Summer Fun!

I think that Summer has officially arrived.  The kids have been loving the nice weather.  A couple of Saturday's ago we took the kids to Rigby to play at this open gymnastics place.  They were in heaven.  They could run around, jump and slide until their little hearts were content.  Kailey, Sydnee, Collin, and Sarah were all there so they had lots of fun playing with their cousins.

I think this was Macie's favorite.  She would run as fast as she could on the long tramp and then jump into this big pool of foam blocks.

Carter loved it all too.  He would get into the blocks and get laughing so hard he could barely get back out.

After we got done at the gym we took the kids to the river to ride their bikes and feed the ducks.  Landon was eating more of the bread than the ducks.  He is growing up so fast.  He can eat just about anything and he is just about to start walking.

Feeding the ducks!  This is a fun summer time activity.

Carter is getting to be a big boy.  He is so good at riding his bike that he hated to stay by us.  So he would ride ahead and then come back and then ride ahead again.  I just love this boy!

Macie has really seemed older ever since she turned 4.  She actually rode her bike all the way around the river.  She was pretty tired when we were done but she made it.  Sweet girl!

Funny kids!

The following Monday we took the kids to CAL Ranch stores to see the baby Chicks.  Landon loved them.  And it was fun because this year they had it set up so that he could see them while sitting in the cart.

Cute Boy!

Macie loves sharing her favorite blanket with her little brother.

Happy 4th Birthday, Macie!

Macie's Birthday was on Monday this year and so we had Sunday to play with all her birthday toys before we celebrated again.  The kids loved playing in the new playhouse and Carter and Macie laughed really hard when Landon kept crawling in and out. 

Landon was having fun playing with all the balloons.

Macie was really tired and fell asleep early and then I got some really cute pictures of my 3 best boys!

Carter loved having Landon in his bed.  And Landon was laughing a lot about being tucked into the blankets.

Goodnight Kisses!

Landon had them tricked.  He wasn't about to go to sleep.

Macie's Birthday!

Macie woke up to Scooby-Doo and Balloons on her floor.

She wanted to start sleeping in her new playhouse.  I had to convince her that it was not as soft as her big bed.  I still won't be surprised if I find her in it one morning.

The Birthday Girl!  This was a new outfit that she got for her birthday.  She looks all grown up.

For lunch we went to Leo's (of course).  She loves to play at Leo's.

After we went to Leo's she wanted to go to Walmart and Toys R Us to spend her birthday money.  She ended up finding a digital camera at Toys R Us.  She loves it and hardly puts it down.  When we got to Walmart she was completely worn out.  She climbed into the cart and fell asleep.

That night we went to Craigo's to have pasta and dessert pizza.  This is her favorite place to eat at.  I think she had a great birthday.

Macie's 4th Birthday Party!

This year Macie's birthday party fell on St. Patrick's Day so we got to celebrate double time.  All the kids wore green and Macie had her favorite princess crown on for the special occasion.

She was so excited for her special day.  She decided to go to Fat Cats to have her party.  We had been there once before and she fell in love with this little carousel. 

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Macie is in love with Scooby-Doo. 

We found the perfect cake for her.  She loved it.

Sweet Girl.

I think the balloon was one of her favorite things.

The Birthday Girl with the Scooby-Doo ears.

Macie invited all of her cousins and one friend.  This is Rachel.  Rachel is one of Macie's best friends.  Her dad is Andy Crossman who served in the same Mission as Dave.  We have been friends with them since we met.

This is the whole reason that we had her party at Fat Cats.  I think she rode it a million times. 

Happy 4th Birthday to our sweet girl.

She got this fun little playhouse tent as one of her gifts.  She loves it.

Blowing out the candles.

Random Fun!

These are a few pictures that I randomly took of the kids.

Landon and Brynlie were at my parent's house taking a bath together.  They were having fun splashing each other.  They are so fun to watch when we get them together.  It is almost like they really study each other and are trying to figure each other out.

Macie and Sydnee after their bath.  The kids love to go and swim in the hot tub at my parents.  After they got done we gave them a bath and then they snuggled in to watch a movie. 

Landon is just on the go all the time.  After a little bit of not being able to hear him crawl around I decided to go and see what he was getting into and this is what I found.  He had fell asleep on the hard tile floor.  He didn't even budge when I picked him up to put him in his crib.  Funny Boy!

