Spring Vacation!

We took our kids for their first trip to Utah. Ethan got Baptized the first week of March and I thought it would be so fun to take him to Temple Square, and many of the other great things there are to do in SLC. So we figured out how to make it work ($ wise) and went for it. My wonderful Aunt and Uncle put up with us! We also got to visit one of my great friends and Larry's Brother Lance while we were out there. I will post a few of our outings so you can see some of the fun we had! Thank goodness for TV's and head phones!!! I don't know how our parents handled 14 hour car rides..... oh wait it is all coming back to me. "DO YOU WANT ME TO PULL THIS CAR OVER!" Luckily we didn't have any complaining or much fighting in the car. If there was an argument it was over which movie to put in but even those were very short lived! They really traveled well. This is our boys in Heaven! They are both in love with Dinosaurs. Brock a little more then Ethan. Brock eats, sleeps, and breathes dinos! This museum was a must. We all really liked it! I was amazed at how many there were! It was really cool.

I just loved this picture of Larry feeding Amelia to the Utahraptor! He did it to the rest of the kids she just made the best face!

I think this may be showing us Brock's future! He was in heaven in the dino dig! He had so much fun there he could have spent the rest of the day! I can imagine him on a real dino dig some day!

Right next to the Dino Museum there was Farm Country. Which was heaven for the girls. Hayden loved all the animals! She would squeal and get so excited each time she saw an animal. Amelia loved the pony rides and would have stayed there all week. But we got her a tiny stuffed pony at the gift shop that she quickly named Chocolate chip. They didn't part the rest of the week. (She even woke me crying in the night one night because she couldn't find her, she was only in the sheets!)We went to This is the Place. It was so cute when we were walking around the pioneer village Brock said, "Mom this is cool! I thought it was going to be boring!" I was glad that we went even though they weren't open for activities! But we could still look around at everything!

We took the kids to walk around the temple. While we walked around we ran into some friends that use to live in our ward here in Monmouth that now live in my parents ward in Prineville! How crazy is that! It had snowed that morning! It ended up being really beautiful that afternoon! But we were all in awe of the beauty of the temple! I never stop being amazed at the sacrifice made to build this beautiful House of the Lord! I also got to go inside this temple for the first time on this trip and could hardly believe the beauty inside! And I walked where Jesus walked that day!This was one of the highlights for Ethan. He was so excited to see the big organ! He really wanted to get closer but they were getting everything ready for YW conference so we couldn't get very close. He still thought it was pretty amazing!

I was looking forward to this part with my kids. I knew they would love to see the statue of Christ. The walk up to it they were so quiet and kept saying were going in to Heaven. It was so sweet!

We saw this statue of Joseph Smith just before we went to see the movie about him. I wasn't sure how much of the movie the kids would get but it definitely left a mark on our boys! I know that even thought they are 8 and 6 (almost) they felt the spirit and could see what an amazing man Joseph Smith was. They had lots to say about it, and lots of questions. But it opened it up for us to explain a lot and they came away with more knowledge then I thought they would.

When in SLC you gotta take a picture here! I think it is required! We watched a bride and groom go first and while we were waiting we bumped into a Sister from our ward who is serving a mission there in the Church office building! What a small world it really is!

We had a great time and traveled well. I am so glad that we went and I know the kids are too!

Easter!

So I am a little late posting my Easter pictures but forgive me we left as soon as the ham was eaten for our first ever Spring break vacation. Usually we only do one vacation in the summer (which is camping and water skiing!) but this year we or I decided it was about time our kids see Utah and I wanted to do it before it was HOT! So we went for spring break (IT SNOWED!). I will post that later. But first pictures of my 4 cuties in their Easter best!

Clean cars!

This last weekend I cleaned out the inside of our van. This is the vehicle I drive everywhere, with my 4 kids! We go to and from school, the store, church..... you get the picture! This exact word is often the problem in my car PICTURE! At school, preschool and at church my kids are always coloring and doing projects and they bring them in the car. When we get home I always say. Get you stuff out of the car! I am busy unloading the baby and my gear (although I typically keep a diaper bag packed in the car for ease) but none the less I get the baby in and out and often the dog too! So I try to make the kids responsible for their own stuff.... Apparently I have failed! My car is more often then not a rolling garbage can and my husband is sick of it! So I cleaned 6 coats (2 my husbands), 8 pairs of socks (mostly the babies), a bag full of toys and books, and 2 garbage bags of trash out Saturday. No I am not exaggerating and, yes that embarrasses me! But "DON'T YOU JUDGE ME!" (that was for all you Earl fans out there!) My husband was disgusted and said "NO one else has this problem!" I quickly told him I was not the only mom in the world who struggles with this so please back me up on this and vote on my poll! I just have to see if I am alone! Julie Clarke if you are reading this you can't vote because I think he is referring to you when he said no one else has this problem!

