The Kiddos...

Oh man, these kids of mine. They drive me crazy, but what the heck would I do without them?  I just want to eat them up most of the time (like when they are sleeping), but there are times where I wish I could put myself in time out for the day and take a nap in my room instead of the other way around! :)

Here are some random pictures of my kids being cutesy and friendsy...

{Taylor loves to teach her baby brother about life}

My favorite thing in the world is when we have a morning free of plans and can play in our pj's all we want!

Bath time is another fav:

Big sissy feeding her baby brother. The boy has two mama's! Until he cries or needs a diaper change. Then it's all me!

I was down trying to get some cute shots of Jackson when I noticed Taylor's dancing in the background. I slowly backed up so I could get a full shot of it. I should have pushed record, but I only got pictures of it! You get the idea, though. It was pretty amazing! 

Lots of block/marble runs have been built lately. It's amazing how exciting a toy is when it's been in the back of a closet for a year. It was like they had never seen them before. We seriously did blocks every day straight for like a month!

Elsa's Castle:

More bathtime fun!

The weather has been so gorgeous lately. We've been outside a lot and of course, eating cookies is a must when one is playing outside. Especially when you run and play as hard as Jackson. (Just kidding--he doesn't move his legs yet!) :)

He is however, always interested in his hand. EVERY single time he eats a bottle and it happens to pass in his peripheral vision, he slowly brings it in front of him and inspects it like it's the first time he has ever seen it. I'm not sure that he is aware of his appendages yet.

This girl's got sass and my purple extension to prove it. She loves wearing it, and I can't say that I blame her. I think it's fun. Except the time she wanted to wear it to church, and I eventually gave in and then was sure that they were going to call CPS on me for letting my daughter come to church with purple hair!!!

This little man is so funny, whenever he has something in his hands, he puts it up to his head. Anything! Food, blankets, toys, pokemon cards, you name it. It's so funny to me, I have yet to figure out what he is trying to do with it up on his head like that. He sure is cute, though! :) Dylan and I had a good laugh one night while the kids were out playing. Yes, sometimes I just hang out with my BFF's 12 year old son when she's busy! :)

Did I mention this weather????!!! Divine!

This girl has the best imagination ever! I love just listening to her sing and play and talk to herself or Jackson, or whoever! She is so dang fun!

One of the many reasons I love this girl is her love for guacamole. Seriously, we have guac for lunch way too much! Chips and guac is all we need and we are a happy pair. Acutally, trio. Guacamole is also Jackson's favorite food! :)

I love hanging with my girl!

And this boy loves to read. He reads for at least an hour most nights. Sometimes I come in and he's still reading and I have to tell him to go to bed. And sometimes he's already asleep. He was really into his latest book called, Treasure Hunter. Every night I came in to find him in a new position with his book. 

I wish I would have thought to take pictures of the first few times, I only got the last few on camera! :) Silly boy!

And lest you think our lives are all play dates and guacamole eating dance parties, here is a little video clip of yesterday afternoon in my car. I hope the clip works, I've never tried to post a personal video before. The funny thing was, that just a few minutes before this they were belting out Let it go and laughing hysterically! :) Enjoy!

April, so far...

Yay! April is already here! The weather has been gorgeous, and we totally lucked out this spring break. Soccer season started the exact week that basketball got over, so we didn't have any down time. (they even had practice during spring break!) But I love it, I wouldn't have it any other way, although I do love my evenings at home. :)

Jackson wasn't sure what to do with this green prickly stuff under his feet. :) We just enjoyed the grass and the sun and watched Tucker practice.

We also had to say good bye to our sweet Sister Judd! We (I) loved her so much! She served in our area and branch twice, about a year ago and then just served her last 6 weeks here. She was so sweet and just one of those sisters who I hope we see again! I'm so glad we have facebook now to be able to keep in touch! I wish we had facebook after my mission!!! She'll be heading back to BYU so hopefully sometime I'll make it down to Utah and see her. (We also love Sister Taylor who has been in our area her whole mission!!! Since September! We've also become good friends, and I've just loved the missionaries we've had in our branch!)

I usually feed them once a week (one of the perks of having sisters is that I don't have to have my husband here) :) And he's never here, so it works! :) And I try and go out with them once a week also, so we've totally bonded! :) I love these girls! 

