Photo Dump

I’ve got one more month left on maternity leave. Per se. II’m pretty anxious to get back though, so I’m the go-to gal to call if things get busy. Anyway, we’ve been making great use of all this time we’re getting together.

We work outside. And we play our fair share out there too. Auri loves the sling.

On the day we pruned, Casen was elated to be finding so many ‘elk antlers!’ He cracked us up – we’d hear him mumbling “Oh little one.” Or “Wow BIG one!”

One night when Kyle was gone we had a picnic in the front room for dinner. It was a huge hit with Casen!

Casen discovered our ear protection for shooting. He had this pair on for a whole week. And that is no exaggeration! He even slept with them, heaven knows how. Casen calls them ‘ear muffins.’ I should also add that for 3 days straight he was adamant that he wear this hoodie.

Case had his first Happy Visit to the dentist. He was pretty stoked to go. I had an appointment at the same time. Cheryl, our dental hygienist had Casen sit on her lap and help her polish my teeth. That completely made his day. That and the toys in the treasure chest and the dental care goodies he got sent home with. We love our dentist and his staff here!

Don’t mind the EVIDENCE tape. Casen went with Kyle to his Sergeant's home one day and came back with the tape everywhere. Case calls it his ‘Sanford jacket.’ (Sanford is the Sgt.) I accidently washed it without taking the tape off first. It was a mystery where it ended up until a week late when Kyle found it at the bottom of Casen’s footie jammies.

Grayson came over to plow the garden spot. He said it was the hardest ground he’d ever plowed! Kyle and Casen went over it with the tiller right after and it’s all ready to plant now!

We got to have Lily and Marah stay with us for a night and we had a blast! Marah couldn’t get enough of Ree and Lily entertained Casen all night. With great helpers like these two I might could handle having 4 kiddos! They made it so easy on me.

Sometimes her Celtic knot headband slips down her forehead and makes her look like ninja baby

Casen has done awesome his first week of potty training!

Ree’s Blessing Weekend

 

We chose to bless Ree over General Conference weekend. We did that with Casen’s blessing and I love that it’s a gathering of just our closest friends and family.

When people make the effort to come all the way down here, we make the effort to show them a good time. In between Conference sessions on Saturday, we drove down to Canyonlands for a little sightseeing. First stop was Newspaper Rock.

 

This landmark never gets old for me. With so many petroglyphs to look at, it’s fun to talk, speculate and make up stories about what the people of the land over 2,000 years ago. We picked out petroglyphs we thought represented the Tree of Life from the Book of Mormon, wagon wheels of the pioneers and Santa Claus with his reindeer.

Kyle always makes painful faces when he has his picture taken. He’s such a clown.

Next stop: Hamburger rock for a picnic. The weather was heavenly and our picnic lunch was heavenly!

The blessing was wonderful. We both have such supportive and loving family. We came back to the house for a feast of ham, salads, funeral resurrection potatoes (cleverly renamed by Kyle at our Easter dinner the week before) and cookies. The weather was good enough most everyone ate outside on the deck and at the picnic table – it was glorious!

Mia and Nixon challenged Kyle to a pushup war. Ree met uncle Cody for the first time and was impressed by how awesome he is.

Auri’s fist pump! Casen has started to be interested in doting on Auri. He asks to hold her and pats her head and says nice words to her. She just looks at him and coos. She’s starting to work on her smiles. I love that she’s making eye contact and smiling at us. We didn’t get that with Casen at all until about 5 months old because of THIS.

Easter stuff 2013

Last year we started a tradition for Easter. Kyle had to work Jeep Safari in Moab and since Grand County paid for a hotel room for him, we tagged along. This year we did a repeat with the Bowman’s and Clint & Tonya’s. It didn’t disappoint!

We played. A lot.

Kyle and Luke had 3 flights a day but in the meantime they’d come hang out with us wherever we were and we loved any time we could get with them. Especially Casen.

My intention was to get a photo of Mialee and Wyatt but at the last second Mia ducked behind Wyatt leaving him look as if he’s got a third ear. We laughed and laughed for a long time about how silly it looks.

You can tell I accidently packed nothing but Casen’s grumpy pants. He was a grump most of the week. After throwing up in the parking lot of our hotel 3 times, it finally clicked in my head he probably had heat stroke. Then Saturday he woke up with a yucky nose and cough. All he wanted was Kyle the whole time we were there. Before ya’ll start thinking of how awful of a mom I am for letting my kid get heatstroke, just know I slathered with sunscreen and tanked him up with water all day every day we were there. Poor kiddo – I think he’ll be like me that he’s pretty susceptible to heat stroke. I need to get him a hat.

The weather was in the high 70’s. The day we spent watching the jeeps at Potato Salad Hill I got my first Chaco lines of the year!

The kids climbed and climbed and hiked up the canyon with Kristine and found some awesome places to play in the creek. Definitely somewhere we’ll go back to when Casen and I are up to hiking.

I know I’m biased, but the Curtis’ make some pretty cute kiddos!

We always laugh at how Jeep Safari brings the rednecks of America out of the woodwork. Just in our hotel parking lot I noticed jeeps with license plates from Maine, New Hampshire, Texas and California.

And this is what I mean by rednecks… We were kind of jealous of those comfy seats though!

Then we heard it coming closer in the distance. We looked up and in the words of Casen, “Here comes daaaaaad!!!”

They circled us twice and bystanders gave us weird looks as we yelled messages up to Luke and Kyle.

This was my favorite. Tenlee is in the throes of potty training and asked about 68 times to go to the potty. Out in the desert we just drop our drawers and this was no exception. Of course, 67 of those times were false alarms. By the end of the day Tenner’s poor squishy bum was pretty pink from all the sun exposure!

Ree was so happy to lay on a lap like a lizard on a warm rock in the sun and be held by Tonya all day!

Not long after their flyover, Luke and Kyle joined us.

Casen was only mildly impressed with his private tour of the helicopter. He loves “copters” and planes and this was one factor that tipped me off he really wasn’t feeling well.

There was weeping, waling and gnashing of teeth when Kyle took off on his final flight of the day. To say Casen was heartbroken to be left on the ground is an understatement. Thankfully he’s got cousins and friends ready to comfort!

And that blasted binky sure helps too.

Oh how I love these kiddos! The rule of their game was ‘first come first serve to hold Auri with a 2 minute time limit.’ That was made up by the kids.

So sad I don’t have a picture of all of us on Easter Sunday. At least I’ve got one of the girlie.

After church we took a ride up Sandflats area and did some exploring in the Tundra. We went a little ways up the Fins N' Things trail but decided to leave Hell’s Revenge for another day when it wasn’t Easter Sunday and when we had a jeep rather than a full sized truck (although I was really impressed with how well the Tundra handled some of the trails we did!)

I’m pouting because I got out to take some pictures and then got left! I had to hike all the way down to the campground in my Sunday sandals that were so not conducive to walking on slickrock!

Everyone was pretty hashed by the end of the week. We had so much fun!