The Truth

I was taking pictures of the kids when we were at Chick-Fil-A the other day for lunch. I'll post them when they are uploaded.

Caleb said, "Now you have to be in a picture!"

I told him that I didn't want to be in a picture. He though for a moment and then said, "I know why you don't want to be in any pictures! It's because you're getting so old!"

Baseball

We have all three boys playing baseball this year. Westley and Caleb are on the same team (machine pitch) and Travis is on a T-ball team. Westley's skills have really been improving from last year. Caleb is still learning the rules of the game (which base to run to, throwing and catching, how to swing the bat, etc.) and so is Travis. Travis' games are the most entertaining. He spends most of his time throwing his glove in the air or flopping on the ground or putting grass in the batting helmets. Travis is on the Rivercats and Westley and Caleb are on the Express.

Travis

Westley is the one with the gray hoodie and orange and black glove.

Caleb throwing the ball

The boys' #1 fan!

Westley's Big Day

Westley with his Dinotrux tire claw cake.

opening presents

Pin the bulldoze on Dozeratops

All of our coloring pages that Westley drew and copied.

Westley's new bike

Well, Westley turned 7 on Saturday May 8th.

We celebrated by having Cookie Crisp for breakfast. Then the boys went outside to ride bikes so Westley could use his new bike. Aunt Jamie came over for Westley's "party" and Andrea and Natalie, two In-N-Out associates who are all-starring in Utah and also baby-sit our kids, came too. We had sandwiches for lunch. Then we played games that Westley created or had the idea for anyway: pin the bulldoze on Dozeratops, hot-and-cold with pictures of Dinotrux, and then he drew a picture of a Dinotrux that I copied for everyone to color. Dinotrux is a book by Chris Gall that we found at the library a couple months ago and the boys have become obsessed. Then we did presents and cake. The cake was a Dinotrux tire claw.

We went to the park after lunch and played and rode bikes. Later in the day we went back to the park and practiced baseball--throwing, catching, and batting. It was a great day.

I can't believe our oldest is 7! The years sure do go by fast!

Why the Kids Aren't Allowed to Touch the DVDs

This is what Eliza brought me one day when she wanted to watch Sleeping Beauty.

Fortunately it was not the actual DVD but only the bonus material, as this particular movie has gone back into the "Disney vault" for another decade or so.

My Haircut

On Friday, April 30, I got my hair cut. I really hate this camera--it captures every fine line and large pore on my face, but this is what I could get. I have to take them of myself because nobody else takes the pictures around here.

Bunk Beds

The toddler bed was falling apart, and Eliza was climbing out of her crib. We decided that we would move Caleb to the top bunk and Travis to the bottom bunk and buy new beds for Westley and Eliza. We figured that Eliza would eventually outgrow a toddler bed and be in a regular bed, so we might as well switch her to a regular bed now. When we were trying to figure out rooms, we were either going to have Westley in his own room, the two middle boys share the big toy room and Eliza in her own room or have more sharing, so we decided to put Westley in with Eliza. When we decided that, we decided to just buy a bunk bed for them to share. When we found a good bunk bed at IKEA, we decided to buy two and just get rid of the old blue metal one that we got from someone in our ward in Arizona.

So that is the story of the bunk beds. It wasn't until after they were bought and put together that I realized one of the things I wanted in a bunk bed was one that could separate into single twin beds. I forgot that little detail while we were bunk bed shopping and the beds we bought don't separate. So we'll see how long we can make this last until we need to buy a single twin bed for either Westley or Eliza.

Because the bedding we've had for Eliza and Travis have been for crib/toddler beds, we had to buy some new bedding and ended up buying more new bedding that originally planned. Both Caleb and Westley got some new stuff. Travis was more than excited to have the Lightning McQueen bedding from Westley's old bed. Eliza definitely needed something.

Eliza has been doing all right in a regular bed. She gets up a lot, but she was doing that with her crib. Now it's just a little easier. We are hoping that she will settle into it after a few weeks and get used to sleeping in the bed without the constant need to get up. Then again, we still have trouble with Travis and he's been out of a crib since 16 months!

Westley and Eliza's bed. Eliza loves her princess bedding. Westley was not very excited about the generic sports bedding we bought him, he wanted Spider-man. But we wanted something that could grow with him, and Spider-man is more age focused to younger kids.

Here is Caleb and Travis'. We bought Caleb the same sports bedding as Westley. Travis loves the Lightning McQueen bedding. We might be able to talk him into sports bedding soon and sell the Lightning McQueen sets (we have two full sets) for a good deal.

Tulip Festival

On Saturday, April 24th, I took the kids to the Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving Point. I had really wanted Corey to come as well, but the Tulip Festival only ran for two weeks, from April 16th to May 1st, and unfortunately, we had mostly rain and snow during those two weeks. When I saw that the weather was supposed to be sunny, albeit cold, I decided to take the kids and not wait until May 1st when Corey was home during the day. I'm glad I did because it did rain on May 1st, even snowed, and we wouldn't have been able to go at all. Hopefully we can still go to the Gardens all together several times this summer--they were beautiful and with four small children, I didn't stay to see all of the garden, just walked through it quickly, taking a few pictures here and there.

Here's a warning: I'm a terrible photographer, but our new digital camera is terrible too. I do not recommend the Kodak Easyshare--it really takes horrible pictures. I've tried all the different settings, close up, back, and nothing works. Unless my kids hold perfectly still (which they don't) the pictures are always blurry. So sorry about that.

Caleb Rides a Bike!

A couple weeks ago, Corey took the training wheels off Caleb's bike. He spent a couple days working really hard with Caleb and at the end of the two days, Caleb was riding the bike by himself!

Unfortunately, after this day, we've had nothing but snow and rain and temps in the low 40's, not really fun to ride bikes in that! Poor Caleb hasn't been able to practice since he learned!