April 2014

Easter, a trip to Yellowstone and Josh's 34th birthday were the highlights of April!

So I believe the first thing was Josh's birthday on the 18th. He chose to go out to see the movie "Captain America" with his cousin, Devin, and his wife, Charm (and me of course! haha). We love hanging out with them. You know how sometimes it is hard to find a couple to hang out with that everyone actually gets along? Like the guys get along, the girls get along, and it's fun for all? Devin and Charm are that couple for us! We are even planning a trip to DisneyWorld with their family (they have three kids) next Spring. I am already counting down the days!
Anyway, so we went to see the movie and ate dinner at Rumbi Island grill. It was a fun time!

The next thing was probably Easter - but we actually went to Yellowstone ON EASTER Sunday! (We skipped Church, how horrible, huh? Even the Catholics make it a point to go to church on Easter!!! Haha Just kidding there Gramps, I know you go every Sunday….) So we wanted to go that day because it was opening weekend and it was therefore FREE!!! We saw some buffalo but no bears or anything to exciting. Then we went to see Old Faithful and we ate a little "car picnic lunch". There was still a ton of snow there, so we didn't have the picnic on a blanket in a meadow like I had been envisioning. (You always build things up a little more in your head, you know?)

For our actual Easter celebrations, we did do a little egg hunt with the kids on Saturday at the church. Me and some of the neighbors (Brittaini - yes that's how she spells her name - Millner and her family, our new neighbor, Jesse and her husband and two kids, and Boyters were in attendance.) We hid enough for each kid to find 20 eggs, so it sure beats the city egg-hunt where you are lucky if you get one!! I vowed never to go back to one of those hunts after the first years we moved back to Idaho and Caleb left crying, with no eggs. :( So sad.

Then we headed up to Josh's parents' house for their little Easter egg hunt and cook-out. With 20 kids involved, that one actually goes pretty fast too!
On Easter morning, the Easter Bunny came and left out kids a little treasure hunt again - but this time in each egg, there was a little rhyme telling them they had to do something before finding their next clue!
In one they had to do jumping jacks, in another it was push-ups, they really got their morning workout!!
Then the three baskets were finally found in the backseat of the van. They had a lot of good car food goodies, like crackers, juice boxes, and fruit snacks, which they took with them as we made out drive to Yellowstone.
It was a pretty fun Easter!

March - Happy 8th birthday, Gabe!

I am really struggling here! I WANT to have a blog, I just don't have TIME to keep one! :(
So here are the highlights for March….

Gabe turned 8! Gabe's birthday was March 23rd and we decided to let him invite a few friends to the local gymnastics center and just run crazy for a couple of hours. It seems like in the past, I have tried to always plan these wonderfully detailed parties with games and structured activities, and then they just want to plant anyways! So this time, I decided not to knock myself out and just took them to the gymnastics center! It was Gabe, Carter and Jordan (friends from school), Michael (a neighbor) and Caleb. Then afterwards, we came back to our house and had pizza and cake. Gabe is all into BeyBlades right now (basically a spinning metal top thing that you "launch" with a rip-cord) so he got lots of those and his cake was shaped like a beyblade.
ALSO! I should note, at the last minute, we decided to baptize him in Wisconsin when we visit in June instead of doing it in our ward. There are just so many kids out here and they do the baptisms all on one Saturday each month and it's just totally not personal or special, so we decided to be snobs and say "No thank you, we are doing in elsewhere." haha No, the Bishop and Primary President both totally said, "We understand, it will be more special for him out there in Wisconsin," (translation: "We know it sucks doing it out here but there are so many friggin' kids we have to do assembly-line baptisms or else we'd never get them all done.") haha

What else in March?? I am trying to remember because it is now May as I am writing thing…. oops. I THINK Gabe also had his basketball in March - which was a little Saturday morning league that he played it. It was his first experience playing basketball and he did pretty well! A lot of the boys he played against were in third grade (he is in second) so that got a little discouraging, but still won a few games! Here is one picture of his little team!

Oh! I also forgot to mention! In February, we went down to Utah around Valentine's Day to visit Stacey and Kamrie! It was just a weekend trip, but it was really fun! I got to go shopping with the girls and Josh visited a friend and took the kids to the movies. (Don't mind how I look at big as Josh in this picture - I think I was standing closer to the camera or on a hill or something!!)

Well we will leave it at that! Now I need to find some pictures!

The Newest Cub Scout!

