Our Awesome April

Whew!  I can't believe this month is nearly over -- I really thought our April would be nice and relaxing after the craziness of March, but we ended up with quite a whirlwind of activity this month!  Here are the highlights, arranged in a nice bulleted list because my brain is presently very tired:

• Easter!  We had our traditional enormous egg hunt extravaganza with lots of Pearce and Tarbet-Neves cousins, which was all sorts of fun.  Eliza, who is really into picking things up and putting them into other things, thought this was a really great activity.  I don't know if she even connected that there was candy involved.  It was conference weekend, so we also got to have a wonderful relaxing time listening to the prophet and apostles and just chilling with the family.  I could seriously get used to weekends like that.  You can see lots of fun Easter weekend pics here.

• Spring weather... sometimes.  It has been a really cold and snowy month (it has been a blizzard today, in fact), but there have been brief glimpses of the sun, in which we have really enjoyed playing outside, going to the park, making bird feeders, and all that good stuff.  Hopefully the sun will come back soon so we can get back out there.  At the moment I'm refusing to leave the house and just accepting the mounting overdue fees at the library...

 

• 2nd Annual "You're My Favorite" Day -- Can you believe it's already/only been two years since Carissa died?  We got together at her grave to bring flowers and sing "You Are My Sunshine."  It was special because it was rainy and nasty all morning, but while we were there it was lovely and sunny.  Sure do miss you, Rissa Ree! 

• Soccer!  This is Joshy's first year of playing on the city league and he has been SO excited to be on the team.  So far he is doing a great job.  Sometimes he'll get frustrated or exhausted, but for the most part he is doing really well and showing a lot of team spirit.  This is Sammy's third year and he has improved by leaps and bounds.  The last two years have gone about like this:  run, run, fall, cry, get hugged and cheered on and convinced to get back in the game, repeat.  Oh, and some twirling, dancing, and picking dandelions, of course.  This year he is running like crazy, getting some really good kicks in, and even scored a goal in the first game!  He is getting so grown up!

• Penny and Dallas came to visit!  My Aunt Penny has always been super special to me, even though she up and moved to Texas a million years ago and the last time she made it up for a visit was when my Grandma Tarbet died about 13 years ago.  Thank heavens for email and Facebook -- it really doesn't feel like we're so far apart.  But hooray -- her son Dallas graduated from BYU this past weekend and that was at last enough to lure her up our way.  We had fun family doings every night they were here to celebrate, and it was so darn fun to be together!

You can see more pictures of all these fun events by clicking here.  And now I think I shall go back to my dejunking spree! 

Happy Halloween!

Halloween was a total blast this year! We had so much fun planning and making our costumes, going to all the different Halloween activities, and (of course!) trick-or-treating!

Sammy and Josh and I chose a space theme for our costumes -- very fitting, since the boys are 100% obsessed with all things space right now. It started when Josh decided that he wanted to be an astronaut, then Sammy decided to be an alien to go along with him. I decided to be the solar system, complete with the sun, all the planets (yes, including Pluto), and the asteroid belt.

I loved how their costumes came out, and we had so much fun making them! Sammy's shirt says "Take me to your leader" and has a little alien and space ship on it. We made the antennae with a headband, pipe cleaners, and pom-poms, and then sprayed his hair green. I made the pants with a cool space print I found. Sammy loved getting to do the Halloween parade and have a fun party at school.


For Joshy's costume I took my cues from a way more expensive astronaut costume I found online. I found the NASA patches online and printed them onto iron-on transfers, then glued some other bits on for fun details. My favorite part is his cool astronaut backpack, which started out life as a Grape Nuts box. I had originally intended to just duct tape it to his back, but it was too heavy and wouldn't stay up. Eventually I ended up cutting slits in the back, then stuffing his regular backpack in and pulling the straps out the slits so he could wear it like a normal backpack, and that worked great! We tried several different things for helmets, but nothing really worked until we found this awesome helmet at DI. Joshy was immediately in love with it. It's so enormous he looks more like an astronaut bobble-head and so heavy he couldn't wear it for more than a few minutes at a time, but he just thought it was SO cool. He felt so grown up going to his preschool Halloween party, too.





I also made them the trick-or-treat bags with their initial on the front. Sammy helped me, and they turned out so cute!

Our cute little Eliza was a Seahawks cheerleader! Grandma Hill sent this adorable costume for Christmas last year, and I made her the cute little pom-pom wristlets out of felt strip. Daddy was a Seahawks player, and they had lots of fun doing "TOUCHDOWN!" together, with Daddy yelling it and both of them raising their arms in the air.



Here are all our little cuties together!


We went trick-or-treating with Taya and Uncle Dan and Aunt Carrie, and the highlight
Nana and Nick and Andy really outdid themselves with the barn this year, including having Bapa's bear skin peering down from the second floor. Awesome!

After trick-or-treating we had a fun party at Dan and Carrie's house, and just had a graet time hanging out with our wonderful family. It doesn't get any better than that!

