Best of 2010 Regular everyday stuff

Some of my favorite moments of 2010 have been the simple everyday things

like the kids coming in to our room in the morning to snuggle and play

funny things they say and do while we are out running errands

I can't believe Kiera actually fell asleep like this.

or even playing outside on warm summer days. I thought it was pretty funny that Kiera thinks she needs her helmet on like her brother and sister who are riding bikes eventhough she is just walking around.

Let Summer Begin

Okay, Summer is almost over and I am just now posting about the start of our summer. I am a slacker I know. But from these posts you can see we have been quite busy. It is not all my fault, Eli just barely downloaded the pictures for me. He doesn't trust me to do it since one time I almost deleted some of them.

Kate graduated from pre-school at the end of May. She had a princess party and a graduation party at the dinosaur Park.

Kate and Ms. Debee

Daddy thought it was funny to feed the kids to the dinosaur.

Kate will be going to kindergarten in just a few weeks. I have very mixed feelings about this. I know she is so excited to learn new things and make new friends. I am looking forward to less fights between Kate and Beck, but it is hard to know I won't be there with her all the time anymore and that she is officially no longer a baby or a pre-schooler but a school aged child. Time goes by too fast. I just hope we can make lots of good memories to hold on to as the years fly by.

Summer Fun

This summer we have had swim lessons, dance class, an amusement park day, a vacation and many other fun things, but I thought it might be nice to post a few of the everyday summer things the kids enjoyed.

I bought a slip-n-slide on sale and I thought it would be fun for the kids, however they didn't seem to understand how they work.

Kiera loves digging in the dirt and she learned to climb the bolders in the back yard if necessary to gain access to her favorite past time.

She was so proud of herself and happy to be in the dirt.

Kate's favorite pastime is anything artistic. This girl will color all day long if you let her. I liked the crab she drew.

If she can't color then she will want to be artistic in other ways. Under the sea creatures by Kate.
Hopefully we can make the most of the few summer days we have left. We went to the park yesterday and we are going swimming tomorrow. I can't believe it is almost over.

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.