Spring Break..Day 1

Mom called this morning and asked if it would be okay if Cole came over for the day. It’s Spring Break for all the school kids here. We had a fun day with him! The boys enjoy playing with him, even if he can be somewhat of a tease sometimes, (I guess it’s payback for all those years I teased him! J) While Caleb took his nap, Cole and Jacob watched a movie while I ran to the store to pick up some things for a picnic lunch. At about 1:30 we met up with everyone at Merrill Park and had lunch while kids played. It was spring break for all the cousins, so everyone was there. After lunch we went on a little walk/hike along some fun trails near the Boise River. It was a little windy, but ended up being a perfect day for a walk. It was about a 15 minutes walk, and ended at the riverbank. So then we went out on the river bed rocks to play in the water. All the kids had a good time throwing rocks in the water. Caleb got a little too excited at the end, took a few steps out, lost his balance and fell down. He was soaked up to his chest. Luckily Aunt Tami had an extra sweatshirt so I stripped him down, changed his diaper & put him in the little sweatshirt. He was pretty happy to be nice and dry again. It was fun to spend time with all the cousins. Afterwards, we headed to Target to pick up a couple things & make some returns. Cole was helpful and pushed the boys around while I quickly tried on a skirt, (thinking of Easter outfits in advance) and helped me get them in their car seats. (I think life could be somewhat simpler having a 13 year old to be a good helper, but I’m sure there are plenty of other stresses that will come along with it!) We made it home just in time for Mom and Dad to stop by to pick Cole up. Jeff was home, but as post-call days go, he might as well be at the hospital because I don’t see him any more. He’s so tired he usually goes to bed and sleeps until the next morning; so tonight it was the boys and I having dinner together, followed by giving them baths & bedtime.

Week In Review

I’ve been slacking. It’s been a bit busy… Here are a few highlights of the past week.

March 20th Tuesday- Jeff was on long call again, 33 hour shift, (works Tuesday 7am to Wednesday 4pm). We had a regular day, decided to spend the night at Grandma & Grandpa Tanners. We went up and I made pizza dinner for everyone, yum. Chase asked Lacey to Prom. He put 650 balloons in her room. The boys loved it!! I think they were even more excited than Lacey. After putting the boys to bed, Mom and I watched “Pride & Prejudice” the shortened version of course. Dad even joined us for a while, it was fun!

March 22nd Thursday- It was Jeff’s day off so he rented a stump grinder & took out four stumps. It was a big job and he was working most of the day. Not much of a day off, but the yard sure looks better!

There was a reception night at the church for everyone to come and visit with/ say goodbye/etc to Dad & the old bishopric. The ward had bigger boundaries when Dad was put in and had been split a few times, so the original ward he was bishop of is now three different wards. So it was a good opportunity for others to come and visit. It was really nice with a pretty good turnout. Dad asked if we would come and take some pictures for them. I’m not the greatest photographer, but I had a good time visiting with everyone. The boys enjoyed the desserts and having fun!

March 23^rd Friday- During the afternoon, we met up with the Stevens Crew again. We went to the park near our house for some tennis. Between the 6 of us girls, we have some pretty good matches. We’ll switch up partners and trade off watching kids who are playing at the playground. The weather was perfect and we had a great time!

March 24^th Saturday- Jeff finished work at 2:30! Yea! We ran some errands, got a new front door. I made a quick trip to Target and found a couple shirts & pair of shoes. We went to the park together and played for a while before I needed to go home and get ready for the General Young Women’s Broadcast. It used to be a tradition to go with Mom & my sisters, but this is the first time I’ve been able to go with them in 5 years. The conference was great and we went out for ice cream afterwards! When I got home, Jeff had started the project of putting in the new front door…. A little unexpected. Oh well, we finished it around 10:30 and it looks great! Pictures will follow. I then was able to finish up things for my lesson.

