Ladybug Nursery and Eclipse

Ladybug Nursery does a gardening days every year (starting last year) where they do free hamburgers and hot dogs and free train rides for the kids. It's a lot of fun. We met our friends there this year and then we got some flowers after to plant in our still-in-progress front yard.

Cooper and Chloe in the green car with Crue a couple cars back in the blue car.

Love Chloe's face! Crue and Cooper are both smiling at me this time.

The boys went for a ride once more together before we went inside to get flowers. After getting flowers Jared took them again while I took Aly and the flowers to the car.

It was a fun day and I'm excited for my flowers to grow! I'll post pictures when they're looking good. I also ordered some sensation lilacs to put along our west fence (awesome sale price and free shipping for Mother's Day) that came right before Memorial Day weekend and I'll get planted this week. I opened them up before we left to water them and left them sitting on my kitchen counter. I came home and there was a bunch of new branches and leaves on them so I think they'll grow great. I'm excited!!

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Jared took some car tint he had and folded it over 10 times so we could see the moon move in front of the sun. I was able to put it over my camera to take pictures.

As the eclipse started.

 The boys loved watching through our makeshift glasses.

 Getting closer.

 It made our shadows go fuzzy and weird. Crue is showing off his muscles.

 This is when the moon was right in front of the son but my camera couldn't capture the ring of fire for some reason. I was able to do it later a little but needed a tri-pod to hold my camera still enough for a picture and I didn't have one.

 Sorry it's a little fuzzy. The moon's moving away.

Still going.

 Aly had fun hanging out outside with us.

 Almost gone!

Aly's 1st birthday!

I realized I didn't blog about Alyson's first birthday! It was in the middle of April so I'm not too far behind. :) Jared had scout camp the night before we did her party so we had 6 ft sandwiches from Walmart for dinner for her party (she loved them!) and have friends and family over for a party.

 Her cousin gave her this chair that she loves so we had her sit in it to open presents.

For all my kids' first birthdays we get a cake at Lin's because they do a free little cake for the 1st birthday. And they decorate the cakes so cute. Every time I tell them just to do something for a little boy (or a girl in this case) and they're always so cute. She LOVED hers (as you can tell).

Aly has been so fun to have. She's a really good baby (unless she's teething when she cries a lot). She loves her brothers. And we think she's the cutest little girl ever! I'm sad she's getting so big but she seems to somehow get cuter all the time so it's fun too. Happy Birthday Alyson!!

Entertainment center needed.....

This cute little innocent girl makes it her goal to see how many times she can get to all the electronics (sound, dvd player, vcr, tv converter box, etc).

(The gray thing to the left is a toy kitchen. It helps block the electronics along with those two buckets and a couch on the other side. However, she has figured out how to move the buckets or climb over them to get back there. As soon as I set her down after getting her out of there she's already pushing her way back there again. I'm going crazy! Good thing she's cute!)

We are now in the market for an entertainment center with DOORS to keep her out. I'd prefer glass doors so the remote will still work but beggers can't be choosers. :) Our biggest problem is our tv is huge and we don't have $500 for even an used one. Let me know if you know of someone selling theirs or see an ad somewhere for one! In the meantime I'll continually be pulling her out of there in between looking at craigslist and ksl ads. :)

We got boulders!

The boulders that we've been waiting for, came this week!  Here's the first load (thank goodness they had connections to a truck).

 This is all of them (hard to tell but there's a LOT).

Now to get them moved to where we need them (easier said than done - some of those suckers are HUGE) and then we can level out the dirt piles, add some compost, put in sprinklers, and get grass! I'm so excited!

Easter

Saturday morning we took the kids to the park for the city Easter egg hunt. I held Aly and stayed with Crue while Jared went with Cooper to his age group.

 The Easter bunny showed up on the fire truck with the lights and sirens going. The kids loved it. He started the hunt.

 I told Crue before what he needed to do and he did really good. He even came back to me when his bucket was full. I think I scared him a little when I showed him what building to look for and walk towards to find me (I didn't know if it would get super crazy and I wouldn't be able to see him). He had fun and wants to do it again next year.

 Cooper and Daddy on our way back to the car. The temp was in the 30s, hence the coats. Jared said he had told Cooper what to do at the hunt and he was all ready to go but when they honked the horn to start he just stood there looking around. Luckily in his age group the parents are allowed in the egg area so Jared grabbed most of the eggs for Cooper's bucket.

Playing around on a cart at Grandma Great's house in St. George with cousins before lunch and another Easter Egg hunt.

 Do I have the cutest boys or what?!

 And the cutest girl! She didn't like touching the grass with her hands until there was something worth crawling for, or until she decided to start eating it. 

 Crue wanted in the tree and then was scared to death. He ended up screaming at Jared, literally, to get him down. I love the look of panic on his face! (He's actually smashing Jared's left hand in the picture.)

 Cooper wanted in the tree and then in true Cooper fashion asked me to take a picture.

 Crue decided he wanted to go where Cooper had been and was pretty good about being in the tree after that. He didn't climb any higher but he did move around a little where he was.

 Aly was using the croquet pole to stand up, and even did a little "pole dancing". She had fun until she hit her mouth when she tried eating the pole. Then she was done.

