Graduation

Kaden did it! Our bug graduated pre-school on the 11th of May. He was so excited and asked me almost daily for 2 weeks if it was his graduation. In April I picked him up from school one day and on the way home he requested to call grandma. I dialed the number and handed him the phone. When she answered the first thing  out of his mouth was "grandma you are coming to my graduation right?" They must have talked about it at school that day because he was dead set on having his grandparents there. 

He was such a little stud all dressed up in his suit. 

He was pretty excited when he saw me sitting on the front row.

He was such a great singer and knew all the words to every song. I think it would be safe to say he was the most animated of the bunch. I think he had all the parents giggling at one time or another.

At the end he got a medal, which he is still proudly sporting.

He is such a character. We all agreed on the way home that he might end up on broadway or something.

Thanks to grandma and grandpa Clayton for making the long trip to see him. You made his night.

 These are his darling teachers Miss Kristin and Miss Jenn. Kaden will miss them both.

We love you so much bug, we are so proud of you.

Sunday... a day of mess

It was just one of those days. A day when I wished I had accidentally slept til noon and by some miracle no one had woken me up.

Chris had early morning meetings and we have church at nine. We got up extra early in the morning to get baths done and breakfast eaten so that even without dads help we could all be to church on time. Chris left about 7:45 to head to his meeting and we were doing good. Kaden and Taycee had both been bathed and were dressed. I just needed to get dressed and do my makeup and Addison was still sleeping. I decided to do Taycee's hair first so she could go downstairs and watch a Book of Mormon movie with Kaden. My makeup was out on the counter and as I was doing her hair she kept  picking up different things out of the bag and ask if she could use them. I repeatedly said "no" and took them away to put back. Her favorite piece of makeup is my foundation because it is a mineral powder and has a big poofy brush on top. Addison started to cry so I left Taycee in the bathroom to go check on her. When I came back Taycee had opened my foundation and dumped the entire 9 dollar bottle out all down the front of her dress. I was more than a little frustrated as I headed downstairs to get the oxyclean to soak the tan stain out of the front of her dress. Once that situation was under control I started doing her hair again and Kaden came upstairs with a chocolate pudding... an open chocolate pudding...and open chocolate pudding that was all over his face and shirt. Seriously?? I ordered him to place the pudding on the table and clean up his face. It was now almost 8:30 and no body was dressed although their hair was done. I threw clothing on both of them and gave Addison a 30 second splash in the tub which she was not thrilled with because she cried the rest of the time I was trying to get ready. 9 oclock rolled around and I was still in my robe with no make-up on. The kids were dressed and ready but I didn't have a church bag put together and Addison would not stop crying unless I was holding her.

I sent a quick text that read something like "it's gonna be a while" to Chris who was sitting alone in sacrament meeting wondering where we were. Minutes later I heard the garage door open and Chris rode in on his white horse to save the day... or maybe to save the kids from their mother who was moments away from some sort of nuclear melt down. I got ready and we made into our seat at church by about 9:20. As soon as we sat down Taycee pulled the crayon pouch (which had been left open) out of the church bag. The problem was that she had grabbed the bottom of the pouch so when she pulled it out all the crayons came tumbling out and went rolling down to the front of the room. Perfect. It was fast and testimony meeting and Kaden decided he wanted to bear his testimony. He promised me he could do it all by himself ( which he has done before) so I let him go up. He marched right up to the mic, smiled, took a breath, and then waved me up to help him. After we returned to our seats Addison spit up all over my black skirt. I decided that Universe really didn't want me to be at church that day. It is a good thing I have a strong testimony of the importance of being at church or I probably would have stood up and left, actually I probably wouldn't have made it there in the first place.

The good news is that the day came to an end and we were all still alive, and relatively happy. :)

Beautiful Babies

Aunt Kathy was so kind and bought all of my kids beautiful new Easter outfits this year. 

And of course because of my mild obsession I took about a million pictures. 

Here are some favorites...

 Haha, I guess pictures exhausted her.

Better late than never..

Easter!! Easter is always a fun weekend for us. We head down to St George for some fun in the sun. The Claytons are always so good to the kids and spoil them rotten.

The weekend consisted of 2 easter egg hunts, egg coloring/spinning, breakfast at kneaders, an out and out wrestling match over the special golden egg, an annoying Easter chick that WON'T STOP chirping, some fun family park time, and LOTS AND LOTS of pictures! Here is a little proof...