March 25^th Sunday- Jeff is on long call again. (I swear it was just yesterday!) He works Sunday 7am until Monday 4pm. And I wonder why sometimes I feel like a single parent… Anyway, it was church by myself again, 3 of 4 weeks this month have been alone. It’s a bit interesting with the two boys during sacrament meeting, but this week went surprisingly well! Helped in nursery the 2^nd hour, and taught the lesson in Young Womens the 3^rd. After church we had lunch & I was able to get the boys down for naps, which means, I got one too! Yea! (I love 9:30 church!) Afterwards we made brownies & headed to Uncle Scott & Aunt Mandy’s for dinner. It was great and other than Jacob and Eliza making another one of their famous messes, it was quite relaxing. Afterwards we stopped by Grandma & Grandpa Stevens to say hi. We ended up staying for quite a while, playing games and having fun. We didn’t get home until pretty late, but I wasn’t in a huge hurry to head home yet again, to an empty house. It was actually a great Sunday, even though Jeff was gone. When I finally got to bed I was tired, but happy.

And here is just a random photo from about a week ago (before Caleb's bonk) that I love! I was cleaning up dinner and could hear the boys just laughing. When I went it to go see what was so funny, they were both on the tractor together driving it around. It was so funny.

Ouch

This is what happens when two busy boys play together & mom steps out of the room for “just a second” so it will be a little quieter while she makes a phone call to the doctor’s office to schedule *well-child visits*. Good thing their appointments aren’t for another month, hopefully the head will heal quickly! Of course these “accidents” happen just days before pictures are scheduled. Life with boys….never a dull moment! Good thing Caleb is tough, he cried for about 2 minutes, got a hug and was ready to go at it again!

Craving "Philly" Sweetness!

Happy 1^st day of spring! Today is a day I would love to be back in Philly! Every year the first day of spring means one thing…. Free Rita’s Day! For all of you who have never had the chance to experience Rita’s Water Ice, you are definitely missing out! Anyway, Rita’s celebrates the first day of the new season by giving out free water ice, ice cream, custard, and my personal favorite gelatis! (A water-ice with custard in the center) We usually had the tradition of going as a family, sometimes a couple times during the day. It was a great way to celebrate the coming of spring. So today I’ll enjoy being here in Idaho close to family and enjoying the west. Next year on the first day of spring we’ll be celebrating with Rita’s! Gotta love the little things in life!

YardWork

Tonight for Family Home Evening we worked outside as a family doing some yard work. It was really fun. We did a lot of raking, moving rocks & wood, and just trying to do things to get our yard finished. It’s crazy to think that we’ll be putting it up on the market in just a month. It’s been so fun to be here, I’m going to be sad to leave it. I think one of the things I’ll miss the most is our nice fenced-in backyard. It’s the perfect size for two little boys to run around and play, without me having to be there every minute to make sure they’re okay. They absolutely love it, and I’m sure they’ll have some withdrawals when we take them back to Philadelphia where they might have a small square of cement to play on. Oh well. Anyway, tonight was a lot of fun. Jacob and Caleb were good little helpers and helped Daddy carry wood from our back yard to the front. (We didn’t use as much in our fireplace this winter as expected, so we’ll take some to Grandma & Grandpa to use) They had a great time, and earned a well-needed bath!

Fun Family Weekend

This past weekend was a busy fun-filled family one. My Dad was released as Bishop this past Sunday, so the whole family got together. Grandma and Grandpa Tanner came into town Friday afternoon; luckily just in time to go to Lacey’s track meet! We were all there and had fun. Jacob and Caleb especially had a good time, having found a nice dirt pile to play in. Grandma Tanner also brought Jacob a present too, a little backpack with some animals in it. It was so funny, Jacob came over and said, “Mom, look at my new diaper bag!” We were all laughing at that one.

Saturday Kristie & Tom, and Houston came into town. Kristie had just gotten back from cheering for BYU at the NCAA tournament, and Houston had just driven up with a few of his friends. Saturday night we went up to Mom & Dad’s for dinner and visiting with everyone. I miss Kristie and Houston, I don’t see them as much as I’d like with them at college. So this weekend was really fun. We played some football and games & watched a movie later on. Jacob and Caleb loved all the attention, and having Uncle Houston and Aunt Kristie there too.

