Hanging out at the park

 It is official, spring is here and we have been living at the park! The weather has been so nice this past week. We have some really good buddies that love to go to the park too. Teegan, Pierce, Steven and Brock all hanging upside down just like monkeys!

 This is cute baby Lila! Some day her and Jaida will be cruising around together. She is a little doll.

 Knox came and joined us too. Here is all the boys playing a little ultimate duck, duck, goose. None of them really get how to play. It is quite fun to watch them attempt to play.

I have found out that a tired boy makes a mom happy later. When we spend days like this at the park they always seem to sleep so much better that night. We are so lucky to have such a nice park just up the street. Usually we have the entire park to ourselves. it has kind of become our sanctuary. Hip, Hip, Hooray for park season.

Happy Easter 2011

 Easter morning is always fun at our house. I am not sure about the Easter Bunny at your place but ours is kind of crazy. Our bunny started a tradition of giving rhyming clues to help the kids find their baskets all around the house. This Bunny must be crazy because it obviously didn't think that through as far as how time consuming and brain challenging it would be as you have more and more kids! Needless to say it turned out good the kids all located their baskets Pierce's was in the oven, Brock's in the upstairs bath tub, and Jaida's under the computer desk. The kids love the hunt and are so excited. It does pay off, I am sure, to the Easter bunny once it sees how thrilled they are as they go from clue to clue.

 This was Jaida's first Easter at home with us. The boys were excited for her to join in the fun! She is still a little young to appreciate it but was so excited watching her brothers get so excited. She loves the reeses peanut butter eggs!

 I know I just did a post of flowering trees, but this one is different. All the blossoms have fallen from the other trees and this one is in full bloom. It really is so neat to see all the beautiful colors as you drive around. This one is right out our front door.

 Here are my sweet kiddos. They somewhat cooperated for this picture. I love them to pieces.

 After church we headed over to Gramsies and Papa Belliston's house for some yummy food. After dinner we colored eggs. We had intentions of having an egg hunt in the backyard, but the rain started coming down pretty hard and ruined any hope of that happening. The boys still had a good time.

 Jaida pretty much just follows her Gramsie around. She absolutely loves her to death and is quite Territorial when any other kids try to spend time with her.

 And  if you don't already know how entirely AWESOME my mother-in -law is... She made this incredibly Delicious cake on Sunday just for the chocolate lover that I am. I would give it 5 STARS! Man she really went all out! I love her so much and am so grateful that I get to have this time with her.

Jealous aren't you?? It was a great Easter. I was feeling so overwhelmed with emotion the whole week leading up to Easter. I just have so much to be grateful for, most of the time I take it for granted. I was feeling so much love and happiness for my family. Too bad I was such a grump on the actual holiday. I don't know what got into me, I was just not happy. I feel bad that I was feeling that way on Easter. I guess we all have our moments, right?

Centennial Park

 We decided to go for an adventure this past Sunday (April 17th) to try and find a place to feed some ducks. It used to kind of be our Sunday tradition back in Utah. We decided to check out Centennial Park. It was pretty neat. There were no ducks to report. But we did find out you can fish there. There also is a lot of cool paths to walk along.

 The boys had a blast throwing rocks into the water. We tried to stay clear of the fishermen!

 Jaida wants to be doing whatever it is her brothers are doing. She loves getting in on the action!

 Brock was loving life! What is better than throwing rocks to your hearts content? He is too cute!

Finally we watched the sunset and then headed home. We will be returning Centennial Park!

Just because we can't get enough of her

 Jaida is too cute these days. With each new day she is getting more and more attitude and makes us laugh all the time. She now can shake her head and say "no, no, no!"

My mom got her this outfit for her birthday and I just love it. I love the sparkly jelly shoes. Girls are fun! She melts my heart!

Right before my eyes

 Do you ever have those moments when you look at your kids and think: Holy Cow, they are growing up! After taking these pictures and viewing them I had one of those moments.

 Sometimes it seems like the days will never end, but the weeks go by too fast. Does that make sense?