One of the cutest things ever. Our bed time routine usually consists of, me putting Jackson to bed while the other two either bathe or shower. Ben gets them out, ready for bed, and in their beds, and when I'm done with Jackson, they both like me to come in and say good night. I will usually lay with Taylor for a bit, and read a book, and depending on how tired I am, I will read with Tucker for a while. He usually just reads on his own for a while and I come in and say good night. Anyway, one night, I was putting Jackson to bed and it took a bit longer than normal, so the other two were already asleep by the time I got out, but I did walk into my bathroom to find this:

{Sorry--please don't judge me for that overflowing nasty garbage!!!} 

Usually, I am the one to help Taylor get ready for bed, like comb her wet hair after bathtime etc. But since I wasn't there, Ben took over, and I found this. Apparently he had done the whole nine yards, which I don't even do, he sprayed her with detangling spray, combed AND had blow dried her hair! I tell you what, that girl has him whooped!!! :)

This guy testing out his sippy cup skills:

I think he likes it!
**well, I started this post a while ago at the beginning of April, so I just decided to add to it, and put the rest of random April pictures on** :)
Jackson helping daddy do some work. This boy sure does love his daddy!!!! All of us do!

It has be 6 MONTHS since I've bitten my nails. I've bitten my nails since I was 5 years old! This is huge!!! This is the longest they have ever been. I have been getting fake nails put on since like the 9th grade. It's easier to do when I keep them polished, but I'm so happy to have finally (hopefully) kicked this habit for good!!!

We finally went and did our promised Mobius trip. I love Mobius. It's easy and free for us, I don't know why we don't go more often. The new science one is perfect for my kids right now. The old one was getting a little too small.

I've been spending many a late nights working on pictures. I have a love/hate relationship with photography. I love doing it! I love it when I'm out with families and people. (I love the extra money) But the late nights in front of the computer I could do without, and the hassle of sometimes having to find people to watch my kids I could do without. But I do love it!

My snack of choice, when I have all the ingredients, popcorn, hot tamales and m&m's. A perfect combination that me and my friend Megan made up years and years ago when we were like 14!

It helps me produce beautiful photos though, so I have to do it! :)

April was good to us! Now, one to the BEST month of the year... :)

Friends...

I love having friends that live next door behind us. The last few months have been so fun. I only wish we would have broken a hole, then had the ladder over the fence sooner! Like why didn't we do this last year? This is our life right now, and I love it. You can see the patched hole in the fence, and the ladder that we've now put up to make it easy to get over. (You can also see a Mt. Dew slushy up there that is also a common thing) :)

Just a few more weeks until they leave us and we will be so sad when they are gone! I will miss my house full of boys:

Chase and Collin are usually over, and so is  Owen most days, and for the months of April and May I've been picking up Brandon Vazquez, a boy from our branch, after school so his brother can play baseball at Bowdish. I do love having a house full of friends.

Collin loves him some Jackson:

Taylor and Brandon  in the sun roof watching Tucker's soccer practice:

I thought that this was so funny, I looked back one day while taking Brandon home, and saw him like this:

We are so lucky to have some pretty great friends. And I love this time of year, the weather is warmer, friends are outside, school is coming to an end. Good times! :)

Milton-Freewater...

Me and the kids took a quick over night trip down to Milton-Freewater so I could do a photo shoot for my cute cousin, Stormee. She is getting married in August, and I took some engagement pictures for her. It was really just a good excuse to get down and visit some family. My mom lives down there so of course, we wanted to see her. We also saw my uncle Scott & aunt Kathy. It was just a quick trip, but lots of fun. My kids love to visit Scott & Kathy and play with their dogs. Uncle Scott always gets us blizzards from Dairy Queen and lets Tucker stay up all night watching TV with him! :)

Tucker was pretty excited that he is almost as tall as his grandma and aunt Kathy!!! :)

I love these two ladies!

Here's a sneak peek at Stormee & Nick:

RS Activities...

Have I mentioned how much I love our Spanish branch? I do. :) The Hermanas are so so so wonderful! I just love them so much. Our Relief Society is seriously the best. Our Relief Society President, Hna. LaCasse put together this program for us where we each sign up to teach the other sisters something. Like education classes, but more fun and social. We've had two so far, both in the month of April. Our first one was at her house in C'dA and Hna. Meyer taught us to make delicious fish tacos. Oh my were they good. Fish tacos have never appealed to me, but I do love fish and I do love tacos, so why not, right?

