I think I'm getting the hang of this

I had some left over yarn from when I crocheted my slippers and decided I would try to crochet this Triceratops. (You can read more about him on my craft blog here)

Kai loved him.

I think I am getting the hang of following crochet patterns. Just as long as I can google an abbreviated crochet term I haven't seen before. :)

Lately whenever I get mad at Kai or he knows he has done something bad, he will make this face.

How can I say no to such a cute face?

My Boys ♥ Broccoli

I don't know what it is about broccoli, but when I was little I would not touch it, even if you paid me. After Gerrit and I got married I still didn't like it. It wasn't until I was pregnant with Ryker that I started liking broccoli, even then I really only like it when it is steamed or in salads.

Ryker and Kai on the other hand LOVE it! They would eat it every meal if I would let them. We can never dish it up fast enough for them. Today when I asked them what they wanted for lunch Ryker said broccoli and Kai gave his little approval laugh. I guess if they are going to be hooked on a food, I should be grateful it is broccoli.

We are going to Utah for my nephew's baby blessing on April 10th and Ryker overheard me talking on the phone about our trip. Ever since then, he has asked every day when we are going to Utah. I decided we would make a chain so he can see how many days we have until we leave.

Let's hope this helps.

I think this is a sign...

Today when Kai found half of a clothespin, he stuck out his tongue and said aw!

Then he used the half of the clothespin as a thermometer.

I think this is a sign that we have been sick a lot lately.

Easter Outfits Early

Our church has a General Conference in April and in October every year. This year General Conference falls on Easter Sunday, so I dressed the boys up in their "Easter outfits" today. I usually don't go too far out of the way to get them new Easter outfits, but this year they both needed new church clothes anyway, so I took advantage of the 50% off sale that The Children's Place was having. I usually don't get them matching things, but I thought these vests were so cute. I tried to change up the rest of the outfit so they weren't too matchy, matchy.

We tried to get a family picture by putting the camera on top of our tv and setting the timer on the camera.

One of these days I would love to get some real family pictures taken. But until then, our makeshift family pictures will have to do. :)

A Fun Night at the Gym

Tonight we went to the gym. Gerrit and I went and worked out, while the boys went to play at the kid's club. After we were done working out, we went and got the boys so we could go swimming. We all had a lot of fun. At the pool, Ryker and Kai's favorite thing to do is to play basketball. We have been working on Ryker's shot a little and he was making baskets all on his own tonight. It was fun to see how excited he got and the sense of accomplishment he had in his eyes.

I love when we get to spend time as a family.

Denver Nature and Science Museum

Today we went to the Denver Nature and Science Museum. We hadn't been since Ryker was a little over one. The boys had a great time. We went to the Space Odyssey Exhibit, played in the Discovery Zone and to went to see the Dinosaurs. It was fun to see the fossilized Triceratops head they found right behind our house in 2003. It is now in the museum.

I only have this one picture and I didn't even take it. I got it from the museum's website. I remembered my camera, but when I pulled out my camera to take picture...the batteries were dead. Oh well.

Thanks Michelle and Lauren for spending the afternoon with us and taking us to the museum. We had a great time. :)

Snow Day

Yesterday afternoon and all night it was snowing so hard. They ended up canceling all of the local school and both the University and College that Gerrit works for. It was crazy how big the snowflakes were but they were coming down so hard. It was a blizzard at points, you couldn't see anything outside. The snow was really heavy and wet. Here are some pictures from our yard.

The snow was so heavy it slid down the slide. If you look in the bottom left picture the icicles formed at an angle because the wind was blowing so hard.

There were a lot of drifts from the wind and the trampoline was sagging from the weight of the snow.

Kai did not like the snow. He would cry and laugh all in the same breath. Poor guy. The snow came up to Ryker's knees in places. Because of how deep the snow was, Kai kept falling down when he would try and walk in it. I decided to shovel the snow off of the porch to see if it would make Kai happier if he could walk around.

While I was shoveling off the porch I would throw the snow off the porch onto Ryker. He thought it was so much fun to be buried in the snow. Throwing the snow was a great workout for my arms, the snow was very wet and heavy.

