Easter Excitement

Happy Easter! It has been a really fun weekend with some really fun kids.

To kick start our Easter weekend, we attended our ward Easter party Saturday morning at the Pulte park. Bishop Waldron was in charge of the breakfast, so he took Spencer, went to the store, stocked up on doughnuts and OJ and met us at the park. Dallin, Claire and I walked/rode scooters there... it was a great activity.

We chatted with friends, had a yummy breakfast, played tug-o-war, went on an egg hunt, and played some more.

Dallin found a basketball buddy and they scrimmaged most of the morning together. In fact, when it was Sr. Primary's turn to hunt for eggs, I couldn't find Dallin. I looked over and he had thrown his Easter basket to the wayside and was playing more basketball. He eventually came over to find a few eggs (probably to appease his mother) and then high-tailed it back to the court.

Claire was in heaven with so many fun friends and was prime age for the egg hunt.

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Spencer, on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with it. Don't you love this face...

He was pretty groggy from his nap and I wasn't about to force the tired beast to put an egg in a basket.

He just wanted his Daddy. Once he finally woke up, he loved playing on the playground and running on the field.

The rest of our Saturday was spent relaxing. Peter did his first wedding as a bishop that afternoon, but we had him home with us the rest of the day. We colored Easter eggs, did a little bit of organizing, went on a walk and enjoyed a beautiful spring day together.

This morning, we woke the kids up early so that they could reap the benefits of the Easter bunny before church started at 9. They found lots of eggs (Spencer still not interested) and were spoiled by the nicest bunny around.

We had cinnamon rolls for breakfast and while we were eating, I looked up and saw that it was 8:20... we had 25 minutes to get all of us ready for Easter Sunday! Ahhhh!!! I just had another ulcer writing that. We miraculously got ready (Pete left early to open the church) and were only a few minutes late... an Easter miracle.

Church was wonderful and the sacrament meeting program was one of the best I've experienced. Haden Jaramillo gave his mission farewell talk on the atonement and it was beautiful. There were 2 incredible musical numbers and Brother Badal wrapped up the meeting with another beautiful talk on the Savior. The spirit was ever-present.

After church, Peter left for a business trip to San Fransisco while the kids and I went to the Warner's house for Easter dinner. It was a great time with the Warner and Davis families!

In between church and dinner, the kids came with me to drop some Easter goodies off to friends and look who we saw as we were driving down the road...

Fifty years ago, this would have been endearing, but today it was a little creepy. Claire rolled down her window to wave, so I slowed down. The bunny started walking up to our car and Claire could not roll her window up fast enough. He handed me a Sees candy chocolate egg and introduced himself. I could tell he was an older man. I made up a sweet back story for this grandpa so that I wasn't too freaked out. Just for the record, we didn't eat the egg :).

Every Easter, I try to get a photo of the kids in their Easter clothes and it always seems like a crazy chore. This is as good as it got today...

Happy Easter from the Waldrons!

Table Topics

For Christmas, I bought our family Table Topics... a game of thoughtful questions that inspire fun conversation around the dinner table. Dallin has taken charge of pulling the game out each time we eat together and is the Table Topics master of ceremonies. He asks the question and we go around the table and each of us answer. We sometimes even take turns answering for Spencer. Here are some of my favorite questions and the even better answer that followed:

The question: which 3 objects would you save first if your house caught on fire?

The answer: (Claire) - a huge marshmallow to cool it down (maybe a side-effect of smores?)

The question: what's the first thing you'd do if you were President?

The answer: (Peter) slide down the white house stairs on my belly

The question: what's your favorite outfit?

The answer: ("Spencer") my birthday suit

The question: what one thing would you like to know about the future?

The answer: (Dallin) which team I will play for in the NBA

The question: what's the best way to cure homesickness?

The answer: (Peter) stay at home

The question: where would you go if you were going to run away from home?

The answer: (Claire) Papa/Nana's house

The question: what would you name a new baby in your family?

The answer: (Dallin) Zydrunas Illgauskaus (an actual name of an NBA player... let's hope the baby is a girl ;))

The question: if you could attend any sporting event which would you choose?

The answer: (Missi) Dallin's basketball games

The question: what would you most like to change in the world?

The answer: (Claire) I would pick up all the "glitter" in the world (ie: litter)

We are only 1/2 way through the box, so I'll post some more of my favorites later on!

Extra Entries 2

You may have noticed that I am getting back on my blogging track. I still have a lot of make-up work, but this is what's been done recently:

December 2010 - Michel Meeting

January 2011 - Scarce Snuggling

February 2011 - Basketball Bio

March 2011 - a bunch of new posts!

Enjoy! I'll keep my "extra entries" coming until the happy day when I'm all caught up.

Famous Fro

Dallin informed me the other day that he wants to grow his hair out... like Justin Biebers. For the past week or so, we've been smoothing the traditional Dallin spike down in preparation for a full blown Bieber side-swipe. Not there yet.

