Whirlwind Weekend

My little sister is getting married in July and she had a bridal shower on Saturday.  Holly and I decided to drive up to Idaho for the day to celebrate with her, meet her fiance, and see Glen.  It was lots of fun, but very quick.  We stopped at Subway and had lunch with all three of them and stuck around and hung out with Glen for a bit.  We haven't seen anyone since Christmas so it was really nice to see them.  Glen is off track right now and is going some red furry thing on his chin.  ;)

 We had a good time at Rose's shower and then we hung out a little bit with Rose and Steven at her apartment.  He is a good match for Rose.  I am very happy excited and happy for them.  Being newlyweds is so much fun. As much as my Stephen wanted Rose to marry someone tall so he wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb that isn't going to happen. Hee-hee.

Yesterday they started church of by saying there would be no nursery because strep throat and RSV had been going around so that meant we took Porter to our primary class with us.  Tanner also gave a talk in junior primary.  He did a good job.  In fact, one of the counselors told us that she got lots of positive comments about his talk.  Even some kids commented on how cool it was that he could read.

In the afternoon we went to Grandma and Grandpa Jeppson's house for an early Easter dinner and an Easter egg hunt which the boys were really excited about. It was cold outside, at least there wasn't snow I suppose.

New Van and Seeing Green

I didn't start my Saturday off thinking that I would have a new van by the end of the day, but the stars aligned in such a way that is exactly what happened.  We had been talking about what to do because our old van needed some repairs and it had hit over 100,000 miles.  We found this van which had just what we were looking for and then some.  Way less miles, good price, it even has a dvd player in it which is handy since we  had one in our old van.  It's a 2012 Dodge Grand Caravan.  The boys all love it and Stephen and I are enjoying it too.  

Yesterday was St. Patrick's Day so the boys have on green ties which are also going to be their Easter ties.  I promise they did have their shirts tucked in at some points in the day.  At least at church when I had control over it... Oh boys....

 My St. Patrick's Day celebrating was lame.  We did give the boys Green Kool Aid ice cubes in sprite.  Porter is not a soda fan and he wouldn't try it, but the other two enjoyed it.

 Grandma Jeppson also gave them green rice krispy treats which they enjoyed.

It's finally feeling like Spring and we are enjoying it although most of us are trying to get over colds.  Hopefully we will get over them and be done with sickness for a while.

Scrapbook pages

I thought I'd share some scrapbook pages that I have done recently.  I have not done these pages in any particular order so there are old, new, some of each kid, family ones.  Not really a rhyme or reason to them.  They have been fun though. 

 

Fourth of July 2012 with Vance.

St. Patrick's Day with the boys in 2010.

 Cute pictures of Tanner in 2009.

 Cute pictures of Porter from 2012

 Cute pictures of the boys that Rose took last Summer.

 Pictures from Temple Square and when Stephen and I attended the MOTAB concert at Christmas time last December.

 Porter's blessing day which was in April of 2010.

They have been fun pages to do.  Maybe I'll post more as I do more.  Hope you have enjoyed looking at them too.

Porter is 3!

My baby is 3!  I guess that means he is officially not a baby anymore.  Not only is he not a baby, he isn't even a toddler.  He has grown up so much this passed year.  He looks acts, and talks like a little boy now.  I can hardly believe it.  He is so funny.  He is constantly making us laugh with the things he says and does.  I am so grateful he is part of our family.  This year he wanted to make sure I made a birthday video for him.  Here it is.

We celebrated his birthday on Saturday since Stephen and Vance are only home for about a half hour at the same time Monday-Thursday.  We just  kept things simple with our immediate family.  We opened presents, went out to lunch, sang happy birthday and had cupcakes.  We had a Muppet themed birthday so we pulled out his Muppet stuff to play with.  Later on Grandma, Grandpa Jeppson, and Kimberly came by and brought some more presents.  It was a good day.

Temples

A couple of Saturdays ago Stephen and I made a quick day trip to Nampa to deliver some of our baby furniture to Eric and Tami.  We left our kids with my in-laws.  We didn't have room for them and the things we were taking to Eric's.  It worked out well though.  We were able to travel faster without them and they had a blast with Grandma and Grandpa.  They were disappointed not to see Eric and Tami.  We will have to take them next time.

