Drum roll please.......
The winner of the fullest mustache is Tim Richardson!
The other two awards went to students with the best peach fuzz and the best style. It's now official: I am married to the hairiest man I've ever known. ;) Love you hun and all your hair!
The MSU MBA program holds an annual auction to raise money for childhood cancer research. All proceeds from the mustache competition and the auction are donated to CureSearch. CureSearch is a national organization that is constantly looking for better treatments for children with cancer. The auction was started many years ago by a professor at MSU whose daughter was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 3. The night was amazing! There was a silent auction and then many faculty and staff donated different things such as a BBQ dinner for 10 or a poker night for 8 and so on to be auctioned off in the live auction. Tim had the honor of being one of the 3 auctioneers. He did a great job!
The highlight of the night was mainly getting to hear Professor Swink's daughter tell her story and how CureSearch made a difference in her life. As a mom I could only imagine what it would be like to have your child at the age of 3 (or at any age for that matter) go through something like cancer. As this little girl spoke it hit home that it would be like Xavier having to go through that right now. I wanted to cry like a baby. Her story was amazing and she is still alive to tell it. I'm glad that MSU's MBA program continues to hold this event. Every dollar that is donated brings us closer to finding better treatment for these children to live long and prosperous lives.
The one fact that was shocking to me is that in one year the government donated 26 million dollars to CureSearch to use for their research. In that same year one of baseball's star players made 28 million dollars. Wow does that put things into perspective. And according to Professor Swink's daughter "he probably just spent his money on things like a big screen t.v." (I would hope that he does do good with some of his money too) In any case, it really shows how unequal and many times unfair life can be.
At least this night a lot of good was done for those that really need it and I was grateful to be a part of it.
I wanted to post about our traditional St. Patrick's Day fun. I kept it simple this year, no leprachaun's, but we did play outside because it was super gorgeous weather. We also had a green themed dinner. 
In our house anything that involves the color green is a reason to celebrate!
For dinner I bought a rotisserie chicken and we made wraps. The wrap was of course green, and I added some avocado and green peppers in the shape of clovers. On the side we had green fruit kabobs with honeydew, kiwi, grapes, and apples. Xavier thought it was pretty cool that everything we had was green. I might even try other color themed dinners throughout the year. It was kind of fun.
Our friends, the Miners, invited us over for green desserts. Danielle had an awesome spread and decorations! It was fun to get together since we only have so much time left with all our friends.
Happy St. Patty's Day!
We took our second trip to Pennsylvania over Spring Break. This time we went to meet our real estate agent, look at some houses for rent, and decide what area we were going to live. There are two wards we could potentially be in depending on which city we live in. One is in Bethlehem and one is in Nazareth. The night we arrived we received a call from the Bethlehem ward Bishop. He wanted to make sure we arrived safely and to see if there was anything we needed. We also had a dinner invitation from a family from that same ward. Talk about a warm welcome! Turns out by the end of the trip that probably won't be the ward we end up in. But it's so comforting to know that people took the time to care about us even though the only thing they know is that we are members of the church and we are moving into the area.
The second day of our trip was spent with our real estate agent. She took us on a tour of Bethlehem, Easton, and Forks Township, which are the three cities we are looking to live. We looked at 3 houses as well. Xavier was definitely at his worst. I couldn't blame the kid. He'd been at his cousins for a week and in a car for 10+ hours the day before. Not to mention riding around town all that day without a nap. He had kind of had it at this point. Our real estate agent was so nice. At one point Xavier was so whiny that she stopped to get him a milkshake. He certainly perked up after that. Then an hour later he was screaming that he wanted water. So she made another stop at a gas station to pick up some water. Not only did his tantrums and whining not seem to bother her, but she knew her stuff. She knew what neighborhoods were built by what builders, she knew the good builders from the bad builders, and just seemed to have an awesome knowledge of the market, the area, and everything else in between. We feel like we struck gold with her. The final event that solidified our trust in her was that Tim had lost his Oakley sunglasses (that cost a pretty penny). She took us back to every house we looked at to find them. They ended up being at the very last house and it took an extra hour to do this. We apologized profusely for our high maintenance. All she could say was that we were nothing compared to some of her other clients and that we were a pleasure. She was definitely golden in our eyes. Of course, she knows we are future business for her, but not everyone would have done those things even with that in mind.
