Easter

The week before Easter Elizabeth came home from church and said, "Jesus was dead for 3 hours. That's a long time." She's so funny. Every week when I ask her what they learned about in nursery she says, "Jesus. Again." (in a somewhat exasperated tone). One time she said, "I don't know why we always learn about Jesus." :)

Anyway, we had a condensed version of Easter this year because everyone left that day. Nate's parents left in the morning and mine left after lunch.

Here are the baskets. A friend of mine gives her kids new swimsuits in their basket every year. We have two beach trips coming up, so I borrowed the idea this year. The big hit, however, was the cotton candy.

I had forgotten that my mom always made us bunny shaped pancakes on Easter morning until I saw her doing it for my kids. Traditions are fun!

We said goodbye to Obaachan and Ojiichan. Again. (This is our third time saying goodbye, because their mission keeps getting postponed. It gets easier each time because we feel like they aren't really going. But they finally have a date. Sad for us, happy for them. At least the sooner they go, the sooner they'll get back.)

We dyed eggs and made white chocolate lollipops with an Easter lollipop mold.

The only bites they took of the bunnies were in this picture. Nate and I polished them off later.

We went to Tibbitts to watch the morning session of conference and continue with the festivities. Julia and I hid the eggs. The kids enjoyed hunting for them despite the chill in the air.




One of the shirts I got Nate for his b-day. He looks pretty handsome in it if I do say so.


My mom and Cindy are the ultimate homemakers. Here they are in action.

One last picture before we leave for the airport.

We spent the rest of the afternoon in a little bit of funk that all of our loved ones were gone. I'm sure the massive amounts of sugar consumed didn't help.

But it was a lovely Easter. It's always wonderful to take extra time to reflect on the Savior and all He's done for us.

Blessed

Count your many blessings, name them one by one.

1. Harrison

2. Elizabeth

3. Jonathan

The list goes on and on.

We have been very blessed to have all four grandparents attend all of our childrens' baby blessings. We didn't think it would be the case this time, because Nate's parents were supposed to be on their mission. So we were trying to make it work with my parents' schedule. The best weekend for them was the weekend of Easter and General Conference. Since there was conference instead of normal church, we had to do it in our home. We decided to do it on Saturday, between conference sessions.

Nate's parents have had problems with his dad's paperwork and so they have not left for their mission to Japan yet. They called Friday to wish Nate a happy birthday and casually asked when we decided to do the blessing. Feeling horrible that we had never told them (because they were supposed to be in Japan) I said it's tomorrow at 1 o'clock. Nate's mom immediately started figuring out how they could arrange things to get here in time for it. We were touched that they were willing to drop everything and drive the 8 hours here for the blessing. They left at 4 AM Saturday morning and made it with an hour to spare.

My parents and Katy had been in town all week. They were a tremendous help getting everything ready for the blessing. They helped us clean and straighten the whole house and did a lot of baking for a delicious dessert spread for afterwords. We had some close friends over and it was indeed a special occasion. We are so thankful for friends and family, especially that both sets of grandparents were willing and able to make the effort to be here.

Jonathan's middle name, Masahisa, is after Nate's middle name, which is after his dad's name, which is a combo of his parents' (Nate's grandparents') names. Masao + Hisako = Masahisa. So it was extra special that Ojiichan could be in the circle to bless Jonathan Masahisa Watabe.

I also feel very blessed to have a righteous, priesthood-holding husband who did a wonderful job blessing our baby boy.

Nate's parents brought our nephew, Caleb, along. His middle name also happens to be Masahisa.

We borrowed this precious blessing outfit from our nephew Beau, who had just been blessed in it the weekend before. It looks almost identical to the outfit Harrison wore for his blessing that had also been worn by my brother, Andrew.

So many amazing blessings! Most of all the gospel of Jesus Christ, which makes it possible for these most precious family members to be together forever.

Some Things to Smile About

We had lots of things to smile about last week! My Mom, Dad and Katy came to visit for their Spring Break. It's fun to have them around and the kids love it when family visits! They were so helpful with everything from cooking, to cleaning to rearranging the living room. Katy and my mom put in some serious effort to get Johnny to smile.

And it paid off. He smiled more last week than ever. We even caught one on camera!

Everyone loved holding Johnny, especially when he was happy (which wasn't as often as we would have liked).

Friday night was always pizza night growing up, so my mom continued the tradition. Elizabeth loved helping roll out the dough.

She got really into it.

Friday was also Nate's 31st birthday. After a long day of snowboarding with friends, he came home to pizza, presents and cake. Johnny was napping, therefore not pictured.

Proof that my dad really was here too.

Unsolicited help blowing out the candles.

Somebody loves his daddy.

Remember my new traditional birthday kissing picture?

Harrison had his first soccer game of the Spring season. He was much more focused this time.

He even had a couple of breakaways all the way down the field and near goals. As you can see in this picture, he runs with his arms straight down by his sides. We need to work on a more athletic looking run.

Nate's parents, and our nephew Caleb ended up coming this weekend (more on that later), so Harrison had quite the cheering section.

Stayed tuned for two other things we had to smile about this weekend. They both deserve their own posts!

