April and a little May!

Our annual Easter egg hunt at Neena's house! This is a favorite every year! We always have a delicious lunch and then send the kids to play downstairs while all of us moms hide eggs in the yard! Boy, those eggs are found fast! The candy and treats inside the eggs go quickly as well! I think we need to be a bit trickier next year!! Thanks Neena for hosting again! Also, this year we dyed Easter eggs with some friends! The dads helped the kids dye the eggs while the ladies chit chatted! I love hard boiled eggs and love this tradition!! Growing up we had egg competitions and egg wars. I'll always love those memories and I hope to get Thayne and Jake involved in egg wars someday too!


The weekend before Easter, our ward had an Easter egg hunt and breakfast. The breakfast was delicious! We invited my parents to come and they loved it! Before the kids went egg hunting, we had a spiritual and creative program that helped us remember our Saviour, his resurrection, and atonement (different people in the ward dressed up as representatives from church history and scripture, and testified, in a court setting, of Jesus Christ). Due to the weather, all the eggs were hidden inside the primary and nursery rooms. I forgot to bring our camera, but my dad brought his, luckily! He hasn't sent the pictures to me yet! I better give him a reminder!

Easter 2009. I hope we taught Thayne the true meaning of Easter because the actual day was not very fun. Our church services were wonderful and perfect for the day, but I started feeling sick to my stomach while at church. I thought maybe it was just from eating candy or something, but then after church and just as we pulled into my in-laws driveway, Thayne said his stomach hurt. Then he threw up right after we'd eaten a lovely Easter dinner (Thayne, of course, hadn't taken a bite). No pictures taken of our family in our nice Sunday outfits. We went staight home after that and layed on the couch in our pj's the rest of the night.

These are Thayne's first pictures. Yes, he has scribbled many, many, many pictures before these, but I could never figure out what he was drawing. Then, just out of the blue, I saw him draw these! Seriously, it was scribble one day, and people the next! If I sound like a proud mom, I am! I couldn't believe it! Do you see the hair on top? How about the hands and feets (just in the picture on the left)? The circles on the sides are ears of course! He still draws people ALL the time. He always makes his people happy - that makes me smile! He is starting to draw more hair these days. I love it when I see his creativity come to life!

"K" is for king!!! Thayne got to decorate a crown at preschool. He already had a sword, so that was the perfect touch to his costume! He played "king" all day and for several days later. Thayne's preschool moms come up with the cutest, most creative ideas. I think my lessons are probably a little dull compared to some! Oh well, I'm glad I can benefit from others ideas! Anyway, even if the kids love lessons, they love playing with each other just as much! And I love that for them!!!

Daddy's new ladder! We were painting our doors and baseboards (well, we haven't gotten around to the doors yet, but we will soon...hopefully:) and thought is was about time we got a ladder! It was an early birthday present for Jake. It's a Little Giant, but it's the big version. It's really heavy. We bought it used and it has paint all over it, but Jake is thrilled to have it! Thayne loves climbing to the top (even if it does make him a little anxious). Now, if we can just get him to go down some slides at the park!!!

Dad Ward's birthday party! Amazing how candles bring such excitement to those faces!!! Jake's dad is amazing. He has such a strong testimony of Jesus Christ. I love listening to his comments and advice at family home evenings. If I could describe my father-in-law in one word it would be service. He'd drop any plans he has to serve others. He is a faithful home teacher. He helps Jake with projects, and tends Thayne on occasion (without the help of Angie, my mother-in-law)! Thanks, dad, for letting us celebrate with you!

Blowing bubbles on our deck. This never gets old (for me or Thayne).

Preschool days! I LOVE this picture!

Recently we went to St. George for a little vacation. I say "little", but really, this was our "big" family vacation this year. We were not actually gone that long, but it was more than the usual weekend camping trips we take each year. We planned on inexpensive and kid friendly activities, which is exactly what it was (mostly) - and we LOVED it!!