The third day of our trip we did a few fun things. The highlight was visiting the Crayola Factory. It was out of this world. They had room after room of things to create! It was definitely the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory of art supplies. We got to see how crayons and markers are made. The pictures below were some of Xavier's favorite stops.
Fingerpainting
Crayons galore. Thankfully Xavier has stopped eating them. Here he was able to pick some pictures and color away.
There was a huge sidewalk the kids could color on with chalk. Xavier spent the most time here.
Daddy and Xavier playing with molding clay. Let your imagination soar!
For the past three years I have had a chance to watch my nieces and nephews while my brother-in-law, Joe and sister-in-law Amy, go to the Caymen Islands. Every year I am humbled at the amazing kids Gabe, Grace, and Lilly are and what great parents Joe and Amy are to their kids. Joe travels a lot for his job, so Amy stays home and takes care of these kids a lot without Joe. I don't know how she does it sometimes. Many days by the time the kids were in bed I just felt wiped out. Taking care of my child and 3 others while being 5 months pregnant was not a simple task. But I'm proud to say that I did it and I now know what it would be like to have 4 kids and one on the way.
This is what my days were like:
7 am: Wake up. Get the kids breakfast, make sure they have everything in the their backpacks, make sure they get ready and get the little ones dressed. Make sure I am ready. Get all our winter gear on.
8:50 am: Head out the door and walk the kids to school. (This part was interesting. Sometimes I felt like a mother duck with all her ducklings in a row. Most times I felt like a cattle herder, mainly trying to keep Xavier on the path and moving, but to also keep the kids focused on walking to school and not playing too much.)
9:20 am: Get back home, run to the grocery store, bank, or other errands. Clean up breakfast. Play with Xavier.
11:30 am: Leave house. Walk back to school to pick up Lilly.
12:00 pm: Fix lunch for Xavier, Lilly, and myself. Read stories to Xavier. Put him down for a nap.
1:00 pm: Clean up lunch, spend time with Lilly, help her with any homework she brought home from school, talk about what she's learning about, etc. Complete household chores, pay bills, make phone calls. Get brownies ready for Gabe's boy scouts or anything else kids had going that needed preparation.
3:50 pm: Leave house. Pick up Gabe and Grace from school. The kids loved having snowball fights on the way home from school. Xavier had a blast doing things the big kids were doing. He even tried to stay at Lilly's pre-school a couple times. I had to carry him out kicking and screaming.
4:30 pm: Get kids a snack. Look at what they have for homework. Let kids have a quick break.
5:00 pm: Get Gabe and Grace started on homework. Gabe could pretty much do his homework on his own. Grace needed one-on-one help with hers. This was one of the trickiest times of day because I was trying to cook dinner, helping Grace with her homework, making sure Xavier was staying out of trouble (which usually he was getting into something he shouldn't have been), making sure Lilly had something to do and wasn't being bullied by Xavier.
6:00 pm: Eat dinner, clean up dinner
7:00 pm: Try to relax and hang out with the kids for a little bit
7:30 pm: Start Xavier on his bath, read him stories, etc. Put him to bed.
8:00 pm: Start girls on bath and getting ready for bed. Read them story. Tuck them in.
8:30 pm: Have Gabe start getting ready for bed, say goodnight.
Phew! All in a days work eh?
Even though during the week it was business as usual for the most part we tried to play as much as we could on the weekend.
Friday night was a pizza and movie night. Gabe and Xavier watched Cloudy with the chance of Meatballs, while Grace and Lilly watched Night at the Museum. Girly time and Guy time.
