The Howard Family

Christmas Break

2012-01-16T10:00:00.000-07:00

We know, we know, Christmas break is over and done with. But since we are finally getting back into a routine and figuring things out this new year, we thought we'd blog about our trip. We left the day after Christmas, which was much better than leaving Christmas Day last year. We left early in the morning which made traffic great all the way down to Las Vegas. Finally made it through Salt Lake without hitting some kind of terrible traffic.

So we got to Las Vegas and just started to have some fun. The kids were ecstatic they could actually do things outside. The weather was just what we needed. We played in Grandpa and Grandma's "tree", went for walks, roller-bladed to our hearts' desires, and many other fun things.

Jaret also had some fun teaching a few people how to play Nintendo DS.

Caught you Grandma!

Then after a few days in Las Vegas, we made our way down to Arizona...

Christmas Day

2012-01-15T11:00:00.000-07:00

After the short night of sleep, the kids were super eager to find their parents, wake them up at whatever cost, then see what Santa brought in stockings. Everyone was super excited to see the fun things that Santa brought. Probably the most popular were the roller blades, the dragon castle, and most definitely the teddy bears.

After that it was on to a little breakfast, then seeing what presents were under the tree. All in all, it was a good haul for Christmas presents for all of us and we were really excited to have such a Merry Christmas this year.

So grateful we can celebrate this time of the year to thing about what is important to us and what Christ has done for us. We hope you all had a Merry Christmas and things went as scheduled.

After Christmas for us, it was off to vacations...

Christmas Eve

2012-01-14T10:45:00.000-07:00

Wow, where has the time gone. Since we just put up our Christmas tree today, I figured I'd update our blog for what happened around Christmas as well.

We started with the ever-increasing in popularity Christmas Eve present. Pajamas! Hooray!

Makayla has a new nightgown

Connor has a new pair of 'Agent P', Perry the Platypus pajamas.

And Jaret was excited for his new Scooby Doo pajamas.

Even mom and dad got a new pair of flannel pajama pants. Maybe mom will stop stealing all of dad's pajamas now. :)

We tested them out that night by sitting down to a few Christmas stories and movies in addition to the wonderful candy and popcorn that were brought to us by our '12 Days of Christmas' friends, the Swensons. We sure love them for that. The kids still talk about it. And I'm sure Rigby and Logan will never forget the nights where Makayla would sprint out the door and run half a block to see who they were. She was determined after Day 3 to find out who they were.

Then after a quick night of sleeping and rolling around, Christmas finally came ...

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T15:34:00.002-07:00

We wish you all a Merry Christmas. For those of you who did not receive a card from us, we apologize and didn't realize how fast we would go through these cards. If any of you didn't receive a card from us and wish to be on our next year's card list, please drop us an e-mail at zachcarrie@gmail.com with your address (unless you foresee it changing in the next 12 months) and we'll mark it on our to-do lists for next year.

And for everyone that visits our site, here is our 2011 Christmas card. It's amazing how fast our 3 kids are growing. Merry Christmas to all!

One nice thing we did get for Christmas was a new camera, so as we go on vacation this next week to Las Vegas and Arizona (perfect places for Christmas :) ), we'll keep everyone updated with new pictures of our fun in the sun.

A Visit From Santa

2011-12-12T19:00:00.001-07:00

We had our ward Christmas party this past Saturday and we had lots of fun. We had ham and potatoes and there was candy at each of the tables that we all snacked on. After dinner and a few Christmas carols, the man in the big red suit made his grand entrance. The kids were really excited to see him and tell him exactly what they wanted for Christmas. Hopefully he follows through on those requests. But only if they're good :).

Decorating the Christmas Tree

2011-12-04T19:42:00.001-07:00

We finally have it up for all to enjoy...those who come to visit that is. We keep our tree downstairs out of the way since it isn't that extravagant.

The kids each got to put on a fair share of decorations so there was far less fighting than years' past. It turned out great. We are all getting really excited for Christmas.

Our Day At the Park

2011-11-26T14:33:00.001-07:00

We have a new park in town similar to large handicap-accessible parks in other big cities. We feel like our town is finally growing.

The kids have loved the playground and are constantly asking to go. Their favorite things are spinning teacups. There is a lot they love to play with

Below are a few pictures we took. Also, we put a few videos on our video page and on our YouTube page. We hope you enjoy them.

Thanksgiving Dinner

2011-11-24T16:06:00.001-07:00

Every year we have so much to be thankful for. For the freedoms we have in this wonderful country, for the gospel that helps us be more Christlike and especially for family.

This year we had another quiet peaceful Thanksgiving at home and it has been great so far. We had a delicious turkey compared to last year's super fatty one. Makayla had her favorite dish, mashed potatoes, Connor got to try a turkey bone, and Jaret slept through lunch. He is a bear if you wake him up from a nap, so we didn't do that. He'll have to join us for dinner later.

We hope you all had a good Thanksgiving and have many things to be thankful for. Here are a few pics for the day.

Finding A Place To Sleep

2011-11-21T22:25:00.001-07:00

Sometimes we catch Jaret doing the strangest, craziest things. So when he is quiet, we know something is up. But this time, it was actually very 'cute'. Have a look and see:

Once There Was A Snowman ... or two or three

2011-11-14T08:00:00.000-07:00

This past week has been somewhat cold. With the cold weather we had a little bit of snow. With that little bit of snow, our kids were all out having fun outdoors on a Saturday. With the new snow, the kids decided to make snowmen. Not just one, but one that matched Makayla, Connor, and Jaret. They ended up being very cute!

Also, please let us know in the comments what you think about a slideshow. We were debating when we had a bunch of pictures. Which would you guys rather see? A slideshow, or just all the pictures one after the other? By the way, thanks for always visiting our blog to stay updated. Makes it fun to want to post more stories.

Update: Apparently the slideshow wasn't working on all systems and browsers. Guess we'll just stick with the old picture system. Here are the pictures. Thanks for the input.

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let it ... wait a minute

2011-11-05T17:30:00.000-06:00

Well, Halloween is officially over and now it is ... wintertime in Idaho! Last night we had a brief snowstorm that dropped about an inch of snow on our yard. The nicest part of the snow was that it stayed in our yard and not on the roads and sidewalks. The kids had a blast running through the snow last night and enjoying the big flakes that were falling.

Looks like it's going to be a long winter if it's already starting to snow. I wonder if there was enough snow for making snowmen? Guess you'll have to check back on Monday to see if we did. :)

Carving Pumpkins

2011-11-01T07:00:00.000-06:00

Well, Halloween was yesterday, but here are the pictures of our pumpkins. Maybe we'll try and sget a picture of what they looked like in the dark on here too soon. The wolf one was from our Cookie Crisp cereal box. The others were from our own 'imaginations'.

Trick or Treating

2011-10-31T20:00:00.000-06:00

Halloween was fun this year. Jaret was old enough and excited enough to stay up with the rest of the kids this year. We actually did every house in our subdivision this year because of that. It was a long hour of walking, but the kids had a blast. Especially seeing all of the other kids in the neighborhood. Plus they got tons of candy.

Once we got home, the first thing the kids did was dump out their candy and start sorting out the best vs the worst candies that they got. I couldn't believe the pile of candy that they didn't want. What kid does that?!?! After a few trades between the kids, they finally had what they wanted and were excited just to hand out the rest of our candy to the trick-or-treaters that came to the door. It was a fun night.

Our screen on our digital camera broke a few weeks ago, so we guess when we take a picture whether the kids will be in the picture. So some of the pictures worked out well and some didn't. But here's our best few pictures from trick-or-treating.

Carving Pumpkins

2011-10-31T07:00:00.001-06:00

We got our pumpkins a week or two ago and left them out front without carving them. Usually when we carve them early, they end up squishy and nasty by the time Halloween comes. So this year we let them sit until 2 days before Halloween. They were still pretty good. We had lots of fun moving the table out of the way and scooping out 'pumpkin guts' from each of our pumpkins. We even had 2 small pumpkins we cooked for pumpkin pie filling. We'll have to give that a shot for Thanksgiving ...which is just around the corner! Can you believe it?!?!

Anyway, we all had fun as a family scooping things out, drawing with markers on the pumpkins, then letting mom and dad slice the pumpkins open. We can't wait for Halloween!

At the Pumpkin Patch

2011-10-30T19:00:00.000-06:00

For the past few years we had been wanting to take the kids out to a pumpkin patch to pick out a 'real' pumpkin. Something about picking out a pumpkin at Smith's or Wal-mart just didn't do it for us. So with a little research we actually found a pumpkin patch that was really close to us. The week before we went, Makayla's school class also took a field trip out to Swore Farms. There was a corn maze, a greenhouse, a pumpkin patch, and a few other things for the kids to do. It was a nice place to get away to.

