Happiness Is......

.......Thinking Peek A Boo is the greatest game ever invented! I love these boys!

More Tball Fun

Caleb's Saturday games were cancelled on Saturday due to the rain, so we had to wait a whole week to play again. He was stoked tonight to play again as you can tell with his cheesy pose for mom when he was on deck waiting his turn to bat.
And the mighty batter himself. He hit the ball on his own the first time and had to use the Tee the second time, but it made no difference to him.

Here's #6 waiting patiently on the bench with the other kids and receiving instructions from the assistant coach on the batting order.

The best part of the night was that he didn't sit down because he was bored this time. Instead he just bent over and filled his glove full of dirt and then threw the dirt into the air.

Did I mention that he DIDN'T sit down? I am so proud.

The Mother Bird

When Mike got home from work today he finally noticed the bird that made the nice nest in our tree. You could see it's little head poking out from the nest. He grabbed the camera to try to sneak some pics. The mother bird flew away when she saw him but didn't go far. Just went to the back yard and squawked and yelled at him as only a mother would :). But he did get to take a peek inside the nest and low and behold...eggs! Beautiful Robin eggs.


We left it be for a while then I snuck back out. Thank goodness for the zoom on the camera. I was able to stay pretty far back and still get a decent pic of her back in the nest.

I took my chances and got closer to the nest. She flew away squawking at me but lucky for me, she only went as far as the fence post and I got a great shot of her. Expand this pic for a better view.

How fun! We looked up the gestation time for Robins and it's 2 weeks. We have no idea when these eggs were officially laid over the last few days, but we will keep our eye on it and with any luck have some baby birds to show you all in a couple of weeks. We'll keep you posted.

Rainbow Bugs

Caleb and I finally got in gear and worked on this project we have been thinking about for a couple of weeks. We saw these online and he really wanted to make some. So the two of us took a walk around the neighborhood looking for the "perfect" rocks as he says (which coincidentally was probably the funnest part of this project). He found 5 to try out and was pretty excited about them. Somehow it got put on the back burner and we have just been looking at plain old rocks sitting on the counter waiting for us.

He picked out the colors he wanted to use this morning and went right to work.Only recruiting mom for the "hard parts"(which turned out to be about 80% of them). We worked away and this is the final results. I think I am going to go look for a weather-proof sealant to add to them so I can stick them in my flower garden when it gets planted.

Who says ladybugs have to all be red? We like ours rainbow colored.

Nesting

No, not me. But some sort of bird in our yard. When we pulled in the driveway yesterday we looked over at our little spruce tree and noticed this sitting inside. This is the first year it has ever happened so we are a little excited about it.

Mike went out to take a few pics this morning and see if there were any eggs in it. No on the eggs but here's a peek at the inside. Very tidy if you ask me.

We didn't touch it and are just leaving it alone and trying to see if we can catch a pic of whatever is living in there over the next few days and see if anything ever does lay some eggs. Should be fun. I hope whatever bird did it, hasn't already moved on.

Tball Week 1

Caleb finally had his first Tball game on Thursday night. He was so excited to go. He was supposed to have another one yesterday morning but it got cancelled due to the rain. So this is all from this week. They don't keep score in Tball just everyone gets to bat on both teams a couple times. Here he is in the infield waiting for a ball....this is before he sat down because he was bored and the other team was "taking too long to bat" as he told me later.

And here he is up to bat. He hit the ball without using the Tee both times he was at the plate so he was pretty proud of himself.

And after running the bases, it's very important to slide into home no matter what is going on in the field.

Stay tuned for more pics as the season continues.

Happy Birthday Ryan

My Brother is 34 today! Happy Birthday Uncle Ryan! Here's a couple pics to celebrate.

You have always been one cool Dude!

And you have always thought you were pretty buff.

Have a great day and keep on swinging!

Love, Becca

Velociraptor Boys

When I went to the store last week to pick up a couple of things this Velociraptor puzzle jumped in my cart. We had looked at it before but it was $13 and had decided against it. But this day it was on super-duper clearance. Only $1.50, you heard me right $1.50. Who could leave it there for that price? I also snagged a Stegosaurus one for the same price. I let Caleb know that I was keeping them for a special prize for days when he's extra helpful. Turned out that yesterday was the day for one. While I was at the Insta Care Mike says he was awesome. He helped unpack, helped sort laundry and helped with the boys while not bothering and picking on them. So Dad and I talked it over and agreed that he had earned it. So we got it out and the boys spent some quality time putting it together. He loves it and was looking for ways to earn the stegosaurus today, he didn't quite make it but at least he has something to work toward.

Southern Utah Exposure

This weekend brought our much anticipated road trip to Southern Utah with my family. We have been planning this for a couple of months and I couldn't wait. Mike took the day off Friday so we left for Price on Thursday night and spent the night there. On Friday we got up early and I took Grandma Nette to breakfast for her Birthday then it was time to hit the road. We left first before the group since we had planned on hitting the Arches along the way and they didn't. We got to Moab around lunch time then headed into town and grabbed some lunch then went on into the Arches. The weather was chilly with the wind blowing so we only managed to go on one little hike as a family. We went on the one that included The Windows (North and South) and Touret Arch. This is a picture of me with Zaric on my back when I hiked down to the base of the South Arch.