Xavier loves Gabe so much. He pretty much was Gabe's shadow the entire week and Gabe was such a good sport about it. He's definitely used to being a big brother. Gabe is such a great kid! He's so smart, he's respectful, he's amazing at video games, he loves baseball, and he does what he's told without complaint. He is such a great big brother with a tender heart! I'm so glad Xavier has a kid like that to look up to.
Grace is a social butterfly! She's sassy and witty all in one. She is all girl! She loves to talk. She is silly, cute, funny, and the big sister role suits her. She definitely shows a genuine love and care for her little sister. While Xavier was with them she definitely extended that love and affection to him. Did I mention she's already won a couple cheerleading competitions?
Lilly is the sweet, sensitive, adorable little sister. She loves everything girly just like her sister. She loves to sing, dance, and just be a girl. And she is very health conscious. She was always asking me if what we were eating was healthy, which I thought was so cute.
On Saturday we took the kids miniature golfing, glow-in-the dark style. They had a blast! Afterwards we got milkshakes and went sledding in their front yard. We also tried a burger join in town for dinner. They make everything fresh and it was delicious. Grace even tried one of my sweet potato fries and liked it. Grace definitely has a small repertoire of food that she will eat, mainly peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, pasta, some fruits, and veggies, etc. So I was proud of her for trying something new.
Gabe and Xavier- Buds for life. Gabe had introduced Xavier to the world of Pokemon, Bakugans, and Guitar Hero. Xavier couldn't get enough of these all week.
Family dinner.
At the end of the week Xavier was sad to have to leave such a fun house full of kids. We had a great time getting to know our nieces and nephews a little better and taking care of them while their parents were away.
The month of February is over and with that comes the close of the mustache competition at Tim's school. I have to say that even though I've always loved Tim's facial hair. It was getting to be a bit much by the end of the month. So what do you think his chances of winning are? 
BEFORE
AFTER
The morning that Tim was going to get his picture taken for the voting log he made a last-minute decision to curl the ends up. It doesn't get much better than that. 
Who you lookin' at?
The results are not in yet, but I'll post his standing once they give the final awards.
I have a lot of pictures to post from our week at Joe and Amy's and our trip to Pennsylvania. Once we are back home I'll post them to the blog. I had to write about one cute thing Xavier's been doing in our hotel room. Most of the time he's a destructicon- touching everything he can and running around like a tornado driving me and Tim bonkers. Who can blame him when the hotel room is just one big bedroom with no toys. The bed (for jumping), lamps, phone (so many buttons), alarm, dresser drawers (sound so cool when opened and slammed shut), and desk chair (who doesn't like to get dizzy?) have been his toys. For him, he can make anything fun. For us, we are going loopy trying to prevent anything from breaking or Xavier from hurting himself.
Back to the cute part....We finally unplugged one of the phones so he could play with it. Yesterday he picked it up and said, "Hello baby brother! How are you doing? Are you coming soon? Okay. Talk to you later. Bye." He's done this many times since and it puts a smile on my face every time. I'm glad he's getting excited for him to come.
After many failed attempts at trying to encourage Xavier to potty train we've had a few successes lately. He's by no means anywhere close to using the toilet consistently, but I am grateful for a few glimmers of hope we've seen recently.
Xavier usually has two times he prefers to sit on the toilet. The first is during sacrament when he loudly states, "Mommy I have to go poop on the potty!" What a wonderful and spiritual moment. It's not so much him having a desire to go to the bathroom, but rather an excuse to get out of sitting in sacrament meeting.
The second time he insists on going to the bathroom is right after we've tucked him in and gotten him ready for bed. Nice stalling tactic huh? But it's the one thing he knows I will never say no to. So in the past week he has peed on the toilet three nights before bed and yesterday he went poop. I never thought I'd be so happy about bodily functions.
So, I'm not banking on anything, but it's a baby step in the right direction.