So we took a stroll through the patch and had a hard time picking out pumpkins that weren't as big as the kids. There were some pretty big pumpkins out there. We got 3 25lb pumpkins to keep at our front door to keep our house somewhat festive. It was a fun Saturday afternoon activity for us a few weeks ago. Here's proof that we went.

We carved the pumpkins last night. Check back tomorrow to see what they look like. :)

Late Summer Nature Walk

2011-10-14T23:57:00.000-06:00

Upon going through our pictures, I noticed there were quite a few different things that we hadn't blogged about. One thing we did at the end of the summer was a campout with our ward just south of Pocatello. On our way back we noticed a nature trail just off the side of the road. We were beat after the campout, but we told ourselves we'd make it back to check it out. Two Saturdays later we made it. We even brought along one of Makayla's friends.

The kids had lots of fun exploring and watching the stream flow by. We saw wildlife in the form of water snakes, birds, and insects. And lots of mosquitoes. They found us every time we stopped to take a break. It was nice to get out of the house and it was actually a pretty fun little trail. We hope to find more of those close to home for next summer's exploring trips.

Another Season of T-Ball

2011-10-12T12:00:00.000-06:00

Connor liked playing baseball / t-ball last spring so we decided to sign him up again. We were going to sign up Makayla as well since she is excited to try it out, but we were a little late for that sign up.

But Connor is loving his new t-ball team and is having lots of fun. We are trying a little harder this time around to teach him a few more things to learn to get his skills up. All in all he just has fun out there which is the point of the game.

New Format For Our Blog

2011-10-11T16:27:00.002-06:00

We are trying out a new format for our blog. We like to tinker with things. Let us know what you think in our comments, whether you like it better, or would like to see it the old way. We'll put up a poll too if we can figure that out. We'll see how it goes. We aren't sure yet what we think. Give us a week and we'll see if it grows on us. Hopefully we've kept everybody up to date with our family in the last few days. We promise to keep up our blogging. Even though we now need a new camera. :(

Update: Well, that was short-lived. Looks like the new "dynamic" format does NOT want to work with Google Chrome so we are reverting back to our old format, slightly tweaked. What else should we do to our blog to make it as 'cute' as others?

Carrie's favorite place to be

2011-10-11T12:00:00.000-06:00

Favorite place to be?
...in a book!
Doesn't matter where in the house she is, she loves reading books. We hope the kids catch on.

By the way, this picture was taken courtesy of Jaret. Along with about 75 other pictures on the camera. Which has since become dysfunctional. Aargh!

First Days of School

2011-10-10T08:00:00.000-06:00

No, our schools here in Idaho don't start in October, we are just a little slow in our household updating our blog and keeping in touch. It's been over a month since the kids were in school, but we thought we'd throw a few photos up for memory's sake.
Our new 4th grader. Can't believe how fast she's growing! Totally excited for her first day of school. And in LOTS of pink.

And our full-time 1st grader. He loves going to school everyday now instead of 2-3 full days a week. He is making lots of friends and becoming a social butterfly....but in a 'manly butterfly' kind of way...

And last of all, our little preschooler has been going twice a week to get help with his speech. He's making lots of progress.

It has been a busy start to the school year, but all 3 kids are having lots of fun and enjoying each of their classes so far. We are crossing our fingers that it remains that way!

"I Believe I Can Fly"

2011-10-07T12:00:00.000-06:00

Another tribute song. Another perfect description of our 3-year old daredevil.

We were all getting ready for bed last night, and that is usually the time when Jaret gets a little wild and rambunctious for some reason. He and Makayla were playing in our front room. Jaret was jumping on couch cushions like a squirrel or some other animal that jumps and hops around a lot. I think he learned that from watching the squirrel video from the Cardinals / Phillies game that we saw. Anyway...he was jumping around and jumped a little too far off of the couch. Right into ... the corner of the piano! Of all soft landings to hit!

Thankfully Carrie was there and she rushed him to the bathroom to get the bleeding down. Thankfully the bleeding didn't last long. But wait! What is that giant gash! It was a pretty big one. So after about 10 seconds of deliberation we decided he needed to be taken in to get stitched up. And since it was 9 o'clock at night, the only place open was the ER at our new hospital. Awesome. So the kids (who were already in pajamas) all rushed to the car and we made our way to the hospital.

During all of this excitement and commotion, Jaret was actually being a trooper and wasn't crying or doing anything except holding the washrag up to his forehead. He was doing great.

It was our first trip to the new hospital they've opened here in town. And we don't expect it to be our last. The staff was very friendly and helpful. After numbing up Jaret, they stitched him up. The PA was pretty funny making comments about looking like Harry Potter with his scar. The funny thing about his scar is that it is an upside-down "J". Awwww....special.

So we got Jaret all stitched up and cleaned up and headed home. He was great all night, but was wired so he didn't want to go to bed. I guess the day was a little exciting for him.

So that is the story of our littlest Howard and his daring escapades. After losing 4 teeth and getting 9 stitches in his forehead, we are ~~excited~~ nervous to see what will happen next!

"Fly Like An Eagle"

2011-10-06T23:07:00.003-06:00

We never thought our kids would be big 'Steve Miller Band' fans, but there's just something about that song. Well, since people are not supposed to be able to fly, things like this happen:

Our little daredevil learned the hard way. More info to come if we get enough comments. :)

The Crowning Jewel of our Las Vegas Trip

2011-09-07T16:00:00.000-06:00

The reason we went down to Las Vegas was to be with Carrie's sister on her wedding day. It was a beautiful day, but hot, for a wedding. It was actually really special for Carrie and I to be down in Las Vegas because it was about 2 weeks away from our 10th anniversary since we were married in the Las Vegas temple. It was the first time we were back in that temple and we were there to witness another wedding. The temple grounds were very pretty.

The kids were all dressed up nice.

There was even a little pool and fountain area inside the temple waiting area where the kids could sit and wait for everything to be done.

And the 'other happy couple' close to celebrating their anniversary. It was nice to come back to the place we were married 10 LONG years ago. "The longest 10 years of my life!", says Zach.

And the siblings with the newly married couple.

It was a great day to be with family and loved ones.

Hot Times In Sunny Las Vegas

2011-09-06T18:18:00.001-06:00

When we were in Las Vegas, we had to find things to do to keep out of the sun and stay cool. What better way to spend time in Las Vegas than going to a casino! Okay, it may not be exactly what you are thinking of. Casinos are filled with things to do now. Other than gambling. So we made use of the other fine areas of the Santa Fe Casino close to Carrie's parents' house. We went bowling with her brother's family and a nephew. It was fun for everybody. We even got out the bowling guides for help. Some of us adults could have used those a few times. It has been way too long since we've bowled. We need to do it again soon.

Makayla improved a lot from the last time we went bowling. She was doing good at not needing bumpers (although we kept them up just for those few times where they came in handy).

Every time Connor would bowl, he would do a little dance routine. He was very excited to go bowling and happy to knock a few pins over. He definitely takes after his mom. :)

The other thing we did in this casino was going to the theater to see "Green Lantern". See our movie review below for more information. It was kind of fun to go to a 'recently released' movie for a change instead of the 'dollar theater' we usually go to here in Pocatello after the movies have been out a while.

Trip To Vegas

2011-08-31T20:06:00.002-06:00

Now that school is about to start, we should probably recap what we've been doing all summer. Hopefully things will slow down and get back to more of a normal schedule as well.

Our first trip we took this summer was to Las Vegas. Carrie's sister Kim got married in June, so we decided to go in the middle of June for a week hoping that the weather wouldn't be too bad while we were there. Wrong! It was scorching hot all week. Each day's highs were in the 105-110 degree range. Definitely not what we were accustomed to for summer heat. Due to the high temperatures we were 'forced' to spend most of our afternoons in the pool. The kids didn't complain one bit about that. They actually forced us adults to get into the water quite a few more times than we would have liked.

Here are a few pictures of Makayla, Connor, and some of the other cousins enjoying a good swim. Makayla turned into a fish over the week. She is getting much better at swimming. And Connor is getting more and more brave in the water. Jaret didn't want floaties or to be held much. He wanted to swim on his own. One day he'll get to. He was napping during these pictures so he wasn't in them.

That is just one part of our trip. There will be more to come soon. We promise to keep this somewhat more updated as the months go on. Hope to see everybody visit us again soon.

