Spring Break 2012

Spring Break was awesome this year!  It went by way to fast, I needed more time.  The first part of the week we had Allison and her crew here for about five days. 

 The kids played and played.  One day we did a scavenger hunt for family home evening.

 The kids had to look up various scriptures that told them where the next clue was. 

 Each clue had a prize, these are a few.  

 This is to give you an idea of how big Eli is.  He is the same size as Elleree.  He is two and she is four. 

 Aside from losing Beckett, and an assault on Rylie the visit was pretty uneventful. 

 We did some shopping.

 We cut out some patterns.

 But mostly we just hung out and spent time together.

No comments on how awesome I look! I think I need to always wear make us.
 I love seeing my sister.  I am going to miss her a ton when she moves, and I wont get to see her as often!

The last half of the week we drove to Grand Junction to visit some of our bestist friends the Nouna's.  They moved there about the same time we moved here.

 We went to this place called Banana's.  It was an arcade, miniature golf, bumper boats......  The kids got soaked on the bumper boats.  This is them trying to dry themselves off.

 Elleree liked the bouncy stuff.  They had this huge slid that she could go down.  She cracked me up.

 The older kids got board with the bouncy stuff real quick and soon moved on to miniature golf and other fun stuff.

Elleree is a good little poser. 

So her and Jason had a good time with my camera.

This one is my favorite though.  She got this fake phone from the arcade.  Jamie and Tanya's little girl Morgan would walk around pretending to talk to each other.  I love that she has her hand on her hip. 

Another day we went to Colorado National Monument.  It is only a few minutes from Grand Junction and has some great trails and sights.

We took a short hike, Beckett screamed for most of it.  I am going to get him comfortable using this pack that they gave us.  Even if it kills me, and everyone else around who has to listen to his screaming. 

There is my family with Independence rock in the background. 

Here is a picture of the boys and there pal's. We miss these guys so much.  It is so nice having such fabulous friends.  I realized that I didn't get any pictures of Jamie and Tanya.  I will just have to go and visit them again in their new house. They are moving to where Allison is moving from.  Small world.

Elleree's 4

That's right my baby girl turned four today.  Oh how time flies.  It was not that long ago that we brought her home from the hospital. 

 Then it was not long before we had to take her back to the hospital.  

Elleree got so sick, I thought she was going to die.  I have never been so scared in my life. 

 Thank goodness we got to take her home after only two weeks and she has never looked back.  Now she is four years old, and healthy as can be.

 Now for Elleree's cake, she had to have a Tangled cake and I could not let her down.  I think it turned out pretty well.

 Allison and her kids were able to be here, and my parents too.  A little pizza and Kool Aide, life is good.

 Dad looks pretty good right?  He of coarse couldn't have pizza so this is his chicken and fruit dinner, which he had to share with the kids.

 A very happy little lady.  What did you say, that cake looks freaking awesome.  Oh go on.

 She got a ton of Lalaloopsys from everyone and a house from us.  She love, love, loves them. 

 She played with them.

And played with them some more.  She had a great birthday.  

We love you sweet thing!

St. Patty's

Mostly I haven't posted lately, because I am a little frustrated with my camera myself and my abilities with my camera.  First of all I had some really cute pictures of Peyton's birthday party that we went to a couple of weeks ago, but apparently it matters whether you take your picture in RAW form or not. To make a long story even longer I can't put the pictures on my blog because I have no idea how to convert them.  Second, the pictures I do take I feel like a 2 year old could take them.  They are worse than if I had just used auto.  I have been reading a ton of things on ISO, aperture, shutter speed, white balance, and everything else.  As you can see by the following pictures, it is doing me no good.  

Anyway we had St. Patty's day and Jason went all out.

 He made green waffles, but you can't tell because I am such an awesome photographer.

 The kids loved them. 

 Isn't it funny how just the color of something can change how excited they get about things.

Jason also made us Corned Beef and Cabbage, which he has never had before little alone eaten.  I love it, but I never did like it when I was a kid and my mom would make it.  That is exactly what happened with my kids.  Of coarse they don't like anything, Jason wasn't a big fan either.

 Moving on, I had this great idea for a 4th of July wreath I was going to make.  I was going to dip paper stars into this Plasti Dip.  It coats anything in plastic.  It has some real potential I promise.

 But alas, I don't think it is going to turn out. 

