Our April Happenings

So I've managed to at least keep this thing updated once a month....it could be worse! Here's what we've been up to in April:
Jake started rolling over! Yes he is somewhat mobile in all that chubb! We went to Cour de alene to see Jerry's brother Dan and his family for easter. Salem had a blast playing with all her cousins and dressing up like a princess with her cousin Sydney all day everyday! Dan is an eye doctor so we also went to his office and had our eyes checked. Salem got to pretend to be the doctor and move the seat up and down which she thought was pretty cool. We found some little glasses and stuck them on Jake and laughed so hard at the little nut.
The picture of Salem and Kellen with marker all over them is probably my favorite stunt they have pulled as of late. They were actually on the floor behind me coloring (or so I thought) and then Salem say's "Look mom, we're Indians!" Just so you know, 'washable marker' does not include the blue one. They are such fun little buddies though! (In case you were scratching your head, no that is not Kellen's pink coat! Salem insisted on wearing her cousins and her's was the closest to me so I put it on him. And yes, Jerry gave me the "you can't put our boys in pink!")

April Fool's Day Fun

I don't know about you guys but April Fools Day gets a little silly around our house. In fact it is my favorite holiday (if it is considered a holiday amongst Easter, Christmas, etc) :) Anyway, I found some fun recipes online at FamilyFun.com and had to try them out. The pizza is a cookie with white chocolate for the cheese, black licorice for the olives, fruit roll up for the green peppers, cashews for the mushrooms, and strawberry jam for the sauce. Then we had meatloaf cupcakes with mashed potato frosting (no, there was no sugar in them). And for the drink i made jell-o and put in a straw. Kellen wasn't to hip on the idea that it looked like a cupcake, but tasted nothing like one, as you can tell by his facial expressions. Salem on the other hand gobbled them up. Salem thought it was so funny that her mom had tricked her all day long.
And just a side funny story: earlier in the day Salem came running downstairs in her swimsuit and was getting on her boots saying "come on mom, come fill up the pool for me, I want to go swim" I told her it was freezing outside and she said "I have my princess boots on mom and I see grass out there!" I didn't let her swim (i know- mean) but I did get a few cute pics.

Our March Madness!

Valentines day! We made some fun cupid cupcakes and Jerry brought his girls home flowers! Salem was soooo excited to get her pink flower! And of course, we got our heart-shaped pizza :)

At the end of February me and the kids were getting cabin fever so we decided to go stay a week with Jerry's mom and dad in St. George. In fact just a week before, Salem asked "mom can we go to the park and have a picnic?" I told her there was still snow outside so we couldn't, and she said "well mom, we can lay down a blanket." So while we were there we had picnic's and played in several parks. They also took us to the 'glitter pots' and Salem thought that was the coolest ever. They looked like hills of diamonds and it was pretty magical to her. She collected a couple of her favorite 'diamond rocks' to take home. Kellen on the other hand just wanted to throw them. We also went and saw some dinasour tracks. As the kids were running around the path Kellen's mellon of course took a tumble and hit that big noggin of his on a rock and had a pretty fat lip after. He took it like a champ though. At one of the parks they have a little water stream that the kids can play in. I rolled up there pants so they wouldn't get their clothes wet, but of course they ended up wet from head to toe- they loved it though! They took us to some old pioneer caves up in the red mountains and that was Kellen's haven! That boy could have played there all day. He had a blast climbing the rocks, fitting himself into tight places, and playing in the dirt. At the end of the week we were ready to stay until spring came back home, but we did miss Jerry heaps and tons so we made the long treck back to the tundra. The kids were soooo good in the car though, only two stops all the way there and two on the way back- no complaints here :)



On 03/03 Jerry celebrated his 33rd birthday!Salem was a little bummed we didn't throw him a princess birthday party, but the ice cream cake made up for it.

Saint Patty's Day! We got on our green, ate our green eggs, and made some fun cupcakes.

And to end the march madness, Jerry was able to go to Boise with some buddies and watch a couple of the NCAA games.

Salem's Birthday!

Yesterday Salem turned 4 years old! I can't believe she is getting so bigso fast. She had such a blast- of course everything was princess! Here are a few things about Salem:
she loves dancing, playing dress-up, role-playing princess, babies, singing, learning, and friends. Her favorite color is pink and rainbow. Her favorite munchies are salsa, mandarin oranges, pizza and anything with sugar (she calls it frosting). She wants to paint the temple pink because it would make Jesus so happy. Her favorite buddy in the world is her dad except for when her grandmas are around then he takes second. She say's the funniest things which I need to be better at writing down for example: yesterday we were driving to town and she say's "mom, why do we drink water" so I gave her the run down then she says "why do we eat food" again I explained why, then she asked "why did Jesus make our bodies" little harder, but I think I pulled off a good answer, then she asks "why do we have trees" so I explained the importance, then she stops and say's "This is all true mom" as if I had just passed her pop quiz. She is 4 going on 14!
Happy Birthday Salem!!

Some catching up

I have finally made myself sit down and catch up on the blog, so grab some popcorn this is a big one!
We'll start with Salem's dance recital. She, as always, was so excited to be in front of an audience doin' her thing. She gets braver and braver! We were so proud of her!

Then there was the impossible task of getting a christmas card picture. Kellen is Mr. Smiles until you want him to smile for the camera. It was more of a comedy show.

Had it not been for Salem and her excitement of the whole christmas scene (the snow, the tree, the angel, stockings, decorations etc. etc) I wouldn't have put anything out this year knowing I would just spend my days trying to keep Kellen out of all of it (poor buddy)! Of course, I was right and I probably REdecorated for christmas every day the whole month of December! It was fun to watch him though! Here are a few pics I was able to capture of the chaos:

Every year we have a tradition to go stay a couple nights in Idaho Falls and do all of our christmas shopping. We swim and ride the elevator at least a couple hundred times while we are there! And Salem and Kellen loved all the new little hiding spots.

Then there was the main event: CHRISTMAS MORNING! Salem's head was going a million miles a minute trying to grasp the excitement of it all! Santa brought her a big Barbie she has named Liana and they are new best buddies. She sleeps, eats, and even comes in the car with us now. I try to play along with the whole pretend she's real thing for Salem's sake, but she stops and looks at me and say's "mom she is not real she is just pretend ya know". She's a funny girl! The only word Kellen could say all christmas morning was WWWWWOOOOOOOWWWWW! And Jakey boy got a few smiles out that day as well!

To top it all off new years eve we went sledding at Sugar hill. Kellen and Jake both fell asleep as soon as I had them ready of course! We had a lot of fun sledding!