I'll do anything for a happy kid

I have been watching construction equipment videos on youtube for the last hour with Gideon. Although he was content for the most part...I think some of my brain cells died, or I just learned more than most moms about skid steers. Here's the two videos he loves and watches over and over. I tried viewing other videos and after a while, I figured out he wanted to watch these ones again.

Didn't that just make your day to watch these videos?

My baby girl is one!!!

Happy birthday to my baby girl!!

 

Her big cake is made from scratch, a chocolate mayo cake recipe, with marshmallow fondant. I just cut out the top decorations with cookie cutters and squished rolled balls of fondant flat for the dots. The little cake I made just for her to eat, devils food flavor...my favorite!

Her brothers were more than happy to help her open her presents.

From Grammy and Jerry she got a glow worm. Great Grandparents a cute shirt and pj's for next year. Aunt Bethany and family a glow worm. Brothers gave her a baby swim floatie for the pool. Grandparents Deitz sent her some bath toys and a telephone pull toy...just like the one I had as a baby...via UPS today. From Mom and Dad she got a forward facing car seat and some clothes I've been saving for 6 months for her.....(I love clearance :)).

She knew right what to do with her cake and dove right in.

I LOVE this face!!! I call it the scrunchie face. She does it all the time when she's being silly, and I can't believe I caught it on camera this time!

Sage, Brady's nephew, the Great Grandparents, then our kids.

I have three videos to put on here, but for some reason blogger isn't reading my youtube account, so when I get that fixed I'll post them here. Until then, here is a link to our channel where the videos are uploaded.

Artwork from the kids

Mother's Day surprises from my sweet boys. From left: Zenock made in kinder, it unfolds to show a tall flower. Ammon's grape stamping and weaving project from his class. Ammon's from Church. Gideon's from Church...it says his favorite thing about me is that I am nice. I can just imagine the teachers asking him if I was nice and him saying uhhuh!!! in his very high pitched and head nodding way. Then Zenock's from Church. Ammon's card from school. And lastly Zenock's from school. They almost threw them at me when I first got up on Sunday morning, it was soooo funny. And for three days before that they both kept telling me not to look in their backpacks. I wasn't allowed to check homework or anything without supervision, haha!

Brady and the kids got me a bamboo bread slicer board...I hope he stops making fun of how aweful I can cut bread sometimes, since the slicer helps make nice, even pieces of homemade bread. And I also got a paddle for my mixer that has the rubber spatula thing on it to scrape the sides. I have wanted one of those for a few years now, and I'm really excited to try it out soon. I really wish I would have been able to sleep in and not do the regular morning routine, and that my husband could take the day off so I could relax more, but that wasn't an option...so it was just a regular day of only spending time with an awake Daddy while we were at Church then listening to him snore the rest of the day until it was time for him to go to work at 8pm. I knew I wasn't going to want to cook any sort of dinner, so I pulled out a big frozen pizza from Costco and threw it in the oven. It wasn't great but better than peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Maybe next year I'll get a "Mom" vacation for a day like the holiday implies every mom should get.

Summer is here

We got out sprinkler out and started the water wasting already this summer. We've had a few 100 degree plus days here already. My kids go stir crazy on the weekends if we don't have to get out of the house for errands, so I just turned on the water one day and let them at it for a while. I think they lasted over an hour. Water is so fun! Especially when it gets drunk right out of the patio.

Zenock made a dam with a big rock so his cars could go swimming.

All my boys love playing in the water.

Silly mommy

Gideon is wearing Aylas jammies because I wasn't paying attention to which kid I was dressing while trying to catch them both mid-run. My little kids were crazy energetic Friday night. I just wanted a memory of my dumb parent moment.

Sleepers are cute

For my Mom

Hey Mom! Since I can't be with you personally on Mother's Day, I just want to shout to the world how wonderful you are. Thanks for the long phone conversations over the last several years. Thanks for taking time to talk to my little kids on the phone even though most of the time you had no idea what they were saying. Thanks for Skyping.  Thanks for answering the phone when I have an emergency sewing dilemma. Thanks for teaching me how to cook, clean, and use a sewing machine....and thanks for giving me your old machine (I seriously love that thing :)). Thanks for being a great example of how a Mother should be. I love you! Have a wonderful Mother's Day!!!

