Our trip to Colorado

Burke and Kaleb had Friday off of school so we decided to go to Burke's nephew Braedon's baptism that weekend. It was snowy, but we made it there and back safely with only a few scares. I'm just glad I didn't have a heart attack, I hate driving in the snow. Here's some pictures of the trip.

The girls loved going outside and playing in the snow. It's a good thing I remembered the gloves!!
All of the kids got together for pictures before we went to the church for the baptism, except for Katelin, she was waking up from her nap at the time. They are cousins from different families. I don't think my kids had ever met the other cousins of Braedon and Larissa before, but they all played so well together. I was impressed with them. All of them are really sweet kids.
Kaleb with his cousin Braedon just before he got baptized. I'm really glad we got to go and support Braedon. Kaleb seemed proud of him. It was a neat day.
Kaiya and Larissa are such sweet friends. It's amazing that even though they don't get to see their cousins very much they still just love each other and play so well like they just saw each other not to long ago.

Kyle and Katelin are about a month and a half apart in age. They were so much fun to watch. Sometimes a few of us would just sit at the table and watch them while they ate and talked about their food forever. We got a lot of good laughs from watching them.

We went to Garden of the Gods on Sunday and walked around and climbed up some of these rocks. Of course the kids loved that. It was a bit windy, but still fun.
Grandpa Simmons and Katelin. Everyone wanted to climb up on this rock together. So the rest of us on the ground thought it was a great time for a picture.
This is Katelin and I drawing in the dirt with a stick. I wanted to get a picture of Katelin with a dog there because she just loves them!!! Everytime we saw one, and it was often, she would run after it and talk to it. She doesn't get too close, but loves to stop and have a little chat with them. She is our first child to love dogs at a young age.
Candice and Josh traded off giving each other piggy-back-rides. Such a serviceable couple!

I'm really glad we all got to go and spend time together. We had fun playing games like sardines and this picture drawing game Candice taught us. It was so much fun to laugh and play and enjoy each others company.

Our weekend

I got out the Mr. Potato Head toys the other day for Kaleb to help Katelin play with. Instead she went off and did something else and he got into it and made all of these silly guys and had me take pictures. Their names are obvious - shoe guy, arm guy and eye guy.

Dad became the climbing pole.

Katelin had to get in on the fun too.
Two friday's ago Burke and Kaleb wanted to sleep on the trampoline. They made it until 3 in the morning and then got to cold and came in. This last Friday they wanted to try again and Kaiya wanted to join in this time. They made it the whole night this time! Katelin and I slept in the comfort of our own beds. I don't think she would be able to fall asleep out there anyway, she'd just want to jump all night long.
Katelin really likes to play our electric guitar and sing her own made up songs while she plays. It's hilarious!!! It sounds like a sad song how she sings it. She cracks us all up.

Any excuse for a party

My dad does a Corn Beef and Cabbage dinner around St. Patrick's Day every year. We don't get to go anymore because we live too far away. So I wanted to make that dinner for our family today. Kaiya and I decided it would be really fun to decorate too. So we hung streamers and put every ones names on a paper shamrock by their plate. We made green cake with green frosting and green sprinkles. Our drink was sprite and lemon lime koolaid mixed together.

Kaiya had just gotten back from dance before we started the party. We made sure she wore her green shamrock on her dance clothes just to be safe. She said no one else wore any green to dance! I told her she should have pinched them all.

Katelin is excited to dig into dinner and just help herself.
It was really good. The kids really liked it too. I couldn't remember them not liking it when we'd had it at my dads. I'm glad they like it.
I really wanted to play some fun games too and just have some fun together. We played pictionary, but you could only draw things that were green. And we used only a green marker. Burke is drawing the Hulk here. I thought that was a good one!
Here's Kaiya drawing something green, I can't remember. Most of her's looked the same - maybe a watermelon or a cucumber? This was really fun.
Then we played hide the shamrock. It really was a fun St. Patrick's Day. I think I need to turn every holiday into a party. It really makes life fun.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!

I found green shirts for the kids to wear today. I was joking around with Kaiya that if she didn't wear green then she would get pinched. She was pretty upset about that and wasn't going to wear a green shirt. I finally talked her into it and told her it was just for fun - come on! Sometimes she's so... much like me!My mom gave us these cute green and white hair bow things. Kaiya wouldn't wear one, so Katelin got them both. So cute! She's not getting pinched today for sure!