Sunday we all went to church together in my parents ward. It was a really nice meeting and so neat to hear all the testimonies. I was grateful we were able to be there with my Dad. After church we had a big lunch with everyone and enjoyed more time together. It was a beautiful day and so much fun. I’m really going to miss the little get-togethers. I think that’s what I enjoy the most about being near family, the ability to spend a lot of time together. It was sad to say goodbye to everyone again, but great to have had the time together.

Digital Cameras...One's Company, Two's Enough!

I love our camera. Jeff and I decided to upgrade about a year ago and got a digital SLR, the Nikon D50. It has been a dream camera! The photos are incredible; it takes great portrait pictures, regular snapshots, and continuous action shots. The quality and color of pictures is absolutely amazing. I have completely loved having it and learning more about it. The one downfall is that it isn’t a convenient camera to just whip out at the park, or take on little quick trips, etc. It’s pretty big and has a fairly large case that just feels like another bag I have to take around. Not to mention the fact that I don’t want to worry about it getting damaged or stolen all the time. So we decided to get another little camera that would meet the needs of an active, spur-of-the-moment, and sometimes dangerous (if you consider sand & water dangerousJ) lifestyle. After a lot of research, reviews, and pricing; we decided on the Canon A530. I know some people who have it and have loved it. The reviews are great and the price was just what I was wanting! Jeff actually got it brand new on ebay for $100. Can’t beat that! Anyway, it’s been awesome. It’s small and easily portable, yet not so fragile that I feel like it will break if I hold it too tight, and has a nice grip. The photo quality is still great with 5 mega pixels. And an added bonus is that it also takes movies; our D50 doesn’t do that. Perfect! I’ve been wanting a way to capture moments on film without having to get out both the camera and video camera. All in all, I’ve been very pleased. Now let’s just see if we can get this one to last through a couple years!

Go SpeedRacer...

Tonight for mutual we had a “Powder-Puff Pinewood Derby.” It was great. All the girls and leaders made pinewood derby cars, and tonight was the big race. There were some really creative and fun cars including a hot dog, limousine, cell phone, bug, etc. Everyone did pretty well too. Some girls borrowed brother’s cars and did great, others were lucky if their car crossed the finish line before stopping. It was great though, we were all laughing and we all had a good time! My car was the Watermelon Wedge. I don’t know much about what makes a car fast, Jeff was saying something about graphite… Anyway, I was impressed; my car ended up taking 3^rd place and I received the award for the “Yummiest Car” It was a great night!

Let the MADNESS Begin!!

So Jeff and I have this tradition… Every year since we’ve been married (this is our 5^th year) we’ve done the March Madness basketball brackets. I have to add that it was my idea. We look forward to it every year, maybe it’s something exciting to look forward to at the end of winter. Anyway, we both get brackets and fill them out. We keep them posted on the refrigerator along with an “official” bracket. And then the fun begins! We follow the games and keep updated with who’s winning. We highlight our correct team choices when a team wins, and have a point system for the brackets and keep our scores tallied. This continues through the three weeks or so that the tournament goes on. Now Jeff gets serious about it and reads up for weeks ahead about the teams, their games, etc. I’m more of a, “In one game anything can happen…” type, and just make guesses.

To make it more of a fun competition, we like to place little wagers. For example, last year, if I won, I was supposed to get two weeks of scrapbooking every night for 2 hours while Jeff took care of the kids, or cleaned up dinner etc; i.e. whatever he needed to do so I could scrapbook. Bummer I didn’t win last year.

Anyway, in the four years we’ve done it so far Jeff has won 1 time, we tied 1 time, and I’ve won twice. Lucky I guess. Anyway, this year I’m still trying to decide exactly what I’d like if I win. Last years wager was pretty good, but we have discussed doing bigger prizes; hmm… that new Cricut die-cutting machine is tempting! Anyway, we’ll see what happens. For now we’re finishing up filling out our brackets for our FHE adult activity. The first games are the 15^th & 16^th! Let the Madness Begin!!

