Easter 2011

Happy Easter . . . a little late . . .

but at least you don't have to look at David G. anymore

or listen to the birthday song :)

We love you all!

Happy Day!

Hoof or Heel?

We discovered some "Mr. Incredible" socks in Shawn's closet last night. With Shawn having a new craze for being like Dash, he was so excited to wear them. He put them on all by himself and climbed into bed.

The first thing he said to me this morning when he woke up was,

"Look Mom! Mr. Incredible's face is on my Hoof!"

I tried to convince him that it's called a Heel not a Hoof.

But he's determined that he's right so . . . Hoof it is.

First Swim Meet of the Year

Tyler had his first meet of the year at the Provo Pool and he did awesome! It was so fun to see how much he's improved over the last several months.

While we were waiting for Tyler's turn, Ty asked Bret to write "Eat my Bubbles" on his back with a pen. Bret agreed . . . only he wrote his own little message. It took Tyler awhile to figure out what we were all laughing about.

Ty swam in two events this time . . . 50 Freestyle and 50 Breaststroke. He swam the 50 freestyle first and beat his time by 5 seconds. I wish I had a video of him when he climbed out of the pool. He was so excited! He was jumping up and down and yelling "YES". It was so fun to see his reaction. He beat his "50 Breaststroke" time by 3 seconds too.

I'm so proud of Tyler and the hard work he has put into his swimming. Beating your times at a meet makes all the hard work worth it. Way to go Bud!

Field Trip with a Buddy

Shawn had a field trip coming up and Katy was dying . . . she wanted to go so bad!

So I checked her out of school a little early and she came with us to the Orem Library. These two are the cutest buddies. They held hands all the way in.

We couldn't pass up the spiral "Rapunzel" stairs out front. Katy was so excited to show them to Shawn and yelled "Rapunzel, Rapunzel! Let your hair down."

The story glass window is always so fun to look at. We found lots of fairy tale stories . . . lots of favorites.

Shawn followed the librarian on a little tour . . .

. . . and then listened quietly to the stories

We have so many memories of this field trip . . . each one of the kids got to go when they were in preschool. It was fun to have Katy come with us. She was so excited to be a part of it with Shawn.

Jenny's Next Phase of Braces

Jenny has had her braces on for a little over a year, and her teeth are looking beautiful. They all look perfectly straight. But now it's time for the next phase of work on her mouth.

Jenny got this new appliance put on her teeth that is permanent and it looks so uncomfortable. It's call a Herbst. It's like a giant hinge that is built to pull her bottom jaw forward so it doesn't sit back so far.

She climbed in the car and took one look at her mouth and started to cry. I told her "Poop! You got this jaw problem from me." But she took a deep breath and was brave from there on out. 8 months with this thing seems long, but it will be over before we know it and then we will be homeward bound.

Bedtime Stories

I tucked Shawn in bed and was ready to read the book he had chosen. He told me we were going to read 2 stories tonight . . . one book and one Book of Mormon story without a book. This was news to me so I went with the safest one I had from memory.

After telling Shawn a little bit about Lehi and his family. . . specifically Laman and Lemuel and how they were always complaining when their Dad asked them to do anything . . . Shawn had a really concerned look. He said that if he were in that family, he would punch Laman and Lemuel in the face

(and he demonstrated a punch in the air).

I told him we wouldn't want to do that because it wouldn't be very nice. We should just ask them to be nice and not complain so much.

He listened to what I said and then put his hand over his mouth and giggled saying,

"I like my way better."

Shots or no Shots?

Well . . .

Bret said, "Yes" to flu shots this year

I said, "Hmm . . . Maybe not. . ."

and . . .

we didn't get them.

So, now we have the flu . . . Poop!

These little eyes tell me throughout the day how they are feeling at the moment. Every once in awhile I see a little sparkle, and then the fever hits again and they kind of glaze over. We've been through tons of medicine, and it looks like we are going to need some more for awhile.

