Easter

On Easter Sunday the kids wore their new shirts, had an Easter egg hunt and colored eggs. It was a fun day and such a relaxing holiday.

 Here they in their new Easter shirts. But we didn't get a chance to take pictures until after church. So they're all un-tucked and wrinkled. But they looked great at church!

Watching the color tablets fizz in the vinegar

I didn't dare take pictures while they were coloring eggs, I was too busy supervising. But here's the finished product.

 Of course the kids also got baskets full of chocolates, jelly beans and other goodies. They loved waking up to find their treats!

Camden's 5th Birthday

Camden is five! I can't believe it! It is so fun to be his mom. He is such a fun and funny kid.

Here he is on his Birthday

 This time Camden got to pick the cake but he and Alek still had a combined party, only this time it was with my family.

 

 He LOVES dragons!

 

We also had a big present to give him at home. he had to go outside and close his eyes. We had Alek close his eyes too so he wouldn't ruin the surprise when he saw the present.

 Camden was so happy to have a new bike. He loves that it looks like a dirt bike. Hopefully later this summer he will be ready for the training wheels to come off.

A little bit about Camden at five years old:

• He loves dragons, dinosaurs and sharks.
• Camden has so much fun at preschool and has learned a lot. He also has lots of friends at preschool and plays equally well with the boys and girls in his class.
• He doesn't have a sweet tooth at all. On the rare occasion that we do have dessert he usually politely declines. He will sometimes say, "Maybe I'll have a cookie tomorrow." I've never seen a kid decline cookies, cake and other goodies the way he does.
• He always wants to be like Jace and copies everything Jace does.
• Camden loves apples and eats one with lunch almost every day.
• He's been begging to sign up for soccer again and can't wait until summer soccer starts. He wears his and Jace's old soccer jerseys, soccer cleats and shin guards as much as possible.
• He aslo wants to go hiking all the time. One of his birthday presents that's not in his pictures above was a pair of hiking shoes. He can't wait to hit the trails.

And while Camden is past the age of pronouncing things his own cute way (for the most part), he does have a couple of things I want to remember.

• He still doesn't pronounce his R's real well. A couple of words come out really cute because of this. The two I can think of are purple and turtle. Since he is good with his L's the words sound like he's saying them with a British accent. I sometimes think up excuses to get him to say those words because I love the way he pronounces them.
• After taking a long drink of orange juice he set his cup on the table and exclaimed, "That juice is so taste-able!"
• This story is a little longer. One of the kids in Camden's preschool has special needs. He lacks the physical coordination the other kids in the class have and he's pretty much non-verbal, but he does do some sign language. Well, this little boy's mom invited Camden (and Alek and me) over for a playdate. Camden wasn't hesitant at all about playing with a friend who would be seen as "different" by most people. He played well with his little friend and was super patient when this friend was being a little rough with him at one point. (he wasn't acting out, he was just so excited to play with Camden and couldn't verbalize it so it was expressed physically) This little boy's mom said she asked both of the preschool teachers which child in the class was the nicest to her son and they both said it was Camden. And it's not the first time he's shown this type of sensitivity. My cousin also has a son who has some speech delays and does sigh language. And Camden played with him last summer at a family reunion with no problem. They got along great! I was so impressed by Camden's maturity and accepting nature in these situations. It's really not something you would expect to see from a 5 year old.

I can't wait to see what the next year has in store for this sweet boy! Happy birthday little buddy!

Alek's 3rd Birthday

I can't believe my "baby" is three years old. (Ok, so at the time I'm posting this this he's no longer my baby. But when he had his birthday he was.)

Here are some pictures from Alek's birthday celebrations

 Alek shares a birthday with his cousin Cambree who turned 5 this year. They had a combined birthday party this year which was lots of fun.

 And since Camden and Alek have such close birthdays we celebrated Camden's birthday with Casey's family at the same party. But we let Alek choose the cake this time. Camden will get to pick his own cake on his actual birthday.

Of course he's happy to get new toys. Such a sweetie!