Trucks & Fish

Jacob absolutely loves cars, trucks, etc. He plays with them constantly and even has a few that he has insisted on sleeping with. (It makes for an interesting night, however, when he wakes up in the middle of the night because he can’t find his little matchbox car) Anyway, one day he wanted me to play cars with him. Jacob and Caleb and I usually play cars pretty often, rolling them back and forth to each other on the hardwood floor. I needed to get a few things done, so I decided to get out some pretzels and show Jacob how to make roads and parking spaces with them. I don’t know whether that was a good thing or not. It has become one of his new favorite things, he loves to get pretzels and build roads and parking spaces for all his cars and trucks. The only problem is that Caleb likes to play the ‘Destructor’ and come and smash the pretzels when Jacob isn’t watching. (Or even sometimes when he is) Anyway, the broom has become an additional appendage to me. Oh well, Jacob sure has fun!

Caleb seems to have acquired a fascination for fish. Not sure exactly how that one came about. He gets so excited when he sees fish in books, pictures, etc. When we took the boys to ‘Happy Feet’ the other day, Caleb was excited about the penguins in the movies, but I almost think he was more excited whenever he saw the fish. He tells me excitedly, “Fish, fish!” To make it even better, he seems to have perfected the “Fish” lips look!

Daily Happenings

Yesterday was Jeff’s day off. And a well-deserved one too! Since he only gets 5 days off this month (we were excited he gets 5 this month, usually it’s only 4), we wanted to make the most of it. We decided to take the boys to a movie, they’ve been wanting to see “Happy Feet” so we went to the matinée showing and picked up some lunch along the way. The movie was pretty cute, didn’t turn out exactly the way I thought, but cute still.

Last night we went and played tennis with Scott & Mandy, and Janette & Mark, there were some clouds so it ended up getting dark sooner than expected. It’s a little hard to hit the ball when you can’t see it coming, but hey, it works to your advantage when you can hit it right at someone and they can’t see it coming right? (Not that I ever tried that…) Anyway, it was lots of fun and the kids enjoyed running around on the empty courts together.

This morning I took to the boys to the library for a class, and then we checked out some books and one DVD. Jacob decided the “Thomas the Tank” one looked exciting since he’s never seen it before.

We met up at the park again to play a little more tennis, since we didn’t really get a fill yesterday. We were a little late due to Caleb’s 2 hour nap, but I’ll take it! It was fun to visit, and once again Jacob and Caleb had fun playing on the play equipment and eating the bark. (just kidding)

Coming Tomorrow…. Lacey’s first track meet. I’m so excited!!!

Park Adventures

The past couple of days have been absolutely beautiful; nice and sunny with temperatures close to 70 degrees; perfect conditions to be outside! Yesterday we went to the park with Aunt Tami, Mandy, and Janette and cousins. It was a blast. We played at the park for a couple hours, enjoying snacks and a picnic lunch. The cousins have a blast together and thankfully there were no major incidents or injuries. I love being able to get outside. It’s great for me, and Jacob and Caleb live for it! Sometimes I think they get cabin fever worse than I do! Anyway, Caleb loved the little tunnel and some of the slides. Jacob enjoyed all the slides and being with his best buddies. After playing for a while, we went for a short walk to feed the ducks. That’s always a hit with the younger ones!

With Jeff being on call again last night, I didn’t really want to head home for an evening all by myself, so we packed up and went to Grandma and Grandpa Tanners. I made dinner for everyone, and we all enjoyed dinner and spending time together. This morning was the funeral for the three Walker children so my parents went to that. It was four hours long and I knew Jacob and Caleb wouldn’t make it through, so we opted out of that one. It’s nice today because Jeff is post call. He’s pretty tired and didn’t get much sleep, but we’ll have the rest of the day and tomorrow is his day off. So far we’re planning on tennis with family for an activity. It should be fun!

Happy March 1st!

I'm so excited that today is the first day of March. February usually starts to drag at the end, I can understand why it is the shortest month of the year, I don't think people can take more than 28 days of it! (Sorry all you late February birthdays out there!)
Even though the combination of the snow, rain, and hail made today less of a fresh start into a new month and more like a bad continuation of the old one, I am hopeful that we will soon be enjoying the warm(er) sunny weather that I've been dreaming of!
Here's to March, warmer weather, and kids feeling better! Yea!