After I shoveled off the porch, we built a snowman. In the middle right picture, Ryker packed some snow to make a pocket for the snowman. :) The snow was melting so fast that our snowman fell over within an hour or two. We have such crazy weather here in Colorado.

Train Central

The boys have really enjoyed playing trains lately. They will build tracks that run all over the family room.

I love watching them play and listen to the stories that Ryker makes up as he narrates what the trains are doing. Kai will make the sounds of the train whistles, crashing sounds if the trains run into each other or crash off the tracks, the breaks squeaking to a stop and a puff puff sound. They are both so creative.

Celebrating Teri's and Celeste's babies, minus Teri

Michelle and I threw an unofficial baby shower for our friend's Teri and Celeste. But Teri's water broke yesterday so she is in the hospital recovering from having her baby. :) We were sad she wasn't able to make it, but understood. She was only 34 weeks and 4 days pregnant, so he was pretty early. He is in our prayers that he can come home soon.

We played a few games. The first picture is of the Celebrity Baby Names Game. You had to match the Celebrity to their kid. There was a two way tie, but when it came to the tie breaker Jessica won.

The next picture is of Liesel, she won the clothespin game, where if you catch someone sitting with their legs crossed you get their clothes pin. Whoever ends up with the most in the end wins.

The last picture was where we froze some ducks in ice (it was supposed to be a baby, but we couldn't find any) and when your duck was the first all the way out of the ice you won, Rachel won.

The last game we played, I forgot to get a picture, but Michelle filled a baby bottle with Jelly Bellies and we had everyone guess how many were in there. Dayna won.

Pictures of friends.

Here are the pictures of the decorations and the gift bags we put together.

Thanks to everyone that came and celebrated with us. Congratulations Teri and Celeste.

Signs of Spring

Ryker woke up with what we thought was pink eye. In his left eye if he looked to the side it was really red. (But it was hard to really get a picture of how pink they were) Plus his eyes were stuck shut with eye goop when he woke up this morning. We had to get a washcloth to get his eyes open. Kai had a mystery fever so I decided to take them both in to the doctor.

It ended up that they both had ear infections. Ryker's ear infection was in his left ear, that is why his eyes were goopy, it was his ears draining out his eyes. That was the first time anything like that has ever happened. I thought for sure he had pink eye. Kai's ear infection was in his right ear.

After giving the boys a dose of medicine and a long nap I could tell they were feeling much better. It was beautiful outside and a little windy, which meant it was a good chance for us to try out the kites Bry sent.

I heard on the weather that it is supposed to snow tomorrow so I needed to get some pictures of my poor flowers that will probably die in the snow.

While Ryker flew the kite, Kai had a great time playing on the play set. After awhile Ryker joined him.

We can't wait for spring.

We Just Can't Have Nice Things

I bought two planting kits for the boys yesterday. I found them in the dollar section at Target and thought it might be fun for them to watch the flowers grow. Within about 5 minutes of being home, Ryker had opened his yellow planting kit. Next thing I knew I looked over and the pot was in a ton of pieces on the floor. I thought to myself at least we have one more pot we can plant.

Fast foward to today. I was getting the stuff out the packaging and set them on the table for just a minute while I ran to get some water from the sink. Next thing I hear was crash. Kai decided he wanted to help plant the flowers.

It is moments like this, I think back to Gerrit's poor mom and can totally understand why she would always say, "We just can't have nice things, if we have nice things you guys will just break them." I can only imagine with how many boys she had, the amount of things that were broken daily.

A Very Nice Surprise

Bry called me last week from Utah wanting our address. She said she somethings she needed to send us. Today when the box arrived, I think "a few things" was a complete undestatement. The bow was much bigger then I was expecting!

The boys were so excited for everything in the box! There was another dinosaur and a few more cars, but Ryker was already playing with them before I could get a picture.

Thank you Bry for being so thoughtful and for thinkinking about our boys. They loved everything. We miss you guys.

Making Shamrocks

Today my niece, Lydia, came to hang out with me and the boys. With St.Patrick's day coming up I wanted to do a fun craft. I decided we would make hand print shamrocks. I painted the each of the kids' hand,

and had them make 4 hand prints for the Shamrock's leaves.

