getting his energy from somewhere! Noah also threw an awesome tantrum. He threw himself on the ground and bashed his head on the cold floor, It was great. And the Dr. wondered if I had problems with him throwing tantrums. Who me??He is now concerned because Noah has a rash all over his face (since before Christmas) and he scratches himself bloody on his back when he is naked. We are off to an allery and dermatology Dr next! The Dr looked in Noah's ears and the poor baby has a double ear infection. Does Noah not have pain receptors? I never would have known!!The next day, I decided to cut Noah's hair because he was looking kind of scruffy--that and I thought it might help make his rash not so noticeable. Well, he flinched because it scared him and I had to buzz him. He looks ridiculous--there are a few little tufts I missed and his rash---yeah, well it looks 100 times worse now. Poor little boy looks like a skinny, rashy, cancer patient. Sorry Noah!!!!That's all from here! We are just hanging our till we get to see Aaron again--we all miss him like crazy!!

Arwenisms:
Arwen sang to the tune of “knick knack paddy whack..”—“Heavenly Father will come down from the sky. I will give Him my toys and he will give me new ones…and a treat…a sucker.”I clipped her fingernails on the same day I cut Noah's hair. I cut one of then pretty short so she needed a band aid. When she got up the next day, she looked at her finger and said, "Its ALIVE!!" Then Noah cried and she ran in his room saying, "Let's see if Noah's hair is alive yet...It's not!"When I was cutting Noah's hair and he was crying, Arwen started to cry and said, "I'm telling my Dad what you did!!"

Noahisms:
He begs for two things--his ba ba (bottle) and candy all day. I give him bottles, but he doesn't get much candy and he gets so mad!!He walks around the house saying, "Da Da" looking for Aaron.He loves to wave and say, "Bye Bye" to everyone.

Love, NASA

I forgot to tell everyone last week--Arwen is a sunbeam now! Yea!! She's very excited and showed us all the way home how she can be reverent. Too bad it only lasted the 5 minute car ride. The kids and I have been going room by room and getting the house organized. (Actually, while I'm organizing something, the kids are in another room making a disaster. I think it's mostly one step forward and two steps back, but it's been good.) We went in for our ultrasound today. Everything looks great and we found out we're having a boy. Arwen kept saying, "Noah, we're having an Evan baby." Arwenisms:"I was a little boy. Now I'm a big girl because I go on the toilet." She's very proud that she is officially potty trained now. We're pretty happy too. Noahisms:Noah's new favorite word is "happy." He can say it perfectly. It's so sweet.He walks around the house holding as many of Arwen's little tiny plastic care bears calling them "Ba bas."--his babies. He feeds them pretend bottles too.

Love, NASA