Easter

The kiddos had fun at the Ward Easter Egg Hunt. 

Easter Sunday

The Bunny left ridiculous amounts of candy in the kiddos' baskets. What the heck was he thinking??

The First Scout Excursion

Markham is excited about his new calling. He is 2nd Counselor in the YM, so he is over the Deacons and gets to go on all the scout trips. He has awesome memories of being in scouts when he was a kid and is excited to pay it forward. He hopes to be a role model for the boys like his leaders were for him. What a guy.

I'm super exited too because now he can go and get his camp on and get all that sleeping, eating, going to the bathroom outside, etc. business out of his system. I'm not really a camper.

He has been very busy getting all of his gear out and ready for the campout they have coming up. After he had it all packed, I insisted he get on the scale to see how heavy it was.

The thing weighs 40lbs!! They are hiking a mile into camp, never mind other hikes they have planned. WOW, good luck with that. 

Meanwhile in other news, Jackson has been busy blowing me kisses. 

It's just too cute.

Holy Hail!

An hour ago the kiddos were outside in the backyard. I was doing the dishes in the kitchen watching from the window. I didn't have to keep Jacks from climbing all over the dishwasher door.... and it was quiet.  It was AWESOME.

Now, ice balls are falling from the black sky, thunder is rumbling and the wind is blowing...hard.  Must be spring in Utah.  Give it 20 minutes, it'll change.

Hopefully all this moisture will bring some life to our drab, brown landscaping. We bought this house from 2 green thumbs who had planted a TON of stuff that needed maintenance.  Unfortunately, I have absolutely no clue how to maintain such things, or even that such things need maintenance.

So fast forward a year later, the summer Jacks was born, things outside were getting a little out of order. But like I said, newborn Jack and 2 year old Kaitlyn turned out to be quite a hand full, rendering me helpless to do anything about it.

Fast forward to the following spring, by this time everything was grossly overgrown. Aside from the grass that was being  mowed regularly, things were looking out of control.

I just couldn't stand it any longer.

Without knowing what I was even doing, with pruning shears we inherited, I set out to take care of business. I planned to do just a little trimming.Well, it turned into an hour project that did not end well for the shrubs or me. I hacked everything down so far that it looked just awful. This is how I work, if a little is good, a LOT is better.

I guess I expected new branches, blooms and leaves to just burst out in a few days. Well that didn't happen. After like 2 weeks, I was convinced it was all dead and was not coming back. It looked completely dreadful. Patience is not my strong suit and much to my desperation, I proclaimed that everything must go, including the ground cover. (Markham was really excited) Quite a bit of work, we quickly learned. I swear we removed 100+ lbs of earth.

Later, we went to the nursery and pretended to know what we were doing.

Long story short, I spent the entire summer planting and re-planting different plants and shrubs. Didn't have much luck at all.....  and here we are again.

This time I consulted Google on proper pruning techniques before I attempted the back yard. I really didn't want to ruin it back there too. I did something right, I do in fact see blooms!

However I still need to plant all kinds of stuff in the front that will: a) survive my poor care. b) need little or no maintenance. c) flourish in crappy soil.  d) be in full sun ALL day, and e) look really really good early spring to late fall.

It's a problem.

Any suggestions??  Besides tearing it all out and just planting grass? I have thought about that too.

Puppy love and sunshine

The kiddos love Roxy. 

And I'm pretty sure she loves them back.

 We enjoyed some really warm days last weekend!! It felt so good!! Kaity played with her cute little friend who lives across the street, they had a great time

 They even included Jacks. It made me smile.

I'm ready for warm, sunny weather full time!

Conference weekend, cake pops and more snow

We love conference weekend. It's such a blessing to be able to watch it on TV. Kaity asked, "Where is the prophet?" We said that he was in Salt Lake with the Apostles. She said, "the apossibilities?"  It made us giggle.

Because we love an excuse to make treats and because it's kind of tradition to eat treats on conference weekend, we decided to try cake pops this year. It was FUN! For being novice cake pop artists, I think we were wildly successful. They are cute and super yummy!! (thanks Matt and Emma for all the tips!)

 And it wouldn't be conference weekend without some inclement weather. It snowed again, but melted fast. The kiddos spent some time outside playing until they felt like little popsicles.

 

 

LOOK.....signs of spring!!