Happy Easter

Happy Easter!


The kids had fun finding the eggs and baskets left by the Easter bunny. Lily darted through the backyard gathering the eggs. We had to remind her to leave some for Carter and Hazel too!

The eggs were a hit. My kids had fun playing with the empty eggs after they extracted their loot.

Hazel was adorable! I put the basket in her hand and she took off for the eggs. She picked them right up and plopped them inside.

She loves sunglasses. She tries to wear mine but they slip off her face. When she got this pair, she was so happy!

I included this picture simply because I love it. Aaron took it and captured my cute Carter (and his love of trains) well.

Grandma Ford was here for our early Easter celebrations. I'll post pictures of her visit later. We had soooo much fun with her here. I keep telling her she needs to just move down here, but I haven't convinced her yet!

We enjoyed our religious Easter celebrations as well. I love Jesus Christ and am indescribably grateful for his Atonement and resurrection.

In addition to Easter, this Sunday brought a significant change for our family. Our bishopric was released, including Aaron from his position as first counselor. It's been a privilege for our family to serve the Lord in that capacity. It wasn't without challenge, having Aaron away from our family a lot. I'm thankful for the growth it has afforded us. I'm absolutely, 100% ecstatic to think that now we'll be able to drive to church together, sit together in Sacrament meeting, and have Aaron home more on Sundays and weeknights!!! We'll enjoy the reprieve, short as it may be!

Our new bishop is a family friend. We adore him and his wife. I look forward to how our ward will be blessed by their love and dedication. His counselors are great. Their wives (my friends) are babes, I might add. God bless them all!

I LOVE SPRING BREAK!!

I love spring break now even more than I did as a kid! School days are long, busy, and most of the time I get with Lily is spent reminding her of what she needs to do to get ready for school, do homework, or get ready for bed. Needless to say, I LOVE when she has time off of school.

Spring break was awesome!!! My dad came to visit us for the first time. It was great having him here. We learned that Grandpa Clark loves Oreos and Froot Loops. He loves Oreos so much that we kept our pantry stocked! I won't say how many packages of Oreos we went through that week. We sure enjoyed helping him chow them down. We'll just say the kids call Grandpa "Oreo head." Unfortunately for me, I'm a close second for that title! I remember eating Oreos with him when I was a very little girl. I still love them!

The Excavator Park

Carter rocks the excavator!

Grandpa Clark and Hazel

Mustaches. Carter got a Dorito mustache. I asked him if he was turning into a teenager. He didn't like that at all, he kept telling me it was from the Doritos. When he tried to lick it off, it just smeared around.

Horse Back Riding

Lily was going to do a short ride around the coral with Carter. But by amazing chance, her dear little friend showed up at the same time as us! She was going to go on an hour long ride by herself, so Lily and I joined her. Lily loved the ride. She listened closely to the instructions at the beginning and I was pleasantly surprised to see how proactive and confident she was on the horse.

(Yes, we did cut Lily's hair! 12 inches!!)

My cute cowboy. He loved the cowboy garb. His only disappointment was that he didn't get to wear spurs. Carter waited an hour and a half to ride his horse. He was so patient and good.

I was also surprised to see how much Carter enjoyed the ride. I thought he'd be a little afraid, but he wasn't!

Look at that face!

Hazel found this little shopping cart at our friends' house and she adores it. She pushes it all around our house. The funny thing is that she doesn't crawl, she does a very funny scoot/shuffle. She gets around fast and it allows her to have a hand free to push her cart. It's the cutest thing!

Desert Botanical Gardens

The weather was lovely this week. We all enjoyed the gardens.

We learned on our horse excursion that this is a hedgehog cholla. We had fun identifying them all through the gardens and on a subsequent hike.

I thought this was such a pretty shot with the rock and plants behind.
(Gotta love Carter's shades. When the sun's bright he forms these cool shades with his hands which block the light but still allow him to see. Ingenious.)

Absolute cuteness.

The butterfly exhibit was the unanimous favorite part of the gardens. All three kids got so excited seeing the butterflies flit about the exhibit. I loved seeing their excitement.