Dallin (being frustrated at the "slow" rate in which his hair was growing) asked if he could add hair. What? Where did he hear about adding hair you may ask? Well, Dallin being super-observant remembered a little girl donating her hair to Locks of Love one time while at the barber. He wondered why couldn't he just use hers?

I then explained wigs to him and asked him if he wanted a Bieber wig. His quick response was: nevermind.

Hearing Help

Spencer is awesome. He is unique as they come in a little 2 year old body. My brother Scott said it best when he called my kids: beef, chicken and other (Spencer definitely being 'other'). He is always presenting us with new perspectives and challenges.

The week before Christmas, Spencer had tubes put in his ears. The ENT said that it was "pressure" that was causing a lack of hearing, but in the surgery, they realized that there was a lot of fluid as well. Poor guy couldn't hear much at all (especially in his right ear). Since the surgery, I have noticed improvement in his hearing, speech and energy. He still has a ways to go, but it was a great first step.

(Spencer waiting in his hospital bed a few minutes before surgery... of course playing the iPad)

Spencer also went in for some testing a couple of months ago and was given a referral for an infant educator to come to our home once a week for an hour to work with Spencer. Miss Connie has come for about 3 months now and Spencer loves it. It is a lot of counting, colors, toys, letters, and games, so Spencer is in heaven.

Two weeks ago, he was evaluated by a speech therapist and soon he will be receiving an Autism evaluation. Any help we receive is much appreciated (and free!).

As his mother, I am worried about him, but also know that he is going to be fine. My other two children made leaps, and Spencer is simply taking baby steps (perfectly portrays how they were born... Dallin and Claire early, Spencer took his sweet time and had to be forced out by induction :)). One not better than the other, just a little more work, time and prayer is being spent on my sweet Spence. I am looking forward to future blog posts documenting his progress!

Meeting Madison

Although our recent trip to Utah was a sad one (for Grandma Lolo's funeral... that post is on its way), it was also thrilling since we were able to meet our new cousin/niece, Madison. She is beautiful, sweet and everything a little girl should be. She's even more beautiful than that.

Such an interesting contrast to have Madison brought into this world on March 1st and to have Grandma Lolo taken from this world on March 3rd... put's the plan of salvation into perspective.

My kids fell in love with this new bundle of joy and Claire could hardly contain herself the entire time we were there (to be honest, the entire time Erin was pregnant). Here are some photos of our baby love fest:

Welcome to the world baby Madison... we love you!

Fredette Fever

Here in the Waldron household, we are all sick... with Fredette fever. It has been with us for a long time and we have come to the conclusion that there is no cure. Maybe his retirement. The kid is unbelievable, plays the sport that is talked about 24/7 in our home (yes, Dallin even dreams about it), attends the school we hold close to our hearts, and is a hero in the eyes of BYU fans everywhere. Yes we really like him. Don't believe me? Check out what's hanging on Dallin's wall ;):

Today marks a special day as BYU takes on Florida to battle their way into the Elite 8... with Jimmer leading the way. Dallin is donning his #32 BYU basketball jersey today at school and we are anxiously awaiting the outcome. To be honest, if they win, we may all have to be hospitalized with extreme Fredette fever. Bring that on.

Claire is currently in the other room playing house with two of her friends. Caydree is the mom, Claire is a stranger, and Aubree is Jimmer Fredette. Apparently the fever is contagious... even to 5 year old girls. All of us girls also just finished making these:

To make this whole Jimmer situation even more exciting, my sister Jen called to tell us that Jimmer waltzed into Nordstrom while she was working the other day and she got his autograph for Dallin (who has the highest fever of all)!!! That will most definitely be added to Dallin's Jimmer shrine.

The countdown has begun... Go Jimmer and Go Cougars!

Half Heart

Last Thurdsay night as I was tucking Dallin into bed, I asked him if he was excited about the following school day. He was receiving a BUG award (bringing up a grade) at Friday morning lineup in front of the whole school and was also going on a field trip to Mr. Pennypickles museum. He said he was excited for the field trip, but was nervous about receiving the award.

He continued to tell me that he doesn't like being in front of a lot of people (I call bullhonky on that one). This is how our conversation ended:

Mom- "Dallin, if you want to be an NBA player, you better love being in front of people with all of your heart!"

Dallin - "But Mom, I can really only love it with 1/2 of my heart"

Mom - "why?"

Dallin - "cause I need the other 1/2 to love you with"

Best line I've ever been dealt ;). The greatest part of this whole conversation was that it was 100% sincere. I love my sweet, tender Dallin.

Tournament Theory

Okay, so it is common knowledge amongst our group of family/friends that Dallin is obsessed with everything basketball. The kid is in love. He especially loves BYU basketball and it has been extra fun this year since they are AMAZING!

This week marks the Mountain West Conference Tournament in Las Vegas and he is ready. Yesterday, Dallin watched eagerly as Wyoming played TCU to see who would move on to play BYU today. TCU (seed 9) beat Wyoming (seed 8) and will face the #1 Cougs today... exciting stuff. Before the game, Dallin mapped out how he thinks the tournament will go. I have to post this quickly to see how closely his predictions evolve (this is for you Papa!).

