5/19/14

We went to a Bees baseball game with our friends the Mayers. We went on May 5th, and the theme was Star Wars "Revenge of the Fifth." The kids were so excited to see Star Wars characters everywhere. It will be hard to top next time we go to a baseball game. 

Jason thinks these characters prove that Angry Birds are REAL.

Kyle and Jason had a blast at the Fathers and Sons campout. Jason's definition of a good campout includes roasting marshmallows and eating them. Graham crackers and chocolate are not necessary. Noah will probably join them next year, but this year I kept him home and we watched Bambi and ate popcorn.

Visiting Tanner

My sister Holly had her fifth baby, Tanner. I decided that since it had been six years since I last flew out to visit Holly(when she lived in New York), it was time for me to go out again, this time to Cincinnati. Because I wanted to be of service to Holly, and I wanted to keep costs low, I went by myself. Linda, Brooke, Heather, and Kyle were so nice to step up and take care of my boys while I was gone for the six days. The boys had so much fun--they didn't even miss me.

The timing for my visit was perfect. Holly was still recovering, and her son Hunter had an emergency appendectomy while I was out there. Holly was so grateful to have someone around to keep the house together. I loved seeing their beautiful new house and beautiful new baby.

Hats and Birds

Noah loves to wear hats. He sure looks cute in them.

We hosted our last day of joy school and learned about the letter "A." To go with the letter "A," we had "Angry Birds" themed activities. It was a blast. This game was "pin the beak on the Angry Bird."

And last are some pictures I took when we previewed Thanksgiving Point's new Museum of Natural Curiosity. It was a hit. The boys loved it, although I was not comfortable letting Noah crawl through the play place alone because of how big and hidden-from-view it was, so I contorted my body and crawled with him. 

Easter 2014

What a beautiful Easter weekend we had--perfect for four different egg hunts. Noah acted like he had been hunting for eggs for years because he knew exactly what to do.

My mom hosted an egg hunt at her house along with a graduation party for Uncle Mitch, who graduated from BYU's law school. We had great food and had a lot of fun hanging out.

Here is my mom teaching the grandkids about the real meaning of Easter:

Uncle Matt was nice and played with the kids on the trampoline:

On Sunday we had Kyle's side of the family over to our house for dinner. Grandma Linda brought stuff for another egg hunt. We introduced the Robbins family to cascarones (confetti eggs) that we all made in advance and hid along with the candy eggs. Whoever found a cascarone got to smash it on someone else's head. It was quite fun. Unfortunately I didn't take very many pictures of it. Noah had fun trying to put the confetti on his head. We also tried to incorporate the real meaning of Easter by showing a church video of Christ's resurrection.

Roommate Reunion

My college roommate Rachel came out to Utah, so we old roommates gathered together for some fun with our kids. It was fun for us to finally meet Rachel's twins. We just wish we could do this more often.

Mary got us into the zoo with her pass:

Dinner at my house. Yes, Noah stayed dressed in only his diaper the whole night (his choice).

04/07/14

After all the updating I've done on Noah, I feel like I should mention a few things about Jason. Jason is working hard on getting ready for kindergarten, including practicing his coloring and drawing. The following pictures by Jason are of his beloved Angry Birds.

On these birds he traced the outline, then filled in the middle while looking at a picture:

These birds were drawn free-hand and by memory:

Once a week we do a neighborhood preschool in addition to his other preschool. In the neighborhood preschool we have six kids (counting Jason). Each mom takes a turn teaching once every six weeks. Jason has loved this "joy school" as I call it, and his favorite is when it is our turn to host and teach. Last time we taught we did the letter D and made these dinosaurs. From left to right, these dinosaurs were made by Kyle, Noah, and Jason:

We also did a field trip to the zoo.

I took the boys on a return outing to tour Salt Lake City with our friends, the Knutsens. We visited the Conference Center and the Visitor's Center. We drove this time instead of taking TRAX, and we had a great time.

Jason is counting down the days until he turns five. I can't believe how fast it is coming up. Four has been a really fun age with Jason. Jason is really looking forward to attending Kindergarten. He gets really motivated to do things when I say, "This is something you should practice so you will be ready for Kindergarten." Currently he is working on catching a ball and writing his name properly so it looks like "Jason" instead of "JASON".

An April Fools Day to Remember

We woke up on April 1st and found this in our window.

We had a good laugh driving around the neighborhood because we found lots of houses with newly sprouted signs that read "For Sale By Owner," "For Sale By Neighbor," "Happy 60th Birthday," "It's a BOY," "It's a Girl," "Welcome to Vacation Bible School," and one house was even decorated with pink flamingoes.