Zach and Carrie

Summer of Movies

2011-07-26T17:00:00.002-06:00

Every summer we enjoy taking the kids out to the movies. We have a cheap theater in town that costs $2.50 per person. Works great being able to watch a nice movie for a somewhat cheap price. We love reading other peoples' blogs with movie reviews, so we thought we'd throw ours out there as well, even though some of these movies are already out to rent since they are somewhat old. Many of you may have seen some of these movies and have different ideas/likes/dislikes, but that is the fun of being movie critics.

Rango

This movie was interesting. We took the kids thinking that it would be more kid-oriented than it ended up being. We weren't the biggest fans and the kids weren't too fond of some of the weird looking animals. Our favorite part by far was the Las Vegas scene. Without giving too much away for those who haven't seen it, it made us laugh out loud at what the movie was trying to say about LV.

Our review: 2 out of 5 bags of popcorn

Our recommendation: Redbox rental

The Green Lantern

We ended up picking this movie to watch with Dale and Jill while we were in Las Vegas in June. Before we went, we saw that some of the critics were giving this a terrible review. We tried to go in with an open-mind and a clean slate. We thought it was a pretty fun super hero movie. The plot was kind of all over the place since it was an introductory movie for the character, but it wasn't near as bad as other critics had made it seem. Some of the space aliens they chose were kind of interesting and made us laugh. All in all, we thought it was a pretty good movie.

Our review: 3.5 out of 5 bags of popcorn

Our recommendation: Redbox rental or cheap theater

X-Men First Class

While we were in Washington on vacation, Carrie and I had our wedding anniversary. For that night, we decided to go on a date to the movies. One movie we were both excited to see was X-Men. I was interested to see how they would try and fit everything together to accomodate the 4 X-Men movies they had already made. All in all they did a very good job with the characters they had picked. It was actually a very good movie to see what the characters were like before the current movies.

Our review: 4.5 out of 5 bags of popcorn

Our recommendation: Theater and/or Purchase (if you like super hero movies)

Cars 2

We also took the kids to a matinee of this movie at the nice theaters. The only problem with a matinee is that it fell right during when a nap time should have been. So Jaret spent most of this movie out in the hall with each of the parents for a time.

Our absolute favorite part of the movie was the Toy Story short movie before Cars 2. We spent the entire 5 minutes, or however long it was, laughing hysterically. So many great one-liners and side stories. It was hilarious.

The movie Cars 2 was also pretty good. The old cars were back to their fun-loving ways. It was nice to have them go across the world instead of staying in Radiator Springs. Lots more to see in the big wide world. All in all, our kids liked the movie and we both got some parts of the movie we thought were prettty cute.

Our review: 4.5 out of 5 bags of popcorn

Our recommendation: Theater and/or Purchase (they better have that Toy Story clip on the DVD)

Rio

We just watched this movie a weekend ago in our cheap theater. The colors and graphics in this movie were bright and breathtaking. The story was fun, and there was plenty of humor and enjoyment in the movie for kids and adults to enjoy. You can never go wrong with Lionel Richie music. :) The voice casting for the movie left a little to be desired, but the story and fun of Rio made up for it. Our kids really enjoyed it and we did as well.

Our review: 4 out of 5 bags of popcorn

Our recommendation: Redbox rental and/or Purchase

After writing all of these reviews, it has been by far our busiest summer of movie watching since we were in college and lived down the street from the cheap theater. It has been a great movie summer and there are still a few we want to see. Stay tuned for possibly Kung Fu Panda 2, Thor, Captain America, Transformers 3, Cowboys & Aliens, Pirates 4, and hopefully many, many more!

"To Catch a Predator"

2011-07-23T07:00:00.000-06:00

We were in the process of getting ready for bed one night, when we looked out our window and saw a strange shadowy object in our backyard. We carefully snuck up on it in hopes to capture it. No luck. Here's a few pics of our 'visitor':

Sorry for the pictures being a little fuzzy. It was night, and we were running around trying to play with it.

A DUCK!!! Of all animals to make their way into our backyard. We do have a fence all around our yard now, so we aren't sure why a duck would just fly into our yard. But since it did, we did try and play a little with it by feeding it some bread and walking around with it.

After we took the last picture, I think it may have felt a little trapped, so it took off and headed straight for the camera. After we dodged the duck and took shelter anywhere we could, we waved goodbye to the duck and headed back inside to get ready for bed ... again. Hopefully this time with a little less drama. :)

Enter ... the Minion

2011-06-17T07:00:00.002-06:00

Our kids always beg when we go to the store to play the 'Claw' game or to get the 25¢ candy. We usually tell them it is cheaper to buy a big bag of candy or that the chances of winning a stuffed animal are astronomically low.

But it was Zach's birthday a couple of weeks ago, so all the kids helped him try it. One time. We wanted to show them how crazy it was to spend your money sometimes.. Amazingly, all it took was once and we actually won a stuffed toy. It was a minion from 'Despicable Me'. It has been with us non-stop everywhere we go. Now we just hope the kids don't think it is that easy to win a stuffed animal every time we go to the store. That was a once-in-a-lifetime chance! But it sure is a cute stuffed toy.

Zach's Birthday Cake ... Take 1

2011-06-16T07:00:00.000-06:00

Carrie made a birthday cake for Zach a couple of weeks ago and thought it would be safe on the counter top. Surely nothing would happen to it there. Hmmm....the next day, this is what she found...

Then before we could frost it, most of the rest of the top layer was vanquished.

And when questioned, the culprit responded with this reaction ...

Good thing we made another cake for all to enjoy. :)

Signs of Spring

2011-06-15T07:00:00.004-06:00

Our trees recently bloomed and gave us quite a pretty display. Our flowers (tulips) came up around the same time. It was such a pretty site to have all of our things happen at the same time. It looks like we'll have quite a few cherries on our trees this year and a couple of peaches and hopefully an apple or two without a worm hole in them.

What the rest of us do at T-ball

2011-06-14T07:00:00.001-06:00

Connor had lots of fun at his t-ball games and practices. The rest of us had fun sitting and watching, playing on the elementary school playgrounds, playing catch, and wrestling around with each other.

T-Ball

2011-06-13T07:00:00.000-06:00

We have been in a rut lately in deciding what to post and how to go about doing it. Carrie recently got an ipod Touch so our camera doesn't get taken out near as much as it used to. So we don't have as many pictures, which makes it seem like not as many stories happen in our home. We'll have to think of something so that everybody keeps coming back to our blog to read once in a while.

This past month and a half, Connor has been participating in a t-ball team. Technically the coach pitches to them, so it technically shouldn't be called t-ball if you ask us. But Connor's team was the 'Sunfish'. With their yellow shirts they couldn't decide between the Suns and the Goldfish. So a combination worked out. Connor had lots of fun making a few new friends and enjoying each game and practice. His favorite part was the snacks after each one. He was often heartbroken if their wasn't some kind of refreshment after a good 2-3 innings of hard work.

Here are a few pictures of Connor having some fun.

The funny thing about t-ball in the spring in Idaho is that one week everybody was in coats, sweaters, pants, the works due to the cold weather. (see above pictures).

Then the next week, the sun was shining, shorts, t-shirts and warm weather clothes were being worn. You gotta love Idaho!

New Hair

2011-04-23T15:35:00.001-06:00

Connor has a bad habit lately of pulling his hair. He's not sure why he does it, but it leaves his hair poofy and messy all day. Since we saw the sun come out today, we decided to debate whether Connor should get a haircut for springtime/summertime like Zach always used to as a kid.

So our 2 options were to leave Connor's hair long and let it grow out ...

Or to cut it a tiny bit shorter....

Which haircut do you think we should go for? Vote on our poll on the right hand side and you can also leave a comment. :)

Where's The Milk?

2011-04-11T09:00:00.002-06:00

Anybody ever wonder what happens to the last of the milk in the fridge? We were too, until we saw this...

We are not sure where he picked this up, but he must have been really thirsty for that last drop of milk. :) We have the funniest kids sometimes.

Happy Birthday Mom!

2011-04-10T09:10:00.000-06:00

Today is Carrie's birthday (April 10). Makayla's idea was to make mom breakfast in bed, so dad was forced into helping her cook up something special.

About 10 seconds after putting on the apron, it came right off. For some reason, Makayla was not excited to wear it. Oh well.

So she was in charge of the scrambled egg station and she has become a pro at it. She then helped with heart-shaped toast and heart-shaped pancakes. All to let mom know how much she is loved. So after dad sliced a few apples, and a few jelly beans were added, along with a chocolate muffin, here is the final result.

