Spring! Hooray!!

Spring has come.  I love Spring!  This year for Easter my two youngest and I drove to Utah for my nieces blessing.  Look how beautiful she is!!  Baby V almost 5 weeks old.  So cute, happy and sweet.  Ellie couldn't get enough of her (neither could I.  Carter, however, was fine playing with the boy cousins far away from the baby...)

Unfortunately I didn't get pictures of her in her blessing dress, but here is a cute one of Marybeth and baby V. ((Love))

After the blessing food and family there was an Easter egg hunt (I know it's small but can you see the amazing cupcakes Suzanne made?) and all the cousins and extended kids had a great time.  It was fun to see people I haven't seen in a long time.  

Later that evening when all was wound down, the kids got to play with the leftover dry-ice from Grandpa's famous home-made rootbeer.  

We played with cousins, went to dinner with Dennis and Jesica (and boys) and Heather and Andy; played more with cousins.  I loved seeing my sisters a lot.  Would love to do that weekly.

Next we went to Grandma Pedersen's for a cousin get-together and Easter egg hunt with Grandma and Grandpa Treadway.  After the candy joy we went to the park and enjoyed the sun and fun.

We had one last hurrah for lunch.  Love these ladies!  (And Zamiel, of course!)

Fast forward : Plays

I said it would be Christmas next.  I lied.  I'm going to fast forward a while and do Spring because it just happened and then I'll be all caught up.  Ha ha ha!

February and March mean plays here.  First was "Captain Bree and her Lady Pirates" with McKenna being Captain Bree.  It was a fun play and she blew me away.  She was awesome on stage and even the last night when she started losing her voice, was amazing.  After months of practicing and hard work we were all happy the play was here.  

Mom and Dad were able to come out and see the play since she had the lead and it was the last one with this performing group (she moves up to High School next year, gulp.)

We are so proud of her and so thankful we live in a place they can participate in the arts.  We love seeing her talents!  (P.S.  The pineapple is tradition.  You know the show Psych?  That's why...)

Next up (two short weeks later) was "Little Mermaid" which Ellie was King Triton's Seahorse.  She had exactly one line (although she was in most of the songs) but her costume was AWESOME.  The pictures don't do it justice but trust me when I say the costumes were amazing.    Again, so thankful we live in a place the kids can participate in the arts!

Ready to watch the show!

 After the show.

 So I'm not all caught up but am going to stop there for now.  You'll have to come back to find out what fun things we did for Easter.  :)

Thanksgiving - Because it's January

I know Thanksgiving was so last year but I'm posting pictures anyway.  I might make it to Christmas pictures before next Christmas.

We invited ourselves to Teresa and Dave's house in the Bay Area for Thanksgiving.  Luckily they were both raised with "The More The Merrier" and it didn't even phase them too much.  I did mention I felt a bit like Cousin Eddie from the Lampoon movies, but it turned out awesome.  There were three other families there also so it was a party!

Thanksgiving day started with football and swords in the backyard with mad cooking in the kitchen.  There was also a bed jumping/frolicking/kid laughing crying happening upstairs.  Thanksgiving night we played games and ate pie.  A lot of incredible pie.  We learned some new games, although the rules varied with whom was playing.  Ha ha.

The day after Thanksgiving we went on an adventure to the beach - I can honestly say I've never been to the beach around Thanksgiving.  Yeah, that rocked.

Let me tell you a bit about Teresa.  She is my closest cousin in age and personality.  She is super fun and super cute and I've always wanted to be like her.  Do you have a cousin like that?  Yeah, she's all that.  I do have to mention she is 7 days older than me.  Not a big deal - unless when you're a kid she always said, "I'm older so I get to decide."  Well - karma has a funny way of turning that action around.  Now I'm 7 days YOUNGER than she is.  Ha ha.  :)  Here are some pictures of Teresa and I and Dee and I at sunset.  Fun stuff.  Love that they live so close now!

We also went for a hike to work out some energy and lose some of that pie.  Beautiful place they live and as you can tell it was nice and warm for us.  

It was awesome to see them and enjoy Thanksgiving with such cool people.  There were lots of kids to play with, adults to talk to and great food to eat.  It was fun to laugh (yes, POWELL laugh) with Teresa and hear  her view on childhood shared memories.  I am thankful!

