Fashion Statement

My boys have no style and then in addition to their normal everyday outfits there are bonus styles throughout the day.

Kaden loves his life jacket and wants to wear it all the time no matter if we are going swimming. I pretty much have to hide it from him.

James loves his bike helmet and will often keep it on for a long time after he finishes riding his bike. He is also sporting his "spy backpack' which is hard to see since the straps are black and you can't see his profile. He found an old backpack and has been collecting spy gear in it. He wears this backpack constantly.

Kindergarten Field Trip

James had his first Kindergarten field trip at Hee Haw Farms. Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate. It started snowing right after we got there and it was really windy. Most of the kids and chaperones were not prepared for that weather. Some didn't have jackets and others just had a light sweatshirt jacket. We were wearing our warmest winter coats and we were still cold. James got to do the slide and walk through the petting farm and then the teachers decided to end the field trip early. 

Kaden had so much fun walking through the petting farm.

James and his group. He was in the same group with Brent who is also on his soccer team so he was happy about that.

James going down the big slide.

Kaden checking out the cute bunnies.

I can't believe there are only a few more weeks left of kindergarten. James has loved it and I'm amazed at how much he has learned in one year. I don't remember learning all of the things he knows when I was in kindergarten.

Seeds

This is our first year to have a real garden. I decided to get seed starter trays and plant my own seeds. If it doesn't work then we can always buy plants later on when we are ready to plant outside.

It was really fun having my kids help me plant these a week ago.

It's been a week and some of them are beginning to sprout.

Hopefully they keep growing because I really don't know what I'm doing. Thanks to my sister-in-law, Angeline for answering all my questions. On the day I planted the seeds I sent her so many text messages every time I had a question.

If you have any advice for me it is welcomed.

Swimming Lessons 2014

James and Lynnlee took swimming lessons at the Lehi pool this year. Usually we take them in the summer in American Fork. Holy Cow, why has it taken me so long to figure out that swimming lessons in the spring are so much better! There are so many kids at the summer lessons and it is hard to spend 2 weeks going to the pool everyday in the summer when there are so many other things going on. The spring classes in Lehi are small and we haven't had much going on so it was easy to go every afternoon. I felt like the teachers were better and they taught more skills at these lessons and my kids actually learned something. I can actually see the progress they have made. Take my advice if you put your kids in swimming and do it in the winter or spring.

Mama Date

Marshall is out of town and my kids have been calling everything I do with them a mama date. Yesterday we went swimming. Tonight I decided to be brave and take them to Chilis for dessert. I figured 3 kids is easier than 5. They have tablets at each table now so my kids had fun playing games while we waited. They seated us at the same table where Kaden threw up a few months ago. James didn't want to sit there at first but luckily we didn't have any accidents this time.
 

James got a paper cut at some point and when we were leaving he started screaming and crying like he had broken his femur. I could barely see the cut on his hand it was so small. This boys makes me laugh because he has no tolerance for pain. We are in trouble if he ever breaks a bone.

Baby Names

The ladies at my work are so wonderful. I went to my department after I had my gender ultrasound and told all of them the good news of having a boy and a girl. One of the nurses made this sign and put it in the break room to announce the good news. She also included a spot to give boy and girl name suggestions. It's been fun reading the names. I showed this to Marshall and we had a good laugh reading the first names: Edward and Bella. I'll let you decide if we are going to name them that or not.

Mr. Clean

Kaden's new obsession is pulling clean wash cloths out of the drawer and wiping around the house. It is way better than his bathroom obsession. He looks pretty cute too walking around the house wiping windows, the fridge and floor.

Colored Eggs

We colored eggs on Friday night. It's funny how these two can remember stuff from some holidays but not others. For some reason they have few memories of Easter from other years. It was like they had never dyed eggs before. I had to show them step by step and all of the different things you could do. They had fun though and caught on quickly.

Kaden was caged in the high chair because I did not trust him with eggs and dye. He had no problem eating his sucker while we were busy.

Saturday afternoon we had an Easter egg hunt at my parent's house. These kids were so excited to start that hunt that it was hard to get them to hold still for a picture.

Happy Easter 2014

If you have not had a chance to see the video, "Because of Him" on mormon.org then you need to take 3 minutes and watch it! Click here to go right to the video. It will make your Easter more spiritual. We watched it for family night and it's been on my mind ever since.

