Part One

Spring break has begun. No big plans or special trips planned for us this year just a whole lot of hanging out at the house. The weather wasn't looking to promising for the week but we did luck out with some really beautiful days over the weekend.

Day One

• the boys spent all morning playing with their bucket of bionicles. they had lost them for 2 1/2 weeks because of all the fighting over pieces and because nobody was cleaning them up. good thing they enjoyed them today because by Sunday they were gone again!
• i finally started a project that I had been procrastinating on forever. i've had stacks of pictures just waiting to be put into photo albums, so I started sorting them and putting them in order. now I just need to go back and print out some more pictures because poor Ryan's photo album stops when he was 9 months old.
• we enjoyed being out in the sunshine doing some yard work. it's exciting to see my plants starting to sprout and grow.
• we took a walk to the school playground. the boys ran around playing while heath and i played basketball.

Day Two

• on the way to church heath was telling the boys about a stray dog he took in once when he was young. luke then said with a surprised voice, "they have dogs in mississippi?"
• we ate a big lunch with dessert.
• i took a nap.
• we dyed Easter eggs. the kids had been waiting all day for this.
• we watched the new Life series and ate popcorn.
• the boys had another sleepover in our room on the floor but didn't sleep so great this time.
• heath and i stayed up and watched a movie.

Day Three

• lots of tv and video games
• the bionicles were given back, we will see how long they last this time.
• i gave the boys a much needed haircut. after a bath to wash the hair off Luke looked at himself in the mirror and screamed, "I look like an elf!"
• just taking it easy.

Ryan with his little smirk decorating his eggs

Cody and Luke working hard

the finished products

Ryan sampling one of the eggs

before and after haircuts

one more boy

That is what I had this week....one more boy.

Tucker was on spring break this week so he chose to spend most of it hanging out with us, which we were happy about.

We weren't doing anything special, our spring break hadn't started yet so it was just normal life around here but Tucker joined right in with whatever we were doing.

Not only did he help me with running errands, babysitting and grocery shopping he also did a lot of entertaining around here, both of the boys and of Heath! With Tucker around, the noise level at the house is at least doubled (maybe even tripled), I even started getting headaches. During the day Tuck would play with the boys; sometimes they would just sit down and play video games and other times they would wrestle, attack each other with pillows and couch cushions, wrestle, play hide & seek in the house, wrestle, run around wild, and then wrestle a little more. At night Heath and Tucker would stay up LATE and play video games, not only did they have a lot of fun but Heath loved that Tucker would get him ranked up higher in the war games which is just what we needed, an incentive to play more games around here.

what I would see everyday

wrestling

and more wrestling

it goes on and on...

Tucker is such a great cousin to the boys, we just love him to pieces!

Thanks for coming and hangin out with us Tuck.

Spring break has begun, yippee!

My List

Why when the weather starts to get nice do all the new tv shows start up?

The DVR is one of my all time favorite inventions ever, what did I do before?

With so many shows to watch and not enough time this is what makes it all possible.

Just for the record I don't sit around all day watching tv, even though some days it might be nice!

This is what my play list looks like.

• Oprah (just because it's Oprah and she won't be on much longer)
• The Real Housewives of Orange County (oh the drama with women, need I say more)
• Ruby (she is just a sweetheart and I love her southern accent and hope she reaches her goal)
• Parenthood (I haven't watched any of them yet but wanted to check it out to see what all the talk was about)
• The Biggest Loser (I started to lose interest with the break while the Olympics were on but am still watching)
• Life (another series like Planet Earth which we loved watching as a family)
• Ugly Betty (I guess there are only 4 episodes left and then they are ending the show but I've really liked it from the beginning)
• The Pacific (a mini-series about three marines in WWII)
• The Marriage Ref (the host makes me laugh, does he not look like he is smiling all the time)
• Pawn Stars (you can actually learn a lot of useless information on this show and Chumley makes me laugh)
• 16 and Pregnant (a must see show for anyone with teenagers, I couldn't even imagine being a parent at this age)
• Who do you think you are? (I find it so fascinating. My grandparents had a lot of information in a book about where they came from, I need to take another look at it.)
• Undercover Boss (I think every boss should give this a try)
• Dancing with the Stars (I have to see how Kate Gosselin does)
• Kirstie Alley's Big Life (I find her quirky and a little annoying so I wanted to check out the show and see how she lives)

What's on your list?

so sad...

notice anything wrong?

This morning I accidentally bumped into my dresser...

I have a Willow Tree statue representing each of my boys.

I see them everyday on my dresser.

I love them.

But today, Cody and I lost our heads.

so sad.

they came

March 17th is a lot like the night before Christmas around here.

the traps were all set on the stairs with care...

in hopes that a leprechaun soon would be there...

Ryan's rainbow, Luke's trap and rainbow and Cody's trap

The boys were so excited to say the least, they love St. Patrick's Day!

