Fun with the girls

The girls LOVE this car. They love being pushed around. They are not very good at sharing, though, and this is one of the rare pictures of them sharing the car. Cute girls!!

Zachary and the trick candles

The Layton family made Zachary a cake for his birthday this year. He wanted a chocolate cake with an '8' on it, so Joy so lovingly complied. Steve then purchased some trick candles for him to blow out. It was hilarious! He had no idea what was going on. He was so cute to watch.

SOOOO much harder than I thought

Taking pictures every day and posting is SOOOOO much harder than I thought. I am trying, I really am. I swear, this is going to get better. Just be patient with me in the meantime. :)

Two peas in a pod

As I was going through old pictures to post on the blog I came across this one of Zachary when he was two doing his 'O' mouth. I just about died...I quickly searched through my pictures and found the one of Kate making her 'O' mouth...twins I tell you! They are my children who look the most alike anyway and I just got a kick out of this side by side comparison.

Blast from the past

Okay - so I'm not so good at taking a picture every day. I need to work a little harder at it for sure. I'm not giving up though...baby steps. I decided that instead of just throwing the last 5 days down the drain I'm going to show you a blast from my past. The following pictures are all from our days in Idaho. It was a magical time for our family. My boys 'Camelot' for sure. We lived in a cul-de-sac and had AMAZING neighbors all the way around. The school was awesome and we did a lot of fun things as a family together. It really was a great time in our life.

Idaho, Boondocks, and Ben

The picture above shows two things of great importance. First, Ben, of course. We loved having Ben come visit us and we had a GREAT time every time he came. The second thing is the fabulous, amazing fort that is behind Ben. Darrel built that fort all by himself. The boys "helped" and that was their pride and joy in Idaho. They LOVED that fort. They slept on it in the summers, they played on it through all seasons. That fort was the most amazing thing about our backyard. Ever since we left Idaho my boys have missed that fort.

Okay, so I am posting pictures of myself, against my better judgement. I don't really like having my picture taken (then or now), but I wanted to document not only what my boys looked like but what I looked like also. I do love my boy's faces in these photos. They were SO cute!!

The picture above and the picture below were both taken at Boondocks in Idaho. We loved visiting Boondocks. My boys would play miniture golf mostly when we would go...it was cheap entertainment and took quite a while. :)

random school pictures

This first picture I took of Johnathan's class on the way to a fieldtrip. Where did they go you ask? Well, they went all the way to the high school (which was basically around the corner) for an agricultural field trip. One of the nice things about Idaho was they had a whole agricultural section dedicated in the high school. There were tractors, baby farm animals, and lots of other things for the kids to observe. I think it may have been a class project for the high school (looking back now) but the elementary kids loved it. It was fun to go with Johnathan on this fieldtrip. I took the liberty of using an arrow so you could find him easier in this photo :)

This other picture was taken at a Fall Festival that the elementary school put on. The elementary school did some really fun things when the boys were there and we always tried to go and enjoy the festivities. What fun!!

First Day of School

This was the first day of school for the boys...Alex in 3rd and Johnathan in 1st. I'm going to have to ask Alex what his teacher's name was, because for the life of me I can't remember it right now. Johnathan's teacher's name was Mrs. Alb. She ran a strict classroom and I loved it! The kids absolutely adored her. She has always been one of Johnathan's favorite teachers.

I love this next picture. The faces are priceless. I love Johnathan's grin and the fact that Alex is looking at Zachary. He's probably checking to see if Zachary was looking at me. I also am amazed at Zachary's hair. He was such a blond kid when he was younger and now has the same color of hair that the boys do. I love my boys!!

Danny and Amanda come to visit

We actually got quite a few visitors when we lived in Idaho. I don't remember specifically what brought Danny and Amanda up on this occasion, but we were always happy to see them and anyone who came to visit. Talk about blast from the past...Danny has hair in this photo!

Johnathan's kindergarten graduation

This is Johnathan during his kindergarten graduation. Look how cute he was :) I love the picture on the bottom. I think he just found me in the audience and he is telling the girl next to him which one I am...but you never know...he certainly looks mischievous in this picture!

the park

Danny and Amanda are lucky enough to live right beside a park. It was a beautiful weekend this past weekend and we walked the girls over to the park. (We actually took them right after Chuck-e-Cheese but I'm using this post as my Saturday post, because I don't think I took any pictures on Saturday). They are finally at a good age for the park. Kate doesn't eat the ground anymore and can finally do the stairs (crawling up them, but at least I don't feel like she's going to die trying to climb them). Anyway, fun day, fun times, loving this "winter" weather.

