Easter 2012

Our festivities started on Friday night at our ward Easter egg hunt.  It was so fun getting together with all the primary kids and luckily the wind calmed down enough to let us enjoy the evening.

 I decided to try these new plastic baskets instead of the typical woven ones because they seemed easier for them to carry and not dump the eggs out when they bent down.

 Carson had to pick up each one and open it to decide if he wanted it.  He is so silly some times.

 On Saturday morning, we went across the street to our community Spring Fling.  They broke the hunts up into 3 groups, 0-3, 4-8, and above.  We should have just let Carson go in the 0-3 group because the 4-8 one was awful, he only got one egg and was so upset, I don't think it even lasted 2 minutes.  Luckily, the Howe girls were so nice to give him some of their eggs.  I should have stayed with Kade and let Chyler do the hunt with Carson because I was feeling pretty sick by then and couldn't help him more.

 There were about 4 jumping houses, the boys loved them

Kade showing off the egg he got in nursery.  When I picked him up, he was carrying two eggs, the little sneak had acquired more than his share.

Please refer to this picture of me when you see the one below of me.  See, I'm not 300 lbs.

Carson was in an awful mood when we got home from church.

Luckily, I got a good one of him with me.  Please ignore that I look about 300 lbs in this picture, I promise it is just the dress...please see the above picture of Kade and me.

To make up for the bummer community hunt, we did another hunt in the back yard.

Showing off the goods.

We got them each a little gift because I didn't want to waste a ton of money on candy that I don't let them eat and we end up throwing away.  We had to point out where Chyler hid Kade's and after he looked at it, he just walked away.  I couldn't believe it, I guess the eggs callings was just too much.  However, he has barely put them down for the last week including going to bed with them and running around saying "yee-haa" all day long.

Even if Kade didn't want to pick it up, Carson was excited about it.  I love having the boys be into the same toys.

He finally made eye contact with his present hidden on the tree branch.

But he couldn't grab it without Daddy lifting him up.

It was so fun watching the boys do their hunt without any pressure.  I think we will do this every year.  I am also a big fan of the Easter bunny coming AFTER church.  Even with 11am church, there still isn't enough time to enjoy it all before plus you don't have the fight of eating tons of candy before going to sit still for 3 hours.

I also love that Carson is willing to take cute pictures, when he's in the mood, now that he is older.  I love this one of Carson and Chyler, Kade obviously can't be bothered with pictures when he has Woody to look at.

March 2012

On March 4th, which happens to be my birthday, my nephew Jackson had his Eagle Court of Honor.  Since my parents were coming into town for that, Jodi decided to bless baby Kate that day also so Alan and Trina's families came down as well.

 Since we didn't do much for the boys' birthdays, we thought it would be fun to go to the Mini Grand Prix with their cousins.  I can't count how many times we rode the slide but they loved it and it was the only ride that Kade and Ryder were tall enough to go on.

 Brilynn and Carson, but Carson refused to look because he is super stubborn

He is so cute when he actually smiles for me.

 On Friday, Alan and Grandpa took the kids to McDonalds and the girls went to Cheesecake Factory for my birthday.  I love it there.

 So sad.

 Sunday morning, my friend asked if Carson could say the scripture in Primary.  When we talked to him about it, he said he wanted Austin to help him.  Austin got embarrassed so Tyler went in there too and was actually who helped him.  When they told Carson to go up, Carson ran right up but then he didn't talk loud enough to be heard.  It did look silly though having 6' Tyler and 6'4" Austin sitting there with the Sunbeams waiting to say the scripture. 

 After the blessing, which was an hour before the court of honor, we had to leave to drive to California for Chyler to do a job for one of the companies Chyler works for.  We had done if the week before too and it was going to be every Monday and Tuesday for 6 months but after the 2nd week of going down, they decided they wanted to get the job done faster and had to hire a local company.  Chyler was thrilled because he was worried about not being here for his clients and Elders Quorum but I liked the idea of seeing my mom every week and the steady income.  But it is nice not having to drive 8 hrs every week with my growing belly or I didn't like sleeping alone 2 nights a week so I guess it all worked out.

March 10th was a big day for Kade's mom, aka me.  I was putting him to bed and telling him I love him and he took his thumb out of his mouth and said "love you." That was the first time he had said it and I was so happy to hear it.  And especially happy that he didn't make me wait for months to hear it like Carson did.

Since we were busy with family on my birthday, we celebrated on March 17th by going on a hot date.  We went to dinner at the Macaroni Grill and going to see "This Means War."  We were also going to go get a purse for my birthday but it was raining so it would have taken too long.  Just an excuse to go on another date.  Chyler wouldn't take a normal picture so this is all I got.

For conference weekend we talked about leaving town because that is the only way I fully get Chyler.  But he promised not to work or anything so we decided to save money and stay at home.  He didn't keep his promise completely but we still had fun.  We love diners but they don't have very many in Vegas.  But he works a block from this diner and he said that every time he drives by, it is always packed so we decided to try it for lunch before we went shopping for the boys spring/summer clothes.  It was really good but not as cheap as we expected it. 

And it had lots of little places to take pictures, I felt like a tourist.  The boys behaved so well that the old man sitting behind us walked by and told Chyler what good looking boys he had.  I don't think they saw when Carson bounced the straw wrapper ball off his spoon and onto his table.  Daddy is such a bad influence!! 