But I count my lucky stars all day that these little bodies aren't so little anymore. I know that we are are big enough to fight hard, and soon it will all be over.

Miracle Fire

We woke up yesterday morning to 6 inches of snow. Bret was out at 7am blowing snow for many of the senior members of our ward. We got home from church at noon and Bret and Tyler were out the door again . . . shoveling just a few more homes. Jenny and I decided to start a fire to warm us up. It was a perfect day for a fire.

Later in the day, Tyler noticed that our kitchen smelled like some sweet frosting. He kept asking me what kind of secret treat I was making, but unfortunately there wasn't anything up my sleeve. We didn't know where the sweet smell was coming from.

Bret and I ran up to Matt's house to help him with some things. We were gone for close to 45 minutes. When we got back the smell was even stronger but kind of different. We did a little family night and that's when the smell started bugging me. It was boarder line electrical fire smell but still sweet. We started smelling around the kitchen and thought maybe it was coming from one of the outlets in the wall. Bret pulled the plate off to check the plug but nothing looked suspicious. While we all stood around and watched, Shawn leaned up against the wall and then pulled away saying, "Ooh, That wall is hot!"

That's when we noticed that the wall on the back side of the fireplace was really warm. Bret put the fire out and sprayed cold water along the back of the fireplace wall. Once that was cooled, he grabbed a couple bags of frozen peas and pressed them against the wall in the kitchen. By this time the house smelled like smoke and the air was a little smokey too. Bret noticed that the paint on the wall was starting to bubble and was coming off the wall in pieces. He pulled about a 2 foot by 3 foot chunk of messed up paint off the wall. The paint had a sweet smell to it . . . the sheetrock underneath smelled like an ashtray. It was so bad!

After awhile of pressing the cool bags on the wall, it cooled down quite a bit, but the smoke smell still seemed to get worse throughout the evening. We went to bed with a really stinky house and a 2X3 foot space of paint pulled off the wall. We were frustrated . . . we weren't sure what to think.

I slept awful that night. The smell was so bad. The whole house smelled like a huge ashtray.

I woke up the next morning to a huge surprise . . . scary surprise. The smell was so bad. I decided to cover up the exposed sheetrock with a plastic bag or something. When I went in to work on it, I saw that we had a basketball sized burn hole in the wall. The sheetrock was black, the baseboard was completely gone and part of the floorboard was gone too. I went in to wake up Bret and told him the wall had burned and the baseboard was gone. He tells me now that he thought I was crazy. He thought I was still asleep and loosing my mind. Unfortunately this time, I wasn't.

Throughout the day we have thought about how blessed we are that our house didn't burn. . . When we went to help Matt and left the kids home with the fire, when we were all asleep in the night . . . We are so grateful to have our warm home standing in one piece today. It's an absolute miracle that a blazing fire didn't start in that wall. We are so grateful that our family was protected last night. It was a Miracle. . .

Katy's Baptism Day!

Today was one of the best days! Katy got baptized and it was perfect. She is such beautiful little girl. I'm so proud to be her mom.

It was so much fun getting everything ready for the big day. Katy and I went on a little date together to pick out some new scriptures and shop for a white baptism dress. She talked so fast about so many fun things. She couldn't wait to tell me about it all. She has such a happy spirit about her. She's so excited about life and brings such a happy spirit to our home.

We realized that Katy would be getting baptized in the same church and font as Bret did when he turned 8. So we took a picture of the two of them out in front of the church house just like Bret did when he was little.There were so many people there helping us get ready. I told her that she would wear a little jumpsuit for the baptism so she wouldn't be surprised when we got there. I told her they were better then a dress because then when you stepped down into the water you wouldn't have to worry about your dress coming up. Well, surprise to us . . . they had a bunch of cute little dressed for her to pick from and no jumpsuits. So after a little back tracking on what I had told her before. . . she was so brave about it and trusted that everything would be okay. We found her a dress that would fit just right, and I helped her put it on. She was a little worried about needing a slip, but we discovered that the dress had some extra lining in it so she was safe. And it all worked out in the end. Phew!