St. Patty's Day!

Yesterday was St. Patricks day. Which to me is not really a holiday at all but it gives me a good excuse to do something fun for my kids. For several years we have had the tradition of having a green dinner on St. Patricks day (just like our red dinner on Valentines day) Usually I do something that requires a white sauce and just add food coloring. But this year I didn't have the energy to do something from scratch. So I thought I would make Wiener wraps and turn the wrap part green I bought Guacamole chips, and cabbage (oh and green Kool-Aid!) I know I know not the best food choices! Don't you judge me! I was just trying to have fun with my kids. They loved it, I ended up with very green fingers, and and we topped it off with what else Mint Chocolate chip ice cream! (dessert is usually only on Sunday but I couldn't pass it up!) So I though I might share a few pictures of our meal! YUMM!

9 Year's Together!!!

Larry and I have our 9th anniversary next week. The 20th to be exact. I have been thinking for a long time that I wanted to do something special for him on the blog and I thought now I had a good idea and I wanted to share it. I have recently realized more then ever how much I love Larry. Not that I ever didn't (who wouldn't!) but I think maybe my feelings are stronger, I am more in touch with them, or watching some of the other things going on around me have made me appreciate him and see all that I have to be thankful for. These things also have made me realize how lucky I am to be a mother and how much I do love my children. I have fallen in love with being a mother again (I always wanted to be one and have always loved it but sometimes I think we all struggle enjoying it!) But I am enjoying it and trying to take more time to show them how much I really love them and how much I love being their mother! I truly am blessed and am so happy to be on this journey with the love of my life Larry! He makes a wonderful partner and father!!! Lucky Me! So I hope you enjoy my little video it is mostly for Larry but I am willing to share it with everyone else since it has taken me SOOOOO long to make it! Please excuse the fact that there are lots of my old scrapbook pages, and pictures that I tore out of my scrapbook and scanned in so they aren't all perfect photos but it was the best I could do since we have only been digital for the last 2 years. And the repeats of photos was an accident as well as the ones that are out of order. I can only do so much with the computer. So please forgive the mistakes and enjoy it anyway!
http://www.onetruemedia.com/my_shared?z=22980b0ef8e98fd9b6e504&utm_source=otm&utm_medium=text_url

Larry's Birthday Pressent!

So Larry's birthday was last month.... But he and I just made a big purchase that we are pretty excited about! We bought my brother's truck and he brought it to us on Ethan's birthday when they came for the baptism. It was very exciting for all of us. The kids could hardly wait to play in it! My brother was a little sad to part with it not that we can blame him! We are looking forward to driving it for a long long long long long long time. Did I mention that we are going to drive this for a while? We can't wait to take it camping!

The Party!

Here are a few shots of Ethan's

Lego party we had the day before his actual birthday. I just wanted the day of his baptism to be special and

for the baptism to be the focus not the party so we did them on separate days. We had a lot of family

over on his birthday after the baptism too.

You can see his face when he opened a new Dr. Seuss book from Brock and Amelia. He is Ethan's favorite author and was thrilled to add to his collection (gotta love it when they are that easy to please!) He also got some much wanted Pokemon cards (mom and dad won't buy them for him but luckily his friend came through!!! We bought him a new suit to wear to his baptism (and to church) along with a new red CTR tie (that matches his dad's!) and later that night we remembered we had gotten hims a CTR pocket knife! He was thrilled with this one and Brock's eyes were huge over that one! He now can't wait to be 8 so he can get a CTR pocket knife too! Grandma and Grandpa Workman got him a new set of scriptures with his name on them, a CTR scripture case, scripture pencils, and a lego set (gotta have fun too!) Grandma and Grandpa Davis got him a really nice CTR ring!

Here are a few of my very first scrapbook pages! I know I know I am not really proud of them but I am glad I did them even wayyyy back then! This first one is Ethan at only 2 weeks old! He was so tiny!

This is a page of all different ages but still very tiny! As you can see the limp neck! But what an angel! I was so in love with that baby! (I still am!)Here is Ethan and I on his blessing day! Who is that young lady holding my baby! (His blessing outfit was made by my mom out of some of the left over satin from my wedding dress! Don't worry there was plenty left to make a dress for the girls!This is Ethan really close to his first birthday! Good to see he was punny long! He was defiantly my chunkiest chunk! Hayden was a very very close second!!!! (Funny how my fastest eaters were my fatest babies!)

It's great to be 8!