Wyoming vs TCU--- TCU

TCU vs. BYU --- BYU

Colorado vs. New Mexico --- New Mexico

SDSU vs. Utah --- SDSU

UNLV vs. Air Force --- Air Force

SDSU vs. Air Force --- SDSU

New Mexico vs. BYU --- BYU

SDSU vs. BYU --- BYU!!!!

His first prediction was correct. Let's see how this tournament plays out! GO COUGARS!

Basketball Bio

Time for another Dallin school project. This time, a biography on someone who has left their mark on history. What subject do you think Dallin looked up? Basketball? How'd you know?

At first Dallin chose Steve Nash, but it was a little difficult to bring his information together. I suggested Michael Jordan. After reading a lot about him, Dallin was sold. He had to research, write a biography, memorize it to recite to his classmates and make a poster for the presentation.

Here's his cool poster:

Dallin was only 1 of 3 kids in his class who memorized the report (we both could have saved a lot of sleep the night before if we knew the memorization part was optional). It was impressive, however to see how much information he had retained.

Spencer, Claire and I went to his class to watch him present and he did a fantastic job. I wanted to get a video of it, but Spencer had monopolized my phone and wouldn't give it back. It was either a video of Dallin mouthing words with a screaming brother in the background, or a mom's story of how great he really did. Trust me that my story is way more tolerable than the Spencer screams that would have been raging.

Nicely done Dallin! Way to 'just do it'.

Extra Entries

I am SO behind. There are many blog entries that need to be tweaked, written or simply published from various parts of 2010, so I will be sending any readers I still have on a 2010 treasure hunt over the next few weeks. Here are your first clues (aka: latest blog entries thrown into the mix)...

November 2010 - "Shooting Star"

December 2010 - "Magnificent Mathemetician"

"Thespian Troll"

"Gingerbread Gang"

"Yuletide Youngsters"

Enjoy!

Scarce Snuggling

Dallin and Claire fight... a lot. Sharing, polite words, happiness, respect, love... these are all things they show to everyone but each other. It drives me bozonkers.

While we were in Tucson for Christmas, we all shared a room, and I woke up 2 different mornings to this:

Boom! Proof that there is some love in there. Maybe they were just cold, but I'm still saying it's love. It was a great way to start my days. And then they woke up...

Glacier Girls

Happy New Year and Happy Birthday Claire!! This year, Claire decided to have her "friend party" on her actual birthday (as opposed to her half birthday). This decision was easily made when she heard that Disney on Ice was in town and performing on her birthday. Done, sold.

She invited three of her best girlfriends (Aubree Crump, Indy Hasinski, and Alyx Munoa), and I invited Bailey Scott (one of our favorite babysitters) to come help me. The cute girls arrived at our house, we opened presents and had some birthday cupcakes and then headed out to Ontario.

We arrived early, bought some popcorn and spinning lights and found our seats. We were all so excited. The show started and the girls were mesmerized. The favorite part of the show was the finale when all the princesses and characters came out and skated together. It was great fun.

Happy 5th birthday to our beautiful princess!

Tucson Tidings

This year, we spent a wonderful Christmas in Tuscon with Grandma Waldron, the Vandettas, Casey, and the Fergies. It was incredibly special to all be together for this holiday since Dad had just recently passed away.

My favorite moment of our whole time spent there was when Susan gave each family a wrapped box... they were all the same size and we all opened them at the same time. We each received a beautiful gold helicopter ornament in memory of Dad. Tears flowed and it was moments like those that I'm so glad we were all together.

Santa somehow knew where to find the Waldron kids and boy did he leave some fun things!

Dallin got a Heat basketball jersey, a huge Toy Story Lego set, and an Ultimate LeBron James basketball card

Claire was thrilled with her Barbie Dream House and new pink Nintendo DS

Spencer received a Toy Story train set and a red plasma car

We had fun family dinners, went Christmas shopping, played in the backyard and enjoyed being together. Unfortunately, most of our photos from the holidays were accidentally erased and the only ones that could be recovered (thanks to Todd Crump) were a few photos of the kids and some cousins:

SO sad that there aren't any more photos. We'll just have to remember that it was a really fun Christmas, Santa most definitely knew where to find us and we are so grateful to have been in Tucson for Christmas!

Chantilly Christmas

One of my favorite traditions during the Christmas season is Claire's Christmas dance recital. It is low-key, in her dance teacher's backyard and is always incredibly darling.

This year, the little girls danced to Chantilly Lace (Not having much luck trying to get the video on here... hopefully soon). I cannot even begin to tell you how much I love little girls in tights and tutus (not "Toddlers and Tiaras" style).

After their dance, they sat in a circle and had a gift exchange. The girls all giggled and giggled as they passed the gifts along. Claire ended up with a fancy new Zhu Zhu pet named "Mint"... her first gift this season.

We then had cookies and hot chocolate to finish this fun tradition up. Spencer slept in his stroller the entire time which made it easier for me to enjoy... thank you 3rd child who will sleep anywhere.

It was a fun afternoon with good friends and lots of tulle and feathers.

Until next year...