The hardest thing for me, when I moved to Arizona, was taking my kids away from their cousins. My sister and I have been really spoiled to have our kids together and they are all such good friends, and now that we have moved back, having the kids play together again is the best thing about it.
We love to spend time at Katy's house. There are so many fun things for the kids to do. They keep each other occupied, and Katy and I get to hang out and do whatever we want.
Although we are back to having snow, March started out with some really beautiful and warm days. Peter took full advantage of those days and had a blast riding his bike.
He also spent an afternoon mastering the slide. He spent a couple of hours on the slide in the back yard, but he didn't like to go down it unless I was standing there ready to catch him. I typically didn't actually catch him, but for some reason I needed to be there.
Eventually we went to a park where he spent another couple of hours sliding. The slide at the park was longer at the bottom, though, so he came to a stop still on the slide. I guess that made him feel safer because ever since then he has been fine on slides all by himself. And he LOVES them!
After the fair we decided to go out for an impromptu family lunch. It was Andrew's last Saturday working and we were celebrating have Saturday's together! We opted for Panda Express since it was a little nicer than fast food, and it is a family favorite. The boys both really love it.
I find myself more and more in love with my cute little family of four all the time. We had a great time together.
Ammon thought it would be fun to eat his rice through the straw. An interesting concept that was successful although very slow!
On the last day of February Katy called me up and mentioned that she would be taking her kids to the Kids Safety Fair at the South Towne Expo Center. It was free and Andy was working so I decided to go too. It was Katy and me with Ammon, Peter, Carolyn, Kylie and Isaiah. I got there a few minutes before Katy and spend that time looking for a place to park at the Expo Center. I finally gave up and ended up parking at Jordan Commons. That turned out to be WAY better. I called Katy and she was able to park right next to me. I don't think the walk was much worse than if we had parked in the parking lot there, and it were way less vehicles to dodge getting into the building.
The Fair was set up with tons of booths with demos, games, handouts etc. The kids did all sorts of things including sitting in a firetruck, walking through an ambulance, turning the lights on in a police car, "crashing" in a seat belt demonstration etc.
Ammon and Carolyn enjoyed meeting McGruff although the younger three were all a little nervous about the giant dog. Ammon and Carolyn also got to hang out with a Storm Trooper for a minute (there were several of them there) although niether of them are huge Star Wars fans so I don't think they really get who he was - just a cool looking guy with a gun...
By the end of the day they were decorated with all sorts of badges, had a bag full of goodies and left the fair complete with tied balloons. Andrew also met us there after work and got there just in time to help us round the kids back up and get them to the car. It was lots of fun!
A couple of weeks ago Andrew picked Ammon up from school. That, in and of itself, is has been pretty common for a Thursday afternoon. But what was different was Andrew coming home and announcing that he was going to take time off work the following Tuesday to attend Ammon's field trip. Ammon had asked Daddy if he would come, and Daddy just couldn't bring himself to say no.
So off they went to Braza Grill. They sampled all sorts of different foods and drinks and absoluetly had a blast! Of course Andrew has a tendency to get excited about everything new and interesting so he came home committed to take me out for dinner there. He swears it is better than Rodigio Grill and can't wait to go back! 
Even though it is my niec who received a new pet, I feel part ownership of the experience because it was a pet she inherited from a ward member of mine. I had been at a Relief Society activity when the neighbor asked me if I wanted the turtle. I immediately said no and didn't give it much thought until a few days later when I was at Katy's house. It randomly occurred to me that they might be interested.
And interested they were. It was just over 24 hours after I mentioned it to Katy that they were bringing home their new pet. Carolyn was giddy with excitement and it was fun to watch. Andrew and I debated keeping it for Ammon but felt like Carolyn was better suited for pet ownership. We felt bad knowing that we had passed up this opportunity for our own child, but even though Ammon would have thought it was somewhat cool, Carolyn felt like it was literally a dream come true. I think we made the best choice.
Now that we have 1:00 church, Andrew has been happily making breakfast for us every Sunday morning. We have gotten into a fun routine of having him make bacon and hashbrowns while the boys and I make German Pancakes. Ammon has it down pat. The second I tell him it's time to make German Pancakes, he is into the fridge getting out the milk and eggs. He even knows how many eggs we use! What a yummy Sunday tradition this is turning into.
