Easter 2012

For Easter this year we decided to make a quick trip to Grandpa & Grandma's house and enjoy the holiday with family. The Easter Bunny came Friday night so everyone could enjoy their baskets Saturday!

The kids were way excited about their new buckets that had new DVDs and a few other fun play things and of course everyone enjoyed the candy (after breakfast of course)!

 Later that day we colored Easter eggs. Lexie was being silly and didn't want her picture taken so this was the best shot I got of coloring eggs.

 We took a drive up to white sands to roll the eggs, but a huge family just got to the main area of white sands and we had to just find a smaller side hill to do our Easter Egg Roll. Hoyt was more interested in the 4-wheeler than the eggs. 

 Lexie had a fun time rolling the eggs and playing in the sand! 

 I think the eggs were thrown more than rolled, but everyone had fun!

Hoyt had a great time exploring!

 Easter Sunday we went to church and the kids were not happy or cooperating so this is the best picture I got of them in their church clothes. After church and dinner we traveled the long round about way home (we can't wait for them to get the road finished so we can get to Grandpa & Grandma's house a lot faster)! 

We are so grateful for Easter and the time it gives us to reflect on our Savior, the Atonement and especially His Resurrection and the knowledge we have that we can all live again. One activity we did with the kids this year was make "Resurrection Rolls". Lexie still talks about that and I know she learned a lot from that small activity. It was a great weekend!

March

Honestly, for me March was a complete blur. These are the only pictures I took at the end of February and through March. I was extremely sick in the early stages of pregnancy and since I couldn't tell anyone I just suffered in silence and hoped our little family would survive a rough month or two. Luckily my kids are really good most of the time and enjoy playing together so we managed to survive March.

Hoyt started climbing out of his crib recently, so getting him to sleep has become much more difficult. At first he really wouldn't go down for naps so he would wear himself out until he just crashed and sometimes that would be on the floor. He now usually just comes and sits on the couch and goes to sleep when he is ready to nap then I go move him to his bed. He has also become very attached to his sports blanket or "kee kee" and sometimes we call him Linus because we can't leave home without the blankey.

This is the only picture we took of Lexie all month long, right after she woke up one morning. She is my sweet girl who is full of life and has a great imagination. She tests my imagination skills every night when I put her to bed and have to come up with new stories to tell her usually about princesses, animals, and whatever else she thinks would be good in a story. She is loving primary and enjoys scripture stories and has learned her first 4 articles of faith so far. She can write her name, Hoyt's name, and is learning to write all of her other letters too. She is learning to spell and it won't be long until she will be reading more than just a few words!

 This picture makes me smile. It shows just what an imagination Lexie has. She paired up a bunch of her stuffed animals to get married and here are all the happy couples.

Hoyt is such a silly boy. He loves hats or anything he can pretend is a hat and we were laughing that the basket looked like a horse-feeding bucket around his neck.

Hoyt loves to push around Lexie's shopping cart. This day it was funny because he had a lot of stuff piled into the cart and we were joking that he looked like a homeless kid with all of his belongings stuffed in there (and notice the blanket and cup of milk which are his two essentials in life).

I wish I could remember more details about March, but I really can't remember anything interesting happening. I will try to do better taking pictures and blogging in the coming months when I not sick 24 hours a day!

"Valentimes" Day

If you think I accidentally misspelled the title, you are wrong. Lexie has been looking forward to Valentine's Day (or as she calls it "Valentimes" Day) since before Christmas. Why, you ask? Well, her favorite show right now is Clifford the Big Red Dog and they have a Valentine episode that she really loves. Plus, her favorite color is pink so a holiday that has pink decorations gets major points from her. I wasn't really into it this year for some reason, but I still made it fun for the kids even if we didn't do anything big or super romantic as a couple. For FHE the day before V-day we made our traditional heart sugar cookies.

We didn't go all out on decorations, but Lexie had tons of fun helping me make the cookies and frosting them. Here she is with a dog bone cookie...like I said she's really into Clifford and she pretends to be a dog quite often so she asked me if she could cut out some dog bones with the hearts. I have a huge set of cookie cutters and just happened to have a cute little dog bone so she was in luck!

Some good decorating skills going on there!

Hoyt didn't really want anything to do with decorating...he just wanted to eat the cookie. Who can blame him? SOOOO YUMMY!

I decided to be a little festive for the kids on actual Valentine's Day so I made some heart pancakes for breakfast. I think they turned out pretty good without a mold or anything.

My cute little Valentines!

Because it had finally snowed again, Lexie begged Bryan to let her eat a homemade "Sno Shack". The kids really loved them!

The main thing Lexie wanted was a pink balloon. While Hoyt was napping, Lexie and I went on some errands and stopped at the SUU Bookstore for some ballons and a fudge heart I had them make for Bryan. I let Lexie pick the ballons and she got everyone their favorite colors: Pink for her, Yellow for Hoyt (she insists it is his favorite color), Purple for Mom, and Blue for Dad. I thought it was super cute she thought of getting everyone their favorite.

They were excited to open their Valentine gifts!

I got them each a new book and Disney Pixar movie. They loved them!

For dinner we also wanted to go simple so we made heart pizzas and ate them with strawberries and Sparkling Cider. It was a major hit with their kids since it was some of their favorite foods!

Bryan and I went simple this year and didn't really give gifts. We are trying to save money for things we need like a new car and also pay off our house as quickly as possible so we are trying to be careful what we spend on. We did exchange cards (and Bryan wrote me a nice poem) and gave each other our favorite bag of chocolates. I also got the fudge heart from the Bookstore that said "We Love You Daddy, Lexie & Hoyt" which Bryan enjoyed. He loves chocolate!

The only thing I really wanted was dinner at Olive Garden and since V-day was on a Tuesday we decided to wait and go to St. George Friday night for our family dinner date. Olive Garden was delicious and it is one restaurant our kids will eat everything and really enjoy the food. I know Lexie really had a great "Valentimes" Day and I did too!

A Sunbeam!

New Year's Day brought changes at church, beginning with our new early time which is a little tough since our kids are late risers. Bryan and I got a new primary class full of rambunctious 6-year-olds which should be interesting as always. Hoyt got put in a new Nursery class with new teachers and so far he seems to like going. The biggest change though, was Lexie finally gets to go to primary and be a Sunbeam! She didn't want me to take her picture after church so this is the best I got. She really likes her teacher and here she is with her "I Am a Child of God" crown.

Lexie is most excited to be in primary so she can sit on the stand and sing for the primary program...she really wanted to participate last year. I am helping her learn The Articles of Faith and she has the first 3 completely memorized and is now learning #4. We are excited to have a cute little Sunbeam in our house to brighten our lives!

Happy New Year!

This year our New Year's Eve was really low-key and I didn't even take pictures of the kids. Because it was on a Saturday night and we started 9 a.m. church the next morning we didn't do anything too spectacular. We went out and had some burgers and fries for dinner and the kids went to bed at their regular 8 p.m. I think next year we will do a party and count down at 9 before they go to bed, but they were both super tired and not up to doing much this year.

Bryan and I stayed up and watched the ball drop in New York which was 10:00 p.m. our time so we had our sparkling grape juice...

...and our New Year's kiss!

We started watching a movie, but I fell asleep 1/2 way through. After it was over we brushed our teeth, said prayers, and fell into bed. As I was falling asleep it turned 12 because I heard fireworks going off outside. I'm glad I didn't stay up any later because church came plenty early the next morning. I'm excited for the new year and looking forward to the good things it can bring. I know I probably won't keep any big resolutions this year, but each year I just try to make myself better and try harder every day. Happy 2012!!!