Then Connor, Makayla, and Dad took breakfast into mom while she was sleeping. We sang happy birthday and brought a nice smile to mom's face. We would have caught it on camera, but have you ever tried taking a picture of a woman just waking up? Not good ... especially if you try and post it online. :)

So far, today has been a great day. Happy Birthday Carrie!

40 Years Later

2011-03-24T20:28:00.003-06:00

I am so proud of my parents. This past Sunday they celebrated their 40th anniversary. In such a crazy world that we live in, it is nice and comforting to see a couple be together this long. We all hope there are many more years just like these last 40. Happy anniversary mom and dad.

To see 40+ things we love about our parents and family, visit our parents' site ... http://bobandaudrey.blogspot.com/

Connor's Award

2011-03-07T08:00:00.000-07:00

February was definitely Connor's month to shine. We mentioned a few posts back that his drawing was selected as a winner from his school. Well, because of that, he was honored at a presentation for the new playground on February 10th. Yep, that was his birthday. It made for a really long day. So they had the architect of the playground go over a few things on what he was going to do for the playground and got the kids all excited. Too bad we still have 6 months until it gets built. But they called Connor's name for his award and he was quick to go up and accept his certificate. One of his soccer team friends got a certificate too which made him smile.

Here he is accepting his award. Sorry, the place was packed and we got a back row seat.

Here he is in front of his picture and all the other winners.

Connor's Birthday

2011-03-05T11:10:00.000-07:00

Here's a continuation of our last blog post. Sorry, we are only about a month behind in blogging :)

Connor's birthday was a busy time. The last post has the day of the birthday. This one and the next talk about what we did that evening.

Connor is big on chocolate. So his selection for a cake this year was chocolate cake, with chocolate frosting, with a scoop of chocolate ice cream. I don't know if we'll be doing that again. That was a little too much for the rest of us. So we put the 6 candles on his birthday cake and had him blow them out. The other 2 kids wanted to help really bad though...

It was a really fun night with cake, presents, and other things we did.

Jaret went to town on his cake. He ate most of it, but about half fell on the floor, and the rest ended up all over his face. He must get that from his mom :)

Connor's Busy Week

2011-02-20T11:30:00.000-07:00

This past week, or week and a half since we are pretty behind in posting, Connor has kept us very busy. For starters, on Thursday the 10th, it was Connor's 6th birthday. He was very excited to turn 6 and told everybody he saw for at least a month that he was going to be 6!

So he woke up to a decorated room, then had fun at school with 'birthday cookies', then came home and enjoyed a nice evening with the family. We did have to go out for a little bit that evening, but that will be the next post. He opened up a few presents that we got him and then after some cake and ice cream, we all sat back and relaxed after a busy day.

Connor got a baseball and bat for when the weather gets nicer. We got a soft bat this time because sometimes ...

Jaret gets a hold of it and beats us with the bat! It took a few minutes to pry the bat out of Jaret's hands, but he is getting better at hitting the baseball most of the time.

And you can never go wrong with Legos. Since that day, the kids have spent far more hours playing in Connor's room with Legos than we can remember. It has been great.

Stay tuned for more adventures the next couple of days.

Our little celebrity

2011-02-07T10:30:00.003-07:00

They are building a new playground in our area called "Brooklyn's Playground." Brooklyn’s Playground is a community-wide volunteer effort to build the first fully-inclusive playground for the Pocatello-Chubbuck area, a place where children of all abilities can come together, interact, and grow through “the gift of play.

They had each of the kids in elementary school in our area draw pictures of playgrounds. They were all entered into a contest and 2 kids from every school were picked as winners. Connor was one of those winners. He was really excited to be a winner. He got a pack of Skittles, a wristband, and his name will be on the picket fence surrounding the playground. It will be nice having a big playground in the area as well.

Here is our local news article - Idaho State Journal

His is the second picture. Or here it is below.

Trip To Washington 2

2011-01-19T08:00:00.000-07:00

So the first post about our trip to Washington was about 4-wheeler riding. Since it was so cold outside, we did lots of fun things inside with grandma and grandpa as well. Jaret's favorite thing to do was to push the stool all around the kitchen (which is what he does at home) to find out if there is anything he can eat, or play around with on the counters. His favorite thing was grandpa's box of microwave popcorn. We ate just about every bag of popcorn during the week. We promise to bring our own popcorn the next time.

So Jaret got caught on the stool one night, so we put him to work helping grandma do the dishes. Wish we could get him to do that at our house.

The funniest part of this is that grandma was unaware that pictures were being taken and when the flash would go off, she thought the lights were flickering. By the second or third photo, she was getting upset with the light fixtures. The rest of us were laughing pretty hard.

Trip To Washington

2011-01-18T08:00:00.004-07:00

The week after Christmas we had the chance to finally go back to Washington and visit for a week. It was the first time in about 4-5 years that we had been to church to see everybody which was a lot of fun. Good to see old friends. We also spent the week with Zach's parents hanging out and relaxing. It was a really fun time to have with Grandpa there to spend time with the kids. It was the first time we'd gone down to visit where he actually had enough time (and energy) to do stuff with us.

One of the favorite things the kids got to do was to go on 4-wheeler rides with grandpa. The only drawback was the frigid weather when we were riding. We should have been wearing about 3 extra layers of clothes for all the wind that we felt. Hopefully Santa can fit 4-wheelers on our Christmas list next year, because we all had tons of fun.

This was our favorite picture. It really looks like grandpa is getting into it!

Dance Recital

2011-01-17T07:00:00.004-07:00

For the past few months, Makayla and a couple of girls in the neighborhood have been participating in a dance group at our local rec center. This past Monday they held their winter dance recital. There were 29 dance routines and Makayla's was 20th. So we sat through quite a few until it got to Makayla and then it was her turn. At first she was very nervous, but a few jumps, cartwheels, and somersaults in and she was just great. She had lots of fun and hopes to do something like it again in the near future. After the 29 dance routines, there was a flower ceremony and Makayla got her very own carnation (which she still calls her rose). It was a fun night for all.

We were in a dark auditorium, so most of the pictures didn't come out very well.

The video of her dance is on our youtube site. Click here to go and watch it.

Body Painting

2011-01-14T17:30:00.000-07:00

Is there any way to control Jaret? If there is, we don't have a clue how to do it. We had markers laying around the house one day after some crafts and stuff and we forgot to put them away. So Carrie found him a little while later in our clothes closet. She found him after a little too much quiet time. Here is what she found:

What a silly kid! He took a bath shortly after these pictures were taken. I guess he was trying to be like the Incredible Hulk. Maybe we should hide a few super hero toys. :)

Connor's Class Singing Christmas Carols

2010-12-23T14:00:00.004-07:00

Here is Connor's class singing.

Can you spot him?

Okay, Connor is under the "hr" in the Christmas poster. He is in the back row.

Makayla's Class Singing Christmas Carols

2010-12-22T14:00:00.006-07:00

We were lucky enough to catch Makayla and Connor this past week singing in their school's Christmas program. It was a rare coincidence that Zach actually had the day off, albeit to go the dentist :( , so we were able to catch their songs. The gym was crowded so we weren't able to get very close. And of course, the lighting on our camera in the gym was awful so we didn't get a picture. But we did get a pretty good video (even though it is a bit shaky).

Makayla is in the second row from the bottom, about 5 kids from the left. She is wearing a green shirt with gray sleeves. See if you can find her and hear her singing!

Santa At The Mall

2010-12-21T21:45:00.005-07:00

We went to the mall a while back (no, we are not going this week....are you crazy!?!?) and lo and behold, Santa was there! And there was only one other kid in line. So of course we rushed over to get our spot in line so the kids could talk to Santa. Makayla asked for her usual (a Nintendo DS), Connor asked for a Beanie Baby, and Jaret was just excited to see Santa and forgot to ask for anything. But the kids did have a lot of fun seeing Santa, since he didn't make it to our ward Christmas party.

So with only 4-5 days until Christmas, the kids are getting very excited and very anxious. If we don't post again before Christmas, Merry Christmas to all that read this blog! I'm sure it's not very many, so this Christmas wish is extra special for those few that read it :)

Our flowers have changed

2010-11-21T16:35:00.000-07:00

As we posted last week about how the flowers were so nice and pretty, this is what they looked like yesterday...