This was the day after Valentine's Day so we still had cookies left over to decorate. Anyone who decorates cookies with us in the future - beware of the yellow sprinkles!
Apparently Ammon chose this strawberry for himself while they dipped them. All of the strawberries were big, but this one was seriously the size of his fist! He enjoyed eating it, that's for sure!
This year for Valentine's Day I got this crazy notion that I wanted to celebrate as a family. Perhaps that is partly because Andrew was gone last year and so this is the first time we have had all four of us together for the holiday. Whatever the reason, it was what I thought I wanted.
One of our activities during the day was to make sugar cookies. My sister-in-law provides this activity for a lot of our family get-togethers and so I used her recipes and we had a great time. The boys loved decorating their cookies. We couldn't find the red food coloring so we used green. Apparently M&M's were marketing green as the new color of love or something, so Andrew convinced me that it worked (I was really devestated to not have pink/red on Valentine's Day!)
After Ammon took great amounts of time and care in decorating one of his cookies, he gave it to me as a Valentine gift. What a lucky Mommy I am!
On Valentine's Day we had a fun little snow storm and instead of heading off to the store as I had planned, I shoveled the sidewalks while Ammon and some neighborhood kids had fun building a snowman. Back in November he received a really cute "snowman kit" and was excited to use it! They actually started the process at the neighbors house and then carried the snowball (a good size for the head) down to our yard.
Once here, they took that ball and rolled it all around the yard until it got to be the size of the body! It was pretty big and they used up most of the snow in the yard making it.
I don't know what the thought process was - if they just felt they were out of snow, or if they wanted to take it back to the yard they started in, but the traveling snowman took another journey down the street and was completed on someone else's watch. I was glad for the time they spent in my yard, though, and the fun I was able to observe them having.
On a day when I feel a little discouraged about various things, this smile sure does brighten the moment. A little more than a year ago I spent my days telling my kids, "You're driving me crazy!" I am happy to say that these days I find myself constantly saying,
"My boys are so adorable!"
My biggest regret with my sweet boys is that they are growing up so fast and raising children already seems like such a fleeting phase in my life.
It was fun to celebrate Valentine's Day with the kids this year. It started on the 11th when we prepared for Ammon's preschool party the next day. In the afternoon Peter, Ammon and I went to pick out the Valentine's he would be giving to his class-mates. He immediately picked Madagascar 2. That was surprising to me since we had never seen the movie. But he was quite happy with his choice.
Although I returned home after bedtime, Ammon was still awake. I was shocked to realize how incredibly and genuinely excited he was! It was like Christmas Eve and he just could NOT get to sleep. We sent him into his room over and over again and about every 5 minutes he came back asking, "is it day time yet???" We even tried giving him a clock and explaining what time to look for, but that didn't work either. Eventually he fell asleep but I think it was close to 11:00 by the time that happened. I really worried that he was going to be so tired that he would either be miserable during this much anticipated party, or miss it altogether. My fears were in vain, however, and he had a wonderful day with his friends!
Last night we went to the Draper Temple Open House. I LOVE temples, and it is so much fun to go tour the whole building. This is the 4th temple open house I have been able to attend, but the first time I have had children to take with me. I enjoyed the opportunity to teach Ammon about temples and more than that, for him to have the chance to feel what it is like to be in a temple. We went from room to room pointing to the various pictures of Jesus that hung on the wall. Of course we always see that when we patron the temple, but it was nice to see the consistency of it and realize that He is represented in EVERY room and EVERY hall. Truly the temple is built as a House of the Lord.
We were not able to take pictures inside of the temple, but on the way in they had this example of what the exterier of the temple was made out of.
After the tour, they had some disaplays set up in the church next to the temple. Ammon enjoyed this map which had a pin representing each temple in the world.