Dave loves to feed Landon and after he got done this night Dave picked him up and Landon snuggled right in and fell asleep.  Dave was loving the snuggles.

Grandma and Grandpa Birch's 60th Wedding Anniversary!

In March we celebrated my grandparent's 60th Wedding Anniversary.  It was pretty neat to get everyone together and It was fun to have all the great-grandkids there to have this picture taken.

Grandpa and Macie having some bonding time.  Grandpa has been touch and go for a little while now and I am glad to see the kids be able to get to know him a little more.

Grandpa with Macie and Sydnee.  Grandpa sure loves all the great-grandkids.

There were a couple of gift there and Carter got one of the bows and put it on Landon's head.  They were laughing pretty hard.

After the head Carter thought it would be pretty funny to put it on his bum.  Landon was just getting the hang of crawling at this point so all the kids laughed pretty hard when he was crawling around with this bow on his bum.

Happy 60th Wedding Anniversary!

We bought a VAN!!!!

After I got home from Jackson, Dave and I got talking about his car, which he hadn't driven for about a month because the heater quit working and it had been cold.  We decided that it might be time to try and get into a more practical car.  It was hard not having two cars that we could all fit into.  So we decided that in order to get a new car we would have to sell the car that we had and we expected that to take a while so we posted an ad for it on craigslist.com and not even ten minutes later I had three calls on it.  We posted it on a Wednesday afternoon and Saturday afternoon it was sold.  So after we started getting all the calls we thought that we had better start looking for a new car.  We originally wanted to get a truck to pull the trailer and to just have the convenience of our own truck but after the first dozen that we looked at we realized that for the money that we would be getting out of our car we couldn't afford a nice enough truck to buy and we didn't want a new car payment.  So we shifted gears and started looking at smaller suv's and van's.  And I made a couple of calls and Friday morning I got a call back from one of the van's we had called about.  It just so happened that he lived one street over from my parents so I new exactly where to go to look at it.  It turns out to be a very small world, Brian and his family are in my parents ward and they know each other well and Dave went to school with Brian's wife Brooke.   Brian had a couple people coming to look at it that afternoon but he told me if we could come right then he would let me take a look at it first.  Dave was at work so I thought I would go and take a look and if I liked it I would take Dave to see it after he got off work.  Well, it was in great shape.  I asked Brian if I could take it to Dave's work and show him.  So we took it for a test drive and fell in love with it.  The kids absolutely love it and I absolutely love the kids in it.  It is so nice for everyone to have their own space.  I think Landon is the happiest because he has his very own seat without little heads peeking in to see if he is awake.  We hadn't sold the car at this point but we had so many calls on it that we were sure that it was going to go soon and we really liked the van and didn't want to miss out on it so we bought the van and the very next day we sold our car.  It all worked out perfectly.  We also found out that the transmission was going out in the Cougar and it was only a matter of time before we didn't have a car to sell.  So the whole thing turned out to be a big blessing.

Trip to Jackson!

At the beginning of March Landon and I went to Jackson, Wyoming for my nephew's Hockey Tournament.  It was a well needed little weekend vacation.  We left on a Friday afternoon and when we got to Jackson we were able to go to a Semi-Pro Hockey game between Jackson and Salt Lake City.  It was a blast.  It felt like old times standing there and getting all involved in the game.  Saturday morning Collin's games started and he played so well.  He played three games on Saturday and then because his team won all three of those games they got to play in the Championship on Sunday morning.  I have to say that it was just like traveling back in time and seeing my brother play all over again.  Collin looks just like him and skates just like him.  He even had some of the same mannerisms as my brother.  It was also fun to see Brandon coaching the team.  He is so good at it and the kids really respond to him.  It was a great weekend.  On the way home we were driving along and all of a sudden we saw a whole bunch of these mountain sheep.  It was really neat.  I had never actually seen a mountain sheep in real life before.  I got a couple of pretty good pictures.  

It kind of looks as though he was posing for this picture.

We saw close to 15 or so of them.

And then a little while later we saw all of these elk just hanging out along the road.  It was pretty fun to see all the wildlife.  I wish Dave and the kids could have been with me.  They would have loved seeing all the animals.

Macie and Sydnee having color time out at Grandma "T's".  My sister and I went and spent the day with my mom to help her organize her photo albums and then to put together a couple of photo books for my Grandparent's Anniversary gift.  It was a fun day just hanging out and looking at old pictures.

The kids put together a little band.  Landon fell asleep right before the show.