Amusement Park Day

Every year my husband's work sponsors a day at the local amusement park. The kids love it more and more each year as they get older and are able to do more.

I think my favorite was going on the Odyssey with Kate. I let her have the controls and she did a pretty good job of getting us wet. I think the Bat and the Odyssey were her favorite rides.

Beck did better than I expected. He went on the Dinosaur Drop and even the Tidal Wave.

Kiera loved the carousel and the train and had a good nap.

One thing that was better this year was that we went earlier and left earlier, so it was not such a long overwhelming day.

Yellowstone

I have a lot of fond memories of Yellowstone and Island Park from my Childhood, so I wanted to try to re-create some of that for my kids.

I wanted to visit Big Springs and show the kids how big the fish can get there and let them feed them from the bridge. Unfortunately the seagulls got most of the bread, next time I'll just bring change for the fish food machines.

Another one of my favorite things was floating the Henry's Fork River to Mack's Inn, so I really wanted my kids to experience it too.

Kiera hated her life jacket, but eventually she got comfortable enough to fall asleep.

It was a lot of walking and our stroller got a flat tire at Mammoth. Eli and I took turns carrying the kids and we had to skip some of it because it was too many stairs with the small kids and strollers. We saw just about everything we wanted to though, but the kids were not as excited to see hot pools and geisers as I thought they would be. It was much hotter than I remember yellowstone being since it was 89 degrees and the afternoon thundershowers were a welcome relief. Kate had like 15 mosquito bites at one time. It was also windy and bright which made their eyes water and then they would get sunscreen in their eyes. Beck had quite a few melt downs and we teased that the Beck geiser was about to go off again. Eli has a pretty funny video maybe I can figure out a way to post. it.

On the way home we drove through Teton National Park and Jackson Hole. We planned to do some activities there as well but we were too worn out and didn't have enough time. We will have to plan a trip sometime just to visit Jackson. We did get to visit my brother-in-law Hyrum who was working at Camp New Fork. Eli was really excited because he worked there too as a teenager.

I hadn't been to Yellowstone in 17 years and so I was glad we could fit in a family vacation this summer.

Happy Easter

Well this year was the coldest easter I think I have had since I have had kids. We had to have an indoor easter egg hunt since we had too much snow still left from the last storm. It was weird since Easter was in April this year and it was colder than it had been in March. It seems like mother nature got the months mixed up. We woke up yesterday to another 4 or more inches.

Here is a picture of the kids anticipating Easter back in March before all the snow, This chalk drawing showed up on our driveway and the kids were convinced that the Easter bunny had stopped by to draw a picture of himself. They came up with that one all on their own.












Here is Kate's version of the Easter bunny.






Here is Beck's Easter Bunny.





We decided to make some Easter treats cookies and rice crispys. Kate said decorating the cookies was funner than Disneyland. Kids are easy to please.












we even tried some chocolate covered ones.

Here are Kate and Beck with their favorite eggs. They had a lot of fun with the monster eggs and now they want to use the left overs to decorate pumpkins in the fall.












It was a nice Easter and the kids didn't seem to mind the indoor egg hunt. We had a nice family home evening about the true meaning of Easter and it is amazing how much they pick up and remember at such a young age. We also have been reading 3 Nephi in the book of mormon. Kate asked me if people will still celebrate birthdays after they die and are resurrected? It is funny how kids interpret everything according to how it impacts them.

Birthday Bonanza

Since I posted last I have celebrated all three of my kids birthdays. Kate tuned five, Beck is now three and Kiera is one. It was stressful planning and baking for three birthdays plus Valentines and Easter, but it is kind of nice to be done for awhile.

Here are some pictures from Kate's Princess and frog birthday party.






This game was a hit. The girls played it like three times. They also played a princess/frog version of duck duck goose which has been Kate's favorite game lately.


I saw the idea for these cute blow out on the family fun website.


Beck had a race track cake for one of the family parties. It was also from the family fun website.



Here is one of Beck's birthday presents. He loves to dress up.



For another family party I did a volcano with toy dinosaurs surrounding it. It didn't look as nice, but it still tasted good.

I just have to include this picture. I just think it is cute. He is getting to be a big boy and already thinks he knows better than mom. I have to pick my battles and naps is not one I have picked to fight since his body will take it when he needs it.





Kiera wouldn't eat her cake, but she loved to squish it between her fingers.



She did however, enjoy the cake she was given at her siblings family birthday party. I think the fact that it was chocolate made all the difference. She may look like dad, but when it comes to chocolate she takes after mom.

Almost 3 years

Beck is almost 3 years old and he cracks me up several times a day. Here are a few funny things Beck has been saying lately.

Ba-scare-a-kis = Asparagus

cookie sugar = Brown Sugar

Mom: "What do you want for breakfast?"

