BFF's

Kayman loves his chocolate milk and loves to sit against a wall to drink it.  Jess wanted to join him today.  I usually have her drink out of "big girl" cup, but she really wanted to sit with Kayman.  These two are so cute together.  They love to mimic each other.  Jess is a great big sister!

Are we boring you?

Either the family is VERY boring at dinner time, or Jess was exhausted after a long day of jumping on the trampoline in 90 degree weather.  Yep, I said 90 degree weather.  We actually hit 91 yesterday, it was delightful!  I spent most of the day in planting flowers, tending the garden, and just enjoying the sun while the girls jumped on the trampoline and Kayman watched and played with Dallas and his ball.  Apparently Jess was pretty tired by the time evening came around.  She took a good 10 minute nap like this!  And she didn't even fall out of her chair!

For family night we had a fire in the back yard.  We roasted marshmallows and read a story out of the Friend.  It was a lot of fun to spend so much time outside!  We LOVE out yard and our fire pit!  S'mores anyone?!

Rain or Shine

We got the trampoline that I used to jump on as a kid from my parents a few weeks ago, and the girls can't stay off of it!  They love for me or Andy to bounce them high, and they really love to have a "water trampoline" as they call it.  We put the sprinkler under it while they jump.  We can't do it for too long though because I don't want to drown the grass under it, but today they were in luck!  It started raining shortly after I told them we had to turn the sprinkler off!  They were so excited to still get the water trampoline they wanted.

It was a little cold, so Jess came in for her snow hat, and Syd put her robe over her swim suit.  Rain or shine, these girls are jumping!  It came to an end for Jess when the rain started coming down really hard.  She just stood there crying and told me that ice was falling on her.  I am sure it wasn't hailing, but whatever it was hurt her bare skin.

I love how carefree these girls are.  They have so much fun together!  They are best friends and find so many fun things to do with each other.  I love watching them together.

Workin' in the dirt

I have spent the last few weeks in the yard doing lots of weeding and moving dirt.  The dirt out here where I live is pretty bad and needs lots of added nutrients each year.  I borrowed my parents truck and got 2 loads (4 yards) of compost from the land fill.  It is very inexpensive and it's great stuff.  Here is a picture of what the beds looked like before the compost was spread around...

And here are some shots afterward.  I love the dimension it creates.  The flowers really pop and it's much easier to keep the weeds under control.  Now I have a few bags of nutrimulch and steer manure to chop in and I will be done buying dirt for another year.  I never thought I would spend so much time and money on dirt!  It sure makes a difference and the yard has never looked better!

The lawn definitely needs some attention now, but here is the flower bed out front.  I LOVE spring!!!!

Shoot it up!

Andy and I bought a hand gun a few weeks ago at the gun show, and Andy bought an old Russian M44 that was used during WW2.  We went out shooting with one of Andy's buddies the other day to test them out.   

Here I am with the M44.  I did pretty good with this gun.  I hit my target about 60 yards away.  This thing sure has some kick to it!

This is the 9 we got at the gun show.  It is super small but definitely packs a good punch.  It was so fun to shoot!  Andy's parents took the kids for us so we could go out and do this.  It was a great morning and the kids had a great time with their Nana and Papa.

Finding the humor

I have had a terrible cold for the last week and have hardly had enough energy to get much done.  I did manager to get lots of yard work done, but the house was severely neglected. Nearly every room needed major attention.  So, today was my day dedicated to cleaning the house.  The girls were on board and helped wipe down the tables, mirrors, mop the floors and they both cleaned their rooms. 

With a toddler in the house, mopping isn't just grabbing the mop and the bucket of soapy water and going for it.  You first have to sweep up the 3 dustpans full of crumbs, playground mulch that made it way inside, cereal he threw on the floor during breakfast, and our fair share of dog hair.  After sweeping, I sweep again to be sure I got it all.  Moving the chairs (which REALLY need a good wipe down after all the sticky fingers have been all over them) out of the way...now we are ready to mop.  It's just a matter of waiting until nap time so I can do it without any casualties. 

Finally the time came when I was able to mop the floor.  I got it done in no time, and even mopped all the bathrooms and laundry room while I was at it.  Go me!  Then Kayman woke up.  In the mean time, Jessica decided she wanted a snack and got the container of fruit cocktail out of the fridge.  She is in a bad habit of not putting things back where they belong when she is finished with them, and Kayman usually finds them before they get put away.  Well, this is a classic case of that scenario.  This is what I found when I came downstairs...

Kayman had no problem with it, he got an easy snack!  The good thing is that I had just mopped the floor so I know it was clean.  The bad thing is that I JUST MOPPED THE FLOOR!!!!!  So, needless to say, I got to do it all over again.  