Luke was awake at 11:30 PM trying to wake up Cody, I put them back to bed.

Cody was awake at 5:10AM asking if it was time to get up, I told him to go back to bed.

Luke was awake at 5:11AM asking if it was time to get up, I told him to go back to bed.

Luke instead went in Ryan's room to wake him up and the three of them ran down the stairs to see if they finally had done it, was it their lucky year, did they really catch a leprechaun?

No, but SO close...

This leprechauns hat was caught in Luke's trap!

The leprechauns did make a mess in the boy's room though

and they did set up all the green soldiers

and they decorated the table for breakfast

and they did leave the boy's a note.

The boy's found out that the Leprechaun's names were Liam and Patty

that they loved the rainbows, shiny glitter and green on the traps

that they bring treats for the brown dog so she doesn't bark.

and that they will come back again next year!

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

a slumber party and eighteen

Heath has been gone fishing for the last four days so the boys and I have been staying busy to make the time go by a little faster. Last night we decided to have some fun and have a slumber party in my bedroom. The kids thought it was great sleeping on the floor and I just loved the fact that they slept all night!

Of course Cody still read books before bed

Luke and his Alvin

Ryan snuggling with his stuffed Ruby

Ryan got his own jammies on. He loves the shirt part and calls it his coat!

We celebrated a couple of family birthday's today. It's so hard to believe but my niece Brooke turned 18 today! We also celebrated a little early for my sister in law Summer's birthday.

the birthday girls

the proud mamma who really can't believe her baby's 18

Matt and Summer
Our sympathy to Summer who has to live with Matt everyday

Proud Grammy and Papa

again our sympathy's to my mom who has to live with my father everyday

like father like son

just a few of the reasons why Matt and my Dad can be so darn annoying

they can find a way to ruin any picture.

I have to say that Matt is great at entertaining my boys since he is still a kid himself. He is a super fun Uncle, the boys love him! Matt was pushing up the trampoline with his feet and then dropping the kids down and then would smack them on the butt, they seemed to love it.

So what does an 18 year old want for her birthday?

Her belly button pierced, that's what! She had gone out yesterday with the family to have it done but passed out before they had even started doing anything.

Money is always a good present too. Ten dollars for each year! Can't wait for my birthday!

I made her up a candy gram to go along with her present from us, she loves candy!

It says...

Once upon a time there was a princess named Brooke who lived in a castle down a Rocky Road in the small town of Watchamacallit. She lived there with Slim Jim, her Red Hot momma, Airhead brother and Sweattart sister. Her 18th birthday was coming soon and she was in a crunch to find her prince charming so her parents hired the 3Muskateers to find her true love. So Heath, Mike & Ike set off in search for him making sure they didn't bring back any nerds, duds or complete zero's. After a good & plenty time of looking they skor big and find her an extra special guy. At the wedding there were no snickers from her peeps when she married her Big Hunk and lived happily ever after.

It's always fun when the family is together, we spend most of our time laughing! One of the things that kept us laughing was a game that Hailey told us about. You have to try and eat 7 saltine crackers in one minute without taking a drink in between. It's so much harder than it seems, we couldn't do it!

sunshine

With no school on Friday we were looking forward to a long weekend. In the early morning hours on Thursday I didn't think that was going to be the case when Luke woke up sick once again. Heath took the day off work to help get Ryan to and from preschool (it was his share day and I hated to have him miss it) along with running all of the errands while I stayed home and took care of Luke and disinfected the house. Thankfully no one else got sick but a few fun things like taking a great friend out to a birthday dinner and spending the day with my mom had to be cancelled. By Friday Luke was doing good and we got to enjoy three days with the most perfect weather. The kids absolutely were loving it and spent so much time outside playing, I was right there with them soaking up the sun. It was a great weekend to get the spring cleaning started, Heath got the vehicles and garage all cleaned up, I worked in my flower beds, the kids just did a little bit of everything and Ruby was in heaven with us being outside with her all day long.
Sunday was my favorite day of all.

• we headed over to Emmett early for church
• the boys, Heath and my dad had breakfast at McDonald's while
• me and my mom joined Matt and Summer for breakfast at a restaurant (Matt's treat, thanks!)
• spent the rest of the day at my parents house
• the little boys played all day long, running around outside, helping collect pine cones, riding the motorcycle, playing with the neighbor boy, games on the wii, building with lincoln logs, hanging out with the family
• I worked on a special project for a special someone
• the big boys worked outside on building shelves and fixing a lawn mower
• my mom treated us to one of my favorite dinners (roast, mashed potatoes & gravy, and green beans) so good, thanks!
• the sunshine and being with the family just made for a relaxing day

Really I loved this weekend...

Ryan and Aunt Summer sitting out in the pasture brushing Daisy and just talking.