We had a pretty big snowstorm come into town yesterday and it is actually still snowing as I type. The kids all had fun playing in the snow with a few friends that came over. Connor helped his dad shovel out a few driveways for a few of our neighbors. It was a fun day. Now we just want the 4 inches of snow to go away. :)

Flowers

2010-11-13T09:14:00.001-07:00

I found these pictures on the camera, so I figured Carrie wanted everybody to see them. We finally had some flowers bloom this year due to the unusually warm fall (which has left in a hurry). She was very happy to see all of the pretty colors come to life here in the last month or so. Enjoy.

Neighborhood Trunk or Treat

2010-11-07T18:00:00.001-07:00

They officially called our ward Halloween party a 'neighborhood trunk or treat' to get a few more people to come to our activities. And it worked! We had a good showing at the kids' carnival. Even more for the chili dinner. And I think parents would just drive by and drop off their kids by the time we had the trunk or treat. There were a ton of kids out in search of candy. All in all, it was a fun night for the kids.

There was face painting at the carnival...
(Connor had a spider, and we don't know what Makayla had)

Picture taking ...
(Our kids don't sit or stand well for that)

Feeding a Rock Monster ...
(You put in old ugly, rocks and nice, pretty rocks come back out)

And even more posing for pictures...
(We didn't even have to tell Connor to pose like Spider-man. That is his normal pose)

And Jaret just had fun getting into everything...

The kids had fun.

Halloween

2010-11-06T18:45:00.000-06:00

Even though Halloween was last week, we are just getting around to posting. Our kids had a blast, even though Makayla swears she didn't get as much candy as she got last year. I try and remind them that growing up on a farm, we wouldn't even come close to filling up our pumpkins trick-or-treating.

Makayla was a bride for Halloween. Connor was Spider-man. Jaret was a lion.

Pumpkin Carving

2010-10-30T10:15:00.000-06:00

We had procrastinated buying pumpkins this year in hopes of not having to do Jack-o-lanterns, but Carrie finally gave in the last weekend before Halloween. And we were not the only ones in town to have done that. We went to Winco who was selling their pumpkins by the pound. Due to that fact, most people had purchased the lighter, smaller pumpkins to carve. All that was left were pumpkins about the size of Jaret. They were huge! Wal-Mart didn't have a selection, so we stopped by Smiths who was just refilling their pumpkin selection. So thankfully we found a few medium sized pumpkins to do the trick. So we brought them home and started to carve them up. The kids were having a fun time.

Drawing what they want their pumpkins to look like before we carve them up.

This is the final product. Connor's on the left, Makayla's with the 'pig nose' on the right.

Random pictures of the kids. And Makayla is not very photogenic, so we can't get many pictures of her like this.

Here is Jaret screaming and the stringy 'goo' coming out of the pumpkin.

Popcorn Recipes

2010-10-26T19:15:00.000-06:00

Sorry this took so long to post. It's been busy the last few days winterizing everything due to our nice little snowstorm. Welcome Winter! Now go away!

Okay, here are a few of our favorite recipes we tried.
3 Minute Caramel Popcorn
Ingredients:
1/2 Cup Butter
1/2 Cup Brown Sugar
7 Large Marshmallows
Directions:
Place ingredients together in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave on high for 2 minutes. Remove from microwave and stir. Microwave on high 1 more minute. Remove from microwave and stir until combined and creamy looking. Pour over popcorn. Stir well and enjoy!
Note: If you would like your popcorn a little sticky, cut the microwave times to 1 minute 45 seconds and an additional 45 seconds.

Old Fashioned Pink Popcorn
Ingredients:
2 Cups Sugar
2/3 Cup Half & Half, Cream or Whole Milk
1 TBS White Corn Syrup
1/4 tsp Salt
1 tsp Vanilla
Few drops red food coloring
Directions:
Place sugar, cream, corn syrup, and salt in saucepan on a medium heat. Stir well and cook until sugar has fully dissolved before allowing mixture to boil (this is important to avoid rendering the popcorn too sugary). Continue to cook stirring occasionally until reaching 230º or slightly soft ball stage. Add vanilla and food coloring. Mix well. Pour over 6 quarts of popcorn and stir well until coated.
Recipes provided by Nanette Hill (who still owes us $20)

There is also one additional recipe that we tried before and loved. It was by our sister-in-law Amber Howard. It's good caramel corn.

