A few of my favorite things....my family

Here are some fun things that have been going on this past month.  Maybe now that I have been released from my primary secretary church calling I can get to my blog more often  :)

Nikki had a spring concert at school.  She was very close to getting a solo part but not this time.  I love watching little kids in concert.

Here were are after the concert.  Garrett was playing at his friend's house so he wasn't there and that made Nikki quite sad.  I told her next time I'll make sure he comes with us.

This little hair do was popular last week as almost every little girl in our culdesac had it.  It wasn't all on the same day.  One of us would see how cute this do looked on the other daughter's hair and then want to try it on our own daughter. 

Here is what Nikki (on the left) and Garrett (on the right) made for me for Mother's Day.  Nikki came up with how to make this little basket all by herself while she was at school.  Inside the basket is a coupon book that she made for me.  Loved it!

So we decided to do it for my mothers and grandmothers, only we used colored paper this time and filled it with a candy bar we hoped they would like.

Then stuffed them with tissue paper.  It was fun to do corresponding colors for each side of the family.  My mother in law and her mother got the blue and orange ones.  My stepmom and grandma got the green and yellow ones.

Last Saturday Garrett played his last 2 games of soccer.  In the first game he scored his very first goal!  He played so well in both games but he would get a little discouraged in the 2nd game when he was about to score more goals when each time his fellow team mate came up from behind him and stole the glory.  It will be nice when they get old enough to learn more team work  ;) 

All the kids who played soccer received a soccer medal and t-shirt.  Unfortunately Nikki did not get hers yet since she did not get to play due to an injured left ankle that has been swollen for 1 1/2 months.  But she'll get it at the team BBQ later.

I think this little guy would like to play too but we're not sure if he's ready for it yet......maybe.

If you can't go to the pool, bring the pool to you.....at home.....in the bath tub.  Ha ha

Nikki and I all ready for church Sunday morning.  I had Garrett take a picture of us and he actually did pretty well for a 5 yr old.  This is my new favorite picture of my daughter and me.

Yesterday at church I was officially released from my primary secretary church calling and my wonderful presidency presented me with these beautiful flowers.  I left them in the pot and they are now decorating our front porch.  Getting released was a bitter sweet thing.  It will be nice to lessen my responsibilities.  I have now been called to the nursery and will probably be with my little Jack.  It will be fun!

Sunday evening I decided that we were going to just have pancakes for dinner, so Nikki helped.  She made the syrup all by herself under my direction and then she helped with some of the ingredients for the batter.  And I think this is the first time I have let her try pouring the batter onto the griddle by herself.  She even flipped pancakes and took them off for me.  It was nice to have an extra set of hands for a change.  And great that she is learning these things!

After most of the pancakes were already done and the batter almost gone I told her she could do whatever she wanted with the batter.  So she got a little artistic on me.  She made me laugh but it was cool and fun at the same time.

She took some of her artistic pancakes and got even more creative.  Later she had added eyebrows and other things too but I didn't get a picture of those.  So cute!

Tonight we had a "Going Away Party" for my brother Stillman and his wife Michelle (and kids).  It was so great that our other brother, Phillip, showed up and joined in the fun.  We hardly ever see this guy!  We had all my siblings there except Derek.

I bought my first Costco cake just for this occasion.  My kids picked out the caterpillar picture and the words say "Good Luck!  We'll Miss You!"  The cake was delicious I might add!

My nephew Jayden wanted the head of the caterpillar.....so we cut it out for him.  I think he ended up just eating the frosting and not the cake!  Cute kid!

At one point we were talking about exercise and push ups.  My sister Melissa wanted to see how fast Phillip could do push ups and she even did some along side him.  You guys are so strong!

This was just too cute not to post.  My little nephew Lehi resting on his daddy's shoulder.

This picture should have been first since it happened earlier this month but I thought Curtis would enjoy seeing the beautifuly rainbow, the view from our home.

Hope you enjoyed the pictures again!  It's been a busy month as usual but fun!

Easter 2012

Well, I didn't get to the Easter post as soon as I thought I would but where I'm feeling a little under the weather today and not feeling like doing much I thought it would be a good time to do it.  Easter was a very busy weekend for our family.  Saturday morning we went to our ward Easter breakfast and egg hunt.  I am so glad they did the breakfast too because it just doesn't seem worth it to go to just an egg hunt where it's over in 5 min.  As it was we were there for about 1 1/2 hrs.  Then we went home to get Garrett and Nikki ready for their first spring soccer games.  Later we drove over to my sister Tamara's house to have an Easter dinner and egg hunt with my family.  I was already exhausted by the time we got there.  Then I left my kids there to be babysat while I went to the annual Sugar Ball with all of Curtis's family (mom, dad, brothers & sisters in the area).  It is a work party put on by Amalgamated Sugar Co.  My father in law earned his 30 yr award that night.  The last time we went to one of these was either at his 20 yr or 25 yr mark but I can't remember.  Anyway, we talked, ate dinner, and painfully waited for the raffle drawings.  Amazingly I won a $25 gift certificate to IHOP!

Easter morning I was still so tired that I wanted to take things slow.  And since the boys had forgotten about the Easter bunny coming that morning I decided to take advantage of it by having them eat their breakfast of cereal before reminding them that the Easter Bunny hid their baskets somewhere in the house.  After church we rested for a little while and then my sister Tamara and daughter Katelynn came over to enjoy a walk in the beautiful warm spring weather and then came back to color eggs. Towards the end of coloring, Nikki spilled the green color on her side of the table.  Just as we were finishing cleaning it up, Katie spilled the blue on the opposite side.  We decided we were done after that.  It was still fun though!