The Train Park

Uhh, cuteness again. Don't you want to reach out and touch her squishy little arms and legs?!

My little loves.

Hooray for carousels! Hazel loved the bright colors, horses, and the music on the carousel. She was excited to sit on a horse. She was surprised and a little unsure when the horse started going up and down. It was cute to see her response to something new.

Hazel got so excited seeing the model trains move on their own! She couldn't get enough of them.

She watched this one go around and around. Grandpa was a good sport to hold her so she could watch for a long time!

Pure enjoyment! Grandpa got the kids these train suckers, and as you can see, Lily and Carter loved them. Aaah, how pleasant and carefree is childhood.

Spring break 2010!

I love spring break! I love having all my kids home during the day. I wanted spring break to be fun. I didn't want us to sit home all week, bored, and stir crazy. So I planned some super fun activities, and some good down time at home, and it turned out to be a fabulous time!


Lily and Carter's cool fort. At first it was a bus. Carter loved that! Then Lily wanted it to be a house. Carter insisted it was a bus. So Lily determined it was a broken bus house. Carter loved the idea and agreed. Voila the broken bus house!

On St. Patrick's day we dressed in green and went to the park for a picnic and playtime with some friends. I wish I had lined up all the kiddos and gotten a picture. It would have included 12 kids...all dressed in green!

Generally, we try to go to get the kids to bed early. We thought it would be fun to have a "late night" out for a change. We got the kids in their jammies and went to Paradise Bakery where we ate cookies and played a game we brought from home. The kids thought it was really cool to be out late (we were home by 8:00!). We got a lot of bang for our buck...it only cost $2.50 and we had so much fun!

We took a long drive down to the Shamrock Farm Dairy for a tour of their 10,000 cow dairy. We loved playing with friends there and eating the yummy ice cream made by Roxie the cow.

The train park was so great! The weather was perfect and the kids loved riding a train, a carousel, playing in a yellow caboose, and eating ice cream (yes, again!) with friends. It was so great!!

Lily said she was the princess and Cole was the prince.

Hazy enjoyed her time at the park too. She rode in the stroller and in our awesome new baby carrier. I love that carrier and am so glad to have it! You can see it pictured above on my girlfriend, holding her baby girl who is nine days older than Hazel. Those two will be little pals!

We tried to get a line-up of the five big kids for a photo. I could not pull Carter away from the big old train engine. But if you look closely between Cole and Ava, you can see him in his orange shirt, gazing at the train!

Month in review...so far

It's been a great month so far. Aaron's brother, Adam, and his family came to town so we got together at the children's museum. We had fun making crafts and playing around.

We had a fabulous time with them. I love when cousins get together to play. It does not happen often enough for our family!

Lily and Aaron put together a dresser in preparation for Hazel's arrival. Lily is so good at building things! She can honestly put together furniture that I haven't even attempted. She looks at the instructions and does what they say. She put together a drawer completely by herself. (Do you love the overflowing laundry hamper in the background?)

Carter is outgrowing his naps. One day he fell asleep in the van and awoke enough to stumble into the house but immediately fell back to sleep once he got past the entryway. He slept for a long time like this with his bum in the air. He's so cute. Notice too that he's sleeping with his green tractor and the King.

Lily makes way cool train tracks. Carter plays on them for hours.

A family portrait by Lillian.

A couple of girlfriends threw a shower for another friend and me who were expecting babies the same week. It was fun to chat with girlfriends. I loved it. Thanks, gals!

Our neighbor's friend drove his big white dump truck into the circle and let the kids climb inside it. Carter loves to look at the huge wheels, the engine, the exhaust pipe (which he calls a "yaust pipe"), and the mud flaps. Heaven for my little guy.

Today it's raining! The kids took their new umbrellas from Santa Claus outside to play in the rain.

That's our month so far. It's going well. I think the rest of the month is going to be pretty great too! Mom will arrive this Wednesday. I'm due next Sunday. So we'll probably have a baby sister in the next week or so!! I'm very excited!