Amber's Easy Caramel Corn

yield: 1 large bowl
active time: 15 minutes
total time: 20 minutes
~~~~~~~~
added by: Amber
meal: Dessert

Ingredients

1 Stick of Butter
1/2 Cup Karo Syrup
1 Cup Brown Sugar
1 tsp Baking Soda
Popcorn

Preparation
Air pop two large bowls of popcorn and set aside for later.
In a pan combine butter, caro syrup, and brown sugar and bring to a boil.
Take off of heat and stir in the baking soda.
Stir the mixture for about 20 seconds and then slowly pour over popcorn.
Mix popcorn until evenly coated.
Place in fridge for a few minutes and then ENJOY!!!

So, there are a few recipes to get you started on having your very own 'popcorn nights'. We enjoy Friday now that the kids are in school. We rent a movie (thank heavens for Redbox) and have ourselves a fun bowl of popcorn. So enjoy!

Hair, Hair, Go Away

2010-10-21T11:59:00.003-06:00

Is hair cutting just something that each kid must test out?
"Oh look ... hair cutting scissors. These would be really fun if I used them on myself!"

Evidence:

Guilty child:

He thought it was a fun thing to do. You can't really tell from the pictures, but he did a number on his hair. He has a few really choppy spots that will take a while to grow back. Hopefully he won't be trying this again anytime soon. The scissors were up on the highest shelf in our bathroom mirror. Now they are in the highest shelf in our closet that hopefully he won't be able to climb up to. This little boy can get into anything!

Popcorn Party

2010-10-20T09:07:00.003-06:00

Once again, sorry for being away from blogging for so long. So much to say, so little time to jot it down on a blog :) We'll get better though.

We decided a few weeks ago to do something fun with the kids on a Friday night. We had a few new recipes for different types of popcorn, so we thought we would try them out. Our kids love homemade 'buttery' popcorn so we had a hunch if we magically added sugar to the popcorn, they'd be okay with that too.

So we popped a few bowls of popcorn and made some caramel corn, and some pink popcorn (with additional blue and yellow mixed in). All in all the family had a fun time together and then we headed downstairs to watch a movie together. Then we all moaned and groaned after eating too much popcorn! ;) We recommend this type of activity for any family wishing to do something fun and eat something fun at the same time.

Here are the kids 'patiently' waiting for the popcorn to be popped.

And in the middle of making the popcorn, here is what happens...

Here is the finished result! Everybody loved it.

If anybody wants the recipes, let us know and we'll get those posted as well.

Connor's First Day of School (v2010)

2010-09-14T12:00:00.005-06:00

Connor started school the week after Makayla. His very first day of kindergarten. When we woke him up for school he jumped right out of bed. He is usually the one who sleeps in the longest, but on this day, he popped right out of bed and rushed to get ready. He was super excited to start school. Hopefully that doesn't wear off too soon.

The car ride over was hilarious. Makayla wanted to ride the school bus so she was a little grumpy being driven to school. Not that you could tell with her facial reactions in the pictures. At least Jaret was excited to head to school!

And here they are coming home. Connor was more excited to come home than go to school. But he talked our ears off when he got home about all the fun things he did on his first day of school. Sounds like it will be a fun year for him.

Makayla's First Day of School (v2010)

2010-09-13T12:00:00.000-06:00

Makayla has been getting excited the last few weeks. She has been excited to head back to school. When I was a kid, that was the worst. I wanted summer to last a lot longer. I know our mom always wished it were much shorter, but we didn't mind.

So on Thursday September 2, Makayla started 3rd Grade. She has loved it every day since. So many rekindled friendships, games to play at recess, and occasionally the educational side of school as well. She actually is really enjoying science right now. We have to keep that flame lit!

Here are some pictures of her first day of school.
P.S. Wait until you see pictures of Connor's first day of school to see if Makayla still enjoys going to school as much as day 1!

Our Garden

2010-09-12T20:45:00.001-06:00

We have tried every year to get a good garden growing. This year we were a little more successful with some plants than others. So far, our farming schools are not good. We do have a few plants that are coming up though. Here is our little garden spot.

It's not near as big as we want, but we're too scared to take out any grass and put in a garden. Although with all of our yellow spots this year, we could have :)

Our raspberries were out of control this year. We planted a few last year and they slowly came up. This year they have branched up everywhere. They are now growing in the grass, through the rocks under the deck, and in between all the other plants in the garden. Crazy raspberries.

Then we had these volunteer sunflowers come up. We actually had these coming up all over the lawn because we had the kids pick off seeds last year. They are everywhere. We transplanted about 10 others that sprouted up in the garden. This is 3 plants.

Our pride and joy of the garden this year is the watermelon. So far we have 3 and they are getting bigger and bigger. They actually look like they may be edible this year. Hopefully they don't get frozen this year. Maybe we can compete with Grandpa Howard's watermelon 'garden' now!

Another thing that surprised us in our garden was zucchini. They started out slow, but after spreading their leaves across the whole garden, they are starting to sprout up all over the place. Good thing our kids eat zucchini bread :) We were hoping they were the pumpkin seeds we planted, but unfortunately we didn't get any of those this year. Guess we'll have to dress up zucchinis as jack-o-lanterns this year!

And Zach's pride and joy of the garden this year are the peppers. We started these in the house in early spring and then transplanted them to the garden. They all looked like they were going to die the day after, but now they've started perking up. Things are looking good. Good ingredients for homemade salsa!

One thing we didn't show were the endless rows of peas. Okay, we only had 2, but they kept growing and growing and the kids and Carrie had fun picking those all summer long. Those are a staple vegetable in our garden every year.

So that is a look at our garden. Hopefully we'll have a little bit of food that the kids will enjoy.

Chubbuck Days Parade

2010-09-03T14:00:00.004-06:00

Around the middle of August every year is our little city's 'Chubbuck Days'. They always start the day off with a parade. Actually I think they start with a fun run, but I still think that's an oxymoron so we don't participate in that :) This year our 2 oldest kids were able to particpate in floats, so it was just Jaret, mom and dad. Well, except Carrie got sick the night before so she didn't want to go. And Zach didn't want to keep the kids home, so he took them to the parade. He dropped off the 2 older kids and took Jaret to sit on the sidewalk down the street to collect candy. Thankfully a family in the ward came and sat by us (actually Jaret's nursery teacher) so we had some nice people to help Zach and Jaret collect candy. It was a sunny day, but we couldn't keep a hat on Jaret. He kept stealing Zach's and this is how it ended up:

Then to pass the time Zach whipped out the iPod to play a few short video clips to keep Jaret preoccupied. We found a perfect place to put it. On top of the water jug. That way Jaret could take a drink and watch a video at the same time. Worked out perfect. After about a half hour the parade finally got to us.

This was Connor's float. He is in the front middle crammed in with all of the other kids.

When it passed by in the parade, we didn't notice until they were almost past us. Then we looked for Connor. Didn't see him. Okay, so that was worrysome. Thankfully we found him later and zooming in on the picture to about 24x we could see him on the other side of the float than we put him on.

Makayla's float also snuck up on us. She was in the back of a pickup, and by then our camera had died. Go figure! When Jaret saw Makayla he ran in the street and tried as best as he could to follow her. He wanted to get in the pickup with her. Zach didn't think he could get him to sit back down. Then he opened a piece of candy, and that did the trick.

Zach's favorite part of the parade? Alpacas! Who doesn't love a good alpaca? I think it's the 50% Peruvian blood Zach still has in his body. Makes him feel more at home.

Excited to be done with the parade. They did so good.

Catching Up - Ward Campout

2010-09-03T07:00:00.000-06:00

Sorry for the brief hiatus to all those who read our blog on a normal basis. It has been quite a busy time at work with grain, canola, and hay harvest going full steam and getting ready for school at home. So the next few posts will be a recap of our last month or so.

About a month ago we had a ward campout in the hills just outside of Pocatello. There is a nice church picnic / camping area up in the 'mountains' so we had a ward dinner and overnighter. And since we are too scared to camp with our kids in a place other than our backyard, we decided we would just head up for dinner. So we packed up the kids on Friday afternoon and carved up our freshly picked Washington watermelon (thanks Dad and Janelle) and went to meet the rest of the ward. It was lots of fun to see a pretty good turnout for a ward activity. The last few had been pretty low in numbers, so it was refreshing to see so many people. There was some football, some frisbee, crossing little streams, swatting bugs, the works! The kids had a blast and hopefully next summer we can venture out of our backyard and do a little more camping.

Makayla found a few friends, so we couldn't really keep track of her to get pictures of her.

Who Lets Their Kids Out In The Rain?

2010-07-28T21:00:00.001-06:00

So it is the middle of summer and the sunshine has been great. But here in Idaho, you can never expect the weather to remain the same from hour to hour. So about 4 o'clock this afternoon the sun became hidden by dark gray clouds. We didn't think much of it since it gets cloudy a lot lately too. But then it started raining. Then it started raining harder. And then harder. And harder. The kids were loving it. They were running in and out of the house. Carrie wasn't too pleased with water everywhere, but we have it cleaned up now.

By the time the rain stopped, we went out to survey the wet landscape. Then we saw something that every kid loves and every parent wishes they didn't see. A giant puddle! Needless to say, we couldn't keep the kids out. They were having a blast in the 'deep end' of the puddle. Oh the weather here is great!

This kid's pants were so wet, his pants wouldn't stay up. Good thing the neighbors weren't out!

Jaret's Summer Haircut

2010-07-27T18:15:00.002-06:00

Jaret's hair was getting a little long, so we decided he should get a proper summer haircut. Carrie was a little sad to see his little blonde locks disappear, but here are the before and after pictures of Jaret. What do you guys think?

Fun In Nursery

2010-07-25T12:00:00.001-06:00

Jaret has been going into nursery really well lately. Now we'll see how he goes in.

When Zach went to go pick up Jaret from nursery last week the nursery leaders were a little apprehensive in showing him to me. They brought him out and apologized for losing track of all the kids and for what happened to Jaret in nursery. Here is what happened (look closely at his cheek) ...