And here's the North Arch from a distance

And the Boyz, Mike Caleb and Zaden (on Mikes back) inside of Touret Arch

Mike and Caleb also hiked over to Double Arch but since it was too chilly for the boyz I stayed with them in the car. The rest of the shots we got from the car. Then we headed out to the rendezvous point in Blanding where we were staying in a Hotel for the night. Tracey and her family had beat us there and then we showed up. Papa, Grandma and Ryan and his kids showed up a few hours behind us then we headed to dinner in a little restaurant called Old Tymer. It was pretty good. After a good night's rest we headed out in the morning. We decided on a whim to stop by Natural Bridges National Monument since it was on the way. These are sort of like the Arches except they connect over a canyon creating bridges. There was also some Native American cliff dwelling ruins to look at. It was while hiking to this part of it that I fell and hurt my foot. I hobbled along for the rest of the trip but I didn't let it stop me from having fun.

After that was the rest of the long drive to the side of Lake Powell we were hoping to visit. The scenery down there is just beautiful so I kept taking pictures from the car as we drove. I found out later that the other 2 cars had been doing the same. Here's just a couple.

The side of the Lake we wanted to visit was called Hite. We finally made it there to find out that the water levels were too low to do any fishing that some of the guys wanted to do or really much of anything so we were pretty bummed out. We drove over to the Hite overlook and snapped a ton of pictures. and let the kids run around for a little bit. Then we headed down the road a little ways to a place called Hog Springs that had picnic tables and such and had a picnic lunch.

Next we just started heading toward home. We debated on going to Goblin Valley but decided to save that for another trip and we went to the Crystal Geyser near Green River instead. We got there just as it went off and snapped a few pics (see slide show) and then we took off our shoes and walked through the water and played on the rock formations that the sulfur creates from the geyser. It was really fun there. And since it was right along the Green River a couple of the guys got out their fishing gear and threw in a few casts. They didn't catch anything but still had a good time. And the kids got to play in the sand with their toys we had packed for the lake too so they were thrilled. Here's a few pics of us playing in the geyser water and in the sand.

After that it was time to head back to Papa's for the night. We were all pooped and went to bed early. After breakfast this morning we headed back to Salt Lake and Mike sent me to the Insta Care since my foot was pretty swollen and bruised. They say it's not broken but that I tore my ATL ligament. They put it in an aircast and sent me on my way. Said it was pretty painful but that the good news was that they heal fast so I should be up and running in a week or two. There were way too many pics to post them all so enjoy the slide show and if you want copies of any of them, let me know.

Nationals

I have never claimed to be an MLB expert and never will. This became even more apparent to me tonight when we went to meet Caleb's Tball coach and get his uniform. Last year his team was the Red Sox, who doesn't know the Sox? And he loved it. We were hoping for something similar this year (me secretly hoping for the Braves) when we were handed this hat. HUH? Neither me nor Mike even knew what this team was. See shows you how much of an "expert" I am. I had to come home and look it up. It's the Washington Nationals....again huh? I still am not at all familiar with the team. So I guess I'll be brushing up on some MLB knowledge this summer as I root for my son's team. And as you can see, he really doesn't care who he is as long as he gets to play. Stay tuned for pics from his first game next week. GO NATIONALS!

Easter Day Fun

Hooray for another successful Easter morning come and gone. We have a bunch of pics to share (beware). Here are some shots of the boyz baskets. Caleb got some more dinosaurs. A miniature Luigi, some candy, some bubbles and a cup with his name on it that had tickets to a Salt Lake Bees game.

Zaric and Zaden both got a little sand truck, some bath toys, board books, a bubble necklace and some animal crackers.

And the bunny didn't forget Mom and Dad. Here's what he left us. If you don't know who the giant Reese's egg is for, you haven't been reading my blog close enough ;). We also got a couple water guns. hehehe

The boyz showed us their three separate personalities big time with this holiday. So I'll talk about each one individually. Starting with Zaric.

Zaric was completely un-enthralled with the whole idea for a while. He really could have cared less. I gave him his basket and he just turned away from it. After a little bit he did get curious about the eggs laying about and went and found a couple. You can't see it, but there is one right behind that pillow he's reaching for.

He came back after a while and looked in the basket some and just played with his bubble necklace.

Then again, a while later finally came back to it and decided to check out the rest.

Zaden (on the other hand) was completely opposite and hilarious. As soon as we walked downstairs and he saw the baskets on the counter he started saying "oooh oooh" and waving his arms and reaching for them. So I let him lean over and take the one he wanted. He chose the frog and went right to work pulling out it's contents.

Here he is flipping through the board book.

And playing with his truck.

He however, had really no interest in the eggs at all. I got one pic but not a very good one. So I am not sharing it.

And Caleb. He came downstairs and said the he didn't think the Easter Bunny had come until he checked the plate of carrots he'd left out and found that one had been nibbled on. Then he started looking around. When he spotted the baskets he ran over took out the Luigi and ran it upstairs first thing to show Dad. After that he left his basket for later and ran all over finding eggs everywhere and opening them up immediately to see what was inside.

After he came back to his basket, he was pretty excited to see all the stuff in it.

I think he was most surprised when I told him what the tickets were for. Check out this face!

After breakfast and getting ourselves dressed, it was so nice out that we decided to head to the park for a bit. Caleb took his balls and bat and we hit some balls around the grass for a while and then let him play on the playground, where we played with Caleb's Easter bubbles.

And Zaric discovered sand. He was pretty content just sitting there and moving his legs all around in it.

And then we locked them up in the playground equipment.

Then we came home to enjoy some of our goodies and to get back to all the chores waiting. Mom was crazy and started a couple projects that now she can't seem to finish. There's always tomorrow...right?