He's 9!!!!

Man I must be getting old...my little Tanner is 9!

Tanner was treated pretty special for his birthday.  Dad came to school and brought McDonald's for lunch, Mom brought donuts to his class with a balloon (we bought 2 but one flew away in the parking lot), and then after school we went to the trampoline park and met his friend Cole's family there for a bouncy good time!  Tanner picked homemade pizza for dinner, and he wanted an ice cream cake for dessert.  We invited the Mackays over to enjoy dessert and sing a bday song.  His birthday presents were an electric scooter, bowling shoes, and $25 cash to spend on whatever he wants. His friends also gave him some little gifts.

Tanner is such a special boy - even though he is a big tease!  He loves his little sister and she loves him so much.  He is such a great reader and is reading 5th grade level books.  It has been tricky finding chapter books that he loves, but he found some books about mythology that he likes and he also likes Fudge-mania, and Wayside school.  Tanner is a great little pianist even though he complains a lot.  He loves to play video games, especially Minecraft.  He is getting to be a really good roller blader and is really enjoying listening to music (especially the Frozen songs) on his ipod.  Tanner is making some good friends, and is a good student.  He got his Wolf scout and is excited to be moving on to Bears.  Tanner is such a blessing in our family - what would we do without him?

Happy Easter

Isn't Easter a whole week of fun?  It was for us this year.  It started off with me making cute treats for my visiting teaching ladies. They were pretty cute, but unfortunately we didn't think they tasted that great.  The chocolate was too much.  Tuesday we did the Clot Trot.  It is a hemophilia run put on by some friends from a different ward.  This is the first year we did it, and me and the boys ran the 1 mile.  We did it in 11 minutes and 3 seconds.  Dave and Sabree stood at the turn around point for the 5K to direct runners so they didn't keep going.  It is so fun to run and feel accomplished, especially when we can do it as a family.  I am so proud of my boys!  On Friday we Easter we invited a few families over for a BBQ and egg hunt.  It was fun to get to know new families better (or maybe we are the new family) and make new friends.  The kids had a load of eggs, and it was fun. Saturday we gave the boys their Easter present from us - roller blades, then we worked in the yard. Lots of projects, you know.  We got the garden all tilled and my strawberries planted.  Everyone was very "dirt"y, and had a great time in the sunshine.  We went to another BBQ at Webb's for lunch, and then back to work!  Unfortunately by then it was really quite windy, so that put a damper on the fun.  Sunday Dave made bunny breakfast and  I had to speak in church on "Miracles".  I felt like it went well and had lots of compliments.  After church we stopped at the Temple and took Easter pictures in our Easter clothes.  Due to a busy weekend, we didn't really have time to contact the Easter Bunny and let him know when the best time for an egg hunt would be.  But that sneaky bunny got baskets all ready while the boys were changing their Sunday clothes and then we had a great time flying our new kites for a while before going to dinner at Strattons for a delicious ham and funeral potatoes meal.

We are certainly blessed to have such great people in our lives.  We truly feel like we have had millions of miracles happen in our lives because of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and a lot of those miracles include the great people in our lives.

A beautiful morning run

I can't say it enough - I love where we live!!  The orchards are beautiful, especially when they were in full bloom, the sunsets are amazing, the clouds are lovely, the farmland is peaceful, and the space is refreshing.  Even the thousands of ground squirrels that scurry around (and are going to eat my garden for sure) are fun to watch.

I like to go for a run in the morning after the boys are off to school. Brady rides his bike or scooter and Sabree rides in the stroller.  I have never been a runner, but my goal is to run a 5K this year.  We are surrounded by such beauty that it makes running so great.  One morning while running, Braden's bike chain came off the gear, and I couldn't get it back on, so we walked the rest of the way.  We decided to stop and take a picture or two of the view.  I know these don't give it justice, but it is a small taste.  The kids were very distracted by a huge beetle that crossed their path.  

We don't live in our dream house, but everything else is pretty darn close!

Spring Break

I was planning on a nice little road trip, fields of blooming tulips, and new sites and places for Spring Break - but my ideas got veto'd and we stayed home.  For my own sanity though, we planned something fun for each day.

Monday - I took the kids and Will and Issy to McDonalds for lunch.  After lunch I brought all the kids back to our house and they had fun digging and playing in the dirt.  Then that evening we went to the new trampoline park in Kennewick.  We invited some other families to meet us there, but only one family had everyone jump and stayed as long as we did.  Who knew rows of trampolines could be so much fun!  I think Dave had as much fun (or more) than the kids.  And the foam pits were a blast.  They were like jumping into a cloud - until you tried to get out of them...that was a major work out.

 

 Tuesday - we had the Schmidt's over for a hot dog roast.  (I forgot to take pics.)  It was such a nice evening and the kids played outside and the adults visited.  This is what I had in mind when we wanted a little more land.

Wednesday - we went to the arcade/bowling alley.  I had lots of arcade cards that I had been collecting from here or there, and everyone loves to bowl. Then we went to Bob's Burgers for dinner.  Yum!

Thursday - we hiked Badger Mountain.  It is the "hill" you can see from our front porch, so we decided we needed to mark it off our bucket list.  It took us an hour to go up, and 1/2 and hour to come down.  Then we had a picnic in the car because it was getting too chilly and windy.

Dave's finger is touching our house.

 

 Friday - I took the boys and 2 of their friends to the movie "Peabody and Sherman".  They loved it. We were the only ones in the theater until right before it started and then 3 other small groups joined us.

Even though it wasn't my dream vacation, the boys had such a good time playing with each other and catching up with friends and relaxing.