Whew, what a summer!

Sorry it's been so long since I posted our doings -- it has been a crazy busy summer around here! I'm going to try to get in the highlights, but be warned: this is going to be a very long post.

Our trip to Washington was so much fun. We got to spend time with some of our favorite people -- the Hill side of the family -- and had all sorts of adventures. During the last ten days of our trip we got to go on the foot ferry to Bremerton to play in the fountains, Dan finally came back to Washington to join us, we went to Northwest Trek (a very cool animal park), we went to a fun ward BBQ at Long Lake, and we got to ride the miniature steam trains in Port Orchard. You can see lots of pictures of all these activities here.

I thought we'd had enough fun to last us all summer, but when we got home we realized things were just revving up! The boys, having proven during our WA trip that they were big enough to handle them, got bunk beds! This was extremely exciting, and I've only had to remind them not to use them as a jungle gym 12 or 20 times.





Then Eliza got a haircut! This was a subject of much discussion and speculation amongst us -- she had these two extra long locks that made her look really scraggly, but we didn't want her not to look like a baby any more. I was so distressed about it I even sprung for the slightly more expensive kids' hair salon, Cookie Cutters, reasoning to myself that they'd have more experience cutting baby hair. Whether or not that is true I cannot say, but she did turn out awfully cute. And it was very helpful that they had all sorts of play equipment and things to keep the boys busy while I was taking care of Eliza. Here are the before and afters, though I really don't think the after does her cute 'do justice:



Then it was 4th of July celebration time! We had a great time doing the slip-and-slide at Nana's house, then went to the big bbq at the Pinegars (my parents' neighbors and friends). The kids really got into the fireworks this year -- even Eliza seemed awestruck rather than scared. You can see lots of pictures of our Independence Day fun here, but here are my favorites:





I just love how these all these little cousins are getting to be such good buddies! We all had even more fun together when we went up to Bear Lake a little later for a few days of camping and boating. The boys got up early to go fishing and had fun even though they didn't catch anything. For my part I was just proud of myself for sleeping in a tent for the first time in years. Since I had my Gel topper, it wasn't too bad! So perhaps it doesn't count as roughing it, but it was certainly a step in that direction.



We've also had some fun times with the Tarbet/Neves side of the family. One Sunday we all got together for a big joint birthday party for Grandma Ann, Donny, and Katie, then the next Saturday we got together again for Donny's baptism. It is always so fun to hang out with everyone and watch all the kids running around together. My youngest cousins are only a little older than my kids -- just old enough to be worshipped and followed around adoringly! The boys are always so excited when they hear that Donny or Jacob are going to be wherever we're going, and I'm glad they have good boys to look up to and follow.

One of our favorite new things to do is play at the new splash pad and fountains in Highland. The kids have a blast running around in the water and it's free! Always a big plus.


The big news from the past couple of weeks was that we had Taya and Noah (my niece and nephew) staying with us for several days while Dan and Carrie went to England. The boys thought they had died and gone to heaven, having such fun playmates for days on end. Eliza just watched Taya adoringly and followed her wherever she went. I think the kids played about 15 different varieties of "House," including "kitty house" and (my least favorite) "potty house."

Me: "What on earth is potty house?"
Sam: "Well, one of us pretends to be the potty, and the other person sits on you and pretends to go potty."
Me: "No more potty house."

Unfortunately, that didn't end the matter. Later that day, as I was making dinner and the kids were playing in the back yard, Taya came in and asked, "Is Josh supposed to be pooping in the yard?"

Me: "Ack, no! Josh, what are you doing? We don't poop in the yard!"
Josh: "But I had a emergency!"
Noah: "Poop-in-a-potty! Poop-in-a-potty!"

Needless to say, that was really the end of potty house. At least, that was the last I heard of it... They also played "Office," which I was glad to find out was acting out a dad taking his son to work and had nothing to do with a mid-level paper company in Scranton. We made cool necklaces out of playdough, and the kids went through quite a stack of construction paper making cards and other projects. We were so happy to have Taya and Noah with us, and the house seems so quiet now that they're gone. The day after Taya left, Joshy was just kind of moping around and said, "We haven't played any kind of house all day!"



My dad took Dan and the boys on a "boys-only" fishing trip to Utah Lake with my uncles Alan and Victor and their boys. This time they had much greater success -- Sammy was the star of the day, catching 5 white bass. Josh caught three, thanks to the fact that Bapa kept getting mysteriously tired and asking Josh to hold his pole. Within moments, Joshy had caught a fish! Amazing coincidence, eh? I told Josh that Bapa must just have bad luck fishing, because the exact same thing used to happen to Bapa when I was a kid.



We also had the immense pleasure of a visit from Rick and Liz, who had come to Utah from Texas for a Families Supporting Adoption conference. They stayed with us for a couple of nights, and the first night we also had Chad and Esther and baby Cody over for a bbq.





