Spring?

We had several rainy days last week, but we've also enjoyed some lovely weather as well.  It must be Spring!

The boys found a new show on Netflix they love watching, "Transformers Prime".  It's a new version of the transformer cartoon and they are hooked as you can tell by Tanner's face below.  They already love the toys.  Taking after their daddy I guess.

 Vance had a kindergarten field trip last week.  They visited a farm and got to see all kinds of baby (and non-baby) animals.  He got to hold a bunny which must have been the highlight of the trip because he is still talking about it.  He was so excited for his field trip.  We went over every little detail he could think to breakdown and go over in preparation.  I was glad to have it over!  I am glad he had such a great time.

 Porter loves drinking any kind of smoothie or anything I juice.  He will drink things that I think are actually kind of gross.  This day he was enjoying a Yoplait smoothie.  Stephen will drink those and he always has to share some with this little guy.

 Just two boys, some stuff animals, and a blanket.  Good times.

 I told Porter to smile at me and I got this cute little face.  He is a hoot.  

 Saturday Stephen works 10 hours all day long.  It was a beautiful day so we went to the closest park that we can walk to and played on the toys and had a snack.  The boys had a wonderful time and I enjoyed getting out of the house as well.

 Sadly, I forgot sunscreen on our Saturday outing and got a lovely sunburn which I am showing off here.  Nice with my dress, huh?  Actually, the worst part was behind my legs.  Porter's cheeks got a little pick, but that was it for the boys.  I was the lucky one...

 Stephen was taking a picture of one of his origami creations and Porter was watching him.  I though it was super cute so I took a picture even though it was not good lighting.

 So I haven't got my hair cut in two years, not a trim or anything.  Horrible, right?  Well, I finally buckled down and got it done this morning.  It doesn't look a ton different.  In fact, I asked Vance if he noticed anything different about my hair when he got home from school and he said no, so there you go.  I did have about 1 1/2 inches cut off the bottom and a little bit of layering.  I wasn't ready to give up the long hair yet.

And there are two pictures of me by myself in this post.  Definitely something wrong here, I guess since it's April and my birthday month....  Maybe next week will be Stephen's turn.  Haha!

Is It the middle of April already?

Today is my dad's birthday (Happy Birthday!) The older two boys drew him pictures and wrote a little note for him.  Tanner's didn't really show up in the picture.  The both had fun drawing balloons and cake and writing "Happy Birthday Grandpa".  My dad sent a picture back with him and the notes and they got a kick out of that.

 The instructions for Vance's homework one day was to some toys to help him do some addition problems.  He used car squinkies.  He was getting a kick of of the fact that two of the answers in a row were the same number when I snapped this picture.

 Tanner loves to mother his stuffed animals.  This day he had a blue rabbit, Porter's green Scout puppy, and a monkey.

 The boys love these angry birds that we cut out of fruit snack boxes.  They've kept them entertained for quite a chunk of time now.

 I bought the boys these shirts and ties for a great deal ($6.99 a piece).  I think they look pretty spiffy even though Vance ended up having to wear jeans because I discovered a hole in his normal Sunday pants (they were too short anyway).  I was embarrassed, but he had to wear something down there.  At least he had a nice new shirt and tie to go with it.  I promised I tucked shirts in, they just never stayed that way...

Spring Break

Well, we have been busy and it has mostly been a fun busy lately.  I realized I was getting behind posting pictures on here though.  So without further ado, here are some pictures from the last couple of weeks.  

Stephen's has folded a bunch of these fun things and I think they are really cool.  You'd have to ask him what they are called though.  I just know they are fun.

 The boys still enjoy coloring on the dry erase board.  Porter really loves to do this and I have noticed more and more often when it comes to drawing he uses his left hand.  Interesting... maybe I will get a lefty after all.

 Vance finished his "reading lessons" a couple of days after Tanner.  He got behind because it was harder to find a time to do it with him after school and homework and such.

 The boys saw these angry bird shirts and in a moment of weakness I bought them.  Unfortunately, they didn't have any Porter's size.  He was happy to show of the magazine he was looking at for the picture though.

 Stephen has a subscription to the Nintendo Power magazine and when it arrives the boys are always the ones to look at it before Stephen gets a chance so here they are enjoying that.

Often, there is a fight over who gets to look at the atlas when we are driving.  Porter got his turn this day.

 General Conference weekend.  Don't they look so quiet and attentive?  If only that had lasted...  Stephen hooked up the computer to the tv though so we could watch conference on the internet, but view it on the much bigger screen.

 The boys earned pennies anytime they heard an apostle say a certain word and then I let them cash the pennies in for a prize.  They each are showing off their "future missionary" name tag here.  One morning Vance had his tag on and he had his backpack on and he said, "Tanner, I'm a missionary coming home from my mission and you are my brother."  (We've recently been talking about how my brother, Glen will be coming home from his mission soon.)  Tanner refused to play a long though.  He said no to being his brother so then Vance suggested he be his father, uncle, cousin, and mother before giving up.  I thought Vance was real cute though about it though.

 Vance showing off his airplane shirt.  I don't know why he wanted too since it is not new, but whatever.

 My parents came to Utah briefly before going to pick my sister, Rose up in Rexburg.  Here is my mom and Porter looking at a book at Holly's house.

 Poor Holly and Elliot were at the hospital the entire time my parents were in Utah.  Elliot was having breathing issues again.  Poor boy.  Tuesday afternoon we had her girls and I made them all sit down to watch a movie after Stephen went to work.  I took a quick picture because I knew that all five of them on the couch would only last so long and I was right.

