Thursday, May 1, 2014

April


I think this is my favorite pic of my two favorite red heads.


We visited the coast. Love that place. 


We watched General Conference and played a few games to go with it. 


These two adore each other!


Queen Elsa did a fantastic job at the dentist. 




We started a tradition of celebrating our wedding anniversary as the birthday of our family. We got party hats, made a cake, got sparkling cider, made a cake and bought a new game that we played while we ate dinner. It was so fun and we will continue this tradition every year. 


We ended up being at Brenley's parents house for Easter. The Easter bunny comes on Saturday in our house. 


Then we went to the local egg hunt in the freezing rain. But the kids still loved it. 


Goofballs!


We went on a little anniversary end of tax season get away. It was relaxing especially since Bryce was sick with a bad head cold and it rained the whole time. 


We then ended up at Bryce's parents house and it had rained then got really nice. They live on five acres so there was plenty of mud to be played in. Brenley literally had to make the kids stay outside to get dirty because they were done after five minutes. But it was a blast and I loved watching them get dirty. And daddy got back just in time to help get them cleaned up. 


Just a little fun. They were chasing each other around the room.


We had a great visit with Oaklee's whole birth family and we went bowling. It was so much fun and the kids just had a blast like they always do when we visit them. 


This cute girl fell at a friends house right before Easter and scraped up her nose pretty bad. But she is still adorable. She sure knows how to be goofy for pics. 

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

March




Oaklee stole mommy's camera and this was the series of pictures that were left after she was found. haha!


These two red heads get asked all the time if they are twins. 


Oaklee ended up with strep throat for the first time. She was miserable unless she had some Motrin in her. She was put on anitbiotics which then we found out she was allergic too. 


After being sick we needed to get out in the beautiful spring weather. 


McCoy lost his 5th tooth. 


We celebrated mommies birthday with bowling and ice cream.


We spent a lot of time at the park. Here mommy is getting attacked.


Love birds!


We went to the park for lunch and one of the warmest spring days and found someone we knew there. Just as that friend left another friend we knew showed up. And then just as that friend was leaving another friend showed up so we just stayed and we ended up playing at the park for four hours. We all came home sun burnt. It was glorious! 


We studied a lot about eagles (for homeschool) and on their own the kids made their own versions of an eagle. We thought they turned out so cute!


Oaklee on her own decided she wanted to stop sucking her thumb. We did not make her, it was all her idea. She stuck with it and she has been thumb sucking free for eight months. 


Our niece was blessed. These are all the grandaughters on Bryce's side of the family.


While visiting Brenley's parents we went bowling and got frozen yogurt for FHE. 

Sunday, March 9, 2014

January & February...

Since we currently don't have a yard we go to the nearby park a lot.


While exploring our new area we found this place which was pretty cool.

And even explored a cave there. 


Our first week of homeschool we made our own volcano to erupt.

We found the local Children's museum and bought a year membership. The kids LOVE it!


Daddy had his 35th birthday.


Daddy helped the kids make a volcano model with papermache.



We had our first and really only snow here. Unfortunately that means drought for this area this year since the snow melt is used for farm crops.

We went to a fun event at the fairgrounds that was to help kids explore outdoor activities. They got to fish for a real fish to take home. 


Just some homeschool activities. Oaklee wants to participate but really just wants to do her own thing.


McCoy really has enjoyed most of the school activities I have found for him. We are keeping school fairly lowkey with only about an hour a day 3 to 4 days a week. He knows how to read and gets the concept of math so we just work on those skills more and then have been working on a few unit studies.


We play lots of legos!


Grandma and grandpa (Brenley's parents) came to visit for a night and we celebrated Grandma's birthday.


We went and toured the police station with the local homeschool group. McCoy loved it!


We had to make a quick trip to Medford and stopped at the Temple real quick.

Brenley and kids spent two weeks at Brenley's parents house so she could help them while her dad had surgery. We tried to do a bit of homeschool but Mac had a bad attitude about it. So I had to come up with some super fun ways to learn. He ended up loving this one.

We did lots of pretend camping before bed everynight at Grandma and grandpa's.


We got to visit our old neighborhood and surprise our best buddies when they got off the school bus.

At our other grandma and grandpas house (Bryce's parents) the kids found these sombreros and loved them. 


Grandma and Grandpa have an annual grandkid valentine party. The kids had a blast!

Mac loved reading his BOB books to Grandpa. These two have quite the relationship!

The kids wanted to learn about the bones in our body so we traced their bodies and I gave them a picture of a skeleton and they copied it. 

They had a huge snow and ice storm while at Brenley's parents house.


We made snow cream. It was pretty good although I put way too much sugar in it and I don't like ice cream.

A few weeks before we left to my parents house our downstairs neighbor let us know she wasn't very happy with how much noise we were making. She works nights and sleeps during the day. I had a really bad attitude about it and was very frustrated because I didn't feel like we were being disrespectful or rude and I had even tried to help her out by taking her garbage can and recycling can to the road and back to the apartment on garbage day. After I got over myself the kids and I made her a loaf of hot bread and took it to her. She seemed shock and didn't say anything but "Oh, thanks." A couple of weeks after that while I was gone to my parents house Bryce texted me this picture. Grateful that I chose kindness, instead of resentment.

The kids found some straws and made straw boats and wanted to race them in the tub. All of it their idea. 

We played mexican railroad a lot since we were mostly homebound because of the weather. McCoy catches on to games very quickly.

Oak had a little stomach but and fever while we were at my parents house. Thankfully it only lasted about 24 hours and no one else got it. But poor thing just looked miserable.

Our cute snowman.

We got a new niece/cousin. Bryce's brother and his wife had their first baby. She had a bit of a rough start but is doing awesome now.

Mac pretty much adores his grandpa dick and loves to listen to his police stories. He even got to try on his old sheriff jacket.

After four attempts we finally were able to get to the Lego movie. 

Visited daddy at work on Valentines day and brought donuts for his staff.

My very sorry attempt and making a heart braid in Oak's hair. She loved it and that's all that matters right?!

We watched Toy Story 3 one day and the next day Mac asked for a tortilla. It was so cute and funny!

We had to head to our old house since the new owners would be closing on the house and we needed to get the rest of our stuff. We stayed at Bryce's parents house and one night after putting the kids to bed we headed up in their new bonus room and watched a chick flick on their amazing down couch. Once you sit down on that couch you never want to get up. 

Oaklee finally got to meet her new cousin baby Elisabeth. She is pretty obsessed with babies. We wouldn't let her hold her yet since daddy had a bit of a cold and we didn't want to pass anything to her.

Late night game of connect 4 with grandma. 

Bittersweet to say goodbye to our first house. We miss it a lot and hope to find something that we love again soon.

Brenley's parents helped us get the rest of our stuff moved and while they were staying with us we went and explored the big lake. 

Oaklee has been obsessed with doing my hair. It hurts a lot but she is getting better. She has even figured out how to put ponytails in. 

We have been obsessed with watching the bald eagle cam. The kids always want to check on the eagles and their baby.

For a month and a half Mac asked everyday if his lego magazine came. It finally came and he was so excited!

It was a beautiful day and we had to come home from the park to start dinner but there was still daylight left and I wanted to enjoy it while we could. The kids didn't want to go on a walk so I enticed them with a scavenger hunt. They loved it!


Mac's really cute drawing of the eagles and the nest with the baby and the bad egg that  never hatched.

Life has been good and busy. We have made so many new friends and we have been very impressed with how friendly and inclusive everyone has been here.