Random March Report

Thank you for all of your feedback on the "H" situation. I have decided to go with the H. I still have a little anxiety over it. We got his birth certificate and insurance card in the mail this week and seeing Jonathan without the H but knowing we're doing Johnny with the H stressed me out a little. Plus, I saw a guy I had a crush on in college on Facebook and had forgotten he spelled Jonny without the H. Needless to say, it will probably plague me for the rest of our lives, but at least the majority of people will spell it right and it won't come up on spell check.

So here is the most recent batch of pictures. In the correct chronological order this time.

He spends the majority of his time in here. THANK YOU to all who recommended the side to side swing. And THANK YOU to all who pitched in for it! He LOVES it and it is a lifesaver for me!

I love how peaceful they are when they're asleep!

Auntie Laura got to visit again for the rescheduled conference she came for in December. We didn't plan to all wear purple this day, but that's how it worked out! This picture was taken with the timer on the camera, hence, it's poor quality.

A better purple picture.

Loving her 3rd nephew.

Elizabeth always wants in on the picture action.

Laura likes to sleep. She and Johnny have that in common.

Kelly sent these cute month by month cards to take pictures with. Here's month 1.

He's quite alert at night.

He's staring at his Daddy. He has smiled for Nate several times (supposedly -- I've only witnessed one of them). He has only smiled for me once. Yes, I'm bitter, considering I'm his life source and all.

I do love watching them together. Nothing like seeing you hubby with your babies.

So for the past two years I've done a St. Patrick's Day "Green Lunch" with friends. Harrison was on a field trip that day, and I didn't want to do it without him (and more importantly, I had a much needed hair appointment that I had trouble scheduling and couldn't bear to reschedule). So I changed it to a dinner and we invited the Jensens. It was so Nate to give thanks for "The Irish" in his blessing on the food.

Menu: St. Patrick's Day Soup (vegetable soup with lots of spinach, blended up so that it's quite green), green bread, Ceasar salad, grapes, green jello, limeade, and chocolate chip cookies with green M&M's.

Harrison's teacher is having a baby, so the day before Spring Break was her last day. A mom who is also in our ward organized a going away party and invited all the moms to come. It's always fun to observe Harrison in the school setting.

We have loved Mrs. Liesemeyer! They were tears all around (her, me and lots of the moms, and later that night, Harrison) about saying goodbye. She'll be back for the fun end of year stuff and thankfully the much loved student teacher, Mrs. Kazmata, is the long term sub!

All we are saying. . .

. . .is give peace a chance.

Speaking of peace.

Seriously.

I loved Harrison in these overalls. Harrison loved Johnny in them. He called him Johnny Overalls. Of course, I loved Johnny in the overalls too. If you haven't noticed, I get a big kick out of handing things down. Especially really cute things.

In typical Colorado fashion we have had spring-like 70 degree weather one day followed by a blizzard the next. A few times. This is March. It's okay, I forgive Colorado, because I adore Colorado. But I won't complain when Spring really comes and stays.

What the H?

I have a dilemma. Keep in mind I am a major over analyzer and I have A LOT of time on my hands to over analyze these days (someone still wants to eat every two hours all night). Speaking of that someone, the dilemma lies in how to spell his nick name.

We spelled Jonathan without an H because 1)we like it better that way 2)it's already a long enough name and 3)that's how it's spelled in the bible. So we thought that we should also spell Jonny without the H. I was worried that if we did Johnny, then people would assume there's an H in Jonathan. Well, I am having major second thoughts.

Here are my reasons:
1)I think I like it better with the H

2)Everyone assumes there is an H and I don't want to spend the rest of his life telling people there's no H. He will ALWAYS have to spell out his last name, he should at least have one name that people can get right. I like to set people up for success when it comes to name spelling. I am not into creative name spellings like Ashleigh and Jaxon. I like traditional names and traditional spellings. I don't like how Jonny comes up on spell check. Johnny doesn't.

3)All the famous Johnny's have an H. Carson, Depp, Cash, Appleseed, "Johnny Be Good," "Johnny Angel," the mean guy in Karate Kid and my personal favorite, Johnny from Dirty Dancing. As in, "Oh Loverboy, and if he still doesn't answer, I simply say, 'Baby. . .'"

Here's one of my drawbacks (don't worry, I know it's a little crazy). My friend Jenni went out of her way to be sure to spell Jonny the way we were spelling it on the darling nightgown she had made for him with his name on it. I love the nightgown and I love that she made sure to spell it right. Because spelling people's names correctly is important to me. As much as I love the nightgown, I don't know if it's a good enough reason to leave his name spelled that way. Nate assures me that it is definitely not. He is the one who came up with the spelling of Jonny in the first place, but he says he doesn't care how we spell it. I'm sure he just wants me to decide and quit talking about it. Seriously, can you imagine being married to me? I can't.

So that's my dilemma. I don't know why I'm having such a hard time with it. When I think about it I get a pit in my stomach and when I go to write it with the H I can't bring myself to do it because I haven't officially decided yet. I'm sure you can see which way I'm leaning, but I'd love your feedback. I really wish I had thought about all of this BEFORE he was born.