Spring is for flowers, playing outside, and above all...

PRETTY TOES!

This really, really makes me love having only one daughter   : )

Occasionally at the campsite you'll see a Winnebago...

That's kind of cheating, isn't it?  "Oh, that's what I forgot.  My house."

Alright, so I'm not much of a 'roughin it' type girl.  To me a toilet that I don't have to hike to, a heater to keep me warm at night, and a place to cook without dirt are not comforts - they are necessities.  As in, absolutely vital to our survival and sanity.  Thus, I love my trailer.  For spring break we took our trailer (pulled by our new Yukon, which was a dream) and 6 children to Yuba Lake for a few days.  We got there Thursday night just in time to start up a fire and cook some hot dogs and marshmallows. 

YUM!

The next morning we ate pop tarts and bananas for breakfast and played Uno until it got warm enough to go outside. 

And then it was time for throwing rocks in the water.  This seemed to be the theme of the trip.

Chance, is this a good skipping rock?

Only the best flat stones...

Wade started out throwing handfuls of gravel into the water...

but after about half an hour after that, he wanted to throw rocks as big as him.

And here is the result:

Oh wait.  I guess Conner helped too:

Here's a super cute one of the kids on the dock.  I have to give Shane all the credit for this photo :)

I think we'll finish up with Carter munching on a Kit Kat.  Because that's what camping is all about, right? 

The TREATS. 

Believe me, my butt knows it.

Spring Break

and by that I mean, it broke me. In half. It threw a serious wrench in my blog posting, as I was madly preparing for Easter and then camping. So now I'm going to give you the rundown over the last couple of weeks, starting with my weird child doing a weird dance:




This was on Friday night before Easter, so we know it wasn't sugar-induced. Well, that may be a lie. I guess I should say it wasn't completely sugar induced. He seriously did this for about 5 minutes before we even turned the camera on him. Ham. Wonder where he gets THAT from... *pointing to Shane*

So Easter. So much fun. Shane's younger sister and family came up for Easter and General Conference weekend, so we spent most of Saturday at Kym's house playing. Here are a bunch of the kids outside doing a scavenger hunt:

And some pics of kids coloring eggs. I especially love the pic of Wade and his little friend.

Easter morning made us a bit panicky. You see, the Easter Bunny told Mom and Dad where all the eggs were hidden, but it seems Wade got up before anyone else and, uh, 'found' some eggs. As in, we thought they were lost. After all the other eggs were accounted for, we finally decided to look downstairs and found the final two eggs mashed in the bottom of a cup. There is no relief quite like the relief of knowing you won't be smelling rotting boiled eggs in the next week.

The panicking didn't end with the parents. For the first time this year, the Easter Bunny hid the baskets at our house. The kids came into the bedroom, Conner almost a little teary, thinking the Bunny forgot to drop off the treats. After all the eggs were found, there was one plastic egg with a clue inside, and then the fun really began....


Yes, this is Conner running BAREFOOT through the snow to the trailer where his basket was found.

Yep, we had lots of fun.

Well this has been great, but the old blogger I had to switch back to in order to upload the video at the beginning is a super pain in the buns to fight. And it's school time for Bella and that means naptime for Carter, Wade and me. I will blog and post pics from Yuba later - or maybe tomorrow!

April first, Carter's first haircut, and now this:

What a lovely, warm spring day....

APRIL FOOLS!

BRRR!

On the other hand, the gorgeous tree in front of my house looks like this:

I love.

And Wade spends his time on a cold April morning like this:

Yes, he's sitting in the sock basket right below the TV. I have 6 kids - that's a lot of socks to fold! Don't judge me! And he'll probably end up with a kinked neck and broken eyeballs from sitting too close to the TV. Mother of the Year award, here I come.

How to make an Instant Big Boy...

JUST ADD HAIRCUT!

My mother will cry.

PS - I know that was more than enough pictures. I don't care. He's freaking cute!

So... here's to adventures in blogging!

Hi Family!

I just wanted to send you all an invite to take a peek at my life.  We don't see each other enough, so I thought I would send you this and keep you more involved in our day-to-day lives.... and I thought that Conner's birthday would be a good excuse to get started.

Here are a few cute pictures of the birthday boy:

  This is a gross present. You hook this microscope up to the TV and you can look at all kinds of disgusting things on the big screen. As you might imagine, Conner loves it.

Conner has wanted this 'Duck Hunter' thing since Christmas. Why he doesn't just play it on the Nintendo, I'll never know.

At How to Train Your Dragon on Friday. GO SEE THIS MOVIE. That's an order.

Sheesh, Conner, where did the crazed look come from? Yikes!

This is the second round of candle-blowing. If you know us at all, you know we NEVER just light the candles once. What's the fun if you can't blow them out until they are little nubs? Actually, this time we blew them out only twice because we were DYING for cake.

Also, here are some funny pictures of Carter. This is what happens around here if you leave the cereal bag on the floor. Well, this is what happens before it gets dumped all over and smashed.

In other news, this week and last week have been sort of a blur. We spent a lot of time painting and then staying up late at Shane's work filming sort of a show-off video. He just started his new manager job and really wants to be in charge of the video at work, so some of the big wigs asked him to show what he could do. Finally now, after 4 late night film shoots(topped off by my early morning workouts), I think we finally have what we need to put it together. This week will be devoted to a lot of motion graphics and editing. If anyone has tips on motion graphics for video, I am all ears. He's also started work this week on a local full-length feature film in SLC. AND we need to get ready for Easter, AND get our trailer ready because we're going camping next weekend for Spring Break. If someone has some time they'd like to lend me, I promise I'll take really good care of it. And if you see me in public, don't laugh at the bags under my eyes.