Alan's Birthday and Tulip Festival

I guess grown-ups get the shaft with birthday pictures.  These are the only two pictures I took of Alan's birthday.  Ha ha.  I made stuffed pasta shells and yummy cheesy bread (at Alan's request) for dinner, plus Alan's favorite ice cream sandwich frozen birthday cake.  I love my hubby so much!  

We have been to the local Tulip Festival a couple of times lately (when the weather hasn't been rainy...) It has been pretty chilly!

Sweet Maggie

On a different matter, here is Jared playing his latest memorized song, the Star Wars Main Theme.  He has actually gotten even better since I took this video.  I am so proud of him.

Happy 3rd Birthday, Evelyn!

We recently celebrated Evy's 3rd birthday!  She has grown up so much lately.  For dinner we had homemade chicken noodle soup, homemade wheat bread, and berry jello, some of her favorites.  

Trying to show me three fingers

Evy's loot.  The magiclip princess dolls seemed to be the biggest hit

 Maggie gave Evelyn a couple of her old too-small dress-ups, and Jared gave Evelyn his penguin pillow pet that Evy has had her eye on for a while.  It was really cute to see his generosity with her.

 I made Evelyn's birthday cake a couple of days before her birthday because my Relief Society happened to have a cake decorating activity.  A really nice cake decorator came and shared her homemade frosting with us and helped me pipe the edging on Evelyn's cake.

Somehow I didn't video our entire birthday song, but this video is worth watching because Evelyn is just giggling the entire time, and she is so darn cute:

Evy in one of her new dress ups.  She is too enthralled with her star wand to bother looking at the camera...

Spring Break Trip to Goblin Valley

We had a fun spring break this year.  I finally sprung for a pass to Thanksgiving Point, so we went there two days in a row.  Then we took a little trip to Goblin Valley.  We stopped and spent a night with Alan's sister Amanda and her husband Todd and their kids on the way.  It was super fun to hang out with them.

This is the second spring break in a row that we went to Goblin Valley.  Our kids loved playing in the "goblins," and I had fun trying some new hikes that we didn't do last year.  ("Fun" is a little bit of a relative term for someone who is 26 weeks preggo...)

We stayed in one of the yurts again this year.  Totally rocked!--especially when it rained one of the nights we were there

 The first day we hiked a trail called Carmel Canyon, which was short but pretty cool.  We also hiked with Curtis cousins to the top of a butte by our campground.

Jared is mid-cough in this picture.

 Jared had had a pretty bad cough for 2 1/2 weeks before this trip.  It developed into an ear infection while were there.  Poor kid.  I had children's ibuprofen to give him for pain, but he had to wait until we got home Saturday evening for a prescription.  He was a trooper.

Evy all tuckered out.  Doesn't look very comfortable.

Maggie, Uncle Matt, and cousins exiting a little tunnel

Nice, Jared

 That evening we spent some time playing hide-and-seek and other games with cousins in the goblins.  The kids had a blast.

The next day we hiked Little Wild Horse Canyon, which we did last year, too.  It was such a fun hike for everyone.

Jared and Maggie with cousin Scott

 Some great views of the wind-y and skinny canyons we had to climb through.

 Our final morning we hiked to the Goblin's Lair, a big cave.  There was a cool mini-cave inside that you could explore for a bit.  I'm glad we brought flashlights.

At the top of Goblin's Lair before we hiked down

Alan in the mini-cave

An attempt at a family photo.  I'm in hardly any of these pictures, ha ha, which is probably a  good thing considering my growing belly 

It was such a fun trip and we are looking forward to going back sometime.

Big Changes for Evelyn

Evelyn and her favorite kitty, Snowy

 It's about time we had a post about big things in Evy's life.  About a month ago we tried unsuccessfully to move Evelyn from her crib into a "big girl bed," and also to her new, bigger bedroom.  Well, then we decided to paint that room before attempting to move her again.  It had been chocolate brown.  Here is a before picture from 5 or 6 years ago, when it was Jared's room.

Here are the "after" pictures.  I also bought a couple of new decorations.  Thanks to Alan who did like 95% of the work.  I helped with prep work, corners, and touch ups.

We also put in some regular blinds instead of the mini blinds that had been in there before.  It looks so much better to me!

There is just something so cute about seeing a little girl sleeping in a big bed for the first time.  Evelyn had a hard time in her bed for about two nights, and then she was good to go.  She also loves the new yellow paint and now thinks that yellow is her favorite color (she always wants yellow shirts, yellow socks, yellow bowls, etc.)

While we were on a painting roll, we used General Conference weekend to paint the nursery, too, now that Evelyn was officially moved out.  I guess I finally felt more committed to do some repainting now that I knew we were going to be having so many little girls in our family.

Here is the before picture:

Here is an "after" picture:  We did mint green on top of the molding and a light coral underneath.  (I didn't want it to be TOO girly.)  :)  I still need to hang up some things on the walls.

