Trafalga!

For Christmas my parents got us a pass of all passes which includes Trafalga, Seven Peaks, and a whole bunch of other stuff. Since we have been going up to SLC more often now that Jake's parents live there we have stopped at Trafalga a few times to let the kids play around.

These are from the Trafalga in Lehi. They love flying in the planes and Ethan loves that he gets to choose when it goes up and down.

I tried to get them to sit in the back but this was the first time they rode it, and I think they were a little nervous.

Ethan climbed all the way to the top of the rock wall and thought it was awesome. The attendants were really surprised that he would go all the way up there!

I think their favorite was the water bumper boats, but I couldn't take pictures because Olivia and I were too busy spraying Ethan and Jake (and getting sprayed a lot too)!

Olivia is 3!

I can't believe my baby girl is already 3! She wanted cupcakes for her birthday instead of cake so Jake decided it had to be in the shape of a 3 since there was no cake to write on.

You can't really tell from this picture, but the letters on the cupcakes spell out happy birthday.

Ethan picked out this present especially for her.

She was mesmerized by this ball because it has glowing lights that flash every time you shake it.

She always wants to feed her babies, so we thought these would be perfect for her.

Her "Leapfrog" so she can be just like her Ethan-man. It's a leapfrog toy that teaches letters, numbers, shapes etc and we thought it would be perfect for her since she is starting preschool.

Happy Birthday my sweet, wonderful, beautiful, big brown eyed baby girl!!  We love you!!

Bowling with the Hirschi's

My kids love to go bowling in Ephraim, so when my sister found out that her son needed to go bowling for one of his merit badge requirements, and we happened to be in town for Memorial Day, we decided to go and take all the kids.

 

 Olivia and her "best buddy"

 

 Ethan hanging out with the buddies

 

 Ethan bowling without the help of the rail. He did ok, but I think his arm got tired because he started using the ball roller about halfway through the game.

 

Olivia refused to look at me because she was busy bowling.

A great time was had by one and all!

First Fishing Trip of 2012

**Random post I just found that for some reason never got posted (I think it is probably from April/May)**

We love to go fishing so it's nice that we only live about 20 minutes from a decent lake. The fish aren't all that big but since we throw most of them back we don't really care. Ethan does usually make us keep one or two just because he loves to have them even though he doesn't usually eat them.

These are from our first fishing trip of the year. I don't think we even caught anything this time but we did get a few bites and the most important part is that we had fun!

Ethan was showing me how far he thought he would have to cast in order to catch a good fish.

There were some geese swimming around by us and didn't seem to care at all that we were there.

Olivia spent the majority of the fishing time like this. We went up after church (which ends at 2:30), so she was definitely ready for nap time.

 The little black spot on the mountain right in the middle of the picture is Ethan. He started getting a little bored since we weren't catching anything and he decided to go hiking.

Report cards...

These are a couple of notes that Ethan's Kindergarten teacher has sent home with his "report cards" this year. I just had to share them because I love that his teacher thinks he is as awesome as I think he is!

He is actually at the top of his class in both reading and math, and really likes going to school except for having to get up early! We'll see how he will do next year when he has to stay at school all day.

Sick mornings

This pregnancy was by far my sickest. With Ethan I only felt nauseous in the afternoons, of course I didn't really have anything else to do in those days, so it's not like I was getting out of bed real early either. With Olivia I was nauseated a lot but still not a lot of real sickness. This time I felt like I was constantly nauseated no matter hwat I did, and threw up probably at least once a day. Days like that led to a lot of mornings like this:

We would take Ethan to school and then spend an hour or so laying on the couch. I would drift in and out of sleep trying to avoid puking, and Olivia would watch some cartoons. I figured if they were educational it was ok, right? Luckily she didn't seem to mind at all. She loved the cuddle time with mommy, and she loved that I let her watch Super Why, Bubble Guppies, and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse all morning. Mommy didn't mind the extra cuddle time either ;) 

My Little Cuddlers

Warning: Probably no one will appreciate this post as much as I do.