A little girl in nursery gave him a big bite on the cheek. Maybe she thought it was a kiss. At first Zach laughed because it reminded him of what Jaret has been doing at home. He has been in a biting stage. Good thing he's missing his top teeth :)

But Zach also knew that Jaret was just fine. He is a tough kid and it appeared that it didn't even phase him. We felt bad for the nursery leaders and parents of the little girl. Hopefully they know that Jaret is just fine and he knows how to take his lickings from his older siblings. So this kid is going to have tons of stories to tell people of the many things he's done in his early life so far.

Jaret and His New Friend

2010-07-23T14:00:00.005-06:00

When family was over for Makayla's baptism, our kids had a blast with all of their cousins. Connor hung out with pretty much everybody, Makayla and Cooper Maughan were inseparable, and these two boys became best of friends...

Blake (ShaRae's youngest) and Jaret were having so much fun doing stuff together. The wagon became really fun to tug around the yard. Jaret even had fun pulling Blake. Thankfully the one thing Jaret didn't do was teach Blake how to climb down the window well, which Jaret has mastered. (Any solutions on how to stop that?) So the kids all had a blast playing together

Makayla's Baptism

2010-07-22T20:30:00.001-06:00

Makayla turned 8 last month and on July 10th she was baptized. It was a very special day for her with so much family in town. She had all of her grandparents and a good share of aunts and uncles in town to help her celebrate her special day.

Please don't make fun of the jumpsuits. They were extremely uncomfortable.

One thing we won't forget is how hot the water was for the baptism. It caught us off guard as we stepped in. It was a great experience though.

After the baptism the family all came home and had a good lunch and the cousins were running from place to place doing as much as they could in the short time they had together. It was a great day for everybody.

Family Pictures

2010-07-22T20:00:00.001-06:00

This was our attempt at family pictures. We didn't last long. I don't know when we'll have an updated one to send out to everybody. But this is as close as we got. :) How do all of you other families get your kids to sit still for family pictures?

Here is a video slideshow of trying to get pictures of Makayla in her new dress. (Sorry, there is some text to explain. Hopefully you can see it)

While Mom's Out, We Play!

2010-07-04T17:00:00.003-06:00

We have been dying to go to the movies this summer, and since Carrie was out of the house, Zach thought maybe a movie theater would be a good place to take the kids. So the 4 of us left at home went to the movies.

If you couldn't see the picture above, we went to see "How to Train Your Dragon" and the kids absolutely loved it. We went to the cheap theater so it wasn't in 3-D. Makayla and Connor went to 'Toy Story 3 3-D' last week with the neighbors and now Makayla thinks every movie should be in 3-D. Come to think of it, the last movie they went to see (Up) was in 3-D too. Crazy kids. There were a few scary parts in the movie for the two younger boys, but all in all, it was a pretty fun movie. Makayla's favorite character was the girl, Astrid. Of course she would pick the girl :). So it was a fun trip for all of us.

More Sad News

2010-07-03T11:30:00.006-06:00

June was a busy month for our family. It was especially traumatizing for Carrie's extended family. Her aunt unexpectedly passed away in the early part of June. We went to the funeral and spent the weekend with family. Kind of sad, but good to see family.

Then the past few weeks Carrie's Grandma Olsen had continually been going downhill health-wise. She too passed away this past week. What a month! It is definitely sad to see these people pass on and teaches us that life is fragile and we need to take advantage of the time we have here.

So after the first weekend trip to the funeral in Boise, we decided no more car trips with our kids that were more than 30 minutes for a long time. They just couldn't handle sitting in the car that long. So when we heard Carrie's grandma passed away, we were scrambling to figure out what to do since the funeral was in Las Vegas. Las Vegas is a 9-hour drive and we definitely were not going to take that trip. So we found a few cheap tickets from anywhere we could. So the lucky destination was Twin Falls. Only a 2 hour drive (due to road work) so it was bearable. Not easy ... bearable. Kids and cars don't mesh well for us, and I know we can't be the only ones. ("Are we there yet?")

So Carrie flew out of Twin Falls last night and it was nice to take her and not have the kids cry on the way out. Maybe they should have since they knew they were spending a weekend alone with dad! Here they are saying goodbye (except Jaret who was just having fun running and climbing on everything) :

We even went around and saw a few little historical things they had around the airport. The kids were 'starving' (with drawn-out emphasis when they would say it) so we didn't stay long. We dropped mom off for her flight and headed out to eat and to head home. Should be an interesting weekend. :) Pray for me!

Speaking of praying ... We did get a chance to see the Twin Falls Idaho Temple up close. Of course the kids were cranky in the car and wanted to head home so we didn't take a walk around it, but a drive-by was good enough.

Our Quick Trip To Boise

2010-06-23T08:00:00.000-06:00

As mentioned in the prior post, we made a quick trip down to Boise this past weekend. It was a sad trip, but it was really nice to see family we hadn't seen in quite a while. The kids reminded us why we don't want to take a long car trip this summer, so the nearly 4 hours in the car each way were horrible.

The kids were excited to be somewhere out of town and doing different things. They especially enjoyed the sunshine since we had been seeing so many days of rain lately. The trees were a lot of fun to play in. We are trying to teach them to climb trees, but so far they were a little afraid to do it. We did catch a few pictures of them before the panic sunk in. Hopefully we can get these kids to be climbers.

It's Great to be 8!

2010-06-20T20:00:00.000-06:00

Makayla finally turned 8 years old after weeks of counting down the days. We had a party planned for her birthday (since it did fall on a Saturday this year), but a change of plans sent us on a whirlwind weekend trip to Boise. Carrie's aunt passed away last week and so we went down for the funeral on Saturday. So we changed Makayla's party from the 19th to next Saturday. That means even more presents!

So we made the best of the day we had in the Boise area. We had the chance to see lots of family and we even had a small party in the hotel room where Grandma and Grandpa Olsen were staying. All in all, we think Makayla had a fun day.

Soccer Catch Up

2010-06-12T19:00:00.003-06:00

Okay, so soccer games have been over for a few weeks now, but we are just getting around to blogging again. Never seems like there is enough going on to keep a blog up-to-date. Or else it is just the opposite and there isn't enough time to say all we want to say.

So by the end of the season, the weather was a little better for most games and practices. Or so we thought. There was a slight hailstorm just as Makayla's game ended on that Saturday, then Connor's game began in a downpour. Thankfully the sun came up and dried out our socks a little bit. Makayla had a fun season. Her team didn't win much, but they all had a lot more fun and were competitive in most games. She was most excited about getting ice cream at Applebee's as a fitting end to the season.

Connor had fun most of the time. He got tired a lot in his games, but when the ball would get to him, he never failed to have enough energy to kick it as hard as he could. We tried drilling into his head the 3 secrets to soccer. 'Kick, kick, kick' Not much else you can do :)

Jaret found his favorite spot at Makayla's soccer games. There was a hole dug in the ground from something. Most likely kids at recess we were assuming. So every week he would take the ball and play around for a while. It was great for us. Gave us time to watch Makayla.

And Zach was even lucky enough (or that's what they told him) to coach Connor's last game since the coach was going to be out of town. He had a lot of fun cheering the kids on and helping them have fun. Plus they won, so he is an undefeated coach ;) He likes that statistic the most.

So spring sports are done in time for us to take a summer break. Oh the fun things we can do.

Spring Soccer for Connor

2010-04-24T14:26:00.006-06:00

This is Connor's first year of soccer. The first practice he kicked the ball as soft as he could at first to get it to go the right way. By the end of the practice, he was booting it as hard as he could. Makayla had snow for her practice and Connor had wind. Cold wind! What a way to start soccer!

After our vacation, today was Connor's first game. He had lots of fun. He was running and kicking with all of the other kids and having a great time. The funniest part of their game was when the other team would kickoff after a goal, Connor's team would chase after the ball and growl as loud as they could. Pretty scary! So we are in full swing soccer now. Just waiting for nice weather. Today was windy as you can hear in our video. (We didn't get a video of Makayla due to lots of people on the sidelines. Grandparents are so cute watching their grandkids, unless they are in the way ;)

Spring Soccer for Makayla

2010-04-24T14:16:00.004-06:00

Makayla started soccer 2 weeks ago and was hesitant at first. But after practicing the first time this year, she enjoyed playing it again. The very first practice was incredibly interesting. Since we live in Idaho, you never know what you are going to get. So this is what the first practice looked like for her:

So after the first snowy practice, we headed to Las Vegas for our spring vacation. We missed 1 practice and 2 games. Kind of sad to miss that much, but the vacation was well worth it. So today was her first game she got to play in. It was fun for her. The team they played was very competitive and a bit bigger, but the kids still seemed to have fun.

Aliante Nature Discovery Park

2010-04-15T07:00:00.004-06:00

The kids needed to get out of the house, so we went with Carrie's sister-in-law and her two boys and another niece to the 'Aliante Nature Discovery Park'. This was a really fun park for the kids. There was a nice big rock waterfall ...

And all around was a big pond. And in the pond were geese, ducks, and even turtles. That was our favorite part. The turtles were a little hesitant to be petted, so we didn't get too close to them.

After a quick walk around the ponds, the kids decided to go to the big playground in the middle of the park. They all had lots of fun going down each of the slides.

Then we had some snacks. No feeding the ducks and turtles. They actually had security there watching out to make sure we weren't feeding. Pretty crazy. After snack time we went back to the middle playground and did some 'fossil digging' in the sand pit.

After doing that it was getting pretty warm. So thankfully they turned on the reptile sprinklers for the kids to run through. They didn't have swimsuits on, but who needs those! We just improvised and things went great.

Then after that, we got all of our wet bodies into the car and headed home for a much needed nap. All in a day's work! Jill picked a great park for us to go and have fun at. We recommend this free park to anybody visiting Vegas.

Clark County Fair

2010-04-10T21:00:00.001-06:00

We are going to update our blog with sporadic events that have happened to us in the last month or so. Hopefully that will catch us up. But to start with, we're going to tell our story of the here and now.

