What do you do?
Saturday, April 30, 2011 - Posted by Sunny - 4 comments
What do you do when you wake up April 30th to this...


Make a snowman of course!

I'm telling you...late spring snowmen are underrated.

You're not freezing cold as you make them but you still get to eat snow.


The snow is PERFECT snowman making snow ( unlike the powder we usually get all winter here in Utah which does not stick together) and when you roll the ball along you uncover beautiful green lush grass instead of brown dead grass.


It goes super fast because of the perfect snow conditions and again no one is complaining about the cold. It goes so fast that you can make a snowman for everyone.


I mean everyone


And the more snowmen you make the more grass is uncovered. All the more reason to make a family!

No one has pink noses in the after pictures



And no one is left without cold weather wear when you dress the snowmen because the cold doesn't stay very long so you don't need them. But of course neither do the snowmen. As soon as we began to put faces on the snowmen they began to lean and melt.


At least we got some pictures


About two minutes after we took this picture they looked like this. Good thing Hyrum wasn't sitting where he was.


The others had a little help


And you still get a little hot chocolate. YUM! Hyrum requires a straw to drink hot chocolate.


Happy Spring!!


Easter weekend
Sunday, April 24, 2011 - Posted by Sunny - 2 comments
We stayed up way too late Friday night watching a movie we never should have rented because Derek got home so late. So when Hyrum burst into our room Saturday morning at 7:30 saying "EASTER IS HERE!" we had a tough time waking up. Hyrum's excitement of course woke up Noah quite unwelcomely as well. We dragged ourselves out of bed to join the excitement. I sat Noah with Derek and ran to get the camera to get pictures...Noah was not happy about that.


Hyrum, being a pro at all this, got right down to business picking up the jellybeans in his trail and finding eggs along his way.


Noah, still shakey from his rude awakening, sat on my lap and chewed on a single jelly bean. Then he'd grab another jelly bean and bite that in half and chew on it...then eat the other half and then grab another one....all of this seated on my lap.


In time I persuaded him to put them in his basket.


The wise Easter bunny put smaller candies in small plastic eggs for Noah and larger candies in larger plastic eggs for Hyrum. Also that wise Easter bunny made a smaller trail for Noah than Hyrum. He must have been at this for awhile, I tell ya. To the boys they were fabulous maracas though.


Noah also thought the little plastic eggs made great projectiles ( or maybe he figured out a fun way to get the eggs open )


The plastic eggs were almost more fun than the candy inside for Noah


The boys also got Book of Mormon characters for Easter and Hyrum has managed to loose his "Brother of Jared" already. Poor "brother of Jared" has gone the way of the "Lamanite warrior". Hopefully we find you soon!

Despite the constant drizzle that day we couldn't be kept from going outside.We decided to give Hyrum a taste of organized baseball. He's hit the ball before but never run the bases. Most of the time he'd forget to run and would often miss bases. It was fun to teach him the game a bit.


He's an addict now. I'm impressed that he can hit the ball. The boy's already better than me.

All the excitement was just too much for Noah...and daddy.


Easter Sunday was quiet with just us four together but we took the opportunity, as we've done the last three or four years to take a family picture. It's always an adventure.

Have you ever wondered what you look like when you are lecturing...uh giving your kids instruction?

Lovely.

Hyrum could hardly breathe and I had tears streaming down my face from laughing so hard at this one.


Hyrun's smile is priceless. A bit too much sugar perhaps?

We did end up with a pretty good one though

Happy Easter!



Super sprout!
Friday, April 22, 2011 - Posted by Sunny - 2 comments
My in laws got me a seedling heat mat for my birthday. It's something that I've wanted for awhile. I learned in my classes at school that to sprout seeds and root cuttings you needed cool tops and warm bottoms. So I decided to set up the heat mat in my cool basement with artificial lighting. The ideal lighting is a full spectrum light bulb but I'd heard that using a cool florescent and a warm florescent light bulb in the same fixture works just as well which made sense so that's what I'd planned to do. I didn't set it all up immediately because I didn't have the different light bulbs and I kept forgetting to look for light bulbs when I went to the store. After two days I couldn't wait any more and just used what I had, regular old florescent light bulbs. I had planted a few things the week before but planted the rest of my vegetables and put them downstairs in my makeshift growing area.


The light should probably be closer to the plants (it's probably an inch or so high)but in just 3 days so many had sprouted (including some tomatoes that said it would take 15-20 days to germinate!)


By four days nearly everything had sprouted and by the fifth day they were outgrowing the humidity cover.

(This is the fourth day)

So now my plan is to work some of them out of the humidity and in to the cooler air adjusting them to real life. I'm so excited about this new way of starting my plants. It's soo fun to see the things I learned in school working and being able to use the knowledge I thought I'd forgotten.

Stay tuned in coming years I'm going to tweak this and have it down to a science. Who knows what will move into our basement!


Run Away #1, 2011 ( there may be more )
Tuesday, April 19, 2011 - Posted by Sunny - 2 comments
We'd been needing to run away from the chaos that has become our lives for awhile now but could never find the time to get away for even a night...go figure. But when we found a relatively empty weekend we jumped on it and made plans to run away to .... Layton. Oh yeah, I know you're all jealous. What prompted this particular destination was it's close proximity to Hill Aerospace museum. Hyrum was watching a program on PBS about jet airplanes and he was completely fascinated. He was jumping around talking about Blackbirds and other jets completely ecstatic that they were supersonic. So we thought it would be a fun place for him to visit.

