Fun at the zoo

We decided to buy a zoo pass this year. It's been nice to have. We've been to the zoo 4 times this year and the kids absolutely love it. I keep thinking they'll get bored with it but they always find something new. Cole's favorite thing at the zoo is the bird show. He wants to run over to watch it every time he hears it start. Ellee loves the baby elephant and the peacocks walking around. Luke loves the gorillas and rhinos.Ashlyn and Alyssa stayed with us while Teresa and Chase were in Italy for their 10 year anniversary. We decided to meet up with Sarah and go to the zoo. It was crazy! It was cute watching them find their buddy and stick together. I was asked 2 different times if all those kids were mine :)

Easter

Okay...catch up time. Easter was great. I had a hard time deciding between different Easter outfits, so decided to get them each a couple :)

The kids loved coloring eggs this year. They had fun trying to color designs all over the eggs...and we only broke 4 eggs by dropping them (at least they were hard boiled).

The Easter egg hunt at the Bell's was lots of fun. The kids loved it. The weather was not great so we had the egg hunt inside. Needless to say we had to be pretty creative with our hiding spots...and ended up just throwing some out in the middle of the floor because there weren't enough good spots to hide the eggs but the kids didn't mind. It was pure chaos.
Our Easter morning was good. It was conference Sunday so we were able to sleep in and spend the morning going through the Easter baskets and looking for the eggs. We also got to watch conference in our living room in our PJ's...I could handle having church at home every week.

4 years old!!!

Wow...what a slacker I've been. I can't believe I haven't updated anything in 3 months. So, now I am just going to post the main events. Ellee and Luke are now four years old. I can't believe how fast the time has gone. It's crazy! Ellee was completely set on having a Little Mermaid birthday cake. She's obsessed with that movie and loves Ariel. Luke couldn't decide between a shark cake and a Ben 10 cake. He finally decided that he needed a Ben 10 cake. Jaimie saved the day once again and made both cakes for us. They were awesome! They turned out exactly like the twins wanted.This year we had a big family party instead of a friend party. It was lots of fun. They absolutely love being the center of attention. All Luke wanted for his birthday was little Ben 10 action figures. He got a whole bunch and a new Ben 10 omnitrix (he calls it a watch). Ellee couldn't make up her mind. She wanted barbie stuff and dress ups and anything girlie. She ended up getting a doll house. She also picked out all the colors she wanted us to paint it. It is bright yellow with different colors in each room. I can't believe they are already 4 years old!!!

Lego Fun

Ok-I know, I'm horrible. I haven't blogged in months and now I get to play the catch up game. Fun, fun, fun! Cole is now 7 years old. How that happened I'll never know. This past year has been fun watching how he's changed. He has now informed me that he is old enough to: make his own breakfast, comb his own hair-which he now wants shaggy (we're ok with that for now, might not be when he gets to be a teenager), pick out his own clothes (my favorite is when he goes Napolean Dynamite and wears his winter boots with sweat pants and no snow in sight), play outside with his friends and mom not following him everywhere, work all the electronic stuff in our house without needing any help, walk down to get the mail by himself :) , read his books silently, take showers instead of baths, etc. The list goes on and on----where did my little boy go?
Cole's birthday was on a Wednesday this year so we celebrated as a family on his birthday. He got to choose what he wanted to eat for his birthday and he chose to eat at Wingers. We opened his presents and just spent time as a family.

He decided that he wanted a Lego Party for his birthday. We had a blast. He invited 11 other boys to his party and they all had a blast. Cole, Luke and Ellee built different Lego creations for the decorations. We had tower building contests, played "Guess what I built", ate pizza-cake and ice cream, played "Pin the Dot on the Lego Block" and just ran around having fun. It was 2 1/2 hours of pure chaos and tons of fun. My really good friend, Jaimie, offered to make the cake for Cole's party. I was thrilled to have her make it. She is amazing. She made two cakes to look like Lego blocks and it was absolutely delicious!!! Plus it was the hit of the party! Thanks Jaimie!
It was cute watching how happy he was the whole time. Opening presents was great...he didn't hold anything back and got so excited! I am so glad Cole wanted to have a Lego party. We had a great time and he will definitely remember this party.

Winter Fun!

I love winter. Especially when there is fresh snow on the ground. Damon, not so much. He would much rather live somewhere that snow was obsolete. The boys are more like me in the snow...Ellee loves to stay warm. We decided to venture out in the cold and get some sledding in.
Cole could hardly wait for the truck to park before he was running up the hill with his sled. He had a blast. He loved it...but he also got worn out pretty fast since every time he made it down the hill he immediately jumped up and ran straight back up the hill. As soon as his cousins Jake and River got to the park he decided to venture over to a little jump where he was loving it til he landed wrong and hurt himself. The combination of already sledding for over an hour plus his crash and burn made us think he was done. But he just rested for a few minutes and then was back at it and even trying to make it down the hill on his feet.
Luke was a little scared to go down the hill at first. He just wanted to go down with either Damon or me and was to frightened to venture it by himself. We knew he would love it by himself so we told him to get on the sled first and that we would go down with him but then just let go of the sled instead. Good mommy moment, huh? Well, it worked. He giggled the whole way down and then didn't hesitate again. He wasn't running up the hill like Cole, he could barely drag the sled back up the hill. He didn't let that stop him. He even decided to go off the jump Cole was going off.

Ellee is our big scaredy-cat! We tried the same trick we did with Luke but even though she was grinning the whole way down, she pretended that it scared her. It took a few times down before she relaxed and just went after it. She even went down the hill head first and said that was her favorite. She just needed to warm up to the idea and then went off on her own with an occasional "Watch this, Daddy" or "Look how far I can go!" She also started making snow angels and drawing in the snow. Even though Damon hates the snow, he looked like he had fun. All of his sisters were there with their kids so we got to hang out and watch all the cousins together. I hope we get another big snow storm soon because I can't wait to go sledding again!