Chuck-e-Cheese

Today, Amanda needed to study so Danny and I took the girls to Chuck-e-Cheese. They loved it!! This ride that they're on was their favorite. They rode it over and over. Hazel was more adventurous than Kate with the other rides, but they both liked this one. They also loved the pizza. I love these girls together. They are so cute and so lucky to have each other. Kate is lucky because she will never have another sister, so Hazel will always be her cousin sister. They have such fun together.

Ben's Mission Call

My brother Ben opened his call tonight and was called to serve in the Mexico Culiacan Mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He reports to the Missionary Training Center in Provo, UT on June 13th. We love you Ben!! We are so proud of you!!

Uh Oh Kate...

Kate is currently at a difficult age. I literally follow her around and try to prevent messes. When I cannot prevent them at least I can get a picture, right? She put a hole in the brown rice bag and dumped it everywhere. I grabbed my camera as fast as I could because I figured I was going to have to clean it up anyway I might as well get a cute picture. And please excuse the different color socks. She brought them to me this morning to put on and I thought....why not? She is a funny, funny girl!

busy day

I had a busy day today. Thanks to Amanda I was able to spend the day at the Elementary School. We had Kindergarten Registration at the school today and I went in to help. We also had a PTA meeting that I led. It turns out that the school didn't end up needing my help for the Kindergarten registration so for part of my day I did this...I cut box tops. I was putting my elementary education degree to use! I am GREAT with scissors...ask anyone :)

Then, later that night I helped put together a baby shower for my friend, Cynthia, and her cute baby Emily. I wasn't able to stay very long (because I unfortunately double booked myself), but it was fun to plan and help set up the room for the party. This crib was part of a group gift we put together.

Cousin Bunko was the reason I double booked myself. We planned this a long time ago and I had forgotten that it was for this night. We had a blast!! I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. My cousins (and extended family) are hilarious!!! Thanks to Amanda for being my bunko model for the picture and a BIG thank you to my cousin Julie for hosting us, putting on a fabulous dinner, getting fun, fun prizes and letting us listen to your infectious laugh all night :)

funny

I know I still need to add a picture for today, but I have to write the funny thing that Zachary said this morning before I forget.

So, Zachary says to me this morning, "Mom, can I have lunch from home today?"

I said, "Sure, hon, what do you want? Is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich okay?"

And he says yes, so I go ahead and make the sandwich, put some crackers in a bag, find a treat, and add $0.30 to his lunchbag so he can buy a milk. Meanwhile, Zachary finds the lunch menu on the fridge and is trying to figure out what hot lunch is.

I take the menu from him and tell him that it's oriental something or other (I can't remember now) and he says, "Oh...I did not see that coming."

Then he asked me if he could save his at home lunch until tomorrow and I said, "Sure, except tomorrow is pizza day."

"What's tomorrow, tomorrow?" (his way of saying day after tomorrow) and I told him what it was.

Then he says, "What's tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow?" and I suggested that he just save his at home lunch for an after school snack. "Good idea mom" he says. Funny kid.

Today was SUCH a beautiful day. This has been such a mild winter. It has only snowed (so far) about three days this whole winter and it didn't stick for longer than 24 hours. I know that some in Utah are worried about the snow pack and the water levels. I hope that the big winter last year has left us some water for this year. I know I should be more concerned but I am loving this weather. It was 45 degrees today. Blue water, no clouds...so beautiful!

basketball

This is one of the things I got to do today. I got to go to the school and watch Zachary play in his basketball game. (A big thanks to Jennifer for taking pictures and sending them to me). I forgot my camera.

Zachary makes me laugh. He is pretty good at defense. He has yet to make a basket in a game, but he sure tries hard. The boys at this age aren't called on travelling, double dribbling, etc. So, there is a lot of that going on, but it's great stuff. I figure as long as he is having fun, and learning a sport, we're good. One of the things I love is that each boy is given a different color wristband. They are supposed to guard the player on the other team with the same color wristband. I think that is such a great idea. It really does help the boys figure out how to guard just one person.

I love watching my kids play!

