While Josh is away. . .

So, Josh has now been gone for two weeks. He has one week left, and we all can not wait!! We miss him very much.

In the mean time, I've been trying to keep busy and occupied so the time will fly by. I didn't think it would, but I think I've sufficiently filled my schedule. The first day (only about 6 hours after he left) I hurt my back. . . not fun. That led to Evan helping with the twins A LOT for the next day or two. Focusing on little every day tasks with a hurt back really helped the time fly. . . funny though, that it actually helped in the long run. So, the first week nothing too exciting happened. Well, except a few cute cheesy moments!!

Addison has the same cheese that Brayden had. So cute.

By Saturday I was feeling better, so we went ahead with our weekend plans. The Circus! I took Evan and Brayden to the Circus for a fun surprise on that saturday. Evan got this cool dragon face painting. I wouldn't let him have a full face painting since we were headed to stake conference right after. It turned out good.

Brayden was next in line to get his face done, but intermission was over and the lady had to get back to the show. So as a compromise, Brayden got two balloon animals. He thought that was ok. He's riding his horse in case you can't tell.

My Dad came out to visit us and help the time pass (and ease my burden a little). You would think that i would have taken pictures of that. Well, I mostly worked him really hard on house projects, so there wasn't time. I need to remember next time though. Brayden decided that picking me flowers was a good idea and that they needed to be put in the elephant cup with water. I thought it looked cute. . . almost like the dandelions are the elephants hair, so I took a picture.

Addison LOVES Evan's toy laptop. She sits and looks very studious and serious while she pushes buttons. It's really cute.

Andrew just runs around and plays. Sometimes even quietly by himself. Not many of my kids will do that, especially when they were his age. He's such a good boy!

So, when Josh is away I like to renovate things. Or so it seems. We decided to split the kids' bedroom into two rooms. This way this house becomes a three bedroom one bath house. Worth more money and seems to add space. I really like the progress. Since I'm surprising Josh with it (he knows about it) when he gets home, this is the only picture I'll show. It is turning out so well!! Wish I would have thought about doing it a year or more ago. It's nice giving the babies their own room.

And last but not least. This little guy provided quite the entertainment today.

All the kids followed it around the yard for a good amount of time.

They got some close up looks at it. And even got to feel it when I picked it up and put it back in the middle of the yard so the entertainment would last longer!!

Andrew was a really good spotter. Someone had to watch were it went while Evan wrote down his observations.

Here are Evan's observations. He immediately ran into the house for a sheet of paper so he could make a discovery sheet about the frog. He was very thorough. I have to say, I wouldn't have thought about doing it so though I would like to take the credit (as would his father whose science genes we know Evan has), I think the credit really goes to the magic tree house books he reads. He's a good kid.

So now you all know what the brown toad looked like that they all followed around the yard today.

In the last week that Josh is gone my plans are these: paint the bunk beds, set up the bunk beds, tear out carpet, get the installers here for the new carpet, hope the workers working on the wall finish soon, paint the new wall and redecorate the rooms, finish painting the deck, paint the trim, touch up the house paint, and if I have time, make and paint shutters and possibly get them put up. It would be so WONDERFUL to have that done by the time Josh came home. I like to go all out with my surprises (though, really he knows the plan).

Hopefully it all goes well. Wish me luck!!!