Mother's Day

I had a very relaxing Mother's Day this year. We had a BBQ on Saturday with Bryan's family and I got some beautiful roses, See's Candy and a new watch. On Sunday I had strawberry and chocolate crepes for breakfast, got to have the kids sing to me in sacrament meeting, had a nice dessert with the other women at church, then just relaxed with the family for the day.

Easter Celebrations

Taylor joined us for the Primary Easter egg hunt. They found plenty of eggs and enjoyed some doughnuts.



The egg dying was fun as always, but the kids had the most fun pouring and mixing the dyes together.


They looked so precious for Easter Sunday. Rachel was very excited to get an Easter bonnet.

The baskets:


The egg hunt at Auntie Kim's house:

Plenty of candy!

We had our traditional ham and potato dinner and Kim made a yummy Snickers cheesecake.

Ben's 5th Birthday

Ben had a fun birthday with his friends. He invited cousins Nick, Ethan, Sam and friends Pierce, Tyler, Jake, and Colby. We had some pizza,

a pinata,


presents,

and a basketball cake!

Happy birthday to my Benny Boy. He is such a sweet and smart boy. He is starting to read (thanks in part to his favorite computer game Bookworm Adventures). He is soaking up the math that Rachel likes to drill him on. He really loves playing with his bud Pierce. They have a great time playing with their swords, castlemen, cars, balls and sticks. Except for his tendency to be cautious, he is all boy. Ben also has a very sensitive side. He loves to cuddle and is always telling me how much he loves me. He loves to look at the bright side of things. The other day he was eating cereal for breakfast and he said, "It's good that cows let us have their milk so that we can have cereal, right mom?" He sure is a good kid and I'm so glad I get to raise him.

Old Sac With Cousins

Kirsten came to visit with the cousins ("the ones with all the boys" as Rachel would say). Here they are after our Subway lunch:

After a fun day of exploring old town, our last stop was getting ice cream.

A Day of Muir

Since our beach plans were ruined in So Cal we decided to take a day and go down to the bay area. We decided to go to Muir Beach and Muir Woods (a perfect day for us - Bryan gets his beach and I get my forest). Bryan is always the designated parent to get in the ocean with the kids. Ben was not too interested in actually getting into the water, as per usual, but Rachel had a good time.

Ben spent his time digging in the sand and finding rocks. We thought this one looked like the United States:

There was a trail leading up to some cliffs that looked interesting, so I took the kids up to have a look.


The flip-flops were not the best plan for a hike but it was worth it. After you go over a few ridges you get a beautiful view of San Francisco.

After the beach we drove over to Muir Woods. It was absolutely beautiful. We didn't get very far in because we were a little tired and because we had to go way back to the entrance so Ben could go to the bathroom. But what we did see was awesome.


Inside a fallen hollow tree:

I sure love my family!

Our Big Boy

Ben got his first tie and was excited to wear one and be like Daddy (well, sort of excited...it is a necktie after all and Ben really doesn't like church clothes). We got the tie from Deseret Book and it has Noah's Ark and the animals on it. He looked so cute.

The Hotel

The day after Disneyland was low key. The kids were very excited to go swimming in the hotel pool. We had it to ourselves for a few hours. Rachel is getting to be a pretty fair swimmer and had fun jumping in from the side.




We drove down to Cheryl and Dave's house in Oceanside to spend a couple of days with them. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures, but we had a nice visit. The weather ruined our beach plans but we did make it to old town San Diego and visited the Mormon Battalion Museum. They have a great presentation and the kids got to pan for gold. Bryan and Rachel also got to tour UC San Diego, where cousin Alex is attending college. (Ben was sleeping in the car so I stayed with him.) We also found out while we were there that Alex got his mission call and will be serving in Albania. We always enjoy our time with the Morris'.

Disneyland

While Rachel was off-track from school in March we were able to go down to Southern California. Aunt Robyn was doing some training for work down there and we were able to use the free hotel to have a fun trip (thanks again Robyn!). First stop was Disneyland. It was beautiful weather and also happened to be St. Patrick's Day so we put on our green and enjoyed a little Disney magic.

Probably the favorite ride was the tea cups. I think we went on them three times.


While I took Rachel on Big Thunder Mountain Bryan took Ben over to Tom Sawyer's Island.

That night the kids had fun playing with this huge stone ball that rolled with the water. We also caught some of the firework show while they played.

The kids were pretty exhausted at the end of a long but fun day.


A few memories:

We got there before it opened but had a fun time reading all of the names on the dedication cobblestones on the ground. We were trying to find names of all of our extended family members. I think we found most of them.

Rachel is a roller coaster lover. She had a great time on Big Thunder Mountain with me, then Bryan took her on the Matterhorn after which she said, "It wasn't even as scary as Elizabeth said it would be." Ben had no interest in the coasters but Bryan and I both wanted to go on Space Mountain and we all went. We are mean parents and acted like it would be no big deal. While we were in line Ben kept asking, "Is this fast Mom?" "Um, it's just a little bit fast Ben." He was a little freaked out during the ride but afterwards he said that he loved it. We asked if he wanted to go again. "No." The Haunted Mansion was also interesting with Ben.

We were very sad that Splash Mountain was closed for renovations.

We had fun trying to pick out the different Disney characters inside It's A Small World.

The Jungle Cruise broke down about 2 minutes after we got on the boat. We finally ended up going in reverse back to the loading dock but we did get a free pass so we didn't have to wait in line for Space Mountain.

We tried to go see Captain EO three different times but every time the show had just started, so we never made it.

Autopia we a very jerky ride with Rachel in charge. That girl could not steer. I wanted to go bump Bryan and Ben in front of us, but we could never get going fast enough to catch up.

We tried to eat at The Blue Bayou inside the Pirate of the Carribean ride, but they did not have a very kid-friendly menu so we ended up leaving. :( At least they gave us free chocolate milk and pirate's hats for the kids.

I got my frozen banana, Bryan got his churro and the kids got their cotton candy. And I'm not much of a fried foods person, but they had the best corn dogs! Our souvenir was a set of Mickey magnets.

We finally left at about 10pm when the kids started begging to go to bed. We definitely got our money's worth!

Samuel

This year in Primary the kids are taking turns drawing their favorite scripture story on a bookmark. Ben was very excited when his turn came. He decided that his favorite story is Samuel the Lamanite. Here is our combined effort:

A few weeks later Ben was building with blocks. He built this tall tower, then placed the red one on the very top and said it was Samuel. I thought that was so cute.