Now, this week (after all our camping trips are over) we are finally getting Evelyn potty trained!  I was going to start later this week, but yesterday morning she woke up and asked, "Mommy, can I wear big girl underwear today?"  What a request!  I cancelled all my plans yesterday so I could stay home with her and work on it.  She has been ready for a while but I was feeling so crummy with morning sickness and we also had some camping trips planned, so I put it off.  Now she has been doing so well so far.

I'm so proud of my big girl!

Here is just a random photo of piggy tails.  I can't get over how cute she is!  

Easter 2016

We had a very fun Easter. We were having an egg hunt with the Curtis cousins in the evening, so Alan and I didn't bother planning our own little hunt.  However, I did give the kids their hollow milk chocolate bunny--a tradition from my childhood.  

Evelyn's yellow Easter dress was mine when I was a girl--it already is too short for her.  Maggie wore it three years ago, too.


All of the rest of the pictures are from the egg hunt in Grandma Curtis' backyard.  We also had a lovely ham and potato dinner with some of the aunts and uncles and cousins, but I forgot to take pictures.

Jared's favorite face to make for pictures lately

Fun with cousins!  

6. Out of the Mouth of Babes

• Jared had to write a persuasive essay, and he chose the topic of "Why Harry Potter is the best book series." Please enjoy this short excerpt from his essay: "Some people say they don't have time to read Harry Potter because they're too busy playing video games. I say just make time to read. I mean seriously people, video games may be fun, but they're not good for you. Every once in a while, turn off the devices and go do something else." I think it's an awesome, though rather self-congratulatory, essay. The thing that makes it hilarious is that he himself plays video games! I mean seriously people.
• Maggie and Evy are obsessed with their stuffed kitties. Evy has two: Snowy and Stripes. Maggie likewise has two, and she has named them Snowy and Stripes -- to avoid confusion and ambiguity. I have caught them in the act of changing said kitties' diapers -- using real diapers, though, not real cat poop. 
• One night, when Rachel and Justin were babysitting our kids, Evy misplaced her favorite kitty, Snowy, right before bed -- a deal breaker. Rachel asked a nearly inconsolable Evelyn what was wrong: "I don't have Snowy!!!" "Do you know where she is?" "Yeah!" "Where is she?" "Gone!" Snowy was not, in fact, gone. Rather, she was safely in bed right where Evy had left her.
• Does the leprechaun visit your house on St. Patrick's Day? Well, it visits ours. I'm not really sure why, but Jenny somehow set the precedent one year when she invited the leprechaun to leave a trail of chocolate coins from each child's bedroom door. Our kids have gotten creative in their methods for attracting the leprechaun to our house every March the 17th: they gather every green object (apparently, leprechauns like green) that they can lay hands on and make a pile right in the middle of the living room. The leprechaun is then lured to our home, at which point he leaves a trail of treats for the kids. This year there was a twist: A friend at school informed Maggie that the leprechaun often needs to use the bathroom during his visit, but that he is unable to flush the toilet because he's too small. As a result, he leaves green urine in the toilet bowl. So Jenny and I set another wonderful precedent this year by placing a few drops of green food coloring in the toilet. Yep.
• In a moment of overzealous generosity, Maggie shared with a neighbor friend half of the eight chocolate coins that she had gotten from the leprechaun that morning. Not only did she give one to the friend, but her generosity knew no bounds, and she also gave the friend one for each of her siblings. She inevitably experienced donor's remorse later that day and told Jenny that "I kind of miss those chocolate coins!"
• When we ask Evy what she wants for breakfast, she will often reply "cat food." Sometimes she mixes it up and replies "fish food." I'm not sure whether there's really a difference. She really just wants cereal.
• Jared got a "splat ball" about a year ago. This is a ball, vaguely resembling a water balloon, that you can throw really hard on the ground so that it will splat and then resume its original shape. Jared's first splat ball, a special thing for a boy of tender years, looked like a giant bloodshot eyeball. The splat ball inevitably splatted its last splat and did not resume its original shape. Jared was so broken up over this, that he actually wrote an epitaph for his splat ball! He drew a picture and wrote the date on which his eyeball met its untimely end. Well Santa Claus gave Jared two new splat balls for Christmas: one of them a smiley face and the other --  you guessed it -- an eyeball. The funny thing is that he will not, under any circumstances, play with the eyeball one. Instead, he has kept it in mint condition in the package so that it will not meet a tragic end like the first version. 
• Jared's teacher was giving away a poster or some such prize to the kid who could guess the number that she was thinking of between one and 20. Jared chose the rather strange number 17. That actually was the number that she had picked, so he won the prize. He promptly told her that he had read in a trivia book that the most common number that people choose when thinking of a number between one and 20 is ... 17.
• While staying in a yurt in Goblin Valley State Park this past week, Jenny and I commented on how big his appetite was during one of our meals. He commented that he was "going to eat you out of house and yurt."