Easter

 Easter weekend we enjoyed the sun. We spent the morning trying to teach Kaleb to ride his bike and then had a picnic at Wheeler Farm and figured the slightly sloped grass was a good place to practice on his bike.

Kaleb's getting close but we still have to keep practicing. We've been trying to teach him since kindergarten and it's been really hard for him. Anyone have any tips or tricks?

Ashton hung out on the grass as Matt and I took our turns running around with Kaleb on the bike.

Ashton was worn out after a long day on the playground.

Easter morning came and the boys had fun looking for eggs and checking out their Easter baskets.

Then it was off to Sunday dinner at my aunt and uncles house. It was hard keeping the kids out of the backyard until after we were done cleaning up dinner. There are only 4 little kids but my aunt hides 300+ eggs with candy, money and toys in them.

Ashton ended up with 3 buckets of eggs and I think Kaleb had 2. Unfortunately Easter didn't have such a great ending as my cousin Bryce was hit on his motorcycle but a guy that ran a red light. It was the first light out of my aunts neighborhood and luckily his sister was driving right behind him. So a bunch of the family ran down to help Bryce until the ambulance got there. So the night ended up at the hospital but I'm glad he wasn't hurt more than he was. He spent a week at IMC and has a long recovery.

Ashton wanted to take pictures of us, he loves playing with the camera. Although I finally had to hold it because most of his shots had just my nose or mouth in them.

I love all the hair tips I get from pinterest and have tried alot of them. One of my favorites is THIS hairstyle. It takes along time but gives you tons of volume. I had a really old curling iron that didn't get very hot so I bought one at Sally's that gets over 400 degrees hoping it would make it faster but it still took over an hour. So now that I had a hot curling iron I used it like a curling wand (although I didn't bother removing the clamp, no need to) and it only took me 15 minutes to do my hair. I love the loose curls and it was faster than using a straightener to curl it (which is my usual method) because I could take huge sections at a time. 

(My hair doesn't really look this red.)

 

This week Kaleb's soccer has started and my sister has been in the hospital because of a hip replacement she had. The boys love going to visit her and not just for the cookies and treats they supply although that's part of it. She's been a trooper even though she's been in quite a bit of pain. Hopefully she'll get to go home tomorrow and get some rest. She hasn't had much sleep with nurses and doctors coming in almost every hour even at night.

Next week is my birthday and I already know what Matt's getting me.  I get it on Saturday and I'm really excited so I'll have to post about it then.

Alligator's Are Cool

 Matt and the boys went to Colorado for most of Spring Break last week and they had a great time. They went swimming and this was one of their adventures at the alligator farm!

While at the alligator farm they held different lizards and snakes and one of them was a lizard gecko. Kaleb's been begging for a pet for years and we've failed at the fish thing so now we get to attempt lizard geckos as two of them came home with us tonight. They're just babies right now and in 9-12 months they should be adult sized. (Let's pray they make it that long, they live about 10-20 years) I'll try to take a picture to show you Deigo Change (Ashton's name, he wanted just 'change' since he changes but we convinced him to also come up with a first name and that could be his last name) and Spencer Snell (Kaleb wanted to name his Fast since he scampers around but then remembered Snell in German means 'fast' so Spencer Fast).

I missed them while they were gone but I stayed really busy and even planted a bunch of raspberries that I transplanted from my grandpa's garden in our backyard. (And I have the farmers tan to prove it!) I'm hoping for lots of raspberry picking this summer.

I can't believe it's April, I'm excited for:

• warmer weather
• dinner's outside
• grilling
• camping
• s'mores
• longer days

...not as excited for:

• weeding
• mowing
• basically...yard work

 

March

After not being able to find my camera charger for the last month I finally ordered a new one. I'm sure the old one will show up any day now that I don't need it! But at least I can take pictures again.

