There are moments as a mother when you have to let go of all reason and rules and just go with the flow for the sake of your kids. Yesterday afternoon was one of those moments. Lindsay and Logan were outside playing with our neighbor kids and they were trying to catch bugs in some glass jars. They weren’t having much luck with catching anything in the air and decided to try and catch ants instead. Jeffy noticed some ants in our flower garden and pointed it out to the kids and they thought they had found the mother load! What happened next was when I just had to let go and go with it. Somehow Lindsay talked me into letting her get some crackers for the ants and the next thing I knew, we were putting crackers on the bricks around the flower garden and watching the ants swarm around them. They would then pick up the crackers covered in ants and put them into their jars. They thought it was so cool! Since they were having SO MUCH FUN with this, I suggested we break the crackers into tiny little pieces and see if the ants will carry them to their ant hill.

*eyes wide and big smiles from all the kids*

So, we broke some pieces off and sure enough, those little ants worked SO HARD to get those pieces over the side of the brick and down into their ant hill. The kids thought it was SO COOL!!! And I have to admit, it was pretty neat to watch.

Lindsay was trying to help the ants with the cracker in this picture.

Logan would watch the ants every once in awhile but he was too busy riding his bike and looking cool.

Half way through this little adventure though, I realized that purposely feeding the ants probably won’t help to get rid of them. So once the kids were losing interest I grabbed the ant poison and shook at those neat little ants. Thanks, Ants, for the fun science experiment! Now DIE!
——————————————————————————————————————————–
Last week we bought a patio set and kept the huge box for the kids to play in. They colored on it and claimed it as their house. We also bought a weed whacker and took it out of the box yesterday and with a suggestion from Lane, turned that box into a chimney/fireplace for the kids house. Lindsay then crumpled up yellow, orange and red construction paper to make fire and later on, the kids roasted marshmallows on forks. Too cute!

Jeff and I thought it would be fun to get a team together to play in the softball tournament for our city’s summer festival. So, we got a team together, which consisted of a couple people who had played softball before on teams, some who had at least played the game before and some who had never played. We got jerseys made and our team name was Clever Nickname. We only got the chance to play three games. We lost our first one, won the second one and lost the third one. It was a double elimination tournament, so after our third game we were out. We both had an amazing second game, with Jeff hitting a home run and me catching the game ending ball. I was so excited about catching the ball, I even did a little jump to celebrate. We both had a GREAT time playing and can’t wait until we can play again. Thanks teammates for an awesome run!!

Clever Nickname Team

Boys: Cam Kawa, Todd Nielsen, Jeff, Bret Olsen, Chris Wren, Spencer Poulson, Flavio Martins
Girls: Cassy Applegate, Wendy Sorensen, Me, Sarah Wren, Heidi Clark, Niki Martins

The backs of our jerseys.

On Friday, Lindsay had her Show Week in Gymnastics and she did a FANTASTIC job!! A few weeks ago they gave them all a piece of paper with the routines on each skill (tumbling, bars, beam) and wanted them to practice and memorize as much as they could. And that is just what Lindsay did! I am not joking when I say she practiced ALL day EVERY day until Show Week. She was doing cartwheels and donkey kicks any place she could: at home, the park, the backyard, and even the store. All that practice paid off and she did great! I am so proud of her for working so hard to get that cartwheel down and her donkey kicks high! While practicing she even did a couple of handstands and even flipped over on a few. I can tell she really loves gymnastics!!

This is her teacher, Miss Mel, who she absolutely adores! Every time she does something at home for the first time, she can’t wait for Friday to show Miss Mel!

This is Lindsay’s tumbling routine. It’s in two different videos. Deal with it.


Lindsay on the beam!

Lindsay on the bar.

In between each skill, they let the kids run around and have free time. Instead of waiting for this free time to play on everything, Logan just plays the whole time and he’s so cute doing it!
Here’s Logan trying to do a back roll.


The kids on the rings.


She’s even beautiful waiting patiently, watching the other kids.

Flipping over the top bar.

Logan wanted to be involved, too, so he just went and sat down by all the big kids. He’s so cute!

Lindsay getting her award. YAY Lindsay!

Logan even wanted to stand with the big kids at the end…

Way to go Lindsay! We’re so proud of you!!