 

Wetlands Nature Center

My friend Sam and I walk the trails at Duck Creek not far from our houses. On the trails one day last week we saw a jackrabbit and some ducks chasing each other. Okay, so really one bully duck chasing after all the other ducks in the pond. They have three turtles in the pond too. Gideon likes to throw whatever snacks he has in the stroller down the railing for the ducks. This day the ducks enjoyed Kix. They wouldn't touch the cherrios for some reason.

The county recently finished a nature center in the middle of all the trails and wetlands. We took the little kids we had with us to check it out.

They have all sorts of buttons and activties to do. There's even a section to identify animal poop. I only got half of my guesses right on that one. I also learned there are beavers at the wetlands...I had no idea Vegas was an appropriate climate for beavers.

Toddler area with animals to climb on. Gideon didn't like the snake very much, even when I was sitting on it.

Playing in the rocks outside the center. I was really trying hard to take a good photo of him to hang on our wall....this one is the best I got.

Teacher Appreciation

Teacher Appreciation is this week, and I've seen some cute stuff all over the internet....but it was all dumb, cheap stuff that will just end up in the trash eventually. Zenock's teacher doesn't eat junkfood or soda, so anything cutesy with that was out. I saw someone selling 4x4 wood blocks with these words on them and stacked on top of each other and tied together with some tulle. I like my version better! I stained all the wood, used my silhouette to cut out all the vinyl, sealed it all with some varnish after the letters went on, and put eye screws and chained it all together. The boys each signed the back for their teacher. I got all the supplies and started staining on Tuesday night, just finishing the chain last night after dinner. I felt like I was hurrying up to wait for the stain to dry for days....which I was haha. Brady cut all the pieces and predrilled all the holes for me. I couldn't have completed this on time if he didn't help me....so I am very thankful for my handy husband and his tools. I hope the teachers like it as much as I do.

Driving home

These videos are for all our far away family. My kids crack me up! Before the first video Gideon was shouting BOO at Ayla after taking the blanket off...of course he stops that right when the camera comes out. The second video is his reaction to every single tractor/semi truck/construction equipment/and farm animal we saw on our trip to Utah over the weekend.

School play

Ammon was a bee. I forget the name of the play, but it was a musical about how bugs want to be treated equally. The spider in the Little Miss Muffet story was upset that she wanted to squish the spider and not live in harmony. The bugs put up a protest and marched to Washington D.C where they made a request in Congress to be treated equally. It was really cute. Because of Brady's new work schedule he was able to come to his play, which was pretty cool for both he and Ammon.

Bees flying around the girls

Bugs sign for protest

Marching off to washington. Equality for bugs!

 

 

 

I was so annoyed that I stopped filming right before Ammon started his part. By the time I got the camera back on video mode his part was almost over. Sorry buddy!

 

Pinewood derby

Ammon is getting ready to do the count down and push the button.

Waiting for the other cars to finish

The whole troop...at least everyone that was there. We combine cub scouts with another ward, otherwise it would be a really small bunch.

Out of the four races Ammon's car did, he came in 2nd, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th.

Ammon's first ever pinewood derby race. I thought for sure he was going to lose a wheel during one of the races, but the car stayed intact the whole time. He got an award for the most patriotic car. Brady helped him with design of the car and cutting and sanding. I helped him with the painting. He wanted a mustang painted like a flag...so this is the best we all could do. He loves it. Next year will be even better. By the time Gideon gets into scouts we'll be pinewood derby pros.

Baseball games

Ammon slugging

Ammon running home

Zenock running home

Playing "pitcher" which really means just stand by the coach and if the ball comes to him he's supposed to throw to first base.

This is how Ayla watches baseball. Brady was watching Ammon's game right behind us. Gideon was having a blast running back and forth between us. It's really nice to have both boys playing games at the same time because then we aren't at the ball park for over two hours. The younger ones get bored with that really fast. It's fun to tag-team watching the kids games. Next week's games aren't at the same time, so we'll probably have a picnic dinner of pb&j at the park.

This is how Gideon watches baseball. He mooches the good stuff...anything Mommy has even if it's just a big mug of ice water. It's still tastes better from Mom's cup than his.