Frontier Park

We probably jumped the gun a little bit this morning. Derek, Bryce, Clara and I were excited to celebrate warmer weather this morning, so I dressed them slightly warmer than I thought necessary, texted Liz to meet at the park and set off. Low and behold, the windchill factor made every inch of those long sleeves necessary. Still, the kids had a blast and Liz and I were thankful for the jackets we grabbed at the last second. :)

Trying to balance the weight evenly, but Bryce decided to abandon ship at the last second. 

Sweet brother and sister moment! These two are adorable and didn't mind sharing the swing at all. In fact, at one point during one of my many periodic locator scans of the park, I almost panicked because I couldn't find Bryce... who was sitting very quietly in the swing I was pushing. *facepalm*

Isaac was so excited to be at the park!

Silly Sweeties

The kids have been so patient cooped up most of the last two weeks, but today was the day of FREEDOM! Derek and Bryce practically flew out of the backdoor and insisted on eating lunch outside as well. Clara moved back and forth between the backyard and the kitchen with me. I threw up the windows to air out the house and that's where this all started. Bryce wandered over to investigate the Clara noises coming through the window and Derek came over when he heard them giggling. Then they figured out they could make Clara really laugh when they pressed their faces against the mesh.

She sure loves her silly brothers!

My three treasures!

Bryce always watches Derek...

...and then the little parrot, well, parrots!

Real Snow

We were all SO thrilled to wake up to a few inches of powder this morning. Derek finally gets his snowman! While Bryce and Clara were napping,  Derek and I went outside to build a proper snowman. Derek quickly threw himself down in the snow on the driveway and made a snow angel. I didn't even know that he knew what a snow angel was! I tried to get him to help me build the bottom ball for the snowman but the lure of the neighborhood kids playing nearby was too strong. Eventually, the whole pack of them went into the backyard to play for a bit while I was left to build the snowman. It took me a while to remember how to pack the snow into a ball and roll it around to make it grow. The neighbor kids went home for lunch and Derek went inside to get warm and watch a movie, but I kept working at it because I decided I wanted to try something different - painted snowmen! I started to show symptoms of snow blindness from when I was out with the kids earlier, so I put on sunglasses. I just forgot about the possibility of sunburn. My face is getting redder even as I type, so I know it's going to be rosy red in the morning. :S I got Derek's attention when I went inside to mix the food dye and water in a squirt bottle and he decided to come out and help me. We turned our snowman into Raphael, the red ninja turtle! Bad guys, beware!

He sure doesn't mind getting messy

Real Derek and Snow-Derek

He's trying to roll down the driveway

Derek went to town with the green spray

Derek wanted sunglasses like mine, so I gave him a pair of 3D glasses from the movie theater. He didn't want to wear them for long.

Ta-da! Our neighbor thought Rafael was pretty cool and so did Derek. Totally worth the sunburn to see that smile!

Fight with a Doorway

This is what happens when you lose a fight with a door. Derek and Bryce were rough housing in the hallway outside their bedroom when Derek took Bryce out at the knees and knocked him violently forward into the molding of the bedroom door. Poor kid! He took it like a champ though and only cried for a few minutes. Derek apologized so sincerely, patting Bryce's head and trying to kiss his bump. 

 Forget goose egg, that's more like a dinosaur egg

What a champ!

Bryce's First Snow

The boys were so excited to wake up to "snow" this morning! Bryce has never seen snow, so he was a little hesitant to touch it, but he loved jumping in it to hear it crunch. The snow was more ice than fluff which made snowballs a bit difficult to form, but the boys lumped some together to chuck at the fence. Derek tried to peg Bryce in the head with an iceball, but his aim still needs practice. After lobbing as much ice as they wanted, we moved on to building a miniature snowman. Our snowman was not impressed with his size, but Derek and Bryce were thrilled to have a "real, life snowman!" Clara was having none of this cold stuff, so she stayed inside to watch through the back door until it was time for nap. :) 

This was his first experience touching snow

Crunch, crunch, crunch!

Two little monkeys jumping on the slush

We don't have snow mittens (yet!) so we improvised with socks. Not recommended, since they got wet pretty quickly. The boys thought it was fun, though. :)

Our poor snowman was already starting to melt in the 40 degree weather. He's not impressed.

Bryce and Derek built their first snow man!

The Gradubirthday Party

My little sister is 21!! My cousin is has graduated from college and going straight for his masters! Crazy! Uncle Tim and Aunt Jenn invited Mitchell and I to join them at Pinstack Bowling for a night of fun - without kids! We were so excited for this evening... but I wear the crown of Dork of the Universe. I wrote "Gradubirthday, 7 pm" on the calendar.... under Friday. Not Saturday. So, Friday night rolls around and I've arranged to swap babysitting with Jenna and watch her kids Saturday since she's watching mine tonight. As Mitchell is dropping the kids off, I check my text to verify time and place... and realize the part is at 8.... tomorrow. GAAAAAHHH!!! So, Mitchell and I make the best of it and go to Chipotle and see Jupiter Ascending in the movie theater. Should've waited for the dollar theater, but Chipotle never disappoints. :) My family was understandably disappointed, but I had already made the commitment to watch Jenna's kids so she and Jon could go see the Nashville Tribute band give a fireside/concert at the Stake Center. So cool! After a little nudging from one or two people...ahem... I scrambled to work out a last minute solution for a babysitting swap yet again. The stars aligned for me, but Jenna turned out to be the only one who wanted to go see the band and Liz's family was in town. Mitchell, however, was exhausted from working 36 of the last 48 hours and fell asleep literally the minute he laid down on the bed. So.... I went. Without kids! :D I love my kids, but gosh it was nice to get a much needed adult night. Aunt Mary came in from out of town and she's always a blast. :D Uncle Tim and Aunt Jenn arranged for us to play a game of bowling, eat a ton of pizza, play unlimited laser tag, bumper cars, laser maze (think spy movies) and rock climbing, plus a ton of video games! It was so awesome!! I got there just after 8 and didn't get home til 2:30 in the morning. HAPPY GRADUBIRTHDAY!!!!!!