Well Gabe doesn't turn 8 for about another month, but since the Cubs at our church (which I am no longer involved in because they moved me to the Activity Days girl!! :( were having their annual Blue and Gold Banquet, they decided to let Gabe join in the fun a little early! We went out and bought him his little cub scout shirt (well actually, it's pretty BIG right now, but it's supposed to last until he's 11 so we went a little big!) and his first little patches for the troop number and his yellow "neckercheif. He looked very official. ;)

But the real excitement was when he WON the competition of the evening! The theme was "Mad Scientist" and so each boy was supposed to bring a "Mad Scientist" cake. I made the mistake of looking at Pinterest when Gabe was sitting right by me (bad idea… then they think YOU can do all of those fabulous things!) and he saw this cake that looked like a brain. That cake was actually attached to ANOTHER cake with strings of licorice which looked like a machine of some sort with candle knobs and buttons - like it was electrocuting this test brain. Well that was just going to be too much work and seemed like a lot of wasted cake. So instead, we made cupcakes and did the "brain" frosting on top of them (pink and squiggly basically). Then we just got three glass vases that looked like "test tubes" and put a little water and food coloring in them, and added some dry ice (always a crowd-pleaser) add i made some labels that said "Formula 1, 2, and 3". Then we called the whole thing "Dr. Gabe's Evil Brain Experiment." It was pretty fun and really didn't even take that long.

So as they were calling off all the awards, Gabe was the only one that hadn't been called yet, and they announced "First Place goes to Gabe Rhodes!" He even got a little trophy. He was so excited about that. He came home and said "Best Cub Scout Night Ever!!!" So hopefully that enthusiasm continues until he's 16…. haha. I can just remember my parents and the old, "No drivers license till you have your Eagle" threat…. Aaron had his license first I'm pretty sure. ;)

Here are some pictures of our first time with a boy in scouts!!

February - Presidential Cookie Fair

This was just a fun thing that Gabe did at school recently! In February, in celebration of President's Day, each kid was assigned a President to do a report on. Then, they had a big Presidents Fair where we displayed his tri-fold poster and had made a batch of his favorite cookie to share. (We had Benjamin Harrison and the chocolate macaroon!) Here is Gabe with his poster and cookies! :)

Christmas 2013!

This year for Christmas we were pretty excited about Avery because she would actually enjoy some of the toys we got her! Last year we really shafted her and just got her a couple of dresses and little toys. We just figured, "She won't remember at six months anyways!" So this year, at 18 months, we went a little crazy. Last year it was "poor Avery" and this year it was "spoiled Avery, poor boys!" haha No they still got plenty! Here was their loot:

Avery:
- Disney Princess Fisher Price Castle, (including little people Ariel, Eric, Belle, Beast, Cinderella, Prince, Snow White, 7 dwarfs, Rapunzel, Tiana, Jasmine, Alladin)
- A Play Kitchen
- A Princess ride-on toy
- Princess dresses (Belle and Ariel)
- Minnie Mouse dress
- Books
- hair bows
- Shopping Cart and lots of food
- lots of clothes!

Caleb:
- Bey blade stadium and beyblades (the newest Japanese toy that has actually kept them pretty entertained) They are like these tops with zip cords that you pull to start them. You "battle" other people and their tops to see whose spins the longest.
- Chapter books (trying to get him to read more!)
- Clothes
- Basketball
- Razor Scooter
- A couple lego sets

Caleb:
- pretty much all the same stuff as Gabe and a Power Rangers toy and dart board thrown in

We had a pretty good Christmas! Pretty low-key for sure. We just went to the Ashton church with Josh's family on Christmas Eve morning for a brunch and had a little white elephant exchange. Josh and the boys went over to Grandpa Park's to help her with something in the afternoon (stacking firewood maybe?) and I went home with Avery. Then we were all tucked early waiting for Santa!
We video taped the kids as they came down Christmas morning. Maybe someday I will figure out how to post a video on this blog! Until then, here are some pictures! (NOTE: The husky shown in this picture was a dog that we were dog-sitting for a neighbor, not our dog, though Josh wished it was!!! ;)

Mom's visit just before Christmas

I totally forgot to ever blog about this! Truth be told, I am adding it in now that it is September 2014! lol I just wanted to say that YES my mom did come visit and do some fun Christmas shopping with me in early December of 2013. ;) Here are the pictures to prove it!

Happy Halloween!

This year for Halloween Avery was a Spider, Gabe was a SWAT team guy, and Caleb was some sort of white Ninja with padded muscles (he always is a sucker for the costumes with padded muscles!) It was kind of a bummer because the week before Halloween it was sunny and high 60's! We were outside in short sleeves, the sun was shining, it was beautiful! I have some pictures here I took of Avery in the yard in a yellow short-sleeved shirt walking around. Then less than a week later, on Halloween, it was raining and about 35 degrees. Such a bummer. No one even really saw Avery's costume that night because we had her all bundled up over it! The boys didn't seem to mind the cold though, and went to both the ward trunk or treat in the rain from about 6-7, then our neighborhood trick-or-treating until about 7:30 or 8:00. They both filled up their pumpkin buckets at the trunk or treat, emptied them out at home, then got another half-pumpkin full in our neighborhood. Caleb, unfortunately, has no self-control whatsoever, and has had what I assume is candy-induced diarrhea for the past three days. I have finally taken it and hidden in from him.

Here are some pictures of the kiddos! :)