Zachary's heart

Today about 10 minutes before Zachary was set to get on the bus I looked through his homework. I've been looking at it through the week, but for some reason I hadn't read Friday yet. Well, on Friday it says that the heart pieces are due. So I look at Zachary and say, "Zach, what are the heart pieces? Do we have them? Where are they?" He looks at me, runs downstairs and brings up a pink sheet of paper with a message attached. I guess I was supposed to cut the heart out, write things we love about Zachary on the heart, and turn it in today. The paper also says to be colorful and creative. Are you kidding me? I have 10 minutes to write things I love about Zach AND be colorful and creative? Ummm.....not happening. I told Zachary I would bring them to the school later and here I sit, with the project done, already having gone to the school once today and forgot them, and feeling guilty. I guess I'll be taking a trip to the school :)

the puzzle

Over Christmas Johnathan got a puzzle from Santa Clause. The puzzle that he received (above) is over a foot tall and more than three feet wide. Johnathan started the puzzle and then got frustrated with the puzzle. This puzzle was HARD!!! They should have puzzle ratings. I'm just sayin... Darrel and I spent hours and hours working on this puzzle. He made a firm committment never to do a puzzle again that was painted and didn't have firm lines. At the end, we weren't even looking at the puzzle piece color anymore - we had separated the pieces into shapes and were just putting it together based on the shape of the piece. Darrel and I really enjoy puzzles and I liked working on it with him, but oh. my. gosh. this was a hard puzzle to put together. You could stare at it for 30 minutes and put one piece in and feel such a sense of accomplishment :) I think everyone in the house put some of this puzzle together and that is why when we finally finished, we glued it together and it is now on the wall. We are proud of our puzzle.

Kate and her ear tubes

All our children have a history of ear infections. Two out of three boys had tubes. Alex had his tonsils and adnoids removed. Johnathan's ears were so bad that he had to have his eardrum re-cronstructed at one point. Needless to say, we have had our issues with ears through the years. Kate is no exception. After nine ear infections we finally got tubes. This is a picture of her before the surgery. I should have taken one after, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. She was SO sad and just wanted to be held.

I love how the gown is so big on her. We had to roll up the pants at the top and at the bottom. She is such a tiny thing. I LOVE it!!

Silly girl

You might get tired of seeing Kate in my 365 journey, but that is just how we roll right now. I am home alone with Kate a lot and I see her more than I see my boys. Don't worry, I won't neglect them, but I thought I would warn you :)

My view

The top picture is the view from the middle right window of the downstairs. The bottom picture is the view out the window - what I look at when I sit down at my computer. It is truly spectacular and the picture really doesn't do it justice. I took the bottom picture first to show the whole view and then the top picture to try and show you how cool it really is. They just uploaded opposite for some reason. So, here are my first two pictures of the 365 project that I'm taking on...wish me luck! :)

365

I'm gonna try it. I'm going to do it! I need to do this.

I am going to take the project 365 challenge on. I am going to take a picture a day for 365 days (one whole year) and put them on my blog. And I'm going to start right now.

I am absolutely HORRIFIC at journaling. I own maybe ten journals that each have two to three pages written in. It's pathetic for sure! This will be my way of journaling my year.

Growing up

My boys are growing up. Kate is too, but I feel it more right now with my boys. Alex is 15 and now has his driver's permit. Every time we get in the car he wants to drive :) I remember when I was that age and did the same thing. Alex loves working out and is getting some serious muscles to prove it. He works out at least three days a week for over an hour. He is a very dedicated kid. He is also teaching himself to play piano. He watches videos on how to play the songs he likes and then learns them. He is getting pretty good. Alex was on the golf team in the fall and really wants to make the soccer team this spring. My fingers are crossed for him.

Johnathan just had his 13th birthday, so now I have two teenagers in the house. Ack! It makes me feel so old. He is in junior high now and looks different than even the picture I just added to the side bar. He is so tall and slimming up a ton. He has almost caught Alex in height. He played soccer this fall and will again I'm sure.

Zachary is now in second grade. He will turn 8 in March and will be baptized. He will be my final son to be baptized. *sob, sniffle, sniffle* He is such a friendly kid and LOVES to play with his friends, or cousins. He also played soccer this past fall and is currently in basketball (which is very amusing to watch)

Kate is now almost 15 months old. She has been walking since she was almost a year old. She is starting to say animal sounds and says a few words. She LOVES her brothers (she has a special relationship with Alex), and loves to be around her Grammie and Grandaddy.

We have been blessed to make our home with my parents for the time being. It is a mutually beneficial relationship and we appreciate their generosity.

I know, it's a pretty short update, but I hope to start getting more frequent in my posts. It's one of my goals for the new year, so we'll see how well it goes.