{Hna. Martinez & Hna. Cabrera}

Hna. Meyer (cooking), Karla Hix & Hna. LaCasse...

And now with Hna. Zavala...

A few weeks later, we met up at Sonia's house and she taught us how to plant and when to plant a garden. It was really really good. I am so clueless to things like that, so it was good for me! And I just love being with our sisters!

The group:

It was also Hna. LaCasse's birthday so we had to do something special for her. She is seriously the most happy and wonderful and loving woman ever. I love her so very much!

Taylor got to play with Luna during our activity, so she was happy! :)

Next up I get to teach a class on photography! FUN!

Easter...

I love spring cleaning. I was happy to have a whole week to go through things. Clothes, rooms, toys, closets. I got out all of our Easter and Spring decor. It is so nice to finally have some bright/light colors around.

I love clearance shopping. I always shop the clearance sales after the holiday's. So, it makes it fun to open up my tubs in the garage and find new things I forgot I got last year. :)

And I did keep up this cute little thing from Natalie over at Natalie's Sentiments. :)

Taylor insisted on helping:

Easter seemed to kind of sneak up on me this year. I had already gotten all the kids' Easter basket stuff. I always get them summer stuff, like new swimming suits, sun glasses, flip flops, beach towels, etc... I had gotten them towels and swimsuits at the end of last summer. So, I really didn't have a lot of work to do. Our branch was invited with the Pines ward to do their Easter breakfast and egg hunt. We were the only family there from our branch besides our branch President's family. I felt kinda bad. But the kids had fun hunting for eggs...

Of course, we had to dye eggs...We did it the night before Easter so I could use them the next day for deviled eggs...YUM!

I got a tye-dying kit, and then Ben decided to get all fancy on me with polka dots and fancy designs. It was a fun night!

We also got pizza, and that dye would not come out of their hands. Tucker had green fingers for dayzzzzz!

The next day, the eggs were almost too pretty to eat....almost...I do love me a good deviled egg! :)

The Easter bunny came! (and I searched high and low for a matching basket for Jackson, white with a gingham liner, but couldn't find one anywhere. Besides on line which were way too expensive. I can't remember where I got these two, but I think it was just Target. So...if you see a white basket with a green gingham liner, let me know where!) :)

And then these love nuggets and I headed off to church! All the other kids in primary were totally like dressed to the 9's in new suits and ties. My mom sent me this outfit for Tucker for Easter, which I think is so cute, but totally not churchy. I was a little confused on what to do. Do I send him to church casual? Do I go and buy him another Easter outfit? In the end I decided to make it easier on myself and not stress about it. Casual to church isn't the end of the world, is it? I don't know that he'll ever wear it to church again, but he looked cute! :)

After church we just had a low key day of hanging out as a family with my dad and Kathryn, and also our good friends, Chuck and Becky came and crashed our party! :) We were very happy to have them! :) 

As I was cleaning up the table, I noticed that all these things I was cleaning up were remnants of a VERY delicious meal: Crab, butter & Diet Coke. I'll take that meal any day! :) It was delicious and the company was even better!

As I was trying my darndest to teach/remind my kids the true meaning behind Easter, it was a good reminder for myself that we are so lucky. For many many things, but especially to have been given the gift of repentance and eternal life from our Elder Brother. I need to be better at remembering. I loved the church's #becauseofhim campaign and videos. Such great reminders on a daily basis about what is truly important.

Spring break is for Suckers...

Since we got home from Oregon and still had the whole week of Spring Break pretty much, we got lots of down time. Spring Break can get kind of long when you don't have any plans!!! :) I definitely love a break from the routine though, and that's exactly what we got. 

I took the kids to Sky High. A trampoline place here in Spokane. Taylor loved every minute of it:

The girl has been bouncing since the day she was born!