 Since it was Vance's Spring Break we decided to make a quick trip up to Rexburg/Idaho Falls.  First, to say hi and good bye to Rose before she headed home for the summer and also to go back and visit our old stomping grounds and show the boys all the places we've lived and so forth.  It was a blast.  We didn't find out until Tuesday night that we'd be able to go and then didn't know if Stephen would get off work Saturday until Thursday evening (which he didn't)  It was good even though it was quick.  Here is my little family at the gardens on BYU-Idaho's campus.

 We had a lot of fun driving around and walking around campus and hanging out with my parents and Rose some.  We didn't do everything we wanted to not only because our time was short, but because it was freezing cold and snowing on Friday so we went to the Museum of Idaho in I.F. because they had a dinosaur exhibit going on and all four of my men LOVE dinosaurs.

 We made it home Friday evening and Saturday Stephen had a 10 hour shift (as usual) so the boys and I decorated some hard-boiled eggs.  I tried baking instead of boiling them this time and really liked it.  I also tried using kool-aid instead of other things to dye the eggs and that was fun too.

 We made it to Easter and although the boys didn't have new clothes I made them take pictures anyway.

 Back to normal life on Monday, we went and checked out our local library for the first time since we've moved here.  We all enjoyed looking around.

 Porter was having fun this morning with the Skylanders and his shoes so I had to take a picture.  This little guy has started to say 2-3 word phrases in just the last couple of days.  So fun.  Some of my favorites are, "Love you." and "Where are you?"  Usually he is searching for his frog or some other toy when he says that.

This post as tons of pictures.  Is anyone still reading?  I thought I would post a few more favorites from this past week.  All of my men ready for church on Sunday.

 And here I am with  my little men on Sunday.  Vance told me I looked like a princess with how I had braided my hair.  They can be pretty sweet little boys sometimes.

 I took this picture of my mom and dad in Rexburg.

 And it is nice to get a picture with just me and my wonderful hubby sometimes too.

Two weeks

I got a little behind in blogging so here are my pictures of the day for pretty much the last two weeks.

I took a picture of Vance playing with birthday candles.  He finds the most random things to entertain himself with.

 We have had some nice spring days and some cold, snowy days.  I am really hoping it will just be nice now that it is getting closer to April.

 Tanner playing in a laundry basket with his stuffed animals.

 Porter had his two year wellness check.  He'd been coughing and his breathing was wheezy so the doctor looked into that and told us he had Bronchiolitis.  Poor boy.  He had to do breathing treatments for several days.  That's what he is doing in the picture.  Anyway, he is 30 pounds and a little over 35 inches tall which puts him in the 75% for his height and weight.  He is on the low end of how many words he should be saying, but since he is communicating pretty well we will hold off on speech for now and see how it progresses.

 Porter was enjoying a St. Patrick's Day cookie until I took his picture.

 Happy St. Patrick's Day!  We didn't do any big celebrations.  I made cupcakes that had spinach in them so they turned out green and you couldn't actually taste the spinach so the boys gobbled them right up.

This picture isn't so exciting.  I find it hard to get pictures on most Sundays.  They were unhappily getting their socks on for church.

 Monday morning we hung out with Holly and her crew.  Tanner and Jillian were having a cute playing moment so I took a picture of them.

 Vance wanted to draw a picture of his very own Mario Party game board.  I wish you could see the picture better, but it was fun.

 Tanner and I did a lesson about controlling our anger with Angry Birds as the theme.  I found this idea on The Home Teacher's site.  Here is a coloring page he did.

 Tanner and I were having fun writing messages on the Magna Doodle.  I took a picture of this message he wrote all on his own.  It says, "Tanner is a boy" in case you can't read it.

 Tanner finished all 100 reading lessons!  Woo-hoo.  Vance is almost finished as well.  With school and homework it makes it a little harder to squeeze in his reading lessons than it is to do Tanner's.

 This morning Tanner and Porter were hanging out on the rocking chair and Tanner said, "Mom, it's kind of like we are friends."  Referring to him and Porter playing.  It was cute.

Porter's Birthday and other stuff

Tanner and I continued our Dr. Seuss celebration.  Here he is "hopping on pop".  Basically he drew a picture of his dad and then jumped on it.  He had a lot of fun doing it.  His picture included glasses for his dad too.

 Tanner was reading a "Hop on Pop" one morning.  I actually did a video of it too because it was sweet.

 Sadly, Tanner had a real high fever on Thursday and it kind of stayed with him until yesterday.  I think we are completely past that now though.  Poor kid.  Rough winter for us.

 Here is just a picture of Vance being cheesy.  He is a funny kid.

 On Saturday we celebrated Porter's birthday.  Here is a picture of him admiring his cupcakes.  Thanks to everyone who came and thanks to all those who gave him gifts.  He loves everything he got.

 Here is my birthday boy.  How did two years pass already?  It's crazy.  Even more crazy to think about is that when Vance turned two Tanner was already three months old and when Tanner turned two I was around 3 months pregnant with Porter.  I don't have a new baby nor am I pregnant.  Kind of crazy to think about.  Anyway, we love this little man!

 Vance loves to play with different things.  Pretty much anything can be turned in to a toy.  These are birthday candles he was playing with this afteroon.

 I posted birthday pictures on facebook, but here are a couple more of my favorites.