This passed Saturday we decided to take advantage of the decent weather and continue our Utah temple tour that we started last Summer.  We first went to the Oquirrh Mountain temple.  It was very windy and we were cold at this stop, but we still enjoyed the temple.  There were people coming and going, but it was not super busy.  They were the only temple we went to that day that had a fountain going.  The boys love watching the fountains.

 Here is a shot I got of the boys next to the temple.  They were giving me painful smiles most of the day.

The next temple we went to was Mount Timpanogos.  We went to that temple for Eric and Tami's sealing, but since that was a few years ago we thought we'd go again.  Porter was only 3 months old when they got married.  I think I counted 3 brides at this temple outside taking pictures.  It was way busier, but I am not surprised by that.  The weather had warmed up though and it was pleasant to be outside.  It made me happy that the brides weren't freezing to death.

The last temple we visited was the Draper temple.  It is way up in the mountains.  It had quite a view and a lot of stairs!  This temple was also busy.  I only saw one bride and groom, but I saw two more wedding parties waiting for their newlyweds to come out.  (I saw two women holding bouquets which is how I came to that conclusion)

Porter was funny at the end of the day he told me that we went to 3 temples and held up 3 fingers.  Then he proceeded to say, "Temple one was the fountain temple. Temple two Eric and Tami got married.  Temple three had stairs."  True kiddo.

Speaking of temples and brides my little sister is engaged!  Yay!  She and her future hubby (Steven) are planning on a July 26th wedding in the Logan Temple.  So excited for them!  We are looking forward to having him join the family as well as Eric and Tami's baby coming in May.  It's fun to have additions to our extended families.

Beds, Valentine's, and Crazy Hair

In July I promised the older boys that we would get them Star Wars bedding.  Well, we just got around to doing that.  They were really excited.  

 We also got Porter a twin mattress and got his big bed put together.  He has taken over the Cars bedding that the older boys had.  He is excited to have a high bed even though he needs a stool to climb into it.  Tanner thinks it is cool too.

 Vance was very excited for Valentine's Day.  He even made a girl in his class a special valentine.  I asked how that went and he said she said, "Thank You."  There is the story behind that.  Stephen made me this fun origami rose.  This picture isn't very good.  He took a better one on his phone, go figure.

 Vance had his 100th day of school today and they also had crazy hair day.  There is only so much you can do for boys to make their hair crazier.  I wasn't willing to color it, but since he needed a hair cut I shaved the sides and let him have a mohawk thing going on.  He thought it was fun.  I already buzzed the rest of it tonight.

Granola and Stuff

It is no secret that my house is full of picky eaters.  They do love their snacks though.  One thing they all love is granola bars, although Porter is probably the granola bar king.  Anyway, I found this recipe on pinterest and figured I should try it out.  Hopefully save a little money and maybe be healthier too?  They turned out pretty good.  The boys enjoyed them.  They are more crumbly than store bought, but not too bad.  I don't think Stephen was a big fan, but I think I can keep the boys happy with them.  Score.

The older two boys now have the 2nd Article of Faith memorized and can still recite the first.  Porter knows the gist of the second, but can't repeat it word for word.  I am fairly impressed with him learning any of these anyway.  He knows up to "...men will be punished for their own sins..."

Vance lost another tooth.  He is just going to town with those teeth.  He is saving his money for a certain Angry Bird toy.  He is only half way there so far.  

Once upon a time I wanted to be rich.  I would day dream about all the nice things I would do for other people if I had so much money I didn't know what to do with.  Stephen and I talked about how we would live in a nice house, with a few indulgences, but nothing over the top.  We didn't want to spoil our kids too much.  When we lived in Rexburg we would talk about how someday when we were rich we would buy apartments or houses for young married college students and rent them out for real cheap because we knew what it was like to be a young married couple getting through school.  I could continue on, yes once upon a time I wanted to be rich.  Now though, now I just want enough money to meet our needs, not live paycheck to paycheck , and put us in a position to buy a house.  It doesn't seem like too much to ask for really.  Someday perhaps...