I am pretty strict about the kids cleaning up their own messes, so I asked Jess to pick up the fruit since she left it out.  She was fine with that, and I went upstairs to get Kayman cleaned up.  When I came back downstairs, Jess had grabbed the broom and swept all the fruit onto the dustpan.  She did her best to clean up the mess, I was so proud of her for figuring out the best way to clean it up on her own.  The only problem for me was that she swept it all the way to the wall before she was able to get it onto the dustpan.  The entire floor was sticky by the time she was done because she walked through it numerous times.  It was pretty cute to see how hard she was working and how proud she was that she got it cleaned up.  What a sweetheart!  Hopefully she will remember to put things away from now on!

P.S.  I realize that most of the pictures of Kayman are of him not dressed.  Really, I do dress him.  I swear he is always dressed, except for when he is in pictures!  I took his clothes off just prior to his nap due to the fact that he got into the swimming pool outside when it was not even 60 degrees!  He's nuts!

Baby Dancers

The girls had dance pictures yesterday.  They got such cute costumes and the girls love posing for the camera.  I am anxious to see how the professional pictures turn out.  Here are a few that we took at  home.  Aren't they just adorable?!

Stink Bug

Jessica found a stink bug in the garage and started yelling, "Mom, there's a stink bug in here, come and kill it!" I assured her it wouldn't hurt her. Then she said, "Oh yea, it only stinks up other bugs and animals, not people, uh mom." After watching it crawl around for a while, she started laughing hysterically. I looked back at her and she had a boot and was trying to smash it. Every time the boot would touch the bug, it would stick it's butt up in the air and Jess though that was so funny! Finally she smashed it and then said, "Mom, its tummy broke."

Heaven on Earth

The beauty this Temple radiates is indescribable.  After the last General Conference, I know I definitely need to get to the Temple more often than I do.  I am so grateful for the blessings the Temple offers, and for the opportunity I have to go there as often as I want.  What a beautiful place.  Andy took this incredible picture.  Gorgeous uh?!

Spring Blossoms

Spring is my favorite time of the year.  Isn't it beautiful?  Everything begins to come to life and show its beauty.  The colors fill my flower beds and the grass begins to turn green.  After a long cold winter, nothing is better than watching my bulbs emerge out of the soil.

The fragrance this one puts out is amazing!  I would love to bottle it up and make my house smell like this year round.  It makes me happy!

All the different colors together are just beautiful.  I wish the blooms would last longer than they do, but soon I will fill the beds with different flowers to last through the summer.  
Did I mention that I LOVE spring?

Braided head band

This is a new hair style I tried on Syd's hair on Easter.  It looked so pretty!  This is the best picture I got of it.  The braid goes all the way around her head and tucks up into the ponytail.  Just had to post it!

Easter Sunday

We went to church and then headed to the Temple for a few pictures of the family.  Here are the kids in a pretty tree I thought would be cool for a backdrop.  I am hoping my parents got a better picture than we did, Kayman didn't particularly like being wedged into the tree, and Jess doesn't cooperate too long for pictures.  I am pleased with what we got considering the moods of the kids.

On the steps of the St. George Temple.
Syd and Kayman.  She is such a great big sister!
Jess doing a spin jump off the flag pole stand.
Here is our family on Easter '09.  

Easter Fun

We colored Easter eggs with the kids.  Syd is the only one who actually likes to eat the hard boiled eggs, but we still did a bunch of them for the fun of it.  The girls had fun dying them, and Kayman had fun watching!

The Easter Egg hunt in Santa Clara.  It was a success!  The kids filled their baskets pretty full and, as you can see, Kayman enjoyed the candy.
They kids are happy with their finds.  It was a little rainy so we didn't stay for the activities, but got the candy we went there for! :)

Swingin' Syd!

We found the coolest new age park in St. George.  It has some amazing equipment that is so fun!  Syd and I played on this swing for a while and had a great time!  Syd loved that she got so high off the ground.  

This is a little bucket seat/spinner.  Syd spun around in there until she started to feel sick.  She is light enough I had to give her a push every once in a while.  When I sat in it I had a hard time stopping and got pretty dizzy pretty quick.  It would have been the best thing in the world as a kid!  I loved spinning around and around on playground equipment, but now it just makes me sick.  We spent a few hours at the park and I had so much fun watching the kids have the time of their lives! 

Krazy Kayman

Kayman's very favorite thing is to be outside.  He loves running around and finding treasures.  He rode this tricycle quite a bit when we were in St. George.  There was a compartment in the back that he hid all kinds of treasures in.

This is his new "picture face."  He is such a character!

Caught ya!  He loves to play in Dallas's water.  At least it was outside this time and not on the kitchen floor.
This is Kayman doing his "Happy Feet" dance.  My busy boy is so much fun!  Love you buddy!

Go Jess!

Jessica wanted to go outside and ride bikes, but the bike she wanted to ride was already being used by Kayman.  She was nervous to try the bike with training wheels because she has only ridden tricycles up until this point.  She got on it and within seconds she was going on her own!  Hopefully she will have the confidence to try without training wheels by the end of the summer!  Go Jess!

