January-April 2012

Here are some pictures from the last few months. Hopefully it gives you a glimpse of what life is like right now. I may or may not ever be a good blogger again. :)

Snow. There wasn't much this year, but we managed to get out a few times. See our pathetic attempt at making a snowman? It was good enough for Preston though. Dylan is at the "let me see if I can nail you with a snowball age." Gotta love that! Marissa loved getting into snow clothes, but then could barely move. And they all ate plenty of what was on the grass. Hopefully it wasn't yellow. ;)

The train museum. My kids love this place and my Ogden Nature Center pass gets us in for free. BTW, that is a good pass if you are looking around. Gets you into the nature center, train museum, dinosaur park and the Tracy Aviary once a month. I took my friends' kids with me. It was a big adventure going into the train museum with 7 kids. YIKES! It is actually a very easy place to go with a ton of kids and not lose anybody. And they had a blast!

Hill Air Force Base Museum. One day in February we just needed to get out of the house so we headed to the HAFB museum. The kids had a blast look around and then playing in the learning center for hours on end. Look how alike Preston and Marissa look when they are both wearing orange outfits and a helmet. Crazy! Almost can't tell them apart.

Marissa is a total girl. She LOVES helping mommy. Drives me crazy sometimes, but I try to let her. All part of the learning process.

Museum of Natural History. My friend, Liv, has passes and got us in to the Museum of Natural History. My kids are older than hers and could have gone all day, but hers were done early so we headed out and grabbed lunch with her. It was a fun day and the first time we had been to the museum. It really is awesome! Dylan was darling with the babies (Liv's baby was 8 months old at the time and she had her niece, who had just turned 1). It's so cute to watch an 8 year old boy be so gentle and loving to babies. Melts this mom's heart.

Marissa's Owie! Marissa was on the counter and dived for me just as I turned to help Dylan make a smoothie. She went head first onto the tile and this was the result. A HUGE bump, followed by a good week and a half of a swollen, black eye. Poor thing! It's a miracle kids survive all their bumps and bruises!

Bailey's birthday party. Bailey shares a birthday with Preston, but we celebrated Dylan and Preston's birthdays together at my mom's house. When Angie was down with her kids, we had a celebration for Bailey. Truly it's a miracle she lived to celebrate her first birthday with the ordeal she went through. Marissa thinks she is her care-taker and followed her around putting her binkie in and helping her out. So funny! Bailey was a lady with her smash cake at first, but eventually went to town leaving very little on the high chair. What a fun day!

Dylan turned 8 and started attending boy scouts. This is something totally foreign to me, coming from a home of all girls. I must admit I was pretty intimidated. Grandma and grandpa bought him his uniform and he came home the first night telling me all about learning marbles. He went to bed studying his wolf manual every night. I just had to smile! He earned his Bobcat the 2nd week and his first pack meeting was the Pinewood Derby. Talk about "baptism by fire" into the scouting program. Thankfully grandpa knows what he's doing and has a bunch of tools so he graciously offered to help Dylan build a car. I didn't bring a camera when the car was being built, but my step dad has a bunch on his phone if we ever figure out how to get them to my computer. But...sure enough the kid took first place. There was one car that was really fast and it was pretty close, but he won both times. He was so excited and proud and I know my step dad was excited. I have to say I wish we wouldn't have set the bar so high. I'm afraid now he'll expect to win every year. Oh well, fun moment for him.

We went to baby animal days up in Logan the Thursday before Easter. We went with a family from our ward. It was a great day! We all got to pet a lot of animals, had some lunch and got plenty of sun right before Easter. It was a great day!

Dylan was baptized Saturday, April 7. Two other friends (Kambrie and Shannon) from the ward were baptized that day. It was a special day since all three of them were blessed on the same day as well. There were a few glitches during the baptism, but the spirit was strong and it was a beautiful occasion. We had a big joint luncheon at the church after the baptism. It turned out great!

Easter weekend was a little chaotic because of the baptism. We didn't even die Easter eggs until Sunday afternoon. Oh well. Somehow the bunny found our house and hid a few plastic eggs and left some very practical loot for the kids to enjoy. Marissa found one egg, discovered it had candy in it, and decided not to look for more eggs. She was too busy devouring candy. Between her candy-drool face and her "cheese" smiles, we got some very interesting pictures. Well, I should say I got some very interesting smiles. Marcos had bishopric meetings and I knew waiting until after church wasn't a good option for my kids so I hosted Easter morning solo. That's why the boys were already dressed for church. There is a process to getting everyone ready in time when you have 9:00 church and three kids to get ready yourself. We had a beautiful day at church (although my kids were a bit loud after the sugar high) and then had dinner at my mom's house.

Dying eggs on Easter. Hey, better late than never!

Semi-annual clothing fiasco! You should have seen the disaster the day I did the boys' clothes. I saved Marissa's for another day because I had run out of steam. It was a completely different experience. I asked Dylan to try on a couple pair of shorts to see if they fit. He whined and complained and finally tried on a couple and then told me they were all fine. Preston wanted to try on anything with a logo on the shirt, but that was about all. No pants or shorts trying on for him. But Marissa. Oh, this little girlie girl! She took every item of clothing as I sorted it and brought it to me to help her put on. When I told her no, she would proceed to put it on without help. At one point I think she had 5 outfits on. Two dresses, a shirt, a skirt with bottoms underneath and a swimsuit. And don't even get me started with shoes. The girl will not keep shoes on to save her life. The second we are in the car, the shoes come off. But she will try on other people's shoes all day long and wear them around the house, twisting her ankle several times in the process. Geez! It is such a different world having a little girl!

Jett. My step nephew turned 7 on April 11. My mom had a Star Wars birthday party for him. We had pizza, cake and an amazing goodie bag that the kids couldn't wait to open. Preston was quick to try out his new bubbles. They are his new favorite thing! He can blow bubbles for hours! Marissa again found some candy and ditched the bag while she went to devour the goods. Gotta love these kids!