Sunny Learned to Ride a Bike

She finally learned how to ride a bike. I say finally because she has been on the verge for almost a year. She wouldn't let us help her at all. Today while Dad and Ryan were out working she was riding in circles in the garage and then she came inside and announced that she had learned to ride the 2 wheeler by herself.

She is so proud to be riding a bike and so proud to have taught herself.

(Just for the record she does have a Princess bike, but it has a flat tire, and this little blue one just works better.)

So far both of my kids have learned to ride a bike at 5 years old. I was also 5 when I learned. I'm pretty sure Ryan said he was 7 or 8...good thing they take after me :)

Griffin

Griffin's newest trick is clapping. He is so adorable. If you clap your hands he'll immediately start clapping his too. I thought I'd be smart and get a video of it. I didn't realize if I was holding the camera I couldn't clap, and therefore, Griffin wouldn't clap. So as I was trying to tell him to clap he kept getting more and more excited and "talking" to me and Lila.

I also love how you can hear Lila's little voice saying, "Gwriffin, Clap, Clap, Clap!"

(I don't know if this video is going to load or not. I'm going to post this and hope it does. If it doesn't, just picture Griffin being really cute)

My Garden

I have been wanting my own garden for YEARS! Today Dad came over and he and Ryan built one for me. It is a 12 X 4 raised box. I absolutely cannot wait until it warms up and is time to plant.

One of the reasons I'm so excited is because, for those of you who haven't heard...we are now VEGETARIANS! That's right, me, who HATED vegetables is eating them for most every meal. This is stuff for another post, but I am excited to eat from my own garden. Hopefully I can actually grow stuff.

The whole vegetarian thing started in January. We cut out beef first, then chicken in February. During this time we were eating it if our parents cooked it for a meal at their house, but no more. We also quit eating fast food. (The only exception to this is school lunch for Jackson. He just chooses the most healthy option (to use the word healthy with school lunch is laughable, but he loves it, so we deal with it for now.) I'll write more about all this later though.

Dad and Ryan also filled in all the holes in the back yard, so now the kids can actually play without fear of falling in the huge holes and being eaten by the giant Vole that lives there.

Jackson's Birthday Package

It came today and they were all so excited.

(Notice Sunny's pose...that was totally accidental. She is such a model)

Silly String...every kid's dream and every parents nightmare. He is thrilled to have it.
I actually love the stuff, just don't like cleaning it up. Oh well, it is worth it for the kids to have some fun.

A new baseball glove and baseballs. He is excited to start practicing for baseball season. He starts machine pitch in May, with Ryan as one of his coaches.

Just sitting amongst all his gifts. He loved them all. Mok always knows exactly what the kids will love.

This is those Velcro paddles that the ball sticks to. They wanted to go outside, but we have had such an ugly dust storm today that they couldn't. I gave in and let them play inside, but I had to hold my breath. I hate letting them play ball in the house because something usually gets broken. Not today though. They did good.

Thanks Mok for all the birthday presents and the beautiful Easter dresses and clothes for the boys. I can't wait to dress them up and take a picture.

p.s. Good thing you got size 18 months for Griffin. It looks like it will be a perfect fit. He is a big kid :)

Easter Egg Hunt

Last Saturday we had a ward Easter activity. It was an Easter Egg hunt and brunch. My kids aren't in these first two pictures, but I wanted you to see exactly how many people were there. There were kids everywhere!

This is just a portion of the people. It was pretty windy, so not the best weather, but it was fun to get out and do something.

The kids under 3 got to look for eggs first. Lila loved it. She was such a big girl.

She was so proud of her eggs. She didn't realize there was candy inside them until later.

After the little kids found their eggs, they set the big kids free to go hunt. Unfortunately there were so many kids that the eggs all got taken pretty quickly. Neither Jax or Sunny even got one. They were so disappointed, especially Jackson (that would be why he was crying in this picture). Soon enough some sweet older kids came around and gave eggs to the kids who didn't get any. My kids cheered up quick enough and Jax was able to dry up the tears.

So excited for the candy!

Brunch after the egg hunt. It was dutch oven breakfast casserole. Yummy! Griffin also had a good time. He was comfy in the Ergo on my back. See his cute little striped hat? We had a great day and we love our ward.

Family Home Evening -- Week 14

Last night we had a combined Family Home Evening with our neighbors from across the street, and our next door neighbors. We talked about talents and then the kids performed in a talent show. It was so funny. Jackson's talent was dribbling a basketball between his legs. Basically he would kick his leg up really high and throw the ball under. Very funny and pretty spazzy looking. Sunny did a ballerina spin move for her talent. Lila just watched all the kids, and Griffin was going to perform his talent of clapping his hands, but it was a little chilly so he had to stay wrapped up in a blanket the whole time.

Our neighbor brought some yummy chocolate peanut butter bars and we ate them while all the kids played in the front yard for awhile. It was a fun night and we feel so blessed to have such wonderful neighbors.

I don't know why I didn't take any pictures. I should have b/c they would've been adorable! Oh well, maybe next time.

Family Home Evening -- Week 13

Last weeks Family Home Evening was great, and the results that we have seen since then have been even better. I decided to focus on rules, discipline, and behavior in our home. All of you that know my kids, know that they are very well behaved, but I feel like there is always room for improvement, so with that in mind, here is what we did.

As a family we chose three "rules" for our home. Earlier I had started to make a list of all of our rules, but it got to be too long. I also felt it was too specific. I want the kids to use their own discretion as to how to interpret and follow rules, so there needed to be some room for interpretation in our rules. Here is what we came up with.

1. Love

(Family is all about love. It is definitely one of the greatest gifts we have been given. We need to treat each other with love.)

2. Respect

(This one covers everything :) If you have respect for your parents you obey them. If you have respect for your toys, you keep them picked up. If you have respect for your home, you help keep it clean. The list could go on and on. I love this one)

3. Work

(We are all part of this family, and we will all work everyday to keep it running the way we want. We don't have chore charts or rewards or anything like that. We do what is needed, when it is needed. We don't keep score. We help each other with all the work in our family so we can all enjoy the rewards together.)

I could really go on and on about this, but I'll just say this past week has been great. The kids are taking on more and more responsibility without being asked and I really appreciate it. I think they are getting the whole "We're all in this together" thing. (Please appreciate the HSM reference :) But, that is what it all boils down to...

We're all in this together!