I had them help me paint a stem and then cut them out and traced them. I thought they turned out to be pretty cute.

Tonight as I was getting Kai ready for bed, I put him in some of Ryker's old pajamas since he has been growing so much lately. All of the sudden it hit me on how much Kai looked like a big boy. He is growing up way too fast. :(, but looked pretty cute.

Our Ward Talent Show

Tonight our ward/church had a talent show and dinner. They served salad, green beans, chicken and rice, dinner was great. Kai had a lot of fun sticking the green beans in his water. Yuck!

Gerrit and I didn't participate in the talent show, but we had fun watching everyone who participated. Here are some of our friends who participated.

Half way through the show the boys were getting antsy. So Ryker had a great time entertaining himself.

After Ryker was done playing with the silverware and roll, or as he called it his "spaceship" I entertained him by playing I-Spy. I would take a picture of something and he would guess what it was.

It worked for awhile, but we ended up leaving a little early. Compliments to the activities committee for putting together a fun night.

WoW Museum

Today we went to the WoW museum. Ryker and Kai had a great time hanging out with Lauren at the Museum. Michelle and I had a great time talking while the kids played.

Kai wanted to dress up like a dragon and Ryker was a lady bug.

Kai's favorite thing was to play in the drinking fountain. :)

I loved this picture Michelle got of Ryker helping Kai take off his shoes so he could play in the sand. So cute!

We had a great day at the museum.

We Could All Live Right Here

Tonight when Gerrit was sitting on our smaller couch the boys decided they both wanted to sit up on the couch with Gerrit. They love their daddy. I had to get a picture because there are plenty of seats in our house, but the boys usually pick to sit right on top of us.

This picture reminded me of when I was growing up and my whole family was in the same room, my dad would say, "We could all live right here. Right here in this room." Whenever we are all sitting on our bed or on the couch I jokingly say what my dad used to say to us.

Fun Easter Eggs

Today we went to Teri's and made these fun Easter eggs.

When I was really little I remember my mom making similar string eggs.

Thanks Teri for the fun morning. :)

B'LOONIES

Have you ever heard of B'loonies?

We used to get these when we were little and I always thought they were so neat. They come with mini pink straws and you put the stuff from the tube on the straw and blow them into b'loonies. I found some at the dollar store the other day and the boys have had a lot of fun playing with the bubbles. The best way to describe a b'loonie is, it is a substance that is in between a bubble and balloon; it is stronger then a bubble, but weaker then a balloon. It is funny how just the smell takes me back to when I used to play with them when I was little.

Kai was being silly tonight. He was putting Gerrit's hat on and playing peak-a-boo through the hole in the back of the hat.

New Year, New You Contest

I am a part of a local Colorado moms group and they had a New Year, New You Contest and I won! (The winner was drawn randomly) Today I spent the day with my friend Emily, who is in the group, getting a new hair style and makeover. We had so much fun.

Here are the before and after pictures.
This is the picture I submitted for the contest of me in my favorite jeans that had just gotten a hole in the knee (the winner was randomly picked):

A Picture of me after the scalp massage the stylist gave me, but before the haircut. I had a hard time trying not to smile and my friend Emily said to pretend my puppy just died. That seemed to work, even though we don't have a puppy. :)

I came prepared with pictures of my many past hair styles to show the stylist of what has worked and hasn't worked in the past. I really wanted to get the best haircut and was ready for some change.

The Final Unveiling:
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Drum Roll Please :)
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I am excited about my new look and Gerrit liked it. I think he was more relieved that I didn't cut all of my hair off. It was such a big change, that when I walked in the door Ryker said, Mommy! What happened?!" After awhile he said, "It's ok if you keep your makeup and hair like that, I like it." I thought it was cute that he was so surprised with the change.

The makeup is kind of dark because when I went in the lady was asking what colors I use and she said I was wearing the right colors. So I told her to give me a second look, more over the top so I could change things up if I was dressing up to go somewhere fancy. Even though that doesn't happen very much I figured it was good to be prepared just in case.

I am just hoping I will be able to do my hair as good as the stylist did it today. I can never get it to look as good when Itry to do it myself. Wish me luck. :)