Where to begin?

Happy 2013!  

Starting the New Year feeling this behind isn't good.

I'm not sure where to start, I have soooooo many pictures.  And excuses. And so much has happened since my last blurb.

Maybe this one will be without pictures, maybe it'll be stories and the pictures can come later.

First the excuses.  

I got an iPad.  It was supposed to be in last July for our anniversary (Dee won it through work - Yay Dee!) and it didn't come until October.  Love it.  What does that have to do with my blog you ask?  I rarely use my computer any more.  However, I haven't figured out how to access my pictures to update them to my blog.  Complicated technology, I know.  

Next and more time-note-worthy is Tyler started home school in October.  It's a long complicated story involving high expectations and a teacher not delivering (when I say "high" I mostly mean "teaching").  It has had it's ups and downs: one of the ups being Tyler gets to be home all the time and one of it's lows being Tyler gets to be home all the time.  Selfish, I know.  I had about 4 hours to myself a week with Carter being in Pre-School - which might not seem like a big deal but this was the first time in 13 years to have 4 hours a week to myself.  Selfish, I know.  

Some of the good out of that is I've learned a lot of things I had forgotten from school, things I distinctly remember thinking, "I'll never use this again!  Why do I have to learn this stuff?!"  Surprise!  I've also been reminded of things I enjoyed learning.  It has also been fun getting to know Tyler on another level.  He's a funny kid.  Most importantly I see a love for learning returning to Tyler's eyes, I love when they get excited about something they learned, get excited about learning.  This is why I do what I do.  

As for adventures that include a lot of pictures to be posted at a later time:

Thanksgiving was spent with my amazing cousin Teresa and her family.  We weren't turned away when we invited ourselves to their house (no, really) and had a GREAT time.  They recently moved to the Bay Area and it was the first time in history I can recall being at the beach around Thanksgiving.  It was great company, great food and a great time!  I laughed so hard (although not the Powell laugh that reared it's ugly head...LOL) and loved sharing stories and commiserating with Teresa about our family and youth.

December flew through with projects at school (not Tyler's though, ha ha!) and a performance for Ellie - LOVE the Christmas song she learned this year - Carter's Preschool (he had his pants zipped this time - forgot to mention that about Thanksgiving, talk about funny!) and a big one for McKenna at the middle school.  Our friend even called it a "McKenna variety show" because she was in so many numbers.  That one also included the snack bar which I am always crazy enough to volunteer to run which means I spend a week baking like Mrs. Claus.  

Christmas break this year included going to Utah for two full weeks!  It was different for me this time.  Better.  It was the first official time we didn't have a baby I had to get up with or follow around to make sure they didn't get into stuff.  I slept in.  I played with adults.  We got to see lots of family but didn't feel rushed to do so.  We played in the snow.  We saw sites (Temple Square) and went on a date.  My entire family was together a couple times.  It was a wonderful time and my heart feels so full being able to be able to go.  

I promise pictures will come. I only have 500 or so to filter through... back to the iPad of avoidance.  :)

October...

The end of October flew and here we are jumping full bore into holiday season so I figure I'd better post before I take a zillion more pictures.

I was able to go on a field-trip to the High School petting zoo/farm.  (Told you it was a small town.)  It was so much fun to spend the morning with Carter and his little buddies.  Plus I got to hold a two week old piglet which totally made my day.  (Told you I am now a small town girl.)  

 This was us on the hay ride.  If it looks like he doesn't want to be on my lap taking a picture it's because he doesn't.  However, sometimes you have to love your mom in front of your buddies.  Just wait until you're a teen-ager and I'm STILL loving you in front of your buddies!  Probably won't be able to sit you on my lap and hold you there, though. 

And of course, Halloween.  Spiderman (with the glasses, that made me laugh), a football player and a turtle - with make-up.  Don't know why, that was big sister's doing.  They made out with some pretty decent candy even with rain and most importantly they had a good time.  

Family, Fun and Fall

It's been a while.  In order to not feel behind I'm going to start with today and go backwards.  We'll see how far I get.