Beck: "Gum"

Mom: Beck I need you to . . .

Beck: "Worry about yourself mom"

Beck: "What day is it?"

Mom: "Tuesday"

Beck: "Oh, that is my favorite day!"

Beck: "Dad is my best friend"

Beck: "You're the best momma in the whole wide world" although yesterday I was a "bad momma". He is pretty temperamental sometimes and cries at the drop of a hat. sometimes it is exhausting, but other times it reminds me that he still is a little baby inside and it is kind of endearing.

Lately Beck has been saying ". . . coming your way"

It might be "Super Beck coming your way" or

"Kiera, potatoes coming your way".

I love this age and all the funny things they come up with. Like how he likes to write shopping lists for me. The one thing that I am getting sick of though is the potty language. Kate didn't seem to go through this phase and I don't know if most boys are like this, but Beck loves to say poop. He likes to announce very loud in public or not all of his bodily functions and anyone elses. I guess the annoying and embarrassing moments are worth it to enjoy the cute and endearing moments at this stage.

The Best of 2009

Before I get into my top ten for 2009, I would like to apologize for being such a slacker during the holidays. Many of my wonderful friends and family members took the time to send Christmas cards and letters and I never responded back or made a Christmas card/letter a priority. I love getting updates from everyone and I had every intention of doing the same, but it just did not happen. Please don't cross me off your Christmas card list and hopefully next year I will do better. I thought I would post a 2009 top ten list to take the place of my update Christmas letter.

These are what I consider to be the highlights of 2009 for me and my family. Some of the things are big events, and some are a culmination of a month of events and some made the list because they helped me enjoy all the precious little moments in life.

10. Finally getting Beck potty trained. He still has some accidents when he gets so busy playing and just doesn't notice he needs to go, but he does pretty good.

9. Kate entering pre-school. She loves it and it has been much easier for me to run errands with only two kids instead of three. She has a lot of fun field trips that we wouldn't be able to do as a family without the pre-school organizing it and they had a fun Christmas program. Pre-school also highlighted one of Kate's hidden talents-singing. She really enjoys singing and does really well memorizing and keeping the tune of songs.

8. Eli's new job. He still works for the same company, but has gone from software engineer to management which has been his goal for a very long time. I am proud of all he accomplishes in his profession and am happy to support him in his next goal of getting an MBA.

7. Finally getting our basement finished. Okay it is not 100% complete since we are still working on the bathroom, but the playroom has been such an improvement. It is much easier to contain the toys in one central location instead of having them take up my entire living space and to have a little more peace and quiet.

4-6 I am having a hard time putting these in order because they were pretty similar. I really enjoyed halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. Each of the holidays were tons of small moments that made for a month of fun memories.

Halloween included going to the pumpkin patch, Mickey's trick-or-treat party, and halloween themed fireworks at Disneyland, in addition to the regular halloween activities.

Thanksgiving was another road trip to Denver and even though it was shorter in duration it was also jam packed with fun little activities and some much needed couple time.

Christmas is the best when you have little kids. Everything was great including nativity plays, visiting Santa, Christmas parties, making treats, eating treats and especially spending time with family. If I had to have my life be the same everyday like it was in the movie Groundhog Day I would want to relive October-December of 2009 over and over.

3. Family Vacation to San Diego and Disneyland. It was so fun and I am so excited for all the future vacations. This picture my husband took on his phone and I never saw it until now. I think this is Kate right before the big hill on Splash Mountain.

2. The birth of my nephew Roman. What a cutie. We waited a long time for his arrival and we are so happy he is here and healthy.

1. The birth of my third baby and second daughter. I love her so much and consider myself so lucky to be her mom. I am so happy that she is healthy and learning so much every day. I can't get enough of her and sometimes I don't even want to put her down to bed at night.

2009 was a wonderful year and I am looking forward to 2010. Hopefully I will be better at managing my time and hopefully there will be a little less of me in 2010 than there was in 2009. It is definitely time to lose that "baby" weight now that she is 9 months old. Time to develop some self-discipline.

Christmas

Christmas was great. I really enjoyed having my young kids and fed off their excitement. I think they all got what they wanted. Here is a picture of Kiera with all she wanted for Christmas. . . her 2 front teeth. She has been smiling to show off her teeth ever since she got them. The top two shouldn't be too much longer either.

I think she is my most active baby and she army crawls like a pro. She has also learned a new trick of pulling herself up on the bottom stair and can even get one knee up. This freaks me out because she is way too young to be climbing stairs. I am starting her on table food but she seems to be much happier with baby food or food she can find on the floor under the table. I think she may have some food allergies and I will probably have her tested soon. Beck recently had his yearly skin test and it was very positive again. The hive for his cashew was like two quarters sitting next to each other. Pretty shocking. He has never had a hive quite that big.