Everyone in our family was so excited for Katy's big day. They all helped so much with getting ready, and Shawn couldn't wait for Katy to get "baa-batized".

Afterward, we had everyone come over for a yummy lunch. Bret smoked some ribs for the big day since it's one of Katy's favorites. We had watermelon, corn on the cob, salad, bread and some yummy cookies to top it off.

We decorated the tables outside with stars and lots of pictures of Katy.

We were lucky to have so many people come and support her.

Grandma and Grandpa Clark . . .

Grandma and Grandpa Z . . .

and both of her great-grandmas!

Great-Grandma Robinson

and Great-Grandma Bowden

We felt so much love that day when we saw how many friends, ward members and family came to support Katy. She is one loved girl. We are so proud of her choice to be baptized.

Back to School

We woke up on Monday and dreaded that school was going to start the next day. We wanted to do something fun before it all started up again and we were back into homework, schedules, sports, and bedtimes. So we jumped in the car and headed to a movie.

We had heard so many good things about "Despicable Me", so we had to give it a shot. Everyone pretty much loved it except Dad. It wasn't his favorite.

As we walked out of the movie theater, we saw this Hurricane Simulator and the kids were dying to give it a try. You stand inside and it starts blowing wind on you. It starts out blowing slowly and then gradually increases to close to 76 mph. This pictures is when they were just getting started. You can see in the background the speedometer says 32 mph or so. I love that Tyler is covering his ears. That is so Classic Tyler!

This pictures was when it was close to the maximum speed. It was blowing about 76.7mph? Let's just say everyone had some pretty messy hair when they got out . . . except Tyler of course.

The next morning we were ready for school to start. Jenny was both nervous and excited to go to Dixon this year. We had gone down to the school two different times to walk around and pay fees. So she felt like she was ready and she knew where everything was. To add to the excitement and pressure of it all . . . They had school pictures on the first day. She woke up extra early to do her hair and be ready in time to catch the bus.

She came up for breakfast all ready and looked absolutely darling! (I especially love those beautiful teeth in braces.) I can't believe she's old enough to go to Junior High! Where does the time go?

The 7th graders were the only ones that had to go to school the first day (no 8th graders). So I walked over to the bus stop with her because there aren't any other 7th graders in our ward. We had talked to some kids about where the bus stop was and we were ready. We knew right where to go. One of Jenny's cute friends, Meg, came down to meet us. After waiting for a good 20 minutes, we saw the bus coming, and then it turn onto a different street and was gone. We were at the wrong stop. So we headed home, jumped in the car and I ran them down to the school before it started.

Tyler and Katy were up bright and early. The next wave of excitement was in the air. Since everything was so crazy with Jenny earlier, by the time I got back to help Katy with her hair it was a little late. Tyler was getting nervous that he was going to be late and wasn't too thrilled about stopping for pictures. But we managed to sneak in a couple really fast. Tyler was excited but a little nervous this year too. After meeting his teacher the night before, she seemed a little scary and he wasn't sure what to think. But after going a couple days, he's gotten to like her more and more, and we think he's going to live! Katy was so excited to get started this year. After meeting her teacher the night before, Katy knew that she was super nice and she couldn't wait. She didn't look like she had a nervous bone in her body. Which, for Katy, was a miracle.

Shawn wasn't too excited about all his buddies taking off early in the morning with out him. He tried all summer to talk Katy into going to his school with him this year. I kept hearing him say, "But it's going to be wheelwee, wheelwee fun!" They are the cutest friends.

But when I reminded him that it's just me and him now, he was all over that! Just a few more weeks and he'll be starting preschool at Miss Angie's. He can't wait! The only thing that would make it better would be if Katy could come with him.