That Cody is just getting so big, and cuter every time we see him! Eliza and Cody were quite curious about each other, and I think they'll be very good little buddies as they grow up. I just love it when Rick and Liz are here -- both nights we stayed up way too late just shooting the breeze and had a great time. The kids were once again overjoyed with our visitors, because they just love Uncle Rick and Aunt Liz. My only complaint is that they couldn't stay longer and they live too far away! :)

We were blessed by a miracle during their stay. Sammy started feeling yucky one evening, and at about 2 a.m. woke up with a fever of almost 104 and was shaking and vomiting uncontrollably. I think it was the sickest he's ever been, and he definitely felt that way, at one point wailing "I'm dyyyyyyyyyyyying!" So, so sad. But Dan and Rick were able to give him a priesthood blessing and promised him that he would be healed. We put him back to bed and he was able to sleep soundly through the night, and woke up fever and throw up free. What a great blessing it is to have the power of the priesthood in our home! I am very thankful to a loving Heavenly Father, to know he is always watching over us.

Whew, we're into the home stretch. This past weekend was Alpine Days, so we went to watch the parade with Ann and Toby and their families. Nana was riding Misty in the parade, and Sammy was SO excited when she rode up and invited him up with her. He got to ride the rest of the parade on the horse with Nana. The other kids were feeling a little left out, but that awesome Nana came back around with Misty and gave them each their own ride. Joshy was totally into the parade this year, and even more excited about the multitude of giant inflatables in the park after the parade. Eliza decided that the parade was a great time to start standing on her own! She suddenly started pushing off Dan's legs and standing for big chunks of time all by herself -- by the look on her face you could see that she was aware of just what an achievement that was!





We think this girlie is going to be walking any day now!

These are just a few of the goings-on of the past 6 or 7 weeks. In other news, my sister Amy started an awesome cake business, my sister Emily has a new boyfriend, my brother Nick and his wife Crystal moved to Oregon, Nick got appendicitis and had to have emergency surgery, and they decided it stunk to be so far from family in an emergency and came home. Dan and I went to the Peter Breinholt concert, which was awesome as always, and the next weekend Dan was kind enough to stay home so I could have a girls night out with my sisters and Mom and Dad (so I guess it was more of a Daddy-Mommy-Daughter date at that point). I love my family so darn much -- what would life be without them? My wonderful husband, my amazing kids, my parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, and dear friends -- you are what makes our life crazy but truly wonderful. We love you!

P.S. If you'd like to see more pictures, please check out more online albums here and here.

Easter Doings and "You're My Favorite" Day

This Easter was so wonderful. I don't think I've ever felt a greater appreciation for our Savior and the promise of the Resurrection than I did this year. Add that to three days of wonderful family time, and I am one happy camper. Not to mention the joy of adorable Easter outfits for the kiddos! :)

On Saturday we got up early and the kids found the Easter baskets the Easter Bunny had filled the night before, then we headed over to Mom and Dad's house early to try to take pictures of the grandkids in their super cute Easter outfits. (Thank you, Children's Place -- I am such a sucker for coordination.) The weather was not cooperating and neither were the kids, though they sure were good sports. Dan (my brother) took the pictures while Dan (my husband) pulled out all the stops trying to get the kids to look in the same direction and all smile at the same time. Such cute kiddos we have in this family. The only grandkid missing was Amelia -- Eric and Leanne, we're still waiting for picturs!



Afterwards we had our annual extended family Easter egg hunt inside Mom and Dad's house due to the constant drizzle, but it was just as fun as ever. This year we were joined by my aunt Caroldean's family and some of our Bhutanese friends, who had no problem grasping the concept of the candy free-for-all. It always amazes me how fast kids can scour a large area carpeted in candy and eggs, leaving no morsel behind. Mom was the hero of the day -- after the egg hunt she saddled up her new horse Misty and took all the kids on rides around the arena. By the end of the night the boys were on a sugar meltdown the likes of which we had never seen before -- thank goodness they don't get much sugar in regular life!

















After a lovely Easter Sunday at church we headed back over to the folks' house for Easter dinner. I was in charge of dessert and made lemonade pie for all the low-carbers and brownie-toffee-cheesecake trifle, which was not low anything. YUM! We had such a great time hanging out with the family, laughing and telling stories. I've uploaded all the Easter photos into an album here.











Yesterday was the one-year anniverary of Carissa's passing, and Amy declared it "You're My Favorite" Day. Carissa always told everyone "You're my favorite!" and she meant it every time! The kids and I spent the day with my mom, helping with some fun projects, then we all gathered at Carissa's grave to share some happy memories and then went bowling (Carissa's favorite activity). I was so happy that we could spend that time together being happy in each other's company, and we sure missed Eric, Leanne, Amelia, Andy, and Lydia. You can see all the pictures from the evening here. I thought it was very fitting that yesterday was sunny and warm even though the weather has been so cold and drizzly lately and today it's raining steadily. That was Carissa -- a burst of sunshine wherever she went! I hope I can in some way fill that spot in the world.