Mom, Aunt Mary, Rob and Val hanging out during our bowling game

Bella, Danny and Amy waiting their turn for bowling

These two need to stop being so cute! ;)

Pinterest inspired this...tasty... birthday cake. ;) No alcohol was involved in the eating of this cake, I assure you. The bottles were all emptied beforehand.

Dillon let Val blow out the candles, lol.

The birthday cousins!

Me, Kelly, Mom and a photobombing Rob. Well played, Rob.

Val, Mom, Kelly, me, and Amy! I love my family!

Uncle Tim was raring to go for laser tag! Pew pew pew!!

Danny, Amy, Dillon, Bella and Dwight attempted the ropes course suspended 15 feet or so above the video games. Danny was the only one to look down for a picture, lol.

Amy and Bella race up the rock wall. Amy won twice, but Bella was right behind her both times.

Amy did her theatrical waves as she repelled down the rock wall

Bella on the rock wall

Danny and Amy played the Wizard of Oz game, too and they scored the Dorothy card worth 100 tickets. Way to go!

Aunt Mary has the luck of the Irish - she scored so many extra coins, tokens and bonus ticket tokens that we were able to get several cool toys for the boys - a parachute man, two plastic sharks, a huge foam glider and a set of small wooden dominoes. We had lots of fun playing this game together! Thanks Aunt Mary! Thanks Uncle Tim and Aunt Jenn!

Fun with Aunt Bella

Aunt Bella loves playing with her nephews and, now that Clara is growing out of her stranger danger phase, she can get some one on one with her niece. This was the first time Clara didn't start crying when someone relatively new started trying to play with her. Aunt Bella has tapped into her inner pied piper and totally charmed the little princess. One small step for Clara, one giant leap for the rest of us! Way to go, Aunt Bella!

Oh Aunt Bella, you're so silly!

She's gonna get you!

Tickle, tickle, tickle!

These two are so cute.  :) Neither of them like eggs though.

She still likes to be upside down, haha!

Nothing like being all snuggled up with your favorite people and favorite electronics, lol. Glad we got to see Uncle Dwight, too!

Bean Bags and Sister Missionaries

Derek and Bryce have been getting bored with all the cold weather indoor play and I happened to find a tabletop bean bag toss on sale, so... we discovered Derek is natural at this game. He has seriously impressive hand-eye coordination. He started off standing straight in front of the target and tossing the blue bean bags (the red ones were deemed Bryce's). Then he moved off to the right of the target, then he sat down, then he tried some crazy trick shots that never made it, but he was having fun with it. :) Bryce was content to sit right at the base of the target and push his bean bags through the hole with an enthusiastic "I did it!" Derek is seriously awesome. If he likes something, he always asked to take it or show it to Isaac, Andrew and Emeri (sorry, Oakley, you'll make the list one day). :) Bryce is starting to learn the same behavior and offered to share his popcorn with me today (seriously, he LOVES popcorn, so that was huge). 

You know when you find people who are just like you and you mesh instantly? It's few and far between, but thank heaven for these gems! It all started when Sister Baker and Sister Hixon were over for dinner about a month ago when someone made a subtle Doctor Who quote... and the sisters GOT IT! Instantly, the three of us were talking pretty much all things fandom and I could almost hear Mitchell and Tammy roll their eyes as I basked in the brilliant glow of friendship. It literally takes one to know one and those are the special ones. I helped the sisters with setting up their ancestry.com LDS accounts today and, while they were waiting for my computers to be set up, Sister Hixon challenged Derek to an arm wrestling contest. Hehehe. After a few false starts before Derek finally understood the rules, Sister Hixon was very surprised when Derek started forcing her hand toward the table. She increased her pressure, he increased his and Derek finally got her hand onto the table. He kind of cheated at the end when he used both hands, but hey, that's still impressive. :) As we started the ancestry.com accounts, we started commenting on cool names in Sister Baker's line (she carries a fan chart with her of her ancestors. Cool!!) and that started us down the slippery slope of baby names... we rode that wave with all hands in the air! WEEEEE! We share a fascination and appreciation for oddball, vintage, gorgeous names that most people (myself included) wouldn't ever use as a first name, but we all thought them fair game for the middle slot. :D

Bryce's game face

Derek's progression... he kept sinking bean bag after bean bag. Way to go!

Victory dance!

Victory dance continued, haha!

Getting trickier... Bryce even scooted back a little bit!

Ready? GO!

Cheating, but still having fun, lol

Sister Hixon, Derek, Sister Baker

Sister Baker, me, Sister Hixon - three amigas!