Cousins

We've made it a tradition now to sit all the kids on Grandma and Grandpa Bevan's back porch for an Easter picture. Next year there will be at least one more making 9 grandkids for Kyle's parents. Go Julie!

My Easter Chickies

What makes a mother more proud than to see her children dressed up, clean and hair combed with smiles on their faces? Well, can't think of anything at the moment. This was taken after all the candy was consumed from the Easter Bunny and after all the excited giggles subsided from the girls. Nothing is more exciting than trying on a brand-new dress that has that perfect twirling feature. Even Zachary was excited for his new tie even though Kyle said it was a little "gay." I threatened Kyle that if Zach overheard him saying that that it would be the end of him!
We drove to my mom's to attend church with her. The kids loved being in their new classes and have asked since if they can go to Grandma Thompson's church. I was glad to see some old familiar faces and catch up with some childhood friends who also decided to visit the old ward. After church we hunted some Easter eggs at Grandma T's and hung out until it was time to go visit the Bevan's. There we also took part in hunting for some more eggs and eating dinner with Kyle's parents and brother and sister with their families. It was a good eventful day and I was happy to have gotten in a small lesson of the real meaning of Easter to my children. I am so thankful for my family and the smiles they put on my face.

I got it Paid Foward!

My sweet friend, Cricket, posted a blog that was titled "Pay it Forward" where the first 3 commenters would recieve a special gift. The catch was that you had to post your own Pay it Forward and gift your first 3 commenters. I got these cute little fridge magnets made by hand and they are the cutest things on my fridge next to the adorable pictures my kids draw me. Now I can stick my children's creations on my fridge in style with these cute squares. Thank you Cricket for taking so much time to make me feel special!

Yay, school is back in session!

I just endured a very long week of Spring Break with my kids and am so happy to be back to normal with kids off to school and everyone's normal routine back in place. This morning I woke early to run my 3.4 miles in a record time of 38 minutes. I am trying to push myself harder every day to either run further or faster. I used to hate running but now I love it. I found myself itching to get outside this morning after a 2-day break.
Thank goodness for my next-door neighbor, Brooke, last week when she suggested we trade off kids Friday so we could both enjoy some sanity building time. I think she took pity on me when she came home Thursday to see me standing on my front porch barking orders to my kids to run down the street and back to release some of their crazy energy since they were bouncing off the walls. I can't imagine what the summer will be like for me when the kids are home all day every day. Thank goodness for warm weather, swimming lessons and art classes!

I promise I'm still here!

I know, it's been over a month since I've blogged and I'm truly sorry. It all happened when we decided to move our computer to our upstairs spare bedroom and since then I haven't had more than a couple minutes to myself before I hear the usual "MOMMY!!" from downstairs. It's so predictable, I'm either in the bathroom, on the phone or now, playing on the computer and my children all of a sudden need me now!
So one of these days I will get some more pictures added and some more stories and I can stop hearing the complaints of me not updating my blog. But here's the deal: you all complain that I don't blog enough, but how am I supposed to know anyone is reading it if I don't see any comments at the bottom??? So if I'm going to blog, then you're going to have to send me comments, okay?

More Vegas!

While staying at the Excalibur, we took the kids to go see the Tournament of Kings where we saw jousting, fighting and got to eat a lot of food with our fingers!

By the last day, Daddy and Erica couldn't take it any longer and gave in to a nice little snooze before waking up to go see the Tournament of Kings show.

One rule when staying in a hotel: Make sure you jump on the beds!!! The kids had a blast jumping wild on the beds and getting that cooped up energy out after all that driving.

This vacation wouldn't be the same without some great friends to share it with. We snuck out for an hour the last night in Vegas and visited Bellagio and whatever casino that has the Volcano show.

My cutie patutie kids were so good during all the walking and waiting. I was honestly scared to death that one of them was going to walk away from us and get lost. We didn't have any problems this time! Yay!

Viva Las Vegas!

So...Originally we decided to bypass the whole birthday party drama and bribe Zach into going to stay in a hotel and swim in the swimming pool. After getting an excited "YES!" we then thought to ourselves, "Selves, as long as we're going to stay at a hotel, let's go all out and go to Vegas!" So we set out Saturday afternoon and caravaned with our neighbors/friends where we stayed with their family in St. George that first night.

After a fun Saturday night and yummy breakfast served to us Sunday morning by our friends' gracious parents, we were off to Vegas! The kids were seated in luxury with their DVD players and refreshments just at their fingertips.

Here Zach and Kayla are with excited faces after I show them the "castle" where we were to be staying. They loved that they were going to sleep in a castle!

This picture is funny to me because in the background is Mr. Peanut M&M, but when I told the kids to go stand next to him for a picture, they immediately started into their hysterics about being too afraid to get a close-up. This was as close as it was going to get for these two chickens!

We were able to go to the Sponge Bob 4-D ride (can you say pricey???) and so couldn't resist getting a picture with our square friend.

The whole time we stayed in Las Vegas it was cloudy and cold. I was hoping to shed the oversized down-stuffed coat and maybe work on my tan? Is that too much to ask???