4 Miraculous years!

Happy Birthday to our twins, Emily and Ethan!! 

 A tradition we started in our family when Madisen was young was to wake the birthday person up with breakfast in bed. But we changed it up a bit this year and did donuts instead... As if we weren't getting enough sugar in the day from the cake, ice cream and candy...Hey! let's add donuts to it too! Geesh. Who's idea was that??!

Oh yeah. Mine. Oops.

Emily had pre-school today and I got the chance to come to her class with treats and she felt so special handing them all out to her classmates. 

Emily was super patient waiting for Daddy to get home from work so we could open presents and have cake and ice cream.

For the last month she has been talking about wanting a Spiderman cake and I was thinking, "How am I going to make that??" But then just 2 days before her birthday she tells me instead she wants a rainbow cake. YES! Now, rainbow I can do! A Spiderman cake would have been tricky, but rainbow is definitely manageable! It didn't turn out like I pictured but she liked it and that's all that matters!

She got this great gift from Uncle Nate and Aunt Erin but couldn't open it till Dad got home but the box it came in was pretty darn cool too. It became her "car". I was joking around with her telling her she can't drive yet! She thought that was so funny and got a bad case of the giggles.

Finally! Dad's home and we can open presents!

Super stoked about a gift!

Thanks Nate and Erin! Monster puppets!

Thanks to all her grandparents for the wonderful and thoughtful gifts! 

The girls love their presents! And were totally spoiled!!

Time for Cake? 

Yes please!

Emily had a great birthday and I hope she knows just how much we all love her. 

Happy Birthday Emily and Ethan!!!

Our Memorial Weekend...

On Saturday we drove down to Preston Idaho to visit Ethan and Grandpa Hodges' grave sites. As soon as we pulled up we noticed that someone had left a balloon and little toys for Ethan. We knew that Grandma Hodges, Aunt Margene and Uncle Dewey were coming up from Utah to visit this weekend, but didn't know what day or what time they were coming. We tried calling them but couldn't ever get a hold of them. As we got out of the car we were surprised when they pulled up right beside us! They were just leaving when we pulled up and it was nice to be able to spend a little bit of time with them.


We took Ethan and grandpa some flowers.
On the way home the girls were being silly and saying "Weeeee" as we were driving UP hill.



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Our "trusty" (yeah right!) orange vacuum... kicked the can. It bought the farm. It went belly up. It checked out. It bit the dust. It went out in a blaze of glory. It's number was up.

It.
Died.

However you say it, it was done for and in it's place...
we bought this one of a kind, beauty. Isn't it sweeeet!? It drives like a dream. Just check out my hunky husband taking it for a spin. He was so stoked to try it out as soon as we got home.



This vacuum also came with a bonus gift ...a cute baby.What a KILLER deal we got! ;)

As we were dropping our dead vacuum off at a donation place, we saw a lady who had just dropped off this cute little red bike! So we traded.
Avery was pretty excited to have a bike like Madi now and I am happy that they can both ride this summer.

We also went camping...sort of. This is our version of "roughing it". The girls were pretty excited to go "camping". I always thought it would be fun to put a tent up in the living room and when I saw a friend do this with their kids I thought, we should totally do that! It's so hard going camping when you have a baby and little kids. We are not huge campers anyway so for now the living room works great! We got this tent at our wedding reception and have never used it. We sure put it to good use this weekend. We had a blast! We told ghost stories, read books, ate popcorn and watched movies. We even called Grandpa Newman so he could tell one of my favorite childhood ghost stories called, "The Ghost with the Bloody Finger."

I am so grateful for those that have served our country and gave their own lives that we have freedom today because of it. Hope everyone had a great Memorial Weekend.

I love boxes...

Well there's no story or anything with these pictures...my kids (I guess I should say Madi) just really likes playing in boxes! Boxes can entertain Madi for hours and hours!! And I love boxes just for that reason....it gives me a break from entertaining her!!! Madi climbed in one box and wanted Avery to get in the "anumber"(that's how Madi says other) box. So I put Avery in the "anumber" box. It made me laugh so of course I had to pull out the camera and take pictures! ;)
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Hour One...

Hour Two...Hour Three...

Hour Four...

I'm happy that boxes are SO entertaining...I love boxes! ;)

Box Climbing

Ryan and I have moved 10 times since we have been married...I know, we just can't make up
our minds where to live! We have saved our boxes over the years, just because of that, and
they were able to come in handy this last week for some good friends of ours too, who had also just moved. Yesterday they brought them back, and it
was like a field trip for Madi. She spent the rest of the night climbing to the top and then "sliding" down them...saying, "WEEEE! That's fun!" Like it was some pleasurable ride at an amusement park, as her bum and arms were getting scraped nearly everytime she went down. (at least she didn't ask for a bandaid! ;)). Kids think the weirdest things are fun! …anyway I just thought these pictures of the girls climbing together were fun...

Madi would say, “Come on Avery… climb up!”

Haha!

Avery tried to climb up and did pretty well I thought, for still being wobbly when she stands up! Avery got frustrated a few times, she wanted to be

like Madi and climb to the top!

Packing up Madi!

"Where's Madi....Where did she go?" Madi opens the lid on the box, pokes her head out and gives mom a cheesy smile as she shouts "I hiding!" This picture really surprised me because she rarely smiles! It's not often I get a picture of her and a cute smile to go along with it!

Ryan and I, along with our family, have been praying to find a house with a yard for Madisen to be able to explore, grow and learn new things. We really wanted this for her mostly and also for a place for Mom to do her crafts and keep her sanity. Going on 6 years of apartment living and moving 9 times since we have been married, we really felt like it was time to get a modest home (to rent) for all of our needs. Well after a few months with no success, Ryan and I kind of gave up on the wish to get a house we could afford with the things we needed. Just a few weeks later we heard of this home, went and looked at it and it is perfect for us! We were so excited about it! It's just the thing we had been praying for. Ryan and I just needed to have more faith that Heavenly Father is watching out for us and always has. We have been humbled and we truly feel blessed and grateful for so many things in our lives!

Elbow Injury!

So last night Ryan and Madi were playing around in a maze of boxes that has grown out into our living room. Ryan made sort of a fort with a path leading to the bookcase. Madi really enjoys hiding like every toddler, but it was time for bedtime. We gave Madi a few more minutes to play then it was bedtime. As time was up she threw a fit and didn't want to stop playing. Ryan went over to hold her hand to help her out of the small area around the boxes, when all of a sudden Madi started crying really hard, and screaming, "I hurt, I hurt!" Ryan and I looked at each other puzzled wondering what had happened. Madi was holding her elbow in her other hand. We still weren't sure what had happened. Just thought she hit it on the bookcase or a box, but she was crying way to much for that. Then we noticed she didn't want to use her arm. As she was crying she kept telling us, "I need a bandaid...I need a bandaid..." (over and over again).

She had popped her elbow out of the joint a little over a year ago and we realized that's what had happened again. Ryan tried to pop it back in himself, getting trained how to do it the last time it happened to her. (I guess it happens a lot to kids). But after just 10 minutes or so, which seemed a lot longer, he realized he wouldn't be able to do himself and would have to take her to the ER. She was so brave Ryan said, as the doctor popped her elbow back into place. The nurse there brought her a little bear and Ryan had blown up a doctor's glove into a ballon for her. And the one thing she wanted most was a bandaid for her hurt...lol, which the doctor so happily put on her elbow! This is a picture of her wrist band from the ER....but her bandaid fell off before I could get a picture of it! Anyway the story turns out that she survived! Phew! ;)