Summer trip back West!

Yes, we are lucky to be able to head back to the west to see all our family this summer. We spent 10 days in Arizona and 10 days in Utah and had a blast!

In Arizona we enjoyed the hot weather, went swimming, saw Great Grandma, played with my 23 cousins on the Merrell side, went to the zoo, and got to be with our Grandma Connie!

Here are the boys with their Grandma Connie - every picture you find with her and the boys it will be outside. That is her favorite and the boys favorite place to be, wether it was to feed the chickens, put the goats up, or pull weeds.

Look at this funny looking peacook - here's Gunnar, Preston, and Allie. We were lucky to have Aunt Crystal and our Cousins Allie and Holden with us the whole time while we were in Az. Here is the crazy clan with their Great Grandma - I should know how many greats she has but I've lost count. Allthough I do know that every night she counts them to help her fall asleep. We love our Grandma Merrell.Gunnar and Brock replanted a tree using a branch. It was one exciting adventure for Gunnar.
Look at these monkeys. Allie, Gage, and Gunnar

In Utah we played with the Rhees's Cousins, Rhett got to go golfing (his favorite thing to do), visit the Morley Farm, and be with Grandma and Grandpa!

Gunnar and Grandma playing connect 4. Grandma Karin is always so sweet to play games with the grandkids and to read them stories.
Preston loves animals and this is the nice cat at Grandma and Grandpa's that he can pet. So here he is on the bed petting "Calley".

Here are the Morley Clan. Quinn and Merrell with Gunnar. They showed us the baby lambs, calves, chicks, and then rode horses too! They have quite the place now.

This is my favorite picture of the Rhees cousins. Here is Riley, Preston, Gunnar, and Karson chilling eating chips. Preston seemed to always have a bag of cheetoh's there which went right along with a cheetoh face! These four rode lots of bikes, played on the swing set, and had lots of soccer games and baseball hitting.

Easter Fun!

Happy Easter! What a wonderful time to celebrate the Resurrection of our Saviour. We had a great Easter weekend filled with lots of fun.

My crazy boys!!

My boys got to make Rabbit Hats in this fun picture to send on an Easter Card to their Grandparents. Aren't they cute little bunnies!!

Speaking of bunnies! Gunnar really liked the Easter bunny this year. And grinned from ear to ear when he saw him! We saw the bunny at the park during a community Egg Hunt. Preston I had to keep hold of because he wanted to get those eggs really bad.

We also painted eggs - even Preston painted a little - but mostly he would pick the eggs up and throw them like a ball.It's Easter - Gunnar was soooo excited! We had jelly beans around the house and he loved finding them with his basket.
Bubble fun - this was the big Easter gift and everyone had a blast blowing bubbles, and catching them!

Easter Feast with Friends from the ward - we are sure grateful for the friendships we have here to celebrate holidays with. We had a great dinner, played games, and the kids played and played. In the above photo is the Bradley Family and the Stacey Family. Below you see the kids table lots of fun going on here!Clean up clean up - the church vacuum and Briggs was the finale of the day as the kids all helped vacuum.

Rhett's 33

On April 1st - it is not only April Fool's Day but also Rhett's Birthday! We had a wonderful day and the boys and I had so much fun doing things for Daddy's birthday! We always start with a birthday feast of eggs, bacon, sausage, and hashbrowns, and end with a feast of cake and icecream. Gunnar was extremely excited as we blew up balloons the night before, we hid them in the closet, then at dinner time Gunnar announced "Daddy we have balloons hiding in the closet for your birthday so don't find them". We all had a good laugh. Preston's favorite thing was the streamers as he would go in and out of them just to have them touch his face and then grin from ear to ear. It was a fun day to celebrate. We love our Daddy and Hubby - and enjoy this day we have to share with him and have him be all ours! Here are some pictures of the day.

Gunnar made Rhett his very own piggy bank.

I got Rhett some roller blades for his birthday and that was the hit of the night. As Rhett went up and down our sidewalk with the boys chasing him back and forth and then he would chase them.

Rhett also got "The Perfect Push Up" Check him out pumping iron!

