Family Fun

I did not work last Thursday like I normally do so we decided to do something fun. Joey suggested we play games. We had a great time. We first played Twister which is so much fun with little kids. Then we had a probably 12 rounds of Hungry Hippos. We played a fishing game and finally Chutes and Ladders. Jon wore Peter's socks when we played twister, what a nut?!

The other pictures are from Family Home Evening tonight. We rented the movie Bolt and watched it and ate caramel popcorn. Arabella played in the walker for the first time tonight. She loves to stand and so we thought she would really like it and she did! I love my kids! They are so full of life and curiousity and it is wonderful. They never cease to suprise me or to make me smile. I also love to watch my amazing husband play with our kids. The boys love to wrestle and climb all over Peter. Arabella smiles in such an adorable way when she sees her daddy, and I know it is because she feels safe with him. I love my family!

Garden Growth

I had to show a few pictures of how our garden is growing. We actually have a few more blossoms and even growing squash. We tried planting some watermelon seeds for Joey but they have not sprouted yet. Alas it is Las Vegas and watermelon probably would not grow even if they did sprout.

Orange Belt Boys

On Thursday the boys tested for their new belts at Karate (TaeKwondo, actually). Jon struggled and barely made it through. He fell asleep about 10 minutes before we left for testing. They both did it though. They are now proud wearers of orange tiger belts. They learned today that orange belt means "the sun is rising". They learned 3 new moves today for their new form which is songham e jong (spelling?). It is really entertaining to watch and one of these days I will get a good video of them or even some non-blurry pictures.

30th Birthday and Family

I turned 30 on the 19th and it was a great day! Peter and the boys made me breakfast and I had flowers on the table. I had a great time running and then I took my kids to the park. It was the most beautiful day. My parents came down for the weekend, arriving on Thursday. Our ward's Relief Society Birthday celebration was that night and we did the performance of Women at the Well. I sang the song "He Came For Me" and held Arabella while I performed. She did a great job, not crying or making loud happy noises in the microphone. We had birthday cake when we came home. I had thought about making a posting of 30 things about me but I have not gotten around to it so just pretend you found it here.

On Saturday we played at a fairly new park. It has been open for about 6 months I think. It was a wonderfully windy day and so we took our kite and it flew great!

There is kind of a dinosaur theme to some of it and Jon thought these sharp spiky teeth were too cool.

My dad made a kite out of one of our Subway sandwich bags and a spool of kite string we found. He used some strings from the boys water bottles to stabilize it. Joey and Jon had a great time playing with Grandpa and Arabella really loved being held by Grandma. We loved our weekend. Peter took me to get some nice hiking boots for my birthday, in hopes that we will be able to get the kids out and do some more hiking soon.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Today was beautiful! We spent a few hours at the park with some friends. Tonight for dinner we had corned beef, cabbage, potatoes and carrots and irish soda bread. We had made sugar cookies the other day that were green shamrocks and golden coins. We took some cookies to some neighbors in an effort to get to know them better. We have such a cute little family, if I do say so myself. Here are a few pictures of us in our green and one of Arabella in her new fluffy pink dress from Grandma and Grandpa Rabner. There are blossoms on our peach tree and a few little blossoms on a few of our tomato plants. The weather is becoming nice and warm and there was a beautiful sunset tonight. Life is good!

Letter U Preschool Snack

I signed up to take the snack to Joey's class today. I try to make the snack match the letter they are learning that day in class. Joey and I will talk about what starts with that letter and then go from there. The letter U is tricky. I actually did it last year too and we took cupcakes but made them like pineapple upside down cakes. This year we made umbrella shaped sugar cookies and the blue ones are raindrops (the big blue ones are just the last bits of dough made into an odd shape). The boys had a great time helping me decorate and were actually exceptionally good. Joey reported that his class loved the cookies. We had the leftovers for family home evening and took one to daddy at work on our way to the library. When we did our favorite things journal tonight this was mine and Joey's favorite part of the day!

Buried Treasure

Was our first mistake putting Jon in a pirate shirt yesterday or Peter leaving his wedding ring on the counter?! Needless to say this is how our day ended yesterday. Peter and I made a Peruvian meal for a family in our ward who has son getting ready to head to the Lima Central Mission. While Peter was cooking he took his ring off. At one point he saw Joey playing with it on the counter and told him to stop. Then when the meal was over and everything was cleaned up we could not find his ring. We asked the boys and Jon said he had taken it to the sandbox. Peter had to go to a meeting and so I did further investigating. I asked Jon again because I did not want to believe it. He said he buried it so George (Uncle Ben's dog that lives in Utah) would not get it. Well the boys were great and we started looking but as you can see our sandbox is quite large and is about 9 inches deep. When Peter returned home, I had brought the boys in to get ready for bed. He asked Jon where he got the ring from and Jon said without hesitation from the counter. We had both prayed by this point and decided to put the boys in bed and go out hunting treasure. Jon would not make a good pirate becasue he did not have a map or leave an X to mark the spot. We tried to sift the sand through some collanders but it was too wet and so we were left to Peter shaking it from a shovel and I was digging through with my hands. The Lord does answer prayers because it was beginning to seem like a daunting task and we had only dug down about 5 inches in one spot when I saw something shiny. Yes! It was Peter's ring. Peter immediately went to get the camera because this was an experience that needed to be documented. We love our little Jon we just need to help him know what can and cannot be buried. Also, Peter has decided to find a better place to store his ring if he takes it off.

Fossils

Peter decided that we should go on a family excursion to find fossils on Saturday. We had been planning on going for a hike or something of that nature anyway. We learned that there are fossils up in Red Rock Canyon and so we headed out early that morning. And as you can see by the picture we had success. There were tons of these fossilized shells. The insides of the shells appeared to be a quartz like looking material.

We gave each of the boys a bag and they soon filled them with all sorts of rocks. We convinced them to take one that had a fossil in it and then only 3-4 other cool rocks. If you ask Jon he will tell you all about the big rock daddy found and the tools he used to break a few rocks open. Joey wanted to be sure to see the truck at all times, which gratefully for the most part you could because we really just climbed up the hill (you can see it in the background of the picture of Peter and Jon).

As you can see Arabella was snuggled in with me in her carrier and inside of one of Peter's jackets. It was a great family outing!

The Prophet said...

To plant a garden! On Friday I was so excited by how beautiful the weather was I decided I would take the kids to buy some flowers and plant them. When I arrived at Home Depot I noticed there were vegetables out and we should plant our garden. Last year, we planted our garden the first week of March but I decided it was close enough. We made two more stops to buy plants and Peter went on Saturday to buy a few more but, we got it planted. Peter did most of the planting but I helped supervise the waterers (aka Joey and Jon) and helped decide where to plant what. We are trying a new layout.

A few weeks ago Joey asked if we could plant watermelon this year. We decided why not give it a try ?! This is a picture of Jon by our planted seeds. Joey planted watermelon seeds and Jon planted canteloupe seeds. We are also going to plant our beans and peas this way initially. I just wanted to share our wonderful garden news. We will pray for our little garden to grow and bless us as wonderfully as it did last year!