It took her a few attempts to brave the foam pit, but once she did it, she DID it! :)

Unfortunately, her and her friend, Lily were the only two to enjoy the trampolines. Once we got there, they told me that the mom's had to sign a waiver. I tried to tell her that all three boys were mine so I could sign for them all, but it didn't work out so much! :) But we decided to stay only because Taylor and her friend could jump (her friends mom was with us) and there was millions of arcade games. So, I thought the boys would be entertained for the hour while the girls jumped. I felt so bad. They wanted to jump SOOOO bad. The poor boys, they were pretty good sports about it (for the most part, minus the few meltdowns from Tucker, who could have jumped, but I told him he couldn't if his friends couldn't. I know, I'm a mean mom!) I promised to bring them back another day after I got their moms to sign the waivers. It hasn't happened yet, but we will go back, it looked SUPER fun!

This was also after I had initially promised them an afternoon at Mobius Science center (which we have a membership for) We went all the way downtown only to discover that Mobius is closed on Monday's! Then I had the great idea to try Sky High, we walked in and the boys instantly got excited, only to be disappointed again with not being able to jump! It was just not our day!

The rest of our spring break was spent relaxing and enjoying the surprisingly great weather. Soccer practices, play dates, trampoline jumping (which we finally got up and going....net and all...only a year later!!!), breaking holes in fences. My friend Tara, who lives behind me and I got sick of having to send our kids all around the block to get to each other's houses. The big kids can hop the fence, but for the little guys it was a hassle. We found a board with a weak spot and kicked it. We were both kind of shocked/excited when it actually broke! Then we realized it was useless to us because the only one who could fit through the fence was Scout, their mini poodle. We do love Scout, though and my kids have thoroughly enjoyed him coming into our yard every now and then. So, a few days later we decided to break the one next to it, so atleast it could be useful to us! I got my little hand saw out, and sawed through about half of it, and then had her 12 year old kick it in! So we have a big white trash hole in our fence, but the kids have been able to go through freely which I think is really fun! I don't even mind Scout! :) THEN...like two days after we did she tells me that they are going to be putting their house on the market to sell and move!!! First of all, I'm so very sad that they are leaving! And second of all, we just finally kicked this fence down, and they're leaving!? I don't want other people's kids in my yard. So, now we'll have to fix it! Bummer! :) It has been fun though, and we're going to keep the hole as long as we can until officially put their house on the market! A huge hole int he fence adds value to a house, right? Luckily I know a fence guy... :)
Beautiful weather for soccer games...
This guy's pretty easy to please! :)



They also asked me to take the pictures of the Young Women who are earning their medallion this year. I've done it the past few years. They always put together a slide show, and print out 5x7's of the girls standing in front of the temple. I love doing it. I remember when I got my Young Womanhood Recognition back in 1997, it was the sesquicentennial anniversary of the Pioneer trek. For those non math majors out there, that means 150 years. ( I wouldn't have known either!) So, the pictures they took for us, they made us dress up like Pioneers, I still have my little framed 5x7 photo of me dressed up like a Pioneer. So, I always tell the girls who don't want their picture taken, that they should consider themselves lucky for not having to dress up like a Pioneer! :) Anyway...this has been a tradition in our stake for a very long time, and I love being able to do it. Since I don't know all the girls personally, I won't post them all...but a few of them are some of our very favorite babysitters, so let me share theirs:

The Wiberg girls, Bailey & Jessica...

And Rachel...
I love all of these girls so very much! They are amazing girls!
But I do love this girl the mostest:

She came along as my little helper, and in true Taylor form, could not be left out. She put on quite the show with all of her poses! :)



I love my little side kicks!

One of my very best friends, Emily came in to town for Spring Break. We met up with Gen for dinner at her new house ON Liberty Lake! Seriously, this is the view from her deck! Gen's house is Freaking Amazing!

I love these girls, and I love that we just pick up right where we left off when we're together. We had a great dinner with our families, and I seriously don't think I've laughed that hard in a LONG time! :) Love you Em and Gen!

Hard to believe that all these little people have come from us! :)

Sweet, Crazy kids! I love how they totally got along so well!!!

Some more park play dates with Em, Dave & Ryder before they headed back to Seattle!

Jackson's first time in a swing...

And in true Jackson fashion, just sat back and relaxed for a little ride...

I love this boy, and I loved having all of my babies home and playing during Spring break. It was a great break after our whirlwind trip to Oregon to see my dad! That was a lot of work, so we deserved this break! :)