 So then I just started dipping things in the stuff, like this cloth-pin.  Don't ask why, just go and try it yourself you will understand.  It reminds me of the time Jason go us some liquid nitrogen.  We spent hours freezing anything we could think of.  We would spit in it, put coins in it, what every we could think of.  It's just good fun.  So if you can think of something that needs dipped in plastic, just let me know!

My next project was cross-stitching this awesome dish towel.  It is my family, in case you were wondering.  Yeah, the guy that looks like a child molester/hippy is supposed to be Jason.  Beckett didn't turn out so great either, okay none of them did jeez.  I got these cute little patterns from here so I thought I would try them.  Not so much cute when I try to tweak them.  Oh well!

Like Siblings

 My cousin Darcie blessed her third child this last Sunday, so we decided to go.  I was sitting there during the blessing realizing how grateful I am for these cousins.  We are very close for cousins.  We grew up together, so sometimes it's more like they are siblings than cousins.  The only one missing was Betsy, who was the one I ran around most with growing up.

This is Darcie and her new baby Megan.  Poor Darcie just got her gallbladder out a couple of days before, and she was sick, so it wasn't too much fun for her.

 

 This is Douglas (Doug), he is the oldest, and like my big brother.  He is just like a teddy bear.  I love him.

 This is Garrett he is the baby, and the same age as my youngest brother.  He is awesome.

Travis is the middle child and a kick in the pants.  He is very sweet, and would do anything for you.  He sat with me for like an hour playing with my camera and showing me how to do some things.  Apparently you don't get a camera like mine just put it on Auto.  I guess you can do some pretty cool things with it.  Who knew?

 Here is my Auntie Kit.  She is like a second mom to me. Then my cute little grandma came too.  Since my grandpa passed away, she is just be-bopping all over the place.  She is in pretty good health, so I hope we see more of her. It was nice to just sit a shoot the breeze with all of them.    

 I know I haven't been doing many crafts.  I just haven't been in the mood.  But a couple of days ago I made this hard cover for my Kindle.  It is made out of  a book and washi tape.  I have decided I totally dig washi tape.

 It's not very pretty, but I made it up myself, without a tutorial, so I am proud of myself. Plus it's functional and that is all that matters.

 My other project has been these flip-flops.  I bought some really cheap ones, but I can't wear them because of the plastic thing, it always rubs on my toes and gives me blisters.  So normally I buy ones that are made of material, but they are also more expensive.  I came across this tutorial on Pintrest and decided to give it a try. I think they turned out pretty cute.

This is what they did look like.  Much better right?

Spring is in the Air

It has been warming up here, so the kids have wanted to play outside a lot.

 Beckett is L-O-V-E loving it.

 He has only ever seen Chewy out the window, so he is getting used to him.

 It is a good thing that Chewy is such a good natured dog.  He puts up with a lot. No that is not a bone, it is a piece of wood he carries around with him, and chews on.  He is a strange dog.

 Elleree is in this phase, she will only wear skirts everyday.  They rarely match her shirt or her tights so the look is lost.  I am one of those awesome moms that let their kids pick out their own cloths.  So we always look like white trash. But I figure, I have enough battles on my hands each day  to fight about what they want to wear.

 Elleree talked me into putting Beckett up with her on the swing.

 They both fell off after this picture was taken.

 Jason and I said we were going down to exercise.  This is what showed up.  Elleree decided she was going to exercise too.  I love the flip-flops.  I promise I don't look like this when I exercise.  I am a whole lot fatter, heehehhe.

Jason the "Old Man"

 Jason had his birthday!  No I will not tell you how old he is, and it isn't because I don't remember.  We invited his mom, dad and his sister Kristy up for the occasion.  Of coarse I didn't get any pictures of them, so you will just have to take my word for it.

 Elleree "helped" me decorate the cake.  I gave her her own piece, I think she did a better job than I did!

 I strapped Beckett in his chair and he just ate the cake while we decorated.

 Here is the final version.  It is supposed to be a tie, Elleree picked that out, but it looks more like a Dreidel.  Don't be jealous, with years of practice, you too could be this bad a decorating cakes!  By now you should be used to my ugly cakes.

 We had lots of noise makers.  Too many.

 Jason almost got all the candles blown out.

 He tried to make it look like a tie.  What a good sport he is.

 

 As always Jason had tons of help opening his presents.  I think it was a good birthday for him, at least I hope so. If not there is always next year.