Easter 2014

Ryan's mom sent us the cutest outfits for the kids for Easter. I was particularly excited that Boston even matched.

It wasn't easy getting them to take a decent picture.

Easter spoils

We got to see some old friends from our married student ward the weekend before Easter. We went with them to a neighborhood egg hunt. Here is Jackson and Sadie

Jackson, Sadie, and Sam enjoying their candy

Poor Evelyn and Brooklyn stayed in the stroller while the rest of us partied.

It was so good to see Becca Gage and her cute kiddos. I think the last time we hung out was when Jackson and Sadie were about 6 months old. It's a bummer I didn't think to get a picture of us together. At least now that we are in the same state we will have more opportunities to get a picture.

April Shindigs

Can I say I was so happy to have my Mom visit us? It was so nice to have her here. The kiddos were just as stoked. She came during her spring break right before Easter.

We went on a Mother/Daughter date to the Mesa Temple Eater Pageant. It was such a fun outing. We got there early and got really great seats.

There were hundreds of people in the cast. The set was amazing and overall it was such a cool program.

We walked around the beautiful grounds of the temple.

Crazy story: While we were at the pageant, we placed our purses on the grass next to the chairs. When we went to leave, my mom noticed there was gum on the bottom of her purse. She decided to clean it off when we got home. We finally got home and she turned her purse over to scrape it off and out of her purse crawls a SCORPION! It crawled across the counter then onto the floor. Meanwhile I am calling for Ryan to come in to kill it. He didn't have any shoes on, so I had to kill my very first scorpion. EEEEEEEKKKKKKK!!!! I can't believe that happened. I am just so glad it didn't crawl out onto my mom. Or in the car. Or when the kids were awake.

Ryan is the 11 year old scout leader for our ward. He and the boys planned an over-nighter. Here are some pics.

Ryan really wanted to catch a rattle snake, but I told him I'd rather have a living husband than life insurance money. I doubt that deterred him; I bet he just couldn't find any. Anyway, he found this chuckwalla instead.

So far he is loving his calling. The boys are learning a lot as Ryan loves to push them into authoritative roles. He says it's preparing them for leadership in the future. What a cutie.

Now that we have a garage, we have space to do projects. And now that we have a backyard, we have space for a picnic table! Ryan and Sadie made this one Saturday morning.

Ryan made sure to involve Sadie with every process in the production. She helped measure while he cut.

She used the level and the clamps.

Of course she used the power drill.

Even though it is made for children, we can actually squeeze our whole family into it. It is super sturdy. Great job guys!

Springtime

The cacti are abloom...

March was the perfect month to sleep out in our backyard. We wanted to do a few test runs in preparation for real camping. It was quite the debacle for Boston last time, so we thought we could send him inside to his bed if he had a hard time. Surprisingly, he did great! He didn't wake up once. We did have Brooklyn in her crib with our monitor outside so we could hear if she woke up. I guess our next step is to add in the baby.

I found these kids sleeping bags for $5 each the morning of the campout. We were just going to use blankets, so it was super fun to have actual bags for them.

It was so simple, but the kids had a blast!

We tried to make it an event, so we did foil dinners. Then we did banana boats to top it off. Silly Ryan didn't want me to take a pic.

I have been enjoying the weather immensely until late April. I'm a naturally hot person, so I am literally a sweaty mess when it gets above 90. I was asked to choreograph a the 'finale' of the ward's road show. For our practices we are indoors, doing the most basic moves and I am sweating like a banshee. I'm pretty sure the entire youth program thinks I'm disgusting. Actually the youth in our ward are freaking awesome, so it's probably just me FEELING disgusting. Anyway... they did a great job on their road show and were so willing to do choreography and all. Love those kids.

On this day it was about 90 degrees when we had to have this ice cream break.

Sadie lost another tooth. I should post the video of this particular event. It has been wiggly for weeks and I asked her almost everyday if I can pull it out. She usually said no and insisted it would come out on it's own. Well one day Ryan convinced her to do the old string attached to the door trick. There were some tears but she didn't regret it.