The beginning of March Kaleb came home with a sign-up sheet for wrestling and begged us to let him do it. Out of all of the sports out there I never imagined Kaleb would want to wrestle. He's pretty sensitive and I wasn't sure how he would handle it since sometimes you do get hurt. Matt wrestled in high school and so Matt showed him a little of how to do it and what you do and Kaleb was ready to start. 

Matt took Kaleb and Ashton to sign-up since we figured Ashton would love to wrestle and they allowed preschoolers to sign-up. Surprisingly, the kid who loves to beat up and wrestle with his dad and brother said he was too scared so Matt didn't sign him up. Why spend the money if he doesn't want to do it.

Kaleb has really improved and his last matches at the tournament yesterday were his best. He does great getting out of holds and is learning how to move quicker. We only had tears at one practice when the kid smacked him across the face pretty hard but other than that he's been handling it pretty good knowing that sometimes you get hurt but that's the nature of the sport.

It's been a crazy month with wrestling 3 times a week and in between we're helping my dad remodel a condo. Actually, I haven't been much help but Matt's tried to help where he can. Tonight we'll go pick-up the kitchen cabinets from Ikea and hopefully get them all installed tomorrow.

Ashton's Birthday

 Ashton had a great 4th birthday in January. He wanted a Star War's cake and my aunt and uncle picked up an awesome Clone Wars cake for him. He still talks about how cool the cake was. 

 

On his birthday Ashton took his birthday money and gift card and picked out some toys at the store. Then on Sunday with family we had cake and ice cream and he opened more presents. He was so excited and kept squealing when he opened a new Star Wars ship.

I can't believe he's 4! Lately Ashton has been wanting to be carried around and before his birthday I told him when he turned 4 he was too big to be carried. He was kind of sad that we wouldn't pick him up anymore. He asked Matt to hold him on his birthday and Matt said he couldn't because he was too big. Later he came to me and asked me and not thinking about it I picked him and he said, "Look, you can hold me, I'm not too big anymore. But daddy can't carry me anymore." 

Monday our whole family went to the Jazz game for my mom's 50th birthday. Ashton wasn't a fan of the noise but he wouldn't keep his ear plugs in. Kaleb loved the game and would scream, cheer, and dance. We were glad they pulled out a win after being behind for most of the game.

We did finish remodeling my parents basement rental last week and it was nice to finally finish. It has a small kitchen but it was still alot of work. It made me think twice about ever wanting to remodel my own kitchen.

Christmas did happen at our house...

It's been a crazy month for us with the holiday's and helping my parents with their basement. We should be done in a day or two and life will get back to normal.


This is a scanned picture from our ward Christmas Brunch.

We had Christmas Eve at our house and the turkey was the best I've ever had. No wonder this turkey recipe is the #1 recipe on food networks web-site, it's awesome. We had yummy food and great company. My uncle Glenn made Kaleb this frame with a sharks mouth and also a box with a skeleton from a mouse that he preserved/prepared himself. Kaleb loves stuff like this and thought it was pretty cool. (Not sure what my dad and Glenn are talking about in the background :)

I took a peek after Santa came to take a picture of the presents.

Santa left a note in our advent calendar for the boys that said he had left one more surprise for them downstairs by their tree.

 

Our church didn't start until 11am and so the boys had plenty of time to open their presents.

  

There were plenty of Lego's!

 

After presents we were off to church. My family came to our sacrament meeting since I was singing in the choir and then my sister spoke in her ward which is also in our building at 1pm so my parents and I went to her sacrament meeting too. The boys wouldn't have made it through 2 sacrament meetings so Matt volunteered to stay home with them. Then we were off to my aunt and uncles for dinner. This was the best picture I could get with the boys and I. Don't ask me what Ashton's hair is doing?

The boys wanted to take a picture of Matt and I and after many failed attempts Matt took one. We didn't really get presents for each other this year since there wasn't anything we needed and we love spoiling the boys more than ourselves but I guess it's a good thing because we ended up buying a new car shortly after Christmas. And not because we wanted to, it's a long story but we love our Chevy Traverse and we hope (cross fingers) that it will last longer than our last car!