To start out our Spring Break, I took the kids to Ethel's chocolate factory, which has a small, self guided tour you can walk by to see how everything is made.  Ethan felt terrible that his Daddy had to work and miss out, so he took extensive notes.  He even thought of great questions to answer before we  got there.  The hows, whys and wheres to chocolate making were meticulously jotted down in his notebook.  (You can see him carrying the notebook around in the pictures)   He even got brave enough to ask some of the workers specific questions that we didn't find the answers to ourselves.  (Like how many chocolates they make a day...)

Alaina decided to be the photo journalist, however, since most of her pictures turned out fairly blurry (she's still working on it) I decided to add her best shot.  Yum.  Look at all that chocolate!

Outside they have a fairly impressive cactus garden that the kids really enjoyed looking at.  (Check out Laina in my sunglasses....little sassy-pants.)

This cactus was called 'Teddy Bear Cactus."  Doesn't it look like you just want to hug it?

And now for a little update on my favorite baby.  Sweet Jason's favorite food is frozen blueberries.  It makes a huge mess every time he eats it, but who could deny that sweet boy anything?  Not me!

Jason (as of last week...mid April) has officially said his first verbal word.  'ish.  For fish.  About the same time, he finally, finally signed the most important word in the English language.  Mama.  He know has about 15 signs that he will use on his own and he'll put two together: any word paired with a please, when I ask.  He received his second ABR done and we were very very happy to know that his hearing has improved these last 6 months.  He now shows a mild to moderate loss in his left ear and a mild in his right.  That is down from a moderate to severe in his left and a moderate in his right from his previous ABR.  The doctor said that every now and then the ear canal grows a little wider and that allows for better hearing.  When I asked if we could expect even more improvement over the next 6 months he let out a little snort and said, "Well.  it doesn't usually happen that way."  Hmm.  Okay then. We have another appt with Jason's audiologist coming up next week, so maybe we'll get a little more information on that.

Until then, Jason remains a very peaceful, cheerful and just plain easy little love.  He has started babbling and still can't get enough of his brothers and sister.  We can't get enough of him either.  On any given day, Alaina will sigh and whisper, "We are so lucky to have Jason.  He's just so wonderful." I agree.

Yeah, that Laina is sweet, even though she really threw me under the bus on Sat.  We found ourselves at a neighbor's house at their garage sale.  We know the family a little through church and also because their son is in love with Alaina.  :)  Anyway, they had a bunch of baby clothes that I was going through.  I mentioned that I had given away most of the boy's clothes already.  When she asked why, I reminded her of the small, insignificant 8 year difference.  I also said that at that time I couldn't imagine having any other children anyway.  Before I could say more, Alaina piped in.  "Yeah!  She could hardly handle us.  I mean.  She didn't handle us very well at all."  Thank you child.  I kept trying to change the awkward subject but every time I did, Alaina brought it right back into focus how poorly I handled Ethan and the twins.  It wasn't until my hasty, red-faced departure that I realized what she was talking about.  She mean't that I could hardly handle carrying twins in my belly.   Ahhh.  yeah.  That made more sense.  Well, actually, both ways made sense.  One was just less embarrassing than the other.

Here he is trying out the spoon.  Not to bad...I think some got in his mouth.