Alek is getting so big and is such a fun and funny kid. Here are a few things about Alek at 3 years old:

• Everyone in the ward and neighborhood just loves him. Even the moms of the kids Camden goes to preschool with know him by name and seem happy to see him.
• He runs everywhere and the only time he stops playing is when he's asleep.
• Alek plays well on his own when his brothers are at school but he also loves to play with his brothers and they get along well with him.
• Alek loves the Disney Cars movie and Finding Nemo.
• His favorite toys are cars and trucks.
• He loves to ride his tricycle, but he doesn't use the pedals. He pushes along the ground with his feet. He goes faster that way than he would if he used the pedals
• Alek has a major sweet tooth. He definitely takes after me in that way.
• He loves to sing and learns songs pretty quickly. He even knows some of the songs Camden has learned in preschool from Camden singing them at home.
• He can count to 20, spell his name and recognizes the letters in his name and the names of his brothers. He can also write A and L even though the A's usually come out upside down. Oh, and he knows his right from his left.

I also love how Alek says certain things. Here are a few of my favorites.

• Exactly: Zwackey
• Something: Wumpin
• Fat: Wat
• Feet: Weet (He always talks about his wat weet. I love it)
• Camden: Cam-in
• Sophie: Zoh-zie
• Pants: pansch (imagine Sean Connery saying pants)
• Academy: A-cam-a-dee
• Despicable Me: Pickable Meat
• Different: dondont
• Noodles: youdles
• When he wants to go for a walk around the block where he rides his trike and Casey and I walk, he asks to go for "a little road drive." 
• When I am in a hurry and say, "Alek, come on!" he replies by saying, "I'm come on-ing!"
• When saying words in past tense, he really emphasizes the "ed" on the end of the word, and gives the word two syllables. For example, reach-ED, burp-ED, etc.
• When he saw a package of mini crumb donuts at the store, he said, "Look at those funny circle chicken nuggets!"
• My absolute favorite is when he says, "Mommy, you're my best friend" in his sweetest, lovey dovey voice. It melts my heart every time.

We sure love Alek and all of the joy he brings to our household.

Fun in Phoenix

After a long cold winter, we were excited to go to Phoenix in February. Jace qualified to participate in an international tournament there, so we decided to make a family trip of it.

 It's quite a drive, but the kids did pretty well with it.

 The night before the tournament, we went to a dinner hosted by US Kids Golf. It was a really nice dinner

 After the dinner they had face painting, games and balloon animals etc. for the kids

 Camden wanted to have his face painted like Batman

 And what did Jace request for his balloon "animal"?  A golf club of course!

It was a two day tournament and the first day was COLD. That's an assessment made by someone coming from Utah in February. So yeah, it really was cold.

 There's my little golfer giving it his best.

 Golf can get a little bit boring for the younger kids so while Jace practiced, we found somewhere to play. Grandma and Grandpa were with us for the tournament too. It was nice to have some help with the kids and to have someone to push the kids on the swings. I was 30 weeks pregnant by this point and pushing the kids on the swings was getting pretty difficult at that point. And the kids loved that Grandma was swinging with them. The kids have such fun grandparents!

 Day two, the sun decided to come out. It wasn't as warm as we were hoping for but it was sunny and it made for a great golf day.

 We had to get at least one group shot before we left the golf course.

 And the kids wanted one of them in front of the giant cactus.

 This is Jace and Casey after day two. Jace didn't place in this tournament but he was a good sport and it was a great experience for him. it really was a pretty tough competition.There were kids competing from 42 states and 6 countries. So it was definitely the best of the best.

 We broke up the drive home over two days and stopped for a tour of Glen Canyon Dam.

The kids loved the elevator ride, and the views were spectacular.

Overall, it was a great trip, and even though the weather didn't exactly cooperate, it was nice to get away for a few days.

Valentine's Day

I'm so lucky to have so many sweethearts.

I surprised them with heart shaped pancakes, chocolates and a car; red of course.

