April 14

A nice couple of weeks. We are all constantly sick but slogging through it. I just went to the doctor today because I have an ear infection. What the heck! Kyle had one a couple weeks ago and now it's hit me. I was pretty miserable last night, so I'm grateful to have antibiotics before I get on an airplane this weekend!

This is Ruby's new friend Jane, who moved into our ward this year. I am kind of obsessed with her because she is freakishly sweet and adorable. And her name is Jane, which we all think is very fun!

 This is kind of what life is about right now. French fries and dollar drinks from McDonalds. Yum.

 These cute girls spend as much time together as possible! Here they are watching Frozen with Anna and Elsa.

 Conference weekend was nice and relaxing. Jane was really into President Eyring.

 I got the worst sunburn last week. Ruby pretended she had a sunburn too, and we both sat with cold wet washcloths on our faces. Good bonding time.

We had a bit of a trauma last week. At 5 in the morning, I got a call from my neighbor Kelsie, telling me that we had to get out of the house as soon as possible because there was a gas leak and we had to evacuate on foot. There was a horrible loud noise outside and the smell of natural gas was really intense. Kyle was already gone at work so I had to get the girls out of bed and race out the door alone--it was pretty scary. Kelsie and I put the kids in 2 strollers and walked to the stake center, calling everyone we could think of to get them out. Ruby thought it was fun to go on a walk in the dark, but the sound scared her. Kyle met us  there.  A whole bunch of people from our stake ended up at the church for a couple of hours, waiting to be able to go home. The rest of the day we were all exhausted from the early and crazy start.  Ruby actually took a nap and fell asleep in the middle of the day--amazing.

For April Fools Day we had purple milk in our cereal and I put googly eyes on everything in our fridge, much to Ruby's EXTREME delight. Until she swallowed a googly eye she was playing with--I don't think that will happen again, it really freaked her out.

Cute baby. She is eating a ton of baby food. She is always happiest right after she's had 3 boxes of food and a bottle!

We took  family pictures in Amarillo and just got them in the mail! I have such cute girls.

Fishy face.

For some reason I thought this yawn was so funny.

Watching a movie with her friends Eliza and Regan. I believe those are gummy worms hanging out of their mouths.

The weather has warmed up, so we spend a lot of time outside. Sometimes Jane sits and plays, but sometimes she just likes to relax. She makes me so happy.

For FHE last week we made Jello Jigglers! We even watched a couple of the old Bill Cosby commercials.

Ruby spent some time making a wall of toys around Jane--and then covering her in them.

 We had a fun Easter party at Whitney's house over the weekend, complete with an egg hunt and egg games.

This game where the kids carried hard boiled eggs in spoons REALLY stressed Ruby out. Poor girl.

We took a long family drive yesterday. Joey came along. Ruby now informs me that because Joey is her baby, I am Joey's grandma. She takes this very seriously and I have to babysit a lot.

My sweet Jane. She loves to be outside!

Amarillo Trip 2014

Our trip to Amarillo was...eventful!  It's hard to know what adjective to use, because so many bad things happened but along the way we also had a ton of fun.  At one point Kyle swore we'd never go anywhere ever again, but by the end we were all sad to leave and definitely excited to return.

This gum was a big part of our road trip. All together, we spent about 32 hours in the car this trip. I'd say I was chewing gum for about 25 of those hours.

Everything takes longer with kids. I used to try to make it as quick as possible, with minimal stops. Now we stop more frequently and each stop takes forever.

After spending the night in Cheyenne, we were sad to wake up and see snow. It slowed us down quite a bit in Wyoming and Colorado.

Finally made it to Texas! We were happy to leave nasty New Mexico.

Notice the cop in the mirror. We were pulled over for speeding--going FIVE MILES OVER THE LIMIT. So lame. Luckily, we just got a warning.

The hotel messed up our reservation so we had to find a new place to stay. It was actually tricky because we need a suite and a lot of places were fully booked. We finally got a place and went to bed late. Jane spent a lot of the night screaming for some reason, and Ruby woke up at 1 and threw up everywhere. It is remarkably difficult to handle that in a hotel room.

The next day, Ruby felt fine (maybe it was just all the upheaval? Or 2 days of car food?) so after a kinda gross hotel breakfast we headed to DONUT STOP, one of the places Kyle was very excited to take us to. He dreams of cherry donuts, which we don't have here in Utah.

We met everyone for lunch at Rosa's Tortilla Factory.  BEST PLACE EVER. We consider moving to Amarillo to be closer to Kyle's family, friends, and ROSA'S.  We managed to go every day and it still wasn't enough.

Braxton came over with his new baby!!! We were so excited to meet Lilly. She is adorable and tiny, and Ruby clearly approves.

Braxton also gave us this piece of art that Kyle has been dying to see! He commissioned it from Braxton, hoping for something that would represent all the things he misses about Amarillo. It's perfect!

Ruby loved spending time with her cousins.  She and Naomi are only a year apart and had a great time together!

More Rosa's fun times :)

Kyle drove us around Amarillo and showed us some of the significant places from his youth. Here are the two houses that he grew up in.

Jane and Noah aren't too far apart in age but Noah can do so much more! He's crawling and standing already!

We had to buy some swimsuits because the 2nd hotel we stayed at (yes, 2nd. No one had room for us for the whole time) had an indoor pool and the fam wanted to take advantage! It was a phenomenally warm and nice pool, and I think we'll stay there every time just for that reason. (Note to self, it was the Country Inn and Suites.)

On our last day there we went to Abuelo's, Barbara's favorite Mexican place. Ruby loved it and this statue out front.

After lunch we all took family pictures at a studio!  Let me tell you, that is NOT easy with 8 adults and 6 kids. We somehow managed. We didn't leave the studio for 2 hours though!

One last Rosa's trip.

  Oh, so, the whole time we were there, Kyle was suuuuper sick. Feverish and weak and unable to speak. The drive home was pretty miserable.  We didn't sleep much the night before--Jane was up screaming all night. To make things worse, Kyle's sickness got even worse. By the time we made it to Colorado, he was just moaning as he drove. His ears hurt him so much. I drove the rest of the way to Cheyenne, and as soon as we got there we dropped off the kids with Barbara and Ken and went to an Urgent Care. He was seen quickly, and it turned out he had a pretty bad ear infection. They gave him all kinds of cool drugs, thankfully, so that helped.

What DIDN'T help was Jane that night. She DID NOT SLEEP.  She woke up at 1 screaming bloody murder.  By 4 we decided to just leave because none of us were sleeping anyways. I felt bad leaving without the girls saying goodbye to their grandma! That made Ruby sad :(

Of course it was snowy again. And this time, like, REALLY snowy. We drove in near whiteout conditions for a couple hours. I was terrified! At one point, we were driving on the exit and had no idea. It was scary.

Somehow we made it home in one piece.  Everyone has been sick for weeks and weeks now. I can't wait for it to be over! I think I'm the only one sick currently--make it stop!