Wintertime Catch Up

For Christmas, Santa brought the kids an XBOX game where they can walk through Disneyland and ride the rides and walk through the park.  Ella and Eli both love it.  (Although the way they walk through the park makes me nauseous, so I can't really watch them play unless Nick does the walking for them!)

When Brady & Reagan came over, Ella was so excited to show the new game to them.  Here are some pics of them walking through the park and flying through Neverland with Peter Pan.

We had a long winter this year.  At the end of February, there was a snow storm.  Another 12+ inches fell on my first day of spring break at the end of March!  Luckily, both melted away pretty quickly.  Here are some pictures from the Feb. snowstorm.  The one in March was honestly too deep to take the kids out.

We had so much fun!  But it was REALLY cold!

Here's some other fun stuff from this winter:

Playing with Sierra (3/2)

Why, yes, she did put down her apple to lick the chocolate crumbs out of a tiny cake dish....
She IS my child after all....

A leprechaun tricked us!
He colored our chocolate chip pancakes green!

3/22--Eli, you ate Harley's dog treats with her....GROSS!!!!
This is not a first; you are always trying to sneak Scout's dog food & have figured out
which pieces you can eat & which ones are too hard to chew. :-P

For Lent this year, I really tried talk with Ella about the season.  It's really important to me to teach her that we don't just celebrate Christmas and then just jump ahead to Easter.  There was a lot of really important stuff that happened in between all of that.  For Lent this year, I gave up playing games on my phone (this was an enormous sacrifice for me!) and Nick gave up drinking tea (probably a big one for him too) and each day Ella colored in a square on the Lent calendar.  I hope that all of this instills in my kids a sense of excitement and expectancy about Easter that has nothing to do with the Easter bunny or colorful eggs hidden around a backyard.

Normally, all the fuss is over the girls' dresses, so
Kristin & I made matching ties for the boys this year.
They're SO handsome!

Huge Surprise....Eli refused to cooperate for our photo session when
candy was out in plain sight!

And that pretty much wraps up this winter for our family....spring time updates coming soon!

Okay, so it's been awhile.....

Sorry about that kids!  Life has been busy!

I'll do my BEST to try and backlog what we've been doing over the last few months, but for now, here's what we did just this weekend:

Friday, May 17
On the 1st of each month, Nick & I plan dates.  We plan a family date and a couples date.  With him working some nights, it's really hard for us to find time to all spend together and for us to spend time with each other.  Once Ella was born, I found myself incredibly wrapped up in her.  When Eli came along, the feeling intensified.  I think that it is so easy as a parent to spend all of your time looking down at your children (literally I mean, not "looking down" like in judgment), that you forget to look across at your partner, the person you CHOSE to spend your life with and build a family with.  Honestly, I think that's why so many people have kids that leave the house and then realize that they have nothing in common anymore.  I don't want that to happen to us.

Back to the story.  Friday night, we enjoyed a golfing double date with Brian & Denise Stoesz.  We have been friends for probably 10 years already (how is THAT possible?!).  Nick met Brian at Best Buy and we've been friends since we were all just dating.  Golfing ran a little late and we missed meeting up with Dave & Brandy Nieters for dinner.  (SIDENOTE: Brandy, I know you're reading this.  I'm SO sorry!  Check your email today for new rescheduling dates...promise we won't stand you up this time!)  Nick & I ended up at Rookie's, our favorite neighborhood family-friendly bar.  It was such a good night.

Saturday, May 18
Ella had her first experience garage saling and really enjoyed it.  We went with Nick's mom and had a lot of fun.  Mainly Ella loved it because we got such great deals on new clothes, games, and puzzles for her!  Sunday was going to be the busiest day of the weekend, so we spent the rest of the time preparing for it.  That night, we went to Amanda's graduation party.

I don't know how this girl did it!  Honestly, how she kept it all together when she had such a full school schedule, a 6 month old baby, and planned a wedding is beyond me.  But she did it.  And we are so proud of her.  Congrats Amanda!

Sunday, May 19

First was a crazy morning of Nick & me running around to prepare for everything.  We had Ella's & Reagan's dance recital at 1.  On the way there, Ella said, "I'm really scared.  I don't know if I'll do it all."  It was adorable that she was so vocal about her nerves!  Here are a few pics of us getting ready: 

Seriously?  Could she look anymore bored with me?

HUGS! You're going to do great baby!  Don't be nervous!  Just smile and LISTEN!

Performance notes:  Ella did a great job dancing.  She looked really good, honestly.  Who would have expected my kid to be the class clown though?  Before one of the dances, she said, "Um, Miss Kathy, is it okay if give my Pawpaw a hug and a kiss?"  Other quotes include, "Miss Kathy, _____ is not in her spot." and "Um, Miss Kathy, I need to interrupt you for a second....."  What a little ham!  She blew kisses throughout the performance and whispered loudly who they were for "That one was for my Pawpaw all the way in back!" (AKA, the 3rd row)  She also gave patronizing looks and pointed out people for not clapping (like Nick & Danielle because they were video taping or taking pictures), and me for not taking enough pictures!  She is such a handful, but I wouldn't have her any other way.  She is so precious to me.  Here are some more pictures from before the show.  The pictures from the actual recital are on the real camera.  They're better quality....and I probably won't pull those off the camera card for moths....we'll see. :-)

After the dance recital, we immediately went to a park for Eli's 2nd birthday party.  His birthday is actually next weekend, but I couldn't in good conscience put a kid's birthday party on the holiday weekend and expect everyone to show up!  Since Craig & Amanda are getting married the weekend following the holiday, that weekend was out too.  So this made for a pretty busy weekend for the Johnson family!  We went to Oak Creek Park in St. Peters and just played and ate and had fun with family and a few friends.  Here are some pictures of the big celebration.

I love how Brady guides Eli around!  SO CUTE!!!

They were trying to look at birds. :)

Here's the slideshow I put together of Eli this year.  (It is roughly 15 minutes and worth every bit of it!)  He's grown so much and learned to do so many things!  To think that a year ago, he didn't have teeth, barely talked, and didn't walk astounds me!  He didn't even know how to dance yet.  And now just look at what a big boy he is. <3

Whew!  What a weekend!  We are SO looking forward to next weekend and camping.  It's been at least a month since we've been camping & I can't wait!