The Tulip Festival

On Monday we went to the Thanksgiving Point Gardens to see the Tulips. The boys were more excited about seeing cousin C than about the flowers. 

 They enjoyed running around, and going places where they probably shouldn't have gone. We had to chase them out of a flowerbed or two, which means that a great time was had by all!

 At one point I heard J scream and then jump away from something on the sidewalk. I then saw that the "Something" was a snake, just a small garden snake, but it was probably the first time that J has seen one and he was not pleased to have had the close encounter. Do you see it?

 In the coming years there will be a sculpture garden with different sculptures of Jesus Christ. The boys enjoyed looking at the full sized statues. Little C said "I've never seen Jesus, but I know that he loves me" He's 3. Yesterday, the day after visiting the gardens B said to me as we were reading scriptures before bed "Jesus Loves Me!" Those boys are awesome. And yes, Jesus does love them.

 We stopped by the secret garden.......which is always the highlight of any trip to the gardens......

 ........mostly because of.......

 ......the water! 

 My Mom told me she always takes a picture of the angel in the secret garden, and I thought I would like to take one too.

 J designated himself the door keeper of the secret garden.

 I caught him telling people which doors they had to use to get in and out, and closing the doors, I distracted him by taking some pictures of him with his most favorite door.

 And if Brother gets a picture than B wants one too.

I love those boys.

 Last week we visited with Aunt Donna and Uncle Weldon in Highland and we played on their giant swing!

 B had lots of fun with his Daddy and I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Ken had lots of fun too.

 J was big enough to swing by himself and he took several turns but I didn't really get any good photos :( I will attest that he had lots of fun, and after a quick lesson about how you don't hop off the swing until it's stopped- he was also safe :)

 Ken even took a turn or two on his own.

Preschool is OVER!!!!!!

Last week J attended his last day of preschool. He insisted on bringing his pink purse

The day after his last day of school B and I attended his graduation. There were 8 kids in his class, and the mother of another boy in his class made them all little mortarboard hats.

During graduation Miss Leanne read the book "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" while the children acted it out. J got to be the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Tree.

Here he is, so proud to have the entire alphabet stuck to him, he then shook like I've never seen him shake before and the letters fell off!

 Miss Leanne had to end school a little early this year because her husbands job was transferred to Washington DC. We are so grateful that J was able to attend preschool and have Leanne as his teacher. He has learned so much and grown into such and amazing boy over the past 2 years. He is very excited to go to Kindergarten this fall!

Cabella's!!!!!!

We took Ken to Cabella's! He had the camera- so he's not in any of the pictures.

First we saw the fish, then we found the fudge. The fudge cost $3.50 per 1/4 pound, but you can have as many free samples as you want. I'm pretty sure Ken ate $3.50 worth of fudge, maybe more.

Then we found the Moose chair.

 When he walked in the store he went straight to the greeter, who to the surprise of us all, didn't hand J a bunch of tokens, so we just pretended to fire the guns.

 Then we acted like monkeys for a while......

 ....and when we got tired we found a nice place to take a nap.

Ken is thinking of taking the boys back sometime this week to test my theory on the free gun range tokens, I think on weekdays they don't get too many customers so they hand out free tokens, but on weekends you have to buy the tokens. I also have a feeling Ken is going to fill up on free fudge samples again too.

Random Sampler

B loves food, especially tomatoes. If they are in reach, he will eat them. 

 J was invited to a princess party, so of course he dressed as a prince!

 I made some cinnamon quick bread, and then I ate it. It was delightful.

 I also made some low calorie chocolate muffins, they were not so delightful.

This picture is a lucky reenactment of something that happened at a birthday party. Ken took the boys over to the party and I arrived about 45 minutes later. B ran up to me with green and brown all over his face and hands. No one else was eating anything and as I was taking him back to the kitchen to wash his face and hand I noticed that there was a beautiful plate of chocolate mint brownies on the table.......close enough to the edge of the table that a two year old could just reach them and there was one missing. He knows what he likes and he gets it, even if it's not time yet.

Baby Animal Days at the American West Heritage Center

At the beginning of April we drove up the Cache Valley and went to the Baby Animal Days held at the American West Heritage Center (which I will refer to from now on as AWHC, when I lived in Cache Valley it was called the Jensen Historical Farm) We dressed in our Giants gear, because we're cool like that. (and so if one of us got lost we could easily tell people what the lost person was wearing.)

 We didn't expect to be in line for 20 minutes just to pay and be admitted, we were grateful that we had brought our lunch with us.

 We love baby animals but the true reason we made the drive was the train AND the Engineer. Ken's Uncle Paul let the boys know that he is the volunteer engineer at the AWHC and that he and Aunt Diane would be there during Baby Animal Days. It sounded like something that we had to take part in, so Ken took the day off work and we made a little day trip of it.

 The line for the train was also quite long, maybe even a longer wait than the ticket line. But it was well worth it. We got to see the train go by several times, the boys loved it.

 In fact when we found ourselves near the front of the line they figured out that you could still see the train if you looked through the slats of the covered bridge, or maybe it's the train house......either way, when that train came by, their little faces were pressed up against that wall.

 J rode in the caboose of the train and Ken B and I shared a seat in the open air cars. It was quite a ride.

 After the train ride Uncle Paul took a break and helped us find Aunt Diane, she taught us how to make a frontier doll out of scraps of fabric.

 We eventually saw, and J even touched, some baby animals!!!!! Too bad B walked right in front of me as I snapped the picture, but I promise, if you could see through B, you would see J patting this little calf on the head.

 This is about as close as B would get to the animals. I tried to get the boys to feed the calf but that was kind of scary I guess. I have fond memories of visiting the calves at my Grandmother's Brother's farm. I'm not sure why, but I remember trying to get the little cows to suck on my hand. The boys didn't even want to try that.

 The boys took several horse and cart rides.

 And I got to visit a loom that I helped my father build- way back in the late 1990's!!!!!

They steal my sleep from me!

 I've never been a great sleeper, but it seems my children are pretty good at it. As proof we've taken some pictures. Maybe my problem is that I don't sleep with 10 blankets and 20 stuffed animals.

 Ken is the one who took these pictures, he just couldn't stop himself. Our house if full of screams and giggles during the day, but at night, it's very, very peaceful. I wonder what they dream about.

On Sunday a week or two ago J was so, so, SO tired when we left grandma and grandpa's house, he was also very mad at us for making noise, listening to music and talking. He eventually just put his coat over his head and fell fast asleep.

When B saw that I was taking a picture of his brother, he said he was asleep too. So I took a picture of my fake sleeping B. When he pretends to sleep she does a cute little fake snore.