All Alice

Mother's Day Dinner

I've been thinking about what I wanted to make for Mother's Day for a while. I have a new favorite food blog that I like to look at, and now with my kitchen unpacked (in a bigger and nicer kitchen) I've been having fun trying out new recipes.

My plan is to make Puffed French Toast. I picked up one of those wonderful 4 lbs crates of strawberries from Costco, and so this morning I made some Strawberry Sauce to drizzle on top. Also with the strawberry sauce I'll mix up some Fresh Strawberry Limeade, and if I'm really adventurous I might add a drizzle on my Chocolate Molten Cake.

My mouth is watering already...

Three Months

Alice turned three months in our hotel in Iowa, so these pictures were taken there. I remembered to grab the onesie and the number 3, but I forgot the blanket. Still, I guess two out of three isn't so bad.

Alice is such a sweet baby. Now that she has found her thumb, when she gets tired we just lay her down and she puts herself to sleep. She loves to lay around and talk and laugh and watch Elsie run around. She loves to stand and have Alan swing her around (even though it sometimes gives me a heart attack). She has found her voice and is content to sit and yell/growl/gurgle for a good 45 minutes or so. She loves being naked and hates putting clothes on. Alice spits up an enormous amount, so much that she goes through half a dozen burp rags and several outfits a day. It doesn't seem to bother her though, and she is gaining plenty of weight, so other than being constantly covered in baby spit up, I'm not too worried about it.

Alice's Blessing Day

We blessed Alice on Easter Sunday. Since the sacrament program was already full, our bishop opted to bless her after sacrament meeting in one of the high council rooms. It was a little weird, but I guess all that really matters is that she was blessed and our families were able to be there.

All the men who helped with the blessing. From left to right - Grandpa Swenson, Kyle Swenson (Alan's brother), Ken Jenson (my dad), Alan (and Alice), Boyd Swenson (Alan's dad), Grandpa McBeth, and Dennis Crawford (Alan's uncle).
After church (and a short nap for the girls) we headed out for a family Easter dinner. They hid a few Easter eggs for Elsie to find.
She had a great time finding them all and I felt even better about not having anything planned for Easter. Yay for extended family! :)
We put Alice back in the blessing dress to try and get a few pictures of her in it, and she was not happy about it. She was especially not happy about having to sit in the bumbo so we could get a good picture of the dress.
Sometimes all you really need is an Uncle Eric and a thumb. I think this is one of my favorite pictures. It shows off the dress and captures Alice's true nature.

Easter Egg Hunt

To help alleviate some of my guilt for not doing anything for Easter (we were getting ready to move across the country, I was a little busy), we took Elsie to the local Easter Egg Hunt at the park. The actual hunt took about 10 seconds. They tried to partition the kids off by ages, but I defiantly saw 8 - 10 year olds running through Elsie's 2 and under section. Oh well. Elsie managed to snag a few eggs and she was happy with it.


There were a few activities around, but somehow I didn't get most of the pictures on my camera. I know there are some my mom took, and some Jeanine took as well. There was a little petting zoo with animals. Elsie didn't really want to touch them but was content to look at them.
There was also a huge inflatable slide that she climbed up and went down. Besides getting stuck two rungs from the top and needing a little help, she loved it. As soon as she slid down she said "Elsie do it again!" We had to tell her there was a big line and we were not going to stand in it again. Luckily for her, the crowds died down a little bit and she was able to go on it one more time.
And of course there was a playground. Good thing Elsie had so many people to play with her. When Grandpa got tired, Uncle Eric took over.
We met the Easter Bunny and his weird chipmunk pal, but I'm not finding those pictures right now. Elsie loved them both and gave them big hugs and kisses. It was a little crazy trying to add the egg hunt into our already overly busy weekend, but I'm glad we took the time to go. It was a nice break from packing, and Elsie had a lot of fun.

Graduation Revisited

Here are all the pictures that were stuck on my camera/computer. I think they're fairly self-explanatory. Enjoy!

Finally!

We have Internet in our home! Now I can get the pictures off of my camera and I don't have to try and blog from my phone every night. Hooray!