I guess I can't start with today because today has a bit of a back story (ha ha don't I always?)  We usually visit Utah twice a year to see family.  This year we took our Southern Utah trip and Disneyland because of Ellie's baptism when lots of family came out here.  This worked all fine in my mind but there are so many people I haven't seen in our family for almost a year.  Even those that were able to come out I haven't seen in 6 months.  I am homesick.  I don't remember being this homesick since the year Carter was born and everyone felt so far away.

This has been building for a while (pretty much every year when it gets SO HOT here is when it starts) but seems to be compounded with time.  Little things would set me off like seeing a changing leaf, smelling the heater turn on for the first time, knowing I wouldn't see my new nephews until they were 6 months old, being at a soccer game with my kids and knowing our families would LOVE to be there.  Ya.  It seems silly I know.

Long story short (with heartfelt prayers answered, btw) my sister Suzanne and two of her boys came for a visit since her husband would "be in the neighborhood" (meaning only 4 hours away instead of 12).  AWESOME!!!

Suzanne and baby Zev.  He is SOOOO happy and sweet.  I was happy as can be just playing with him.  It was great having one on one time with Suzanne.  Miss them!!

 Enos and Carter.  They are only 9 months apart and play well together.  However, they do NOT sit and take pictures together well.  The first couple I tried the "1,2,3 click" and they both jumped up at 3.  The last picture I said, "1, 2 CLICK!"  Ha.  I'll show them.

This is Zev and Tyler.  As soon as Ty saw him he grabbed the iPad and took a picture with him.  Funny boy.  

They couldn't stay long but their visit was such a lift and blessing I can't even truly describe.  I can make it until Christmas now!

Fall is also in the air (FINALLY!) This was our pumpkin harvest - all volunteer pumpkins I might add.  We painted a number of them while we listened to Conference.

And these are our doors.  Super cute, I know.  Thanks Pinterest.  I cut Ellie off in this collage and don't know how to fix it.  Just pretend there is a super cute little girl who helped me create the monsters.  

We love the coast...

I'm going to try again to post about when we went to the coast last month.  My computer has decided to only work when it feels like it so wish me luck.  Part of my problem is I love pictures.  This means I have 108 pictures from our coast trip to shuffle through to summarize.  Wish me luck!

The first day we hit the beach as soon as possible.  We had sun (always a pleasant surprise in this part of the world) and just had fun playing.  I was so proud of myself for bringing swimsuits and a change of clothes for all the kids.  We usually think, "It's too cold, they won't get wet."  Ha.  The top collage is the girls and the bottom is the boys.  The girls are generally always in the water and the boys play in the water for a while then migrate to the sand.  

This was the first time Carter remembered going to the ocean, which is always a treat.  He was pretty tiny last time we went.  He loved it.  Loved it.  He and Ty made a lovely sand castle.  We traced shadow people.  Dee set up a soccer field with their flip flops at the goals.  

The next day Dee had to work so the kids and I explored the town.  We hit the zoo/park first.  If you get a chance to go to the Eureka Zoo, it's super fun with kids.  Tiny little zoo with a great petting farm. Just over the fence from it is an amazing park with HUGE sequoias with a slide built right in the middle.

Next we learned of a children's exploring museum we checked out.  We were the only ones there so we took it upon ourselves to discover everything!

 As soon as Dee was off work we went for a hike.  It was colder that day (again, side note that when we left our house the forecast said it was going to be 105.  At the coast the high was maybe 68.  So the cold was really cold.)  so we didn't want to play in the water.  We hiked up by Trinidad (my favorite place!!!)  We hoped to see a whale, but no luck this time.  

These last set are actually at Trinidad beach.  On our hike there we found a banana slug and lots of other treasures.  

And finally just a few of my favorite pictures.

 I'm not sure if you can see the feet print.  Love this one.

 I realized I didn't have a picture of me at the beach.  I gave my phone to Ty (who was the only one near me, everyone else was at the water) and asked him to take a picture.  Unfortunately, his hands were covered in sand and he was holding the phone with his palms and trying to use his nose to push the button.  As you can tell, the picture didn't turn out well, but it makes me laugh every time I see it.

 And of course, this one.  The mustache and hat were actually the happy meal toys. Love his expression!