In the afternoon we made cookies. I love my little helpers.

Congrats Katie!

We were excited to welcome a new baby to the family. And the kids are excited to have a boy cousin on my side of the family.

Katie had a baby boy on January 14th! Welcome baby Will!

 The kids each wanted to hold him. And then we immediately took the boys to get haircuts.

(Ok, I don't actually remember getting haircuts for them after visiting Katie and Will in the hospital but since they desperately needed them in these pictures, I like to think that getting haircuts was our next stop.)

And since Katie had Will the day before we had a baby shower planned for her, we took the diaper cake and all the rest of the shower decorations, food and guests to her.

We were able to get access to an empty classroom at the hospital and have her baby shower anyway. it was such a fun day, but probably pretty tiring for Katie.

Christmas 2010

We had a wonderful Christmas at our house.

 The boys helped decorate the tree.

 They took it pretty seriously.

 And here's the finished product.

 We saw the lights at temple square.

 And went into the visitors center for a little while too.

 I hit the 20 week mark. And the big, official 20-week ultrasound revealed that it's still a girl and that she is growing and developing right on track. Such great news.

 Here are the boys on Christmas morning. They can't wait to open presents...

 And make the living room look like this.

Here they are with their cousin Sophie at grandma and grandpa's house.

We got all of the major traditions in, but had to pass on some of the little things. We had lots of sick kids in December which made it a challenge to even get all of the shopping done. So we didn't make gingerbread houses or cookies, we didn't make goodies for neighbors or teachers, and we didn't make it to the kids' Christmas programs at school. But we were so glad to have everyone feeling good when Christmas morning came.

Early Christmas Surprise!

The week of Thanksgiving I had a doctor's appointment. I was far enough along to be able to see baby's gender. Unfortunately my appointment was cancelled due to my doctor being away at a delivery. But a couple of days later, We were able to get in with the doctor and he did a quick ultrasound to see if we could tell baby's gender. It turns out, everyone was right. It's a girl!

I was really surprised. Pregnancy #4 felt about the same as all of my other pregnancies and I just assumed I would have another boy. I was not expecting him to say it's a girl. What an adventure this will be!

Jace and Camden were both predicting/hoping for a boy. But all Alek could talk about was having a, "sister baby."  I got a balloon at the hospital that said it's a girl and gave it to the boys to tell them they would soon have a sister. I was expecting some disappointment from the older boys but they were actually fine with it and seemed excited. But Alek's reaction was the sweetest.

Here's how our conversations went that day:

Me: Alek the doctor looked at the baby in my tummy and it's going to be a sister baby.
Alek: A sister baby for me?
Me: Yes honey, a sister baby for you.
Alek:  Yay! A sister baby for me in your belly!
Me: Yes!
Alek: Oh mommy, She will be so pretty!

I didn't even know he knew the word pretty. it's not a word that gets used a lot in a house full of boys. His reaction was so sweet and sincere. It still brings tears to my eyes when I think about it. What a sweet boy!

My Birthday

Casey and I spent a wonderful evening out on my birthday. We went to Snowbird and rode the tram to the top of the mountain. It was such a beautiful fall day!

We considered making the hike down the mountain after riding up on the Tram. I really wanted to but Casey talked me out of it, and I'm glad he did. It would have been quite the hike and we weren't really dressed for it. But we would like to make plans for it some other time.

Most Expensive M&M's Ever

But soooo worth it!

I shared a little bowl of these with my family the day after we had family pictures with Casey's family. They all knew what the candies meant even before reading the message on them. But it was still a really fun way to share the news. Right from the start everyone was predicting a baby girl.

Spring Soccer

Spring! It's spring now, could this post mean I'm all caught up? No. It means I have another out of order post to publish.

Camden played soccer last fall and loved it! he wanted to play again this spring, unfortunately the timing wasn't right for it. But we'll probably sign him up again this summer or fall. So stay tuned for some more action shots like this...

 Based on the next 2 pictures we are also looking into some type of martial arts for him.