Thanks mom!

My mom used to eat ice A LOT! So the kids got used to it when we would visit her and they love it now too. So at home Kaleb likes to get ice to eat and Katelin likes to share it with him. Here they are before church on Sunday sharing some ice.

If Katelin gets to big of a piece she just spits it back in the cup. No biggie! Ew.

Two wheeler Kaleb

Kaleb has really liked the idea of learning how to ride his bike without training wheels. But actually doing it worried him a bit. He's been warming up to it over the past week though and today we decided to give it a try and take those training wheels off! I'm so glad we did to. It took him one try with Burke helping him to get the feel of it and then off he went. It was so cool to watch. The only hard thing is getting on it himself and starting, but he'll get the hang of that in no time I'm sure.

Kaiya's bike has flat tires so she gladly ran next to him while telling him that he's giving her a lot of exercise.

Here's a little video of him riding.

I hate tumbleweed

We've had so much wind lately that we get lots and lots of tumbleweed presents that stop at the fence in our driveway. This morning we woke up to this:

Kaleb is supposed to bring a collection of something to school on Monday. I think this a great collection to bring, don't you think? Everyone could even take one home!

This baby made it over the fence and decided not to hop the next fence, but to sit right inside it in our backyard!
I asked someone once what to do with all of these. They said to just break them up and put them in our garbage can. That would take me all day and our whole garbage can would be full! I think we better have a tumbleweed burning SOON!

JUMP for joy!

We purchased our trampoline a couple weekends ago. It has been really fun to have. Since we've put it up the wind has really kicked up though so we haven't been able to jump as much as we would like to. We put buckets of rocks next to it and tied them to the poles so our trampoline wouldn't fly away into the power lines. That's what happened to the previous owners trampoline. We were thankful for the heads up from them.

It looks like Kaiya is about to Karate kick me. Her and Katelin enjoy jumping during the day after Kaiya goes to pre-school. Kaiya stands one one side and Katelin on the other and then she jumps and Katelin falls down and laughs and laughs.

I'm so thankful for enclosures they have for trampolines now because I really can't stand watching them jump without one. I'm running from one side to the other trying to catch them if they were to fall. It would probably give me an ulcer from all of the worry if we didn't have one, seriously!!! So now I can watch them jump worry free. :)
Fun chasing game.
The trampoline is a serious workout too. I jump hard for a few minutes and I'm out of breath and later my legs are sore from the workout. I need to do that daily. 3 minute daily work out plan sounds great doesn't it?!

YUM

Burke made this German Apple Pancake for dinner the other night with hash browns. It was SO good. If you have the America's Test Kitchen recipe book, you must give it a try! You bake it in the oven. It's a really different recipe and a bit more preparation than just your normal pancake, but definitely worth it.

8th Anniversary

Burke and I have been married for eight crazy years!!! OK, not really crazy, but it seems crazy that's it's been that long. It's been a fun eight years with lots of learning experiences and good memories made for sure. We're excited to see how different the next eight years are. It's amazing how life changes year after year even though we're the same people.

Since we live clear out in the middle of no where Burke and I are just doing little cute things for each other all day. It was really fun last night as we were both in our corners in the computer room getting things ready for one another. We had a rule that we couldn't look at what the other one was doing. It was funny. Yes, we do have other rooms in our house, but he needed the computer and I needed my scrapbook table and stuff. It worked out though and no one cheated and looked. This morning I woke up to a written note on my bathroom mirror from him. I opened up my lipstick and it confirmed that is what he used. I'll get it back into shape in no time. :) He also folded a towel into an elephant head ( he found some towel origami on the internet) so funny. I brought lunch to him at school and he's going to make dinner tonight. I'm so excited to not have to cook. And he does a great job. It's been a fun day so far.

Job Chart ideas anyone???

I 've been wanting to make a cute/fun job chart for our family for a while now. Does anyone have one they love? Please let me know your ideas, it would help out a lot. I've had a few ideas running through my head, but I'm kind of stuck. Also if you know of any fun websites that has pictures I can cut out for it that would be wonderful. I looked at one time and couldn't find anything for free. THANKS in advance!!!