 I am so grateful to be these cute kids mom. If you are wondering where Brock is... He was saying at this time... I don't want to take a picture with them, they are weird! We love him regardless. With out Lumpy's spunkiness where would we be?

Finally on the wall!

 We had our family pictures taken clear back in November.... and Finally I got them hung up on the wall now! Yay, for me! I got a steal of a deal on the frames and was so excited. I got all these plus another large frame all for about $30! Are you kidding me!

So we now have a current family portrait up that includes all of us! Even Gracie girl! haha.. I always used to laugh when people had pictures of their animals. I guess I am becoming one of those people!

Suprise!!!!!

 A couple of weekends ago my cute sister-in-law came out to surprise her mom. I was excited to be in on the secret. That day we went and picked her up at the airport and she just showed up on their front porch and rang the door bell. I think that Diane was in shock! I was expecting more of a shrill scream, but she was still so happy to see her daughter and granddaughter Remi that she has never met. This was a first for us to meet little Remi too.

 Needless to say she is a DOLL! And I am pretty sure that we enjoyed every minute of having them here!

We were definitely sad to see them go, but will look forward to seeing family again this summer!

I looked out my window and what did I see...?

 Popcorn popping on all the trees.

 This year we were actually able to get  out and enjoy the cherry blossoms. Last year we were visiting Jaida in the hospital a lot. We made it down to see the ones in Washington D.C. as well. We heard that they were not as good when we went down them. Their peak bloom was the week prior to us going down, but it had rained all that week. So a lot of the blossoms had fallen or got ruined from the rain! Anyways it was unlike anything I had seen and I thought it was spectacular.

 We had visitors stying with us from New Jersey, the Crane family. We had a really good time. Next year I think I may DRAG my family out to the big cherry blossom festival parade. I love parades, Trent not so much!

We are happy that spring is finally here!

what are you looking at?

 I love her face.. What are you looking at?! She is definetely a funny girl. She has become quite fond of her little stroller and cabbage patch doll. She can get around pretty quick with it, but shows no signs of wanting to walk without it. I am prefectly fine with that!

Often times throughout the day we see her go over to her doll and give it hugs and talks to it. So cute. I love how different she is from the boys!

Dog House

 No, Trent is not in the dog house. He decided that he would take a Saturday and build a dog house for Gracie. the boys sure had a fun time taking turns drilling in each screw. It made it take forever, but they were so excited to be "helping" daddy!

 It turned out pretty good. I will post some pictures after we get it all painted. If it will just stop raining around here for us to get that done.

Gracie is learning to like it. She is funny and would prefer to sit under our outdoor table and chairs. The dog house turned out to be pretty big and spacious for a dog! it is like the Presidential Suite for dogs.

wondering where we have been?

 For those of you who are wondering where we have been lately.. pretty much, just have been lazy about the blog lately! Sorry! Not that I really have all that many followers, but in case you have been having withdrawals from my kids cute faces here are a couple pictures. The boys are going nuts and cannot wait for the weather to be a little bit warmer outside so they can go out and dig for worms, get dirty, ride their bikes, and all those disgusting things boys like to do. They have been playing with their Lego's quite a bit lately and haven been building ramps for their matchbox cars all over the house.

Jaida is getting bigger and cuter every single day! She has been kind of a stinker lately because she is getting 4 top teeth all at once! Not happy! I am thrilled for her to finally have more than 1 tooth. The one on the bottom is still flying solo! Snaggle tooth! She is talking more jibberish these days and even points with her one finger now, so cute. She is a crawling machine and way fast too. She makes a bee-line for any open bathroom door and we have caught her fishing in many a toilets! yum!
Life is pretty mundane these days, that is good I guess. Can't wait to get out and enjoy spring!

Seating Assignments

This picture made me think of how funny I think it is that my kids are the Kings of making Seating assignments. When My parents were here for Jaida's birthday. They were constantly telling everyone where their "spots" were. My Dad's official spot was in the very back of the van squished between both boys! He was a good sport and endured it very well!