Easter 2013

We tend to spend Easter in Hurricane, Utah every year. This year was especially great because our nephew, Alexander, had his missionary farewell at church on Easter Sunday. We visited Zion National Park on Saturday with the family. We rode the tram, admired the beauty and took a little walk there. One day I would love to leave the kids behind and go for a long hike there. It is beautiful and I have a feeling when you hike into it there is so much more beauty.

Later that night we got take-out Cafe Rio and had a picnic at a park. Then headed back to Grammy & Grampa's to color Easter eggs and prepare for an early morning. Easter morning was a bit crazy. Since we had so much to do we made the kids get ready for church before finding their baskets, then we headed to Shawna's for an Easter egg hunt and then straight to church. Church was at 9am, which is 8am our time and somehow we got there early. It was great. Alexander gave a great talk and we had lunch afterward at the park behind Shawna's house. It was amazing how much stuff we crammed into Easter morning. The kids had a blast and had way too much candy.

A couple days after returning home from Utah "Elder Bub" (what the kids call him) or Alexander flew out to the Guatemala MTC before he heads to San Salvador, El Salvador. Lucky for us he had a 6 hour layover at LAX. We picked him up and took him to In-N-Out for dinner. On the way to pick him up Liam threw up all over himself. Since getting off the freeway in Compton or Inglewood was not an option I unbuckled and cleaned him up in the back of the car. He got it on his whole outfit. I started stripping him down and realized he wasn't wearing underwear. He is such a boy! He tries to get away with no underwear whenever he can. So, when we did pick Alexander up Liam was buckled in his booster completely naked. Thank heavens there was a Kohls right next to the In-N-Out. It was so fun to be the last family members to talk to him in the states and see his shock and excitement. He kept saying "I just can't believe it. I'm gonna be in Guatemala soon". We were so glad we had that opportunity with him.

Funny Liam

While at Disneyland we were boarding the ride "Soarin over California" and Liam leans over to me and says "I can't unbuckle on this ride, nope. No I can't. I can't unbuckle on this ride and dance. Nope."
I giggled a little thinking that kids think up the most random things. Then I saw it....

And it all made perfect sense.

Fun with the kiddos

We were able to take the kids bowling for Family Home Evening one night in January. They had been asking us to go for so long and we finally caved. They loved every minute of it!

In February we pulled the kids out of school for a day to take them to Disneyland. We left Reese home with Gia. We missed her, but it made it a much easier trip not having a baby there.

Pop

My sweet Grandpa "Pop" passed away on November 26, 2012. He was an amazing man with such a sweet spirit. I was privileged to be able to speak with him almost every day since he lived at my parents and I would workout there every morning. I still miss him when I go to workout in the mornings. He loved all his children and grandchildren very much. My kids still talk about Pop and how much they miss him. We love you Pop and are so happy you are re-united with your sweetheart. We miss you!

Reese's blessing

I need to back up a couple weeks as I try to catch up. How could I forget to blog about my sweet Reese's baby blessing. On December 16th she was blessed in Sacrament meeting in the Brea 1st ward. Those in the circle were her Dad, both Grandpas, Uncle Joel and Bishop Lords. It was a great day with family and a beautiful blessing given by Glenn. Afterwards we headed to Papa & Gia's house for a luncheon.

Big Bear

We headed up to Big Bear shortly after New Years. The Youth of our ward were going to have their Ward Youth Conference at Papa's cabin and Papa was taking Baylee to school at BYUI so we decided to head up to keep the cabin in tact while the youth were there. We spent about 3 days with just our family before the youth & leaders came up. Again, I don't remember much of this trip other than what the pictures trigger... sleep deprivation.

Christmas 2012

I have really been wanting to blog on current happenings but won't let myself until I catch up on the past 4 months. I quit facebook so now I have no excuse not to blog. I guess I could use the whole "I have 4 kids" excuse, but no, I need to be better about it. We had our Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve this year since Kyle was working on Christmas. The Hurley's were here and it was a great time. And of course I don't have pictures. We got our Christmas Eve p.j.s (or workout attire for me & Glenn) and the kids went to bed super excited for Santa to visit. I guess I could just let the pictures do the talking. But on Christmas we all went to visit Uncle Kyle at his fire station. The day after Christmas we headed to Utah to visit Glenn's family, which I don't have any pictures of, and honestly don't have much recollection of. I was so sleep deprived from having a newborn. For New Years Eve we celebrated back at my parent's house with the Hurley's. We celebrated with New York (3 hours early) so we could get kids in bed after they destroyed the house with poppers and the like.