We had such a fun Memorial Day this year. The weather man claimed that it would rain all day but there wasn’t a single drop of rain all day! YAY! Since it was ‘supposed’ to rain, I didn’t know what we should do. I didn’t want to go anywhere outside with the possibility of having to go home early and I sure didn’t want to stay inside all day. I had some coupons for 2 for 1 admission to a place called Liberty Land in Lehi so we decided to take a chance and go and if it rained, oh well, we had coupons. It’s like a little mini Lagoon, except more white trash and run by teenagers. They didn’t have enough people there to have a person at each ride, so you had to stand around by the ride and literally wait until someone saw you. Only then would they come over and turn the ride on for you. Kind of ridiculous! The kids had fun and that’s all that matters and we of course had fun with them. I wouldn’t recommend Liberty Land as a fun ‘ride’ place, but they do also have miniature golfing, rock climbing and laser tag that we didn’t do, which would probably be fun. Anyway, here are some pictures.
This ride was one of those drop ones, that take you up and down and up and down.

Lindsay wasn’t sure at first and almost started screaming so I had to quickly think of something to take her mind off of it and told her it was just like a trampoline. She was okay after that.
This is us on the roller coaster there.

Jeffy and I really thought we were all going to die on this thing because it just didn’t feel stable enough. It reminded me of that mouse ride at Lagoon a long time ago where you thought the little cart was going to fly off the track around corners. Not cool.
We did do the go carts and the kids both really liked that. Lindsay and I were winning at first but then Jeff and Logan came from behind to win. (Sshhh…don’t tell them I let them win.)


Inside they have some arcade games, a few little rides, including this little train ride. Once Logan saw it we of course had to go for a ride. They got to ring the bell and everything. Fun, fun!

After we got home, we had some friends over for hamburgers and hot dogs and s’mores. The kids had an awesome time playing together and us adults had a good time chatting the evening away. I love Memorial Day and what it represents and I am so thankful for all the men and women who have served and died for our country so that I could do all the things I did that day. Here’s to more BBQ’s and endless summer fun!

On Friday we drove up to Heber to have a fun day out with Thomas the train! I’ve had some friends tell me about this and knew that Logan would LOVE it! We were just going to take Logan for his special mommy and daddy date, but we figured he wouldn’t know the difference and he would most likely spend the whole time asking where Lindsay was. So, we decided to make it a fun family day! I timed it so that we would be driving to Heber during Logan’s nap so that he would at least get SOME sleep, but it sort of backfired on me at first. He was the grumpiest little stick in the mud ever! He didn’t want to do anything and cried and cried and Jeff and I were really worried that he’d be like this the whole time. He ended up being happy as can be once we got on the train and the day was fun after that. Lindsay was SUPER excited the entire time and all week kept asking me if it was Thomas day yet.

A Day Out With Thomas includes a 25 minutes train ride on the Heber Creeper, pulled by Thomas himself, and then they have some cute little games and things to do around the train station. When we first got there, we all got some train tattoos. Lindsay and Jeffy got Thomas tattoos and Logan and I got James. Logan only got his after we were about to walk away. He was still grumpy.


Grumpy Logan.

Logan less than thrilled about getting a tattoo.


They had a little petting zoo with just 4 or 5 animals, including these two really cute horses, or ponies, or whatever they were. They were so cute and little! Lindsay LOVED it! She had fun brushing them and petting them. Logan was still grumpy so he either sat on this little bench or I had to hold him. He wanted nothing to do with them. Although, he did keep mentioning the cute “chocolate horsie”.


Then it was time to ride Thomas!! (notice Logan smiling)


The train car we were in was an open air car so the kids could look out and stick their heads out and look around.


Isn’t he cute?

Logan loved the train ride SO MUCH and his favorite part? Sticking his head out and watching the ground. He was so intrigued!

On our little train ride, there was a field with the sprinklers on and because of the wind, we all got a little bit wet. And because they only go about 10-12 minutes one way and then turn around, we got wet twice. It was funny.
After our train ride, we went and saw the animals again and this time Logan did pet them, but it didn’t last long. He was just a little too nervous so he sat and watched them from a distance.

Lindsay however got to sit on one of the cute little horses and thought it was so neat.

Then we went and did the hay maze, which wasn’t very hard, but the kids had fun running around in it.


We could have paid to get a picture with Thomas, but instead we just waited for the next train ride to leave and took a picture in front of him as he was leaving. Good enough. HAHA.