Because of him...these three cuties are mine forever!

Happy Easter!

The Easter Bunny

I had a good laugh when I saw this on Jimmy Fallon. It reminded me of our trip to Walmart yesterday. We were in the garden section getting seeds and soil. We had no idea the Easter Bunny was there for kids to see. This picture from Jimmy is pretty much what all of the kids looked like after seeing the Easter Bunny. None of them wanted to be near him. I can't blame them.

Spring Break 2014

We spent the last half of spring break in Arizona. My sister Katie has lived there for almost three years and we haven't visited her yet. I'm so glad we finally got to visit her! We have a system down for long drives that require 8 or more hours to get there. We left at 3:00 am. We put the kids in their seats and they all go back to sleep. I also go back to sleep and Marshall sacrifices for the team and drives. Then the drive is about half over by the time everyone wakes up. It worked well for our trip to Disneyland last fall and it worked well again this time. Everyone woke up in Kanab. We made a few stops after that and arrived in Phoenix around lunch time. 

We see Katie's family about twice a year but Kaden and Brigham were too little to remember each other. They were both shy at first and then warmed up to each other.

James and Miriel are only 2 weeks apart in age but you wouldn't know it because she has him beat in height by a long ways. She gets it from her dad. These two had so much fun together while we were there.

The weather was so nice and warm. We ate breakfast outside every morning. My kids were complaining that it was cold and I had to remind them that it was warmer at that time then it would be in Lehi all day.

Thursday we went to the Phoenix Children's Museum which puts Discovery Gateway to shame. There were so many fun activities. This was a little car wash that you could ride trikes through.

James's trike had a trailer seat which was perfect for Kaden. We were there during nap time so Kaden's emotions were all over the place.

The ball room had an assortment of marble tracks. Some were big enough for golf ball and baseball sized balls and others were little.

That afternoon we swam in the pool

These three were the bee hunters. They would hunt down bees and try to kill them.

Jame's cannon ball.

Friday we went to the Mesa Temple. It is beautiful and so unique compared to the others.

That afternoon we went to the Phoenix Science Center. There were lots of cool exhibits.

My favorite was the exhibit on the human body. There was drum that you could put your hands on the sensor and the drum would beat the same as your heart beat. 

This was an activity where you raced each other in wheel chairs.

That night we went to Grace's soccer game. It was beautiful and perfect temperatures.

We got to enjoy the sunset as we watched the game. In high school our games were always right after school got out in the hot sun. I would have loved having games at sunset.

My sister lives in Queen Creek which is next to Gilbert. We drove by the Gilbert temple on our way home from the soccer game. I got the stomach flu or food poisoning that night and threw up all night. It was not fun but thank goodness I felt better by morning.

Saturday morning we went to Lowes and built recycle trucks.

That afternoon we went swimming and hung out at Katie's house. It was a nice way to end our trip. Sunday we drove home all day. We left at 6:00 am and surprisingly it was a good day of driving. Everyone was happy and we only had to make a few stops. 

Thanks Katie for a fun time in Arizona!

Lynnlee's 4th

Lynnlee's birthday started out with breakfast in bed. She got to choose whatever she wanted for breakfast and she wanted a chocolate doughnut with sprinkles.

Then she got to open her presents. She has been into Doc McStuffins lately so she wanted a doctor's kit. She always tells me she wants to be a nurse when she grows up.

That afternoon she and James played with her presents. I got the stuffed animal box out and assumed they were checking all of their animals when I saw this long line of stuffed animals. James told me that it was the line to go on the ride Tower of Terror. The animals were lined up starting at the toy princess castle and wrapped around the family room and kitchen. It made me laugh because it is so true to life. The real Tower of Terror ride really had a line this long.

We went to Discovery Gateway later that afternoon. I enjoyed watching them play in the ball area and water table. It was relaxing to be able to sit there while they all played. Life won't be so easy and manageable in a year from now when we have twin babies accompanying us everywhere.

The following Saturday Lynnlee got to have her first friend birthday party. She was a great host. It was a princess party and she chose to wear her new Cinderella dress.

James wanted to participate in all the party activities too.

There was free time at the end to play outside. It's not everyday you see a bunch of princesses jumping on a trampoline.

We played pin the slipper on Cinderella, freeze dance, had a cake walk, colored princess pictures, and hit a pinata.

We finished with princess cupcakes. It was a successful party!