 I LOVE this picture of her! She's so cute. I love her hair in pig tails too. I just need to figure out an easier way to get them out - she doesn't like that part.

 Getting more candy filled eggs.

 Crue loved going off and finding eggs. What happened to my little boy that we used to help find all the eggs?

 Two happy boys with their second round of candy for the day.

 I guess the grass was pretty tasty.

 A round of badmitton after the egg hunt. It was beautiful weather.

 Dad helping cooper hit one.

We have 9 am church so the Easter Bunny came during naptime Sunday.

 Water gun, coloring book, another book, and teddy bear dressed as a bunny. And a bunch more candy.

 I made Aly's dress this year and I think it turned out pretty cute. The zipper part at the top in the back went a little funky and kind of stuck out but that must be something to do with the pattern because I had sewn as they said.

 I love bows in the back of dresses. I decided I really liked the dress pattern so I'll probably make more from it.

Fun Times

Cooper likes to climb in the crib with Aly if he gets to her before we do. Aly likes to eat her crib.

Playing at my sister's house. She invited us over for cupcakes and ice cream. Who wants to ride in the car when you can hang on for dear life on top?

 Alyson couldn't reach the floor very well so the boys were more than willing to push her around the room.

And of course, some more landscaping. We rented a friend's bobcat and did a lot more work in the few hours we had it than we could have in an entire day with shovels.

 The boys loved watching daddy in the tractor. He went to get it that morning without telling them where he was going. When he rode around the corner in it (they live a couple streets over so he just drove it here) they were pretty excited. While Jared stopped for lunch the boys hopped in the bucket and Cooper said "take a picture mom!" like he does with everything lately. So of course I did.

 The boys have LOVED the dirt pile in our front yard. They drive their toys all over it. They take their toy four-wheeler and go "rock crawling" like daddy's Blazer.

 Jared leveled out the ground to the left in the picture (that ground was extremely hard, too hard for me to do with the shovel) and then did a little bit along the front. We already had it cleared in the front where we'll put bushes but he cleared some more where the boulders will be going for our wall.

He also brought dirt from a pile in our backyard from when our neighbors leveled their yard and brought some boulders we found in back out to the front to use once we start building our retaining wall. Some of our boulders, the biggest ones in fact, are coming from a couple streets over (across the street from the bobcat owner). The girl's dad has equipment to load the boulders in a dump truck and then they'll bring them to our house, hopefully this week. Once they do that we can finish building the wall and level out the dirt. Anyone know of some free railroad ties or anything else we can use to build some steps? We're going to put some by that basement window on the left so you don't have to jump off the wall to go around that side of the house.

Rock Crawling and Blue Angels

We went rock crawling to watch the Blue Angels when they came to St. George. Jared actually won tickets to the show but we still went rock crawling because 1. it's more fun and 2. the kids could run around in the dirt with their friends instead of us trying to keep them by us at all times.

As we were going through some of the obstacles we came upon this guy. Yep, almost rolled over the hill. He was being held up by the red Jeep just past everyone. The white Jeep on the left was with us. After a while they got him back on the trail and all was good. (He's on one part of the trail, the white Jeep is on the other, and the red Jeep just past everyone is where the trail continues so we couldn't go anywhere anyway.)

Cooper and Grady having fun on the rocks while waiting for everyone to make it up where we helped the guy in the picture above.

Jared going up the part where the white Jeep was parked.

 Going down the next obstacle.

 And up one more. See the guy on the right? Funny story. He works with Jared, is also the tow truck driver (Jared's the backup for the backup tow truck driver), and is a firefighter. He told his wife they were going to see the Blue Angels. Nothing more. She had no idea she was going to be climbing rocks to get there and she was not happy about it! She walked through many of the obstacles. 

 The boys doing their own rock crawling (Crue's on the right) while waiting at an obstacle.

Crue and Grady having fun in the dirt once we got to where we could watch. Yes, we brought a bunch of souvenir dirt home with us.

 Aly's first rock crawling. She loved it! Unfortunately she didn't like it when we didn't let her crawl around in the dirt. But she was one happy girl to be outside (and of course with her daddy).

 More rock crawling. Boys + dirt = happy boys! 

 Bryan, Bret (Max's older 2 boys - Jared's best friend), Cooper, Crue in a hole in some rocks.

 There were more there with us but these are the ones of the good friends that hang out. From left to right: Lowell Sorensen (Max's older brother), Max Sorensen, ours, Tyson Frandsen. I told Jared it would be funny if a Jeep broke down and we towed them back. We could take a picture and tell him we bring the Chevy to bring the Jeeps back. Although we are definitely glad no one broke anything or had to get towed back.

 Blue Angels. They flew by us quite a few times. One time one came straight toward us and then headed straight in the air so he was directly above us going straight up. It was awesome.

 Cooper having fun. It was windy and cold but still fun.

 The next two pictures crack me up. If you've ever been rock crawling you know how bouncy and rough it is. These two slept most of the way, if not all the way, down the entire trail how they are below.

 I held on to the top of Crue's carseat from behind so it wouldn't tip over with him.

Other than the wind (how many times have I heard that living in Cedar?) it was a really fun day. The kids had lots of fun, the Blue Angels were really cool, and hanging out with friends is the best. Hopefully the Blue Angels are an annual thing and we can continue to go rock crawling to see them every year.