They had a tent with lots of tables of trains to play with so the kids played there for a few minutes.


They had a covered place with chairs and things for people to eat and they had a magician and he called on Lindsay to assist him with one of his acts. She was so super excited!! And she was so cute the whole time, giggling and thinking he was too cool.

He was pretending to find coins in her head and he would dump them out into this bucket. It was funny.

Then the kids got some balloon animals. Lindsay got a butterfly and Logan got a doggy.

Then we got one more picture with Thomas as he pulled away for another ride. Logan wouldn’t look at the camera because he was too interested in the train.

It was a really fun day and we had a fun time spending with the kids, watching them have a good time. I would definitely do it again next year!

…for playing in the sun! Last week it was so nice and warm, we got the pool out! The kids were super excited and had a blast zooming down the slide. This pool is a little small, so I went to Target and got a bigger one for even more fast powered fun! Of course it’s been cooler and raining ever since then, but at least we know there will be months of hot weather to come! And we get to have fun in our backyard, which we’ve never done before so we’re all very excited!

This is one of my favorite pictures of Lindsay.

She is almost 15 months old in this picture and she would make this face to make us laugh. If you would scowl at her playfully, this is what she would do. Too funny. Yesterday, as I was combing her hair after her bath, she was looking at herself in the mirror and making different faces and she made the scowl again! I grabbed the camera to take a picture of her scowling because I was mostly interested to see how similar the two pictures are.

What do you think? She definitely looks scarier in the first picture and in the second one you can tell she is trying not to smile. She’s such a silly face.

Tonight, when Jeffy came home from his bishopric meeting, he sat down and said, “So, should we stay up until 2 in the morning so that I can ask you to marry me again?” It took me a second to realize what he was talking about. Jeffy and I celebrate every ‘anniversary’ we have. The FIRST day we ever met, the first day we actually talked, the day I realized I had feelings for him, the first time we held hands, our first kiss, the night we decided to get married, the day he proposed, and of course our wedding day. Well, early early in the morning on May 14, 2003, after hours of talking (me trying to break up with him and Jeffy telling me I was being stupid), he said one sentence to me and everything changed. All of a sudden, all of the feelings of uncertainty were gone and I KNEW without a doubt that Jeffy was the one for me. We were getting married!

I am thankful everyday that I did not succeed in breaking up with him because I know my life would be sad and unfulfilled. Jeffy is my best friend. We always have fun no matter what we’re doing and we enjoy doing everything together. I would rather be with him ALL day every day than be with anybody else. No offense friends. He is a wonderful, thoughtful husband, and is always asking me what he can do to make my day easier. I know I have it easy being married to Jeffy. I know that I am the luckiest girl in the world and I know that I am treated better than any other wife. Jeffy and I have never yelled at each other or had a fight and I know that will never change because he could never hurt me that way, nor I him. He is an amazing father and his kids adore him so much. Lindsay is sleeping with a picture of her and her daddy tonight because she missed him so much. I love that they love him so much.

Jeffy, I love you and I would say yes again (twice, even) to marry you all over again!

(I bet you’re wondering what he said to me, huh?)

Before the day is over, I just wanted to tell all the millions (AND MILLIONS) of people who read our blog how much I love Bethy and how blessed I am to have her in my life. She is the perfect wife, the perfect mother, and the best friend I have ever had. And she’s really, really cute, too. Happy Mother’s Day, Bethy! I love you!

I have been wanting a raised flower bed for a few years now, but considering we didn’t have a backyard up until last summer, it wasn’t really a priority. It was really fun putting it together with each other, and I was surprised at how EASY it was. That’s probably because everything is easier with Jeffy. If I had tried to do this by myself, I would have pulled my hair out trying to figure out how many bricks it would take to do the job. We went and got the flowers today and planted them as a family, well, the three of us that were interested. Cute little Logan would rather ride his yellow bike than play in the dirt. He did come over and play with the shovel for awhile and helped water the flowers at the end. Lindsay helped with putting the flowers in the holes we were digging, but she didn’t want to touch the slimy dirt with roots with her hand, so she was very careful taking the plants from me after I took them out of the little plastic things, holding them by the tip of the plant. She is her daddy’s daughter.

But isn’t it pretty?

(I promise that’s not a HUGE crack in our foundation behind the flowers. It’s just some dirt stuck to the cement. Phew!)