This was just after the Easter breakfast and egg hunt at the church.  All you see in the baskets is candy because they had everyone return the eggs to be used for next year.  Smart idea!

At Tamara's house.  The kids loved coming down the slide after finding eggs up in the playhouse.

Here's what Nikki found!

We were trying to get a group picture of the kids and Jack was too busy looking in his eggs to look up for the cameras.  Later we had to take all of the chocolate candy out since he can't have them because of his milk allergy.  Maybe some day that will change, we hope.

Here are the kids Easter baskets and gifts.  I bought them the "Puss In Boots" dvd and had it stored in my sock drawer for almost 2 months waiting for Easter!

Jack got a little puzzle that has a wind up toy car that goes around on a little track on the puzzle.  He loved that!

Garrett got a suction cup basketball net and ball.  We couldn't get it to stick to the walls so we stuck it to the sliding door and it worked!

Nikki got these ball catchers where you pull the trigger and it shoots the ball to the other person to catch it.  Can you see the ball?

All the kids ready for Easter church services.  We were glad to have another chance for Nikki to wear her nice white dress.

The kids got creative after church with their plastic eggs.  They built boats for their eggs and 1 boat had a trailer where they were pulling stuff for going camping.

And if they're going camping they'll need a tent!

Finally, the egg coloring!   And Jack just can't wait to take that egg out of the green coloring!

Nikki is old enough now that she did all of her eggs by herself....except our little mess towards the end when she spilled the dye.  My sister helped Garrett with his eggs.

Everyone say "happy Easter!"

The kids admiring their beautiful eggs.



Playing blog catch up!

It's hard to play catch up on a blog but I wanted to share a few photos from the last couple of months and then I'll share our Easter photos in the next post.  Sorry these took so long Curtis (and other family)!

Our little Jack turned 3 and since he doesn't like cake very much we decided to do something different for him.

A robot cake made out of donuts and candy (Rolos, Life Savers, Twizzlers)!  I found the initial idea on the internet but changed a few things such as the face.  It was a hit and Jack loved it!  He got to eat the head, which was berry filled and he ate the WHOLE thing!  Once he likes something it doesn't take long for him to get it down. 

This was his favorite gift.



Garrett finally learned how to spell and write his own name by himself!  He's also starting to color and draw stick figures.  He was never interested in coloring before so I'm excited that he is now.

We went on a shopping trip with Grandma B and this is what they looked like on the ride home.  Grandma had bought Garrett a sucker and he fell asleep with it still in his mouth.

The boys all ready for church wearing their new sweaters.

Nikki can blow bubbles with her gum better than I can!

Our silly boys!

Playing online games with Daddy while he was on vacation.

The kids just loved being able to play games with their Daddy.  I think their favorite was the online bowling.

Nikki got creative for general conference.  She made our own pulpit out of a box and toilet paper roll and propped it up on pillows.  The first speaker was "Teddy S. Monson".  And in this picture Nikki and Garrett are singing in the choir.

The next speaker was "Garrett F. Uchtdorf".

Followed by "Nikki O. Uchtdorf".  They must have liked that last name since they both used the same one.  I have to admit I love Dieter F. Uchtdorf too!  Nikki even made name tags for all three of them (the bear, Garrett, and herself).  I have to say it was a pretty cool idea for her to do this.  Usually kids are not interested at all and so bored but this made it fun for both of them.  They would even repeat the words of whoever was speaking to pretend like it was their talk.  Conference was great all around!

Our day at the Discovery Center

Last Summer the kids received passes to go to the Discovery Center of Idaho when they participated in an activity at the library.  We've been waiting to use those passes and they expire next month but we finally got to use them while Curtis was home on vacation.  I'm not brave enough yet to take 3 young kids to that place by myself.  There's so many things to look at they keep zooming from one thing to the next.  As it was, Curtis and I had lost Jack at one point.  It's amazing how fast that kid can move!  Anyway, here's the promised pictures from our day at the Discovery Center.

Nikki is fishing with a small magnet to grab that big heavy metal barrel to move it back and forth.

Garrett is seeing how a xylophone works.

Of course Jack can't resist either.

We're inside a triangle of mirrors.

It's like being at the fun house at a carnival!  Can you see the amazement on our faces?

Not a good place for the flash from the camera to be on but it looked cool.

Look!  She's flying!

Getting ready to test out the black light room.  Lights on!

Lights off!  Well, regular lights off, black lights on!

Nikki laying on a bed of nails.  Look mom, it doesn't hurt!

Garrett tried it too but he looks a little nervous, don't you think?

All that working over seas so now he's resting on a bed of nails.  Maybe he should try accupuncture next.

Never thought I'd be doing something like this.  Don't worry, the tips of the nails weren't sharp but it felt funny.

Jack playing with the ball blower.

They even have a mini grocery store that's for kids only.

Time to try out the green screen room!

Their heads are floating down a river of lava!

The headless Nikki is going to put Garrett's head on.

The boys took a trip to Egypt.  Wow, that was fast!

The wonders of technology!

Nikki pulled herself up and laughed herself down.

Who can blow the biggest bubble?

We saw so many other things while we were there but I can only take so many pictures.