Pumpkin Patch

Forgive me while I try and catch up on the last few months of out lives.  You'll see a lot of backdated posts.

Right before Halloween we decided we should get the kids some pumpkins.  Life has been a little crazy with Josh working two jobs, and we didn't think about pumpkins.  Luckily Josh had the Friday before Halloween off and we went to a pumpkin patch.

We loved watching these little monsters going through the small maze.  Except when Michael got lost for a total of 5 seconds and started screaming his head off.

We let them pick out their own pumpkins.  Michael's first pick was a 20lb pumpkin.  Luckily he changed his mind to a small 2 pounder he could carry around.  He also picked out a pumpkin for Ethan.  Elli, in true Elli fashion, ran way into the middle of the field and carried her little pumpkin back to us.  Ethan just hung out and ate my hair.

One of my favorite pictures of all time

Easter

We've decided I'm the Scrooge of every holiday.  I just don't put in the effort.  Our kids wouldn't have had anything in their Christmas stockings if Josh hadn't decided to buy crackers, candy canes, and plenty of puffs to stuff them with.  Easter wasn't much different.

Luckily, we have family that does fun stuff for our kids.  They had three Easter egg hunts this year.  The first was Saturday morning at my grandparents house.  Elli loved it!  There were plenty of eggs "hidden" on the grass for her to collect.  My grandma always puts change in them, so she was loving shaking them as she ran to pick up more.

 Michael on the other hand was having a really difficult time with the whole thing.  Partially because as soon as everyone was released into the back yard to search he fell face first on some bricks.  But as you can tell he was just more interested in sweeping.

My BIL tried to help him, but he still wouldn't give up the broom

It was a warm day so it shouldn't be a surprise this happened on the way home.

 After very long naps we headed to Josh's grandparents house for another Easter egg hunt.  Instead of money in the eggs there was candy.  Michael suddenly became much more interested, while Elli realized the eggs didn't make as much noise and wasn't as into it.

 What Elli did love was the swing

 Not that you can even tell from this picture.  She says "weee" or "wow" every time she is pushed.

Michael started having meltdowns because I wouldn't let him have a lot of candy.  People kept sneaking him candy.  As you can imagine we had a tantrum on our hands...for a few days following.  Luckily the tantrums stopped a few days ago.

I guess I did do one fun thing for Easter.  Since I didn't get the kids Easter baskets, I decided to make bunny pancakes.  Okay, okay, I made ONE bunny pancake, and it was quickly cut up for Michael to eat.

I didn't get any pictures of the Easter egg hunt my mom had on Sunday.  Both of my kids seemed to get it at this point.  Michael found his eggs and snuck away to eat all of his candy before I could take it away.  Elli was teething once again so she ate her eggs for dinner (which were all yogurt melts).

Point of this story?  Thanks family for doing things on holidays so I can pretty much put zero effort into every holiday.

Memorial Day

Yesterday we decided to pay a visit to some of our good friends in Logan.  After the long drive we took Michael to the park for a while to get out all of his energy. We had the most authentic Mexican food (yes, in Logan) at La Tormenta.  Then we went and took some pictures around the tabernacle.  It was a fun little holiday for us.

Do you see Michael running away in the background?

We would only go back to Logan for our amazing friends!

Easter

I've been MIA from this blog lately, but I'm hoping to catch up on everything.

Easter, just like every holiday, is a little crazy for us.  With 3 families it seems like we have to pick and choose what to do.  This year we had 3 egg hunts filled with way too much candy.  Michael would look for eggs, but he had more fun shaking them then trying to gather as many as he could.

Why I HATE Valentines

I can easily admit that this is my least favorite holiday.  It has been for years, but the last few it has become even worse.  This year I told Josh we weren't celebrating Valentines at all.  Of course he was fine with that.  I just can't get over this holiday, so I'm venting a little.

I understand it's nice to get presents.  I understand wanting to talk about them.  But I hate how every woman posts pictures online with notes about how they have the best husband/boyfriend ever.  I hate these posts because two days ago these same people were complaining about how horrible their husbands/boyfriends are.  I hate that it seems to be a competition.  I hate that love seems to be associated with the amount of money spent on presents.

I also hate the holiday because most men seem to think they can buy you flowers, chocolates, jewelry, and dress up for dinner one night and be set for the year.  What I love is walking into the kitchen on a random day and finding flowers because Josh knew I had a hard day, or he just wanted me to know he loves me.  There's no way he is getting off the hook just because he bought me chocolate some freezing cold day in February. 

While this reason doesn't affect me yet, it will in about 3 years.  Schools put such a big emphasis on it, meaning I will end up doing extra work for it.  I'll be buying stupid valentines for our kids to pass out.  I'll be making a box that will be thrown out as soon as it comes through the door, but it has to be somewhat cool so I can't just give them an empty tissue box.  Lastly I'll end up dealing with my kids pumped up with sugar on a holiday that isn't Halloween. 

Overall I'm done with this holiday.  I enjoyed not celebrating it this year, and I don't think we will again.  If you like this holiday please laugh at my reasons for hating it.

Thanksgiving and Black Friday

We don't have any pictures from Thanksgiving.  I haven't taken many pictures lately because...well I feel huge in all of them!  But we had a great Thanksgiving!

Josh went and played football with my brother-in-law and some of his friends.  I know he had fun, but I didn't enjoy the complaints that his arms hurt all day :)

For lunch we went over to my parents house for a non-traditional lunch of BBQ turkey.  We had tons of fun and enjoyed the good food.  We could have gone to a movie but Michael doesn't do well with movies, so we went to our second Thanksgiving.

We had dinner with Josh's grandparents, his mom, and his brother.  It was a traditional Thanksgiving and very yummy.

On Black Friday we didn't do much shopping.  We ended up going to carter's later in the day and got a few baby clothes, but that was about it.  We had some friends come over and spend the night.  It was fun, but we had a few little problems, correction: Michael had problems.  He had a stomach virus and I ended up taking him to the doctor Saturday morning.  Josh went and played football again with some of his friends from high school.  Thankfully he wasn't as sore this time!

I should write a post about everything we are thankful for, but I have another post or two to write tonight, so I'll simply say I have the best family and I love them very much!

Michael's Party

Michael had an amazing birthday party!  I want to thank everyone who came and showed him their love.  He was definitely spoiled, but I think he deserves it!  We had a dinner of lasagna followed by a star wars cake.  You'll notice the cake says the traditional Happy Birthday Michael, it took some convincing on my part to make sure the cake did not say May the Force be with You.

Without further ado, the pictures...

His favorite part of opening presents was playing with the tissue paper

He wasn't too interested in the cake.  He enjoyed making a mess of it on his high chair try, but very little got in his mouth

Thanks again to everyone who came!

Halloween

I've been so slow to update because Josh's computer is the only one I upload photos to, and he's had it at work and school a lot lately.

For Halloween we did our usual, went to my sisters for dinner and trick-or-treating around her neighborhood.  We love this tradition and hope it continues.  Usually we walk around with my nieces to a few houses and head back and watch a movie.  This year we took Michael out.  Josh didn't really want any candy so we walked around to houses but only went to one or two doors.  Here is our adorable little lion!

He wasn't thrilled with the hood

Josh trying to get Michael to roar