When we were looking at hotels in the area Derek suggested we might use some of his points that he's accrued in his business trips to fund this overnight. I was all over that. I loved the thought of using the rewards he got from his work trips (which pulled him away) to give us a chance at a little togetherness. Absolutely free togetherness, mind you. Even better. AND they gave us breakfast. :) When we got there we realized that there was a little kitchenette in the room too.


We picked up Derek at work and headed to our hotel. When we walked up to it we saw the outdoor pool...DOH! The very closed outdoor pool. Anyone with kids knows that it is only a vacation at a hotel if you can swim in a pool. Most of the time it is the only thing they remember. But when we were given the information on the hotel it said that we could use the pool at the two adjoining hotels...which we did. Hyrum got a new swimsuit for the occation ( the other one was a 24 month swimsuit ) and he was beyond excited to try it out. I should have gotten pictures of all the excitement but I didn't crack the camera out until the next morning. Bummer because Hyrum was trying out his swimming chops, doing the doggy paddle and even some back stroking and floating ( all in a life jacket mind you) in the pool.

I was worried that this trip would mess up Noah's sleep schedule which has been actually pretty good these days ( knock knock ) but he slept really good, even with his brother talking in his sleep.

We went down to get our grab and go breakfast and went back to our room. Watching my boys eat thier breakfast at the hotel room table brought me back to my childhood. We'd sometimes go visit my dad when he was away on business and we have pictures of us eating our breakfast in the hotel room.


Then we were off to Hill Aerospace museum.

As we walked to the building Hyrum chattered on excitedly about supersonic this and super cool that. I didn't think to get the camera out fast enough. When we got into the gigantic rooms where most of the planes/jets were kept he quickly found his favorites.

The Shark plane


The storied Blackbird



Noah on the other hand had much less exciting pursuits. His passion was the windowed and camouflaged halls that connected the rooms. Especially the windows that reflected his image.


He really liked those



He is absolutely in the adventuring age. A scary age.

(Yes that is little Noah all the way down there. No worries. I had my eye on him the entire time.)

When he was in the rooms that housed the planes/jets he was bent on getting under the rope barricades. So he was naturally all about sitting in an ejection seat. Hyrum not so much.


After a few times of nearly loosing Noah under the ropes and a worker explaining that this helicopter and that jet were "Decepticons" ( which perked Hyrum's ears up) we headed outside for the really big planes.

True to form Noah decided the step around the flags was the most exciting thing outside. He was determined to master it.


But after falling off it, flipping off it and falling backward over it I decided that, that was enough and hauled him off to see the planes.


It is amazing how big these things are. It's amazing that some of them can get off the ground.


Noah kicking the tires and lighting the fires.


Hyrum got a few close encounters with the jets.

We woke up to puddles from rain during the night but by noon it was warming up nicely and it was beautiful. We said goodbye to the planes and headed south. After a few errands we decided to be tourists in our own town. We headed for Kranky Franks to try out a Danger Dog.

We've always been curious about this place. It's a quirky slice of local color and we figured since we've been here for two years now that we should try it out finally. Part of it's charm is the...well I'm not really sure what they are...cranky...franks?


They ride through parades and are always greeting everyone as they enter.


It was great food if not the greatest service ( it could have just been the day we went ) and Hyrum always points it out when we pass "We've been to that hot dog place!"

Our bellies full but not ready to be done with our vacation we headed up the canyon to Jolley's Ranch for the first time of the season. It was good to be back. Again should have gotten pictures. After that we headed home. Quick but effective. Maybe too effective...it was hard to go back to the grind.


Pictures lost on the camera
Wednesday, April 06, 2011 - Posted by Sunny - 1 comments
For some reason the camera doesn't just offload all of the pictures on the camera when I plug it in anymore so I have to go in and hand select pictures to offload. Because of this there have been a lot of pictures that have just stayed on the camera forever waiting for a blog post to call them off. I offloaded all of them today and found some treasures that I didn't post about. So here are a few "snapshots" of the last few months.

Back in January I was trying to keep the boys occupied before dinner and Hyrum got out the mixing bowls and was putting them on his head. I thought I'd make it an event and take pictures.


He tried a few out

Look at those curls...I always forget what they're like.
Then he put it over his face and said "Can you see me?" and wanted me to take a picture.


He of course insisted that I join in the fun too.


Hyrum took this picture...pretty good. The first time he tried to take the picture the camera was set on video and got a flavor of the event. As you can see Noah couldn't be left out either.



A few days latter Noah was in the bowls too while I did dishes and when he got my attention I saw this


NO idea how he got his littleness into a bowl of this size like he did...but he couldn't get out.

My mother in law was driven to distraction a couple of months ago and as is often the case...my boys benefited. She made a cape for Hyrum but it looked more the size of Noah.


I never thought Noah would keep it on but he LOVED it.


Despite me thinking it was a little small for Hyrum he loved it and would run around with it on too.


At the beginning of Feb Noah was crawling around the couch and scratched his eye on a wire that is poking out of the couch (it's a hand me down newlywed couch)


It reminded me of another time in another place where someone else was crawling behind a couch and cut an eye


Yeah that was me. Noah's didn't bleed as much as mine though. Of course a picture frame fell on me and caught me in the eye. My mom tells me I had blood running through my fingers as I held my hand against my eye. She was afraid of what she would find when I removed my hand.

The next day Noah and Hyrum were sitting on the couch and I told Hyrum to make sure Noah didn't fall off

Noah absolutely didn't fall off the couch. I love it when my boys are friends.