Our St. George Adventures

Cade, Bryan, and a couple other guys from Fishbowl were planning on going down to St. George to do a century bike event the middle of April. We were blessed that Cade's mission president has a home there and has offered to let us use it anytime. So that worked out great! But other things did not work out so great while we were there :).

Jennie was coming down with Bryan and we were excited to be able to hang out while the guys did their bike event. We all went out to eat at Olive Garden Friday night. Then afterwards, Bryan and Jennie went to the store to grab a few things. We went to bed thinking they'd be back soon and in the morning Bryan came into the kitchen and said, "Jennie is in the hospital and since I got in after 3:30 in the morning, I won't be riding today." Jennie had been in the hospital earlier in the week for some tests but the doctors gave her the okay to go to St. George because she and James had been doing just fine the couple days before and she wasn't due for a month! But that Friday night, Jennie wasn't feeling James move like normal and so they decided to go check things out. It was a very good thing too because her fluid levels were extremely low. She stayed there over night and the next afternoon after her levels were up, they headed back to Utah valley. So unfortunately that didn't exactly go as planned :(. We were bummed we couldn't hang out all weekend.  But more importantly we were so glad that they made it back home and that Jennie and James were okay! They were able to receive the medical care they needed to be safe and healthy (even though bed rest in the hospital is not fun...I would know).

Then, the day of the bike event was 40 degrees and raining all day! Cade did awesome up until he stopped to fuel up and couldn't get his legs working again. It was way too cold to be riding at all let alone 100 miles! So after about 55 miles he called me to go pick him up. Dave from Fishbowl also had the same problem and went until about 65 miles and Jameson's bike broke, so he couldn't finish even if he wanted to. It was a pretty miserable day for riding. But I am proud of Cade for doing that well. I'm sure he will have many events in the future to participate in!

At least he has a good story to tell :). And this is what a biker should look like after a good ride:

On Sunday, since we no longer had Bryan and Jennie to hang out with, we drove to Vegas so we could see Cade's family! Tara and Johnny just got a new house and so that was so fun to see. And grandma and grandpa happened to be visiting Tara that weekend so we all go to meet up!

These two always have SO much fun together! They get along SO well and just giggle all the time :). I love seeing them play together.

Well, the weekend definitely didn't turn out the way we had planned, but we still had a great time! This was our view from the home we stayed at. It was literally right on the golf course. So fun!

And since we couldn't go to the swimming pool, I took Emma swimming in the "big bath". She loved it.

Dino Museum

So one day Emma saw the Jurassic Park DVD and wanted to watch it. I thought maybe Land Before Time would be a better introduction to dinosaurs. Then a pamphlet came in the mail for the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point and Emma got really excited! She kept asking every day for a week to go see the "big dinosaurs". So we finally took her and she LOVED it! She is just at such a fun age where everything in the world is exciting. We love taking her to see new things and she just kept running around saying "look mommy! Look Daddy!" over and over again. It was so cute.

 

Easter and Spring time fun!

Easter this year was really neat.  Cade and I have been wanting to implement a spiritual tradition since Easter is usually revolved around bunnies, eggs, and candy (which, don't get me wrong- I love). But we want our girls to grow up with remembering traditions built around Christ and why we really celebrate the time of Easter. So Cade is awesome and came up with the idea where we watch the sunrise together and talk about Christ and how he is the light of the world. We read a scripture or two with Emma and then we came inside for a yummy waffle breakfast! It was neat to start the morning off right :). Definitely a tradition that we will keep doing for years to come!

We also had lots of fun taking Emma to do an Easter egg hunt in the neighborhood and watching her find her basket in the morning. She also got a new tricycle from Great-grandma and grandpa! She was SO excited!

Whopper lipstick! Just another reason that Easter should not have much focus on candy...

 

I LOVE spring time! Every time it's spring, it's my favorite season (and then fall rolls around and it's a very close match). I love walking outside and feeling the air warming up. I love being able to take Emma outside and play in the grass and let her run around. I love going to the park, going on walks, and seeing the flowers come alive. It's such a fun time. And Emma is begging for time outside ALL the time!

Here are some pictures of us enjoying the spring time:

I just got a bike trailer/stroller and I love it! As you can tell on Reese's face, she is in LOVE with it too :).

Visiting the new City Creek Center. A great view of the temple as well.

Popcorn popping on the apricot tree! (I actually didn't even know the literal meaning to that song until a few years ago...sad to admit :))

These are blossoms from our tiny tree in our front yard.  It is BEAUTIFUL about 6 days out of the year. We really enjoy it those 6 days. 

Kristen's Vist from Cali

Kristen came to Utah 2 weekends ago and it was SO much fun to have her here! I was so happy to see her and baby Jax and catch up on being away from each other. One thing that has helped being apart is both have iphones so we can do Face Time whenever we want. So we can still see each other and each others kids.

Thursday was mainly just getting ready for Jennie's baby shower all day and taking care of the kiddos.



Friday we went to my Dad's work at the church office building and ate lunch with him. We always did this during our Elementary and Junior High days whenever we'd have holidays or time off of school. We have always loved eating lunch with Dad.

After lunch, we went to the new City Creek Center in Salt Lake. It was opening weekend so we didn't go into many shops, due to the high traffic, but it is absolutely beautiful and it was fun walking around.




We had to even stand in line at the Disney store. Emma LOVED it though!!! She went crazy with the princesses and loved this "magical mirror". They made it a fun experience.


Friday night, she slept over at my house and just ate dinner, watched a chick flick and giggled til late :). Saturday morning we went on a walk around the neighborhood and went to a couple stores for fun and just hung out at the house. Then on Kristen's way back to Bountiful we all went to Nathan and Steph's house and all hung out for a little while. Then Kristen flew back Sunday morning back to Santa Barbara.




These pictures are great. Emma is definitely skinny (both my girls are), but this shows what a BIG boy Jaxon is! He is 6 months old and 22 lbs. Emma is 2 and 1/2 years old and 24 lbs :). We kinda have both of the extremes!




Mom and Dad's new toy :). Hopefully we'll get to have lots of fun time out on the water this summer!


This is random but I had to post this picture too of Boose's rag quilt she just finished because it is beautiful! And definitely a project Kristen and I want to do in the future. Boose is so talented.

It was fun to have you here, Kristen! Come back soon so we can play :). I love you so much!

Jennie's Baby Shower

While Kristen was in town, we were able to plan a baby shower for Jennie. It turned our really cute and fun! Tara helped me come up with the idea. I wanted to do something around bikes and she was creative and came up with "Wheels, a seat, and two peddling feet, that's what little boys are made of." It was kind of a stressful day trying to get everything done with 3 babies to take care of at the same time, but we finished a few minutes before 7:00 :).

Jennie got some great things! It was fun to be at a shower where mostly everyone there are moms. So a lot of the gifts Jennie got were everyone's "favorite" things which consisted of some really neat things.

Jennie with her mom, sister, and sisters in law:



One of my favorite things that I made was the tricycle diaper cake! It was so fun to figure out how to do. I saw pictures online and thought that would be perfect for the theme.


Kristen made the bicycle and wheel cookies. The cookie cutter I bought, wasn't the best but she figured it out and they were great (and most importantly tasted amazing).


Thank you to my mom, sisters, sister in laws and Jennie's family for helping it to be a fun shower for Jennie!