Here is the big Birthday Boy with his 33 candles in his choice key lime pie for the evening shindig. 33 candles very fun - key lime pie a little strong.

And a side picture of the two of us by the photographer of the day - Gunnar. I was impressed that he did so well. Shoot I am going to start having him take all the pictures.

Disney World

Rhett and I had the time of our life on our get away to Disney World. We played and got to hit all the rides at Magic Kingdom and then got to explore all the world at the Epcot center. We had a BLAST!! Here are some fun pictures. Where were our kids you might ask - well they too had a rollercoaster weekend at the Candland's home and survived along with Jenny :)

Here we are with the Grand Castle in the background.

Daisy and I got the finger pointing thing down good!

Rhett pulled and pulled and pulled and we came home without the sword, maybe next year.

Here we are at the Epcot Center - this is Italy

And then here we are in Norway - watch out!

SNOW, SNOW, SNOW

We don't love the cold - but you can always play in the snow. The last few weeks we have had some snow and ice so here are some pictures of the fun we try to have in the snow ;)

Shoveling Snow in a little boy's eyes is one of the coolest things on earth. Preston wanted the snow shovel as soon as he saw it, where he just pushed it up and down our sidewalks. But then there was Gunnar who was older and could actually get a cup of snow and dump it! They all had a good time!

What is snow with out sledding! We have the perfect hill for it in our back yard and make good use out of it. Here is Rhett and Gunnar - aren't they sooo cute!

Then there was ice - sooo we went to a good neighbor's house with not such a big hill and had our fun on ice. But first we had to get there and so here they are getting pulled on the sidewalk with their sled and having fun without a hill :)

Sledding with Miss Suzanne and Joshua! You can tell the hill is just a little one so it was perfect for our ice. Gunnar also went all by himself, watching Joshua doing it gave him some extra courage and off he went!

Preston loved sledding too and wanted to go again and again.

Double Birthday Cheer!

Yes - this is the lucky time of year that I am reminded of our TWO Christmas babies! Preston turned one on December 12th and Gunnar turned three on December 14th. We partied and had so much fun! Enjoy the pictures of the birthday cheer!

Preston got some presents of course - this one is from his brother. Gunnar picked it out at the store and was like this is for Preston Mom and I get a train (at least he was hoping) Preston loved his stuffed dog and squeezed and squeezed it. He loves stuffed animals! Preston enjoyed his birthday cake - but didn't want to get too messy. Good thing we had a half birthday so we could see him completely dirty. (Check out the older posts) We had a basketball game and then came home and continued celebrating with cake and ice cream. His cake was in the form of a number one - that we devoured quickly. Gunnar's big gift was a TRAIN Set - YEAH!! This is all that he wanted for a couple of months. And still if you ask him today what he got for his birthday or Christmas he says a train set! He played on it all day and was promised that he would still be there when we come back from church! What is a train set without a train cake! Gunnar liked his train cake and his favorite part was the oreo wheels!

It was a great week with the boys birthdays! We were grateful to have friends to celebrate with and party with. I did a count and in our home the nigth of Gunnar's birthday and we had 13 children with 12 adults - it was one big party! Here is a picture of a fire truck that we have that can be blown up and has balls. At one time I think I counted 7 kids in it at once - you can see the craziness ;)

Halloween Fun!

Halloween is such a fun holiday! When else do you carve a fruit into a funny face, dress up, knock on stranger's doors, and get lots of Candy! We were a reptile family - Gunnar was the dinosaur which was his second year as a dino! And then we had Preston who was our crawling little cute turtle!

Preston was one of the fastest crawling turtles that I have seen!

This year we got those fun face peices that you poke in for the kids to decorate their pumpkins - then Rhett and I carved the traditional pumpkin faces.Gunnar enjoyed getting the seeds out and made sure that he did not get dirty doing it :)

For Trick or Treating we were ready at 6:00 and had a blast touring our neighborhood. It is fun to show off your kids -

Gunnar did a great job knocking on doors and talking to strangers - I guess you do anything for candy :)