We are currently in Las Vegas, and loving it! It is so warm compared to the snow we had on Monday and Tuesday in Pocatello. So even if the wind is slightly blowing, it is still great spring weather (we'll still take Pocatello in summertime though).

So we traveled down to Las Vegas yesterday but stopped at Carrie's sister's house in Logandale (about an hour out of LV). And just our luck, they were having the Clark County Fair there this weekend. So we thought we'd do our part to support the 'Carnies' and spend a day at the fair with animals and carnival rides and food. Our kids had a great time with family.

A few things we did:

Silly height chart. Never failed, the kids were always too short or needed an adult to do the ones they really wanted. And their poor parents didn't want to ride. Such party poopers.

And after all was said and done, this is about how we felt ...

Yes, thank heavens for strollers. We all wish we could use them after a long day.

Our Mischievous Boys

2010-03-31T07:00:00.001-06:00

Our boys are crazy. They are mischievous in every way. Here's 2 good pictures of them hatching up a new scheme. At least that's what we think they were doing.

Another Sign of Spring, no we mean Winter

2010-03-30T07:00:00.001-06:00

This past Thursday it got a little cold and snowed a tiny bit overnight. It didn't stick long, so we weren't too upset. But Friday was a whole different story. After a week or two of nice weather, the cold was back. And not only that, but it started to hail.

During the brief hailstorm, the kids were having fun and playing outside. Makayla's favorite was jumping on the trampoline. It was fun for a little bit. But as the afternoon wore on, it started to look more like this:

And by the time we went to bed, it was about 3 inches of new snow. In March! So much for spring "officially" being here. Hopefully it will warm up for us soon.

Another Sign of Spring

2010-03-29T07:00:00.001-06:00

Another sign that spring is here is the amount of kids outside after school. And the second our kids see others outside, they have to go outside too. So we've taken the bikes off of their winter hooks in the garage and the kids have been riding them as much as they can when the weather cooperates. Even Jaret is getting into the habit of scooting along on his bike. Makayla is still trying to figure out the brakes on her bike, so her picture is more of a 'what happens when you stop a bike by falling'. Not the most fun. :)

Preparing For Easter

2010-03-27T21:07:00.003-06:00

Carrie has been doing a little bit of shopping for Easter since that is our sign that spring is here (even with the snow). She was shopping the other day and stumbled on some bunny ears. The kids thought they were pretty fun. They played all kinds of games with them.

Movie Night

2010-03-02T07:00:00.001-07:00

Makayla had school off last Friday, so we decided to let them stay up and watch a movie before heading to bed. One of the kids' (and Carrie's) favorite movie ritual is popping popcorn in our air popper. For some reason they like that popcorn more than microwave popcorn. Who knew? So the kids helped mom pop popcorn and they headed down to watch their movie before going to bed. It was nice and quiet most of the night after that. I wish we could do movie night every night if they would be that good!

Fun Places To Sit

2010-03-01T07:00:00.002-07:00

Our boys usually have a hard time being around one another. Don't get us wrong, they do play well sometimes, but some days, it is awfully hard to keep them separated. So it was a very nice surprise to see them as close as they were here:

I guess you make do with whatever furniture mom has laying around. Carrie was doing laundry and had this hamper out. The boys decided to get a few animals and squish everybody inside. Awww, kids can be so cute sometimes.

Our Little Photographer

2010-02-26T07:00:00.001-07:00

It seems that most of our posts seem to be about the escapades of our little 1 year old. Thankfully Connor had a birthday this month and had a few posts. But Jaret seems to take up most of our time, so here's another little story. We like to take pictures whenever we can remember, so we try and keep our camera somewhere close so we can get to it when the moment calls. Due to having the camera down low, Jaret has a tendency to find it. He has learned how to turn it on and take various pictures of objects around the house. Here are four pictures that we have saved :

The rest of the 50 or so pictures (so far) have been deleted from the camera. Maybe he's just getting a hobby in film. He is definitely hard to slow down though.

Connor's Birthday (part 3)

2010-02-19T07:00:00.002-07:00

As much as Carrie tried to convince Connor that he wanted chocolate cake, he decided to pick the 'funfetti' cake. He was too sick to make it himself, so he helped Carrie make it for everybody else. He did wash his hands first, so it was okay. He was super excited to make his own cake.

It was fun for everybody eating the good cake. Connor blew out all his candles and then closed his eyes and made a wish. Not the exact order, but we think it worked just the same. Connor had a fun time on his birthday.

Connor's Birthday (part 2)

2010-02-18T07:00:00.000-07:00

Connor is sometimes hard to please. He has recently started his terrible 4s. Hopefully after turning 5 it may decrease his defiance. But one thing is for sure. Connor was easy to please for his birthday. All he wanted was 'seaweed curtains' for his Finding Nemo themed bedroom. What kid asks for curtains? He says that since Makayla has curtains, and Jaret has curtains, he needs some too. So we found some fish curtains and he was pleased as punch to have those. He didn't mind the play-do and comforter to go along with the curtains. Connor has a saying that he said more than once that day. "This is a 'great' day" We sure hope it was for our newest 5-year old.

Connor's Birthday

2010-02-17T07:00:00.000-07:00

We were going to have a party for Connor's birthday this year, but as the day got closer, we got less and less enthused about a possible party. So thankfully he was okay when we told him we weren't going to have one. So we were just going to go out as a family and do a few fun things with just the 5 of us. Then a few days before his birthday, Connor got a cold. It wiped him out pretty good and even lingered into his birthday. He was a good sport through it all though and he had a fun birthday. He was even nice enough to share his sickness with the rest of the family. ;)

While Connor was sleeping, his room was magically decorated with streamers and balloons. It was nice having Makayla help us blow balloons, but she scared us with how big she blew a few of them. We thought for sure they were going to pop on her. It is a lot of fun having kids old enough to have fun with like that.

Valentine's

2010-02-16T07:00:00.000-07:00

The kids were super excited to get packages from Grandma and Grandpa Olsen with lots of candy in them. Jaret ate 8 out of the 9 suckers in the package we think. Well, at least he started them, then he just left most of them lying around the house. We also got the kids little chocolates and candy for Valentine's and once again, Jaret found the candy. We left him alone for a little too long and he came into the room where everybody was with 6 pieces of chocolate melted together in one hand, and 3 melted together, with a bite taken out, in the other hand. We can never leave this kid alone!

Enjoying the Snow

2010-02-04T07:00:00.000-07:00

Oh boy, it's been a while since we've posted, so hopefully we can find some interesting stories for the next little while and keep our blog a little more updated.

So this winter has been an interesting one with weather. We've had cold spells of below zero, cold spells with snow, warm spells (30s and 40s with rain), and just outright sunny days. Needless to say it snows every few days, but it never seems to stick for very long at our house. So when it snowed this past weekend, we had a few inches to play with. And the snow was perfect for packing. So we all got dressed up (and miraculously Carrie came out too! :) ) and we made our first snowman of the year! We think it turned out great. He still needs a carrot and some rocks and a hat, but at least we have the snow part down. Here are the kids with 'Frosty' after making him, having a snowball fight, and sledding down our backyard canal bank. Fun times at our house.

Piano Recital

2010-01-01T13:45:00.004-07:00

Makayla has been taking piano lessons for a little while and she had another recital that we got to go to. She did very well and even did a duet with another girl that has lessons. It was really fun to listen to her play and start to enjoy it. She did threaten to quit about a month ago, but what kid hasn't threatened to quit piano only to change their mind or regret it shortly after? So she'll stick with it a little longer at least. Here are a few pics of the event. Our camera was having a difficult time with the lighting and other people standing up in front of us. But it was fun.

Decorating the Tree

2009-12-31T12:00:00.000-07:00

This is a few weeks late, but things have been kind of hectic, so we are doing our best to catch up. The kids were really excited to decorate the tree. Each of the kids did pretty good at putting decorations on the tree.

But after the tree was all decorated, most of the decorations migrated up to the top of the tree since Jaret was doing his best at taking all of the decorations he could reach off of the tree. So our tree was a little 'top heavy'.

Christmas Church Clothes

2009-12-31T07:00:00.001-07:00

This year Carrie got excited for Christmas and decided to buy the kids some new church clothes. So we got them all put out and ready the Sunday before Christmas so we could wear them a little early. Only problem was, Makayla, Jaret, and Zach all got sick the Saturday night before church. So only Connor got to wear his new church clothes. Here he is modeling his new wardrobe:

Here is Connor dancing to some Christmas music:

But the next week all the kids got to wear their new clothes. They can be such cute kids sometimes.

Let It Snow

2009-12-30T21:24:00.004-07:00

It has been an interesting December to say the least here in Idaho. A few weeks before Christmas we had below zero degree weather for a good week. Then it finally warmed up enough to snow. Overnight we got a little over 4 inches:

But after a few days, it warmed up even more and the snow started to melt. We were hoping it would stay long enough to have a white Christmas, and thankfully it did. Just barely. Now it's been snowing off and on the last couple of days. It has definitely been a crazy December. Hopefully January won't be too crazy.

Jaret

2009-12-21T09:45:00.000-07:00

The more posts we seem to do, the more they mostly seem to be about Jaret. This is mostly for us so that we can keep a mental note of all the things that he has done in his early life. He has definitely kept us busier than his 2 older siblings put together. Why just this weekend we were all a little sick from the weather so we kind of let the kids do whatever they wanted. And unknowingly we left the lock off of the fridge for a little bit and before we knew it, Jaret had found the maple syrup and thought it could be used as a sippy cup. So he took a few sips and found it to be too sweet, so he just squirted some on the kitchen floor. Good thing it is tile!

So in a tribute to Jill Olsen, our sister-in-law, your son isn't the only one to do the maple syrup trick! :) Ours decided to follow suit. Oh what a crazy boy we have. He keeps us way too busy.

We were too busy cleaning up to remember a snap a picture.