What parent doesn't think that their kids are just the absolute cutest while sleeping? Mine are so cute that I just can't resist taking pictures of them. Not long after we moved Olivia from her crib to a toddler bed, Ethan decided that he didn't want to sleep upstairs by himself anymore so we moved the bunk bed downstairs. A few months later Ethan decided to sleep in the bottom bunk with Olivia for a night. He has spent almost every night down there since then. I don't know how long it will last, but at the moment I am loving. Usually they are pretty good about going to sleep but sometimes they stay up chatting and laughing and singing to each other. Mostly I don't mind but some nights it drives me crazy! I always go in and check on them before I go to bed and quite regularly find them like this

They love to snuggle!

I am just glad that they snuggle with each other instead of crawling into bed with us now. For some reason when they (mostly Ethan) crawl into bed with us they insist on smashing right up against me. Half the time Jake would wake up in the morning and not even know we had a kid in bed. Which is pretty bad considering we have a king size bed! 

 And this one just makes me laugh because they are sleeping the same. It seems like if they aren't cuddled up then they are usually sleeping in the same position.

 I love my little snuggle buddies!

Happy #6 Ethan!

I can't believe my little man is 6 already! I know I say that every year but man he is getting so old! Here's some pictures of him opening his birthday presents.

His story book from Grandma and Carol (the kids are still reading stories out of it almost every night)

 Lite Brite from Grandma Terrie and Grandpa Glen

Scooby Doo game for his Leapster Explorer

Monster Jam truck from Olivia

Giving his sister a big hug! 

 Probably his favorite present of the night. An imaginext dragon castle.

 They played with it all night until I finally made the kids go to bed.

Once There Was A Snowman

We haven't had a lot of snow this year (really only two good storms) but what we've had we have definitely taken advantage of. Since we moved here I have learned that the snow doesn't stick around long so as soon as there is enough snow to play in the snow clothes go on, and we head outside.

This is from our first real snow of the year. Olivia loved walking around in the snow and then stopping to sit down and eat it. Luckily our dog hadn't been out yet, or I might have been a little more worried.

 Ethan of course wanted to build a snowman and he rolled this ball all over the yard until he decided it was big enough for the bottom.

 The final product! Ethan was so excited to have enough snow to make a decent sized snowman and also glad to have grass so that it was mostly a snowman and not a mud man like it has been in past years. The kids even wandered around the edges of the yard trying to find any rocks/pebbles they could use for the face and buttons.

 A week or so later it snowed again so of course we had to play in it while it lasted. As you can see from the pictures, the sun was out and shining bright so we knew the snow wouldn't stick around. Olivia was loving the snow under the warm sunshine!

 We have a small dirt pile on the side of our house that is maybe four feet tall and Ethan used our toboggan to go down it until Jake got home to take him for a real ride behind the 4-wheeler.

Ethan built this little guy all by himself and was so proud of it. We made another one together, about the same size as this one, on the other side of the yard and it fell over long before this one he made alone. He thought that was pretty great.

Christmas Eve

Every year the town of Panaca does a little Christmas program. There is always some sort of entertainment and usually Christmas carol singing, culminating in the visit from Santa. Every 10 minutes or so one of "Santa's elves" runs in to give the audience an update on Santa's whereabouts. This year they said that Santa's sleigh had crashed just outside of Panaca and the search and rescue had to go find him so they sent everyone outside to watch for the fire truck to go by. As soon as everyone got outside the fire truck came cruising down the street with lights and sirens blaring and Santa hanging out the window waving. The elves said he had to go out to the Service station to get his sleigh. We all went back inside to await Santa and suddenly heard hooves on the roof. And then Santa came in and all the kids went crazy. It is so fun to live in a small town where they can do these kinds of things!

 Ethan of course waited patiently in line and went straight up to Santa to tell him what he wanted. Cars and bugs.

Olivia, again had absolutely no interest in Santa. Our old babysitter even tried to take her up and sit on Santa's lap with her and as you can see by the picture she is giving Chelsey the death grip because she really really does not like Santa at all.

When we got home from seeing Santa we let the kids set up their toys they got in Ephraim. Ethan was so excited that he brought down buckets of hot wheels so he and Jake could test them out to see which ones zoomed best on the track. 

Olivia set up her castle and kept having the prince and princess eat dinner and go for walks with the pony.

Chelsey (our old babysitter) gave Olivia a baby Cinderella doll and she wanted to sleep with it but she usually sleeps with her other two babies and couldn't decided which one to choose so she just slept with all of them. What a little goofball.