Here is the first egg hunt

some egg coloring

What a cute little bug, she thought the eggs were fascinating.

The boys loved playing ball

Oh my handsome handsome hubby...

The eggs that came from the spinner

We found a perfect little hole at the park that Addison fit in nicely.

Kaden was ecstatic about the Easter bunny leaving the movie HOP in his basket. He had been begging for it all year.

Our real bunnies (take two, but that is a whole different story)

We got to see the Easter bunny at the store.

Addison LOVED this little Easter chick... but it is a motion sensor... a very very sensitive motion sensor. I am hoping the batteries die quickly because there is no off switch.

Easter egg hunt number 2.

I think Kaden was a little more eager than Taycee was.

This was the wrestle for the final golden egg. Chris and Ben went for it first then Kelsey and I joined in to help them out. It ended with a slight wrestling match. I ended up with half and Kels ended up with half. My half had the money in it. I also ended up with a jammed thumb... haha... it was worth it.

This picture cracks me up, from Ben crawling over the railing to my face to Kelsey hair from digging in the bushes... now that is a real Easter egg hunt.

She was happy with her loot.

Easter was fun as it always is, but also special too. With all the eggs and baskets aside I am always amazed at the incredible gift of the atonement. I am so grateful to know that I have a Savior who loved me enough to die for me, and even more grateful to know that He is risen, He lives again and that I will see him again someday. 

Conference weekend

The Clayton family came up to stay with us conference weekend. The boys got tickets to go to the priesthood session Saturday night.  Sunday morning before conference grandma Clayton wanted to make Easter baskets with the kids it was a craft where you blew up a balloon and then soaked string in starch then wrapped it up around the balloon and let it dry til it got hard. The only problem is that it never got hard. haha, we found out later that instead of using starch we should have used a type of craft glue. Oh well... next time :) Here are some pictures of the crafters in action.

 Kaden was extra excited about it.. haha

 We had our traditional conference breakfast of crepes filled with fruit. YUMMY.

 Then we enjoyed conference. I LOVE conference weekend. Nothing is better than two straight days of direct counsel from our prophets. I always feel such a renewed sense of determination to do a little better afterwards. 

It was a fun weekend with family good food and inspiring words.

The kids always love to have grandpa and grandma near.

The Cage

Once we had the bunnies we really needed a permanent place for them to live. I started looking up bunny hutches to get an idea of what we wanted. I found a few things that I liked and didn't like and started creating a "dream bunny hutch" in my mind. The problem was they were all SO expensive. We watched KSL for a few days hoping to find something but nothing was coming up and the vacuum box the bunnies were living in just wasn't cutting it anymore. Trixie had learned how to escape and I was having to catch her and put her back about every hour.

Then I saw this bunny hutch...

It was perfect!! Everything I wanted. It had a top and bottom part. There was no wire mesh in the top part that the bunnies would have to walk on (that is really bad for rabbits feet and almost every cage we found was made with it) The only thing it didn't have was a slide out bottom on the top for easy cleaning. I was sold.... til I looked at the price... 230 dollars. WHAT? There was no way we were paying that much.

I showed Chris. We talked. He decided he was making it. And the next 12 hours were devoted to making a bunny hutch.

Chris decided to double the size of the cage. So the dimensions were 4 feet wide 5 feet long and 4 feet tall. We are lucky to have great neighbors down the street who own lots and lots of tools. A big thanks to the Bryners who made the cage possible.

We are also lucky that Lowes is literally only a few blocks away because I believe we made 6 Lowes trips that day.

I ran the chop saw all day.

Kaden was the board weight while daddy did the cutting.

Taycee loved the measuring tape and went around measuring everything.

Kaden eventually got tired of being dads board weight and decided to embark on a project of his own.

Getting closer!! I put all that fencing on by myself. I could barely move my hands the next day.

This was Kaden's finished project. He was quite proud of it. He wasn't very happy with me when I pulled the nails out of the boards to put the away.

And this was our finished project. Perfect? Haha no. But It does the job and gives our little bunnies plenty of room to run around. We ended up saving about 120 dollars and it came out to be twice the size as the one we were looking at online. The bunnies were so happy to be out of the vacuum box and into a real bunny house.

Don't my kids do a great "Ta Da"? haha