A few weeks ago Andy mentioned that it would be fun to combine our Geo-Trax set with Grandma's and make an amazingly HUGE track. Ammon got wind of that idea and literally spent days begging to do it. So last week when Andy came home early from work due to a dentist appointment, we decided to pool our resources and see what we could come up with. It is an undertaking I will not volunteer for again anytime soon. It took over an hour to construct our track! We built a triple level bridge, though, and that was cool. And, as always, even though it was such a huge job, we wished for more track - I especially wish we could have built more underneath the big bridge.
My Grandma is awesome and inspiring. She is an amazing woman that is everything good a Grandma should be and more. Part of the "more" is her awesome love for technology. Several years ago she strengthened our extended family unity by introducing us to the concept of a family website. And as an fantastic digital scrapbooker, one of the fun things on that site is that she makes us all scrapbook pages that she uses as banners on the site. We ALWAYS get a page for any special occassion such as our birthday or anniversary, and even on some random days when she just wants to make a cute page like this one. It is something that we all look forward to and are constantly impressed with the newest technique she has learned or is trying out. She is a great example to me that it is never too late to learn more and enjoy what you do. Thanks Grandma!
These cookies make my mouth water any day of the week, but I can't believe that my crazy husband (and his devoted assistant) made these on Fast Sunday - during the fast! I could never have done it - I would have popped a bite of something into my mouth. But Andrew - he has discipline that I cannot comprehend and did not eat them until after church when we broke our fast.
The cookies were made for Peter to take in the treat bucket in nursery. Now that we've started the new year, Peter's nursery class has two people in it. He is the older one as the second person in the class had her first official day today. With the new year, however, came lots of primary changes, and somehow nursery fell through the cracks and no teacher even showed up! That made church more adventurous than necessary! Oh well, more cookies for us at home. Oh, and did I mention that one of the new nursery leaders is the mother to the little girl who started nursery today! Poor woman! She spent 18 months counting down the time when she could go childless at church, only to get called to continue to take care of the child during church!
After church we had some snuggle time and Andrew tried yet again to convince me that football is worth my time. Hmmm... Still not buying it. But Peter had a fun time snuggling up with Daddy and watching the game. Peter is getting so good at so many words these days, but I love that one of his best and first words is snuggle! He loves to snuggle and will often bring a blanket and tell you that is what he wants to do. So cute!
When Ammon was a lot younger, he slept in this Fire Truck toddler bed. He was a very claustraphobic baby which is why we put him into a toddler bed as young as we did (vs the crib) and he wasn't much older than two when we put him on a twin because he got claustraphobic in this bed. So I have no idea what is going on here! Last night Peter slept on the "big bed" (Ammon's bed) and Ammon slept in the Fire Truck bed. And now tonight I find them both piled on this tiny little toddler bed together! I kind of get it, though. Siblings can be a security blanket. When I was little I remember most nights sleeping with at least three other people on my twin bed, and sometimes not only were Katy, Joey, and Danny there, but the golden lab was there too! So, I guess my boys come by it naturally.
In my last post I failed to mention that we finished the night off by inviting Katy over to be our 4th player, and Andrew, Dad, Katy and I played a couple of games of hearts. She brought two of her kids with her (Kylie stayed home sick) and we had a great time. Hearts is my all-time FAVORITE card game and I LOVE playing with my family. We got so wrapped up in the fun we were having that we forgot to worry about bedtime for the kids (something Katy and I are both pretty strict about). The kids were up a good 2+ hours past their bed time, but as usual, Peter was awake bright and early. This morning he wanted a bath. And even though he is running on less sleep than normal, his smile is brighter than ever!
I then lounged around the house in my pajamas all day getting killed at Gin Rummy. (Kind of sad, but it's a tradition - I always lose when I play my dad. It's ok - I win everyone else...)
I enjoyed watching as the tradition of holiday puzzles with my Dad turned into my son enjoying holiday puzzles with Grandpa. That was a sweet moment.
I'm well fed and relaxed and excited for 2009!
Andrew is an awesome griller. I especially love his chicken! It works out for us that not only do we love to eat what he grills, but he loves to cook on the grill! So much that he will brave the snow to do it. Ammon enjoyed the opportunity to study under the master griller and learn the art of amazing terriaki chicken. It was delicious!