Saturday was Ethan's 8th Birthday! He got to turn 8 on the 8th of the year 2008! What a day and just to make it a little more special he got to be baptized on his special day! He was very excited about his day! It was a really special day too, my parents, brother and his family all drove 3 hours to get here in time for the baptism, stayed for lunch and cake and then drove 3 more hours back to their stake conference meetings! It was so nice of them to do that! I know it meant a lot to us to have them here! Larry's parents and Grandma came and there were lots and lots of great people from the ward there to support him and his friend Joshua got to be baptized together! It was a lot of fun that way for them! I am going to post a few pictures of him when he was a baby if I can get it to work. He was such a sweet little baby and I can hardly believe that he is old enough to be baptized. I have been planning and thinking of how this day would be for a long time and I can hardly believe it has come and gone! My little boy is growing up!!!!

My Fix it shop!

Many of you know that I have a husband with some amazing "skills!" he has fixing skills like crazy! He can fix just about anything! Today I backed out of our garage and there was a puddle of something and he was looking at it and when I got back I told him our break light just came on! Needless to say he had to do a major break job on our van because it was leaking something.... blah blah a bunch of stuff I don't understand. So instead of spending over $400 at Les Schuab (who we do love for lots of things!) but breaks are way over priced there! Anyway Larry did it all for a little over $100!!!! Yeah for my husband with some amazing skills! (or is it skillz?) But fixing stuff is just one of his many many skills! So I just have to say I hit the jack-pot when it comes to husbands with skills! Who ever marries my boys will probably be just as lucky because as you can see Larry is training our boys young! Put them to work! I am just soooo glad this happened today (Larry has the day off) and not while we are driving to Utah in a couple of weeks!!!

Ethan's "Play"

Every year MES does their musical program in March. Last year it just happened to be on his birthday! This year it was on March 6th. It was very cute and we had fun going. I thought it was much better this year because they split the 1st and 2nd grade into separate nights so it wasn't so crowded you couldn't even see your kid! It was much better! Anyway I thought I would share a few pictures of it because I thought some of the costumes were so cute!

My thoughts...

A long time ago Allison did a post on her blog talking about "crack" in the schools and how there were girls walking around with their cracks exposed and how it bothered her.... Well there is something bothering me! I just have to get it out, I may be way off base and I don't even mind if people leave me comments to tell me why I am wrong. It won't offend me! But there is something bugging me and I just have to vent it! There seems to be this thing with dress up clothes that bug me. It seems every where I go there are kids in their pretend/ dress up clothes. I am not just talking about in the grocery store. I totally get mom is in a hurry and may not have time to change the kids before you head out the door. It is the 8- 12 of them I saw walking around at the Portland Children's museum, at Ethan's school play/ music concert (what ever they call it!) These moms are letting their kids go to places that I normally think ok lets actually wash your face, make sure you have clean non-ripped play clothes on and look decent because we are going to a public place but the kids are going in dress up clothes, full on Cinderella, Belle, Spider man costumes!!!! I guess I don't get it!?! But here is the other end of it for me.... PAJAMAS! In all the same places! Story time at the library, stores, and at the Portland Children's museum.... Maybe I am way off base but whatever happened to making our kids get dressed, let alone dressed properly to go out in public. I am the first one to admit my kids go out with PB&J still on their face, or chocolate mustache, messy hair! It happens it is the total lack of getting clothes on that is bothering me. Maybe I am the only mom in the world who thinks this way. Maybe I need to not judge and just not care, maybe I can now that I have said how I feel. In my very lame blog but I just had to say it. Now I can forget about it and move on! But please feel free to let me know what you think about this topic!

Sheep Barns!

Our "Mommy and Me" preschool went on a field trip to the OSU sheep barns to see the lambs being born. Which happens to go with this weeks theme of baby animals! It was fun. There were not a lot of lambs yet because it was the first day they were open to the public but it was still worth the trip! I just loving going every year to see the sweet little lambs! So here is a peak!

Truck for sale!

This isn't really an add (that is on Craig's list) more of a passing for me. Larry and I are buying a newer truck from my brothers and since we are it is time to sell our much older truck! Which just happens to be the truck Larry was driving when we met, dated, and of course were first married. This is the truck that we took on our dates, honeymoon, took our first baby home in from the hospital, took our first vacations on.... So there are some great memories made in this truck! I am not saying I am not looking forward to having a newer more reliable truck, not to mention one that our whole family can ride in it is just a passing of an era! It was the sound of that truck that would make my heart pitter patt when I would hear it pulling up to my old apartment. It is funny how that works! I just thought it might be fun to kind of share some of those memories. Oh and one of the funny things is that it was kind of one of those telling things of Larry that helped me fall in love with him. Not that I am totally about what a guy drives, that really wasn't a high priority for me it was the fact that he drove a work truck and it showed me the kind of guy that he was... this happens to be the kind of guy I knew I wanted to marry! So I guess this truck is just any old truck it has some history, memories and I will miss it but I look forward to making lots and lots of new memories in our new one!