We went to "Town Center" a couple different days so Thayne could play in the water. The first time there we were planning on just checking it out and then returning, but Thayne was way too excited to play, so we stayed. Thayne's clothes were soaked by the time we got done. I'm always amazed at how tolerant Thayne is to things that would definitely bother me. For example, I hate being in wet Levis. Yeah, Thayne could care less. What a happy kiddo!!!

Another daily activity was playing with side walk chalk. Thayne could have done this all day!!!! It's fun to listen to Thayne while he draws. Usually he draws tracks for cars and trains, then he will narrate how the cars and trains will crash and fall of the track! He loves telling Jake and I what to draw. Maybe you can see the temple he asked me to draw? He also wanted me to draw people inside the temple. I bet the drawings are still on the sidewalk there!

The park model is perfect for us! My grandparents used to own it. All while I was growing up my grandma and grandpa Frank stayed in St. George during part of the year. They began in an RV park, but then they bought this park model in a small retirement community. Now my grandpa is gone and my grandma isn't well enough to go down much, so she gave it to my dad and uncle. We utilized just about everything there! Thayne loved it because everyday was a movie day! Since we don't have satellite or cable, it was a treat to watch the Disney channel everyday! Thayne loved the bunk bed (he played up top and slept below:). We went to a couple of restaurants (I was so proud because I had coupons to everyplace we went), but cooked at home for several meals too!

These pictures depict the part of the trip that was a little interesting! Jake and I thought it would be fun to take Thayne to Las Vegas. That might sound weird, but originally we thought we would take him to the Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay. Then we decided to make this an inexpensive (or cheap) trip, so we bagged that idea and thought we could just watch the pirate show at Treasure Island and see the M&M factory. We parked at Treasure Island and thought we'd walk to the M&M factory (we also thought we could hit the tigers at MGM, the water show at the Bilagio, and whatever else was geared toward kids - and FREE). Well, the first disappointment was immediate when we found out that the pirate show doesn't begin until 7pm. We arrived there at 1pm. So we began the walk. Since it was close to 100 degrees outside we tried to walk the malls as much as we could. We walked and walked and walked. We went through Ceasars Palace and took Thayne to FAO Schwarts and looked around. That was a little fun. Then we walked and walked some more. Thayne was a trooper. He walked a little, but mostly we were holding him. That actually worked out well because it was hot outside and anyway, we didn't want him looking on the ground or trying to touch things. In a way, it was a good age to take Thayne. He doesn't stare at people and he is too young to realize what the pictures all over show! Oh brother, Las Vegas... anyway, we walked and walked and we bought a bottled water from a guy who was selling them from a cooler (obviously didn't have a contract to be selling anything). Then we went to a 7 Eleven on the strip and bought to more big bottles of water! It was a little miserable and we weren't getting very close the M&M store. Thayne finally fell asleep on Jake's shoulder. We kept pouring water on his back to cool him off - it didn't even wake him up! We decided to head back. So, basically, we took a LONG walk around the Las Vegas...in the hot sun...holding a kid most of the time. Honestly, it was fun because we were together and can pretty much have fun doing anything with each other!

We went hiking at Pioneer Park (Jake calls it Dixie Rock). This was totally new to me, but I guess it's a really popular place to visit. There were tons of caves and lizards. Thayne had fun climbing, but he's a very cautious kid and so we really had to coax him to climb some bigger and steeper rocks (of course Jake was helping him the entire time and it wasn't like we were taking him places that were dangerous:). Beautiful! Thayne loved throwing rocks all along our hike. At one point I heard a rock fly by my ear, then we had a little talk about where we throw rocks!

These pictures were taken the second time we went to "Town Center". It was much more crowded this time and Thayne was not quite as ready to get soaked. We still had a great time!

I can't think of anything extraordinary or adventurous about our little family, but our day to day life is wonderful. We try to have fun, we laugh a lot, we work, and we live (which says a lot some days!!!).