Swimming

Over Spring Break, we headed to the pool at the Holladay Lions Club. It's huge! There are several pools to play in, a kids area, a diving area, and a tube to slide down. We all had a fun time, especially this cute little guy! He kept splashing around by moving his hands and feet. Preston was like a little fish in the water.

  Here are 2 short video's of our time swimming. The first is of Preston kicking around and splashing the water; and the second is of Brigham on the slide.

Easter 2013

On Easter morning, we ate Ebelskivers with homemade strawberry syrup and looked for our hidden baskets. The little kids took about 10 minutes to find theirs. The middle kids took a little longer, with a few hints and poor Will took over an hour! We, I mean, the Easter Bunny sure hid them well this year!!

That is one of our family traditions, is to have the Easter Bunny hide the actual basket for the kids to find.

I took Will's and Jackson's out of their baskets and put all their treats in a bag. It was much easier to hide that way! Jackson's basket was inside the piano.

The baskets were filled with candy, money and more candy!

Church starts at 1pm, so before we left, I made a batch of delicious Easter sugar cookies. The kids loved helping me cut them out and decorate them. Oh yeah, and eat them!
Scott had to leave shortly after to got to work but the boys and I were joined for dinner by the Boyce cousins. It was a real treat to have them spend the evening with us.

The meal was slightly different than I normally make. I wanted to try a bunch of new recipes this year. Thanks Pinterest!
I made crock pot ham with pineapple and brown sugar, twice baked potatoes, pastel colored deviled eggs (I placed the white part of the egg [after it was hard boiled and de-shelled] in a cup with food coloring. They turned out great! Pink, yellow, green and blue eggs!), Bunny rolls (they really looked like rats, but they tasted delicious!), Asian pasta salad with spinach, jello salad and our new favorite drink, limeade with Canada Dry.

 After we ate dinner, we hid a bunch of eggs all over the yard for the boys to find. I was telling Brynnlee, Kelsey and Aleigh that I use to come to Easter dinner when they were my kids age. Now, they're coming to my house. So cool.

I had a wonderful Easter filled with family, food, fun and of course the spirit.

Bear Award

A few weeks ago Tyler received several awards at the Blue and Gold Banquet... The most important one this year was that he was awarded his Bear!

Great Job Tyler ( and me!)

Fear Factor FHE

A few weeks ago we had Fear Factor Family Home Evening. Scott and I discussed what the game was to the kids and how each of the foods are eaten by many people in different parts of the world. Nothing would make them sick or anything. All the boys were pumped and said they could eat everything. We also told the kids we would pay them $5.00, $3.00, $1.00 to whomever ate the most. Everyone else would receive $0.25 cents for participating.
Scott and I prepared all the food ahead of time and placed them in order from easy (to us) to harder to eat. Each of the boys had a glass of water and a napkin if they needed it, and boy did they!

Let the games begin!!

The very FIRST item to try was a slice of lemon! Lemon! And there were already tears! It was so funny!

 A small glass of tomato juice was apparently not very good for the little ones either!!!

More crying. More tears. Lots of dry-heaving.

 
And with a black olive, Nathan was out of the game!

Hot mustard wasn't a big deal for Jackson, but he didn't seem to like some of the other things...

Will and Papa ate everything! Will won the $5.00. Tyler came in 2nd place and Gavin was 3rd. (You might be wondering about Jackson. He is our pickiest eater and was out shortly after Nathan!!)

It was interesting to see how some boys would down the item fast and another boy wouldn't touch it. Like Vienna Sausage! We learned that looks can be deceiving and how we shouldn't judge anything (or anyone) before we try it (get to know them).

Here is the list of items we offered the boys in the Fear Factor contest:
1. Lemon
2. Tomato Juice
3. Black Olive
4. Vienna Sausage
5. A dot of spicy mustard of their finger
6. Sauerkraut
7. Dates
8. Dried sea weed
9. Clams
10. Sardines

Little Mermaid

Jackson and Tyler were cast in the elementary musical, "The Little Mermaid Jr.". Jackson was the Pilot (he had a solo to start the show off!!) Jackson was also a frog in the song "Kiss the Girl". Tyler was a sailor. They both had a fun time participating in the play with so many of their friends.

The "Little Mermaid Jr." musical ran for 4 evenings, and I was in attendance for each of them. My mom and Bill flew in to support the boys and watch the play too. All the children were great. The musical was really cute. Great job everyone!!

Science Birthday Party

 A few weeks ago we celebrated Brigham and Gavin's birthday by hosting a Science Party. It was fun to plan and fun to be part of.
Scott and Will, gladly, played the role of mad scientists and helped run the entire party. I have all these grand ideas of vacations and parties and Scott is the one who always pulls them off perfectly!

When the children came in they had to use a disinfectant hand rub  and then scan their hand on the iPad to make sure they had clearance to enter the party.
Next Will would hand them some nerdy glasses and a couple of antibiotics (Mike and Ike candies) that they needed to take before entering the lab.
While we were waiting for the other children to arrive, we made molecules in the kitchen by using toothpicks and mini marshmallows.

 
Scott held their attention by showing a few different science projects.

 Density test (above). Elephant toothpaste (below).

 

 
Slime. And a few others...

 We then headed outside to make fake snow.

 We handed out water bottles with balloons attached to the top. As they poured the powder (baking soda) fro the balloon into the bottle (containing vinegar) the balloon expanded.

 

 
Here is Brigham with his "girlfriend" Betty. They are inseparable. So cute!

 The perfect ending was the Diet Coke and Mentos trick. Such a fun party. The kids took their glasses, bottles with balloons and a bag filled with fun Science activities.

 
Two hours later, we held another Science Party for Jackson and Tyler!!

 
Scott attached the laptop to the TV in the kitchen and loaded a few fun videos to watch.

 
There was a competition between Tyler's Diet Coke bottle and Jackson's...Jackson's went higher and won!

Cupcakes for all! I sprinkled pop rocks on top of them. They were a huge hit!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BOYS!!!