Carson doesn't normally nap so when he was really quiet one afternoon, I went looking for him.  I looked in the office but didn't see him until I couldn't find him anywhere else, I looked in the chair facing the wall and this is how I found him.

We now have church from 11am-2pm which is the perfect time but it always tires Kade out so he normally falls asleep on the way home.  Chyler put him in our bed instead of the crib for some reason and he looked so cute, I had to take a picture.

This is Carson's friend Brad over at Brad's house.  We love going over there for play dates.

This picture is out of order but these are what I woke up to at the foot of my bed on my birthday.  Chyler is so sweet.

This bad boy took a year of my life!!  I bought it on March 31, 2011 and I completed it on March 27, 2012.  I love how it turned out but it was a beast to refinish.  I started the dresser right away and had to spend hours and hours and hours to sand off the finish.  By the time I was finished, I was too scared to start on the drawers because of the bebbled edge around them.  Jodi and Patrick used it while they were here till October so it didn't sit lonely during that whole time.  I finally saw a blog that used citri-strip and I fell in love when I tried it.  It still took a long time and several steps but it was way better than hours and hours of sanding.  This baby is going in my estate because I have so much time vested in it!!  When I started it, it was going to go in my room but then we bought the black bed so it no longer matched and it is now in Carson's room and the dresser I bought to for Carson's room is now in mine.  I finished that last week too and I will post pictures of that once I find knobs for it, I am currently using shoe laces to open the drawers.

February 2012

 This is us at Costco one night getting dinner for the boys after shopping.  I DO NOT like making dinner when I am pregnant because I never feel well and nothing ever sounds good and if it does sound good when I think about making it, if it takes longer than 20 mins to prepare, it doesn't sound good anymore and I won't eat it.  It is very frustrating. 

 Here he is, hoarding the cheese balls again.  Costco brought them back so I figured since we had the boys birthday coming up and family coming into town, we could get them.  Luckily, or probably unluckily, these always sound good.

 We were really low key with the boys' birthday this year.  The way it was worked out, and I seem to like it, is doing a party every other year.  So this being the off year, we just had cake and ice cream and had family over.  They did both a get a cake on their actually birthday though.  And we took them to the store to pick out their present.  They picked Batman Imaginex toys which they love.  And we love them because they are small, I usually have about 5 guys in my purse at any given time.

 Here is Carson and me with his cake.  His birthday was on Sunday which was fun because they sang to him in Primary (they said that he shot his hand straight up when they asked about birthdays) and they gave him a CTR ring which he wore everywhere.  But after a couple of weeks, he pulled the green off the shield as we happened to be a block away from Deseret Book so we stopped a bought a couple more.  Then he lost the second one at the park so we are taking a break from them for a little bit because he gets SOOO upset when something happens to it.  It was so cute though that he wanted to show everyone tell them that it means Choose the Right.

 Here is my little 2 year old on his birthday.  We had family over on his birthday to have cake and ice cream.

 I posted this picture because it shows my growing belly.

 We lit 2 candles and sang to Kade, then lit all 4 candles and sang to Carson, we want them to both feel special.

Kade sat at the table all by himself to eat his cake but he didn't care cause he had cake!!

January 2012

Here it is painted and with the rope finished.

This is one of my favorite parts of the whole project.  While Lowe's was mixing my paint in October, I was browsing the lights section and saw this beauty (the light).  I called Chyler and asked if he was able to pull power to install it and being the amazing handyman that he is, he said yes.  And I wanted a switch up there so Carson wouldn't have to climb down to turn off the light, so Chyler installed that too.  Also, since he pulled the power from the outlet with the switch by the door, I can also turn it off with the main light switch which is awesome.  He's amazing!!  Once again, Kade took his shirt off.

He also installed the carpet and the handles to make it easier to climb up and down.

This is from the day after Christmas, the boys always love helping daddy and use our tools.  I say ours because I have my own tools!!

January was kind of a blur.  After spending the couple weeks over at Jodi's house, Carson got really sick with a dry cough so we stayed at home for the last 2 weeks.  And Kade got all of his K-9s and 2 of his 2-yr molars from mid December to March.  He would be in so much pain that he would even throw up and he pretty much stopped eating everything but graham crackers and milk during this time.  He would wake up at night and from his naps starving and just cry and cry but not eat anything.  It was so frustrating and super sad because I knew how miserable he was.  He is much better now but he is now a much pickier eater now than he was before.  In addition to them being sick, I was also down for the count with morning sickness.  So not much happened this month.

So this picture is at 6:30pm when both sickies had passed out cold in my bed.  I had hoped that they were out for the night but they woke up about an hour later and were up for most of the night.  I hate it when my babies are sick.

These are from December but I wanted to post them. Kade doesn't know how to play the smart bike but he loves sitting on it to watch TV.  One night when he was much smaller, Carson was playing on the bike and got off quickly for something and Kade swiped in and climbed on ready to go.  It was so funny how quickly it happened.

This is how I have to dress Kade for bed when it's a one-piece and I can't even put him in a onesie because he has to have access to his belly button at all times.  He is ridiculous.

 

Here is Carson dressed as batman playing Lego Batman on the Xbox.  Batman usually makes an appearance at our house several times a week, he loves his costume.  I really need to get more costumes and get some in Kade's size too.