Wheeler Farm

We took advantage of a beautiful day last week and went to Wheeler Farm with some friends.  The kids really enjoyed feeding the ducks and horses.  There were some cute baby animals there.  I just love spring!  We all have spring fever so bad!

Here are the girls with their friends Jackson, Sarah Kate, and Maren.

The girls were watching the ducks and being silly.
I was a little nervous that the ducks would get irritated that the girls were chasing them and start pecking at them, but Jess bit the dust before that could happen.
We are all very excited for summer to get here.  Farms, Parks and Zoos, here we come!

Crafts gone bad

The girls and I had some friends over for crafts.  We didn't have much time before ballet class, so we did something fairly quick.  We decided the dragonfly would be good, simple, yet sparkly.

We got them done and the girls were playing with them.  They thought they were pretty fun. 

Syd then had a great idea!  She likes to experiment and was curious what would happen if she put them in the microwave.  I was out of the room at the time, and my friend walked up on them just in time to find the girls staring at the microwave with shocked looks on their faces.  I don't think they were expecting their dragonfly's to catch on fire!

They have learned that it's not a good idea to put anything but food in the microwave.  I wonder why I don't do crafts more often?!

Family Day

We had a great day home with the family today.  It is conference weekend and we all spent the day together.  It was wonderful to hear the words of those that lead our church, and I really enjoyed the talks.  It is so rewarding to hear the kids come in the room when the hear the voice of our beloved Prophet and say, "Look mom, it's President Monson!"  The only down side to Conference weekend is that Syd is devastated that we can't go to church!  She broke down crying before bed because she said she wants to go to church anyway.  I told her nobody would be there, that everyone is home with their family watching conference, and she kept crying.  Poor thing!  I am glad she enjoys church and the feeling she gets there.  She is a very spiritual little girl.

I got quite a few fun pictures of the day.  Everyone had a lot of fun, and Andy and I even got a few projects done that we have been meaning to do for a while.

Here is Kayman playing on the floor and eating a banana.  His diet right now consists of bananas, fruit of any kind really, cereal, and spaghetti.  Everything else gets either spit out or thrown across the room.  Little stinker!

Syd and Kayman were having a great time with this doll stroller. 
Jessica's classical "I want my picture taken, but I'm too hyper!" face!
Kayman would spend all day outside if he could, he LOVES being outside!  I wasn't too thrilled about the snow, and I especially didn't want to go out in it.  Lucky for me, Syd loves to entertain her brother.  She volunteered to pull him around on the sled for a while, which he loved!
Although he wasn't too sure about all the gear he had to put on to go outside.  In this picture, Kayman is looking at Andy and yelling for help.  He was mad at me for putting all that junk on him, but I am sure he appreciated it once he got outside.  
Syd and Jess got a bit of Spring Fever!  They got their swim suits on and wanted a waterslide outside.  I told them it's too cold for a waterslide, but they didn't seem to mind the temperature.  They just stepped into their boots and made a waterslide with the snow instead of the hose.  They are CRAZY!!!


So, you can see here that they did have their coats and snow pants outside.  I'm not that bad of a mother.  I do send them out into the snow with a coat on, I just can't guarantee they will keep it on!

Stuck again!

Kayman is always getting stuck in things lately.  I walked into the pantry and found him trying to get out of this box!  He just kept signing "please" so I would help him get out.  He thought he was pretty funny.  What a silly kid!

Don't Cry Over Spilled Milk

Kayman has been walking for about a month now, and is just starting to get into everything he can reach.  I was in the family room getting some work done when he started crying. (Kayman is crying about 50% of the time, so this didn't get me out of my seat too quickly.)  Syd went to check on him and this is what she found!  He can reach our stash of soy milk and he opened the lid and dug his finger through the seal.  He didn't realize it was going to send milk gushing out at him and he didn't know what to do!  He just stood there crying until I picked him up and cleaned him off.  It was pretty funny.  He just looked at me with that pitiful look you see below.  I am really glad he didn't start walking around and slip or something.  I have since moved the milk.

Kayman also learned how to climb onto the chairs the other day and this is his new favorite activity.  He just looks at me and smiles until I come and help him sit down.  He thinks he is so funny.  I have to admit though, he is pretty dang cute!

This photo just makes me happy.  I did have flowers in my yard a week ago, now they are all frozen and droopy, but this gives me hope for spring's return.  I can't wait for my tulips to bloom and get started on my garden!  I need some sun!

The Zoo

My friend and I went to the zoo one last time before my membership expired.  We went on a beautiful day!  We even got hot while we were there, pretty amazing considering this cold weather we are having now in Salt Lake.  So we didn't get any pictures of the animals, but a few of the kids.  

Kayman and Annabelle enjoyed the stroller ride, watching the animals and all the people.

Kayman really enjoyed the monkeys.  He was laughing at them the whole time, it was so cute!

Syd wanted to take a few pictures, so here I am.

This is Samantha taking pictures of Syd and Jess.  She got them all posed the way she wanted them and the girls thought it was great.  

We had a lot of fun and hopefully we will be going back soon!