We had a really great Easter with lots of fun activities. I love celebrating holidays with little kids because they make everything more fun and exciting. It seems like a lot of our Easter was focused on the non-important holiday stuff. I was very grateful to have the chance to focus on the Savior at church and to teach primary. We just talked about stories from Jesus' life and about the resurrection. We teach the 6-year-olds and they tend to like to get off on tangents and wiggle a lot, however, on Sunday as we talked about the Savior and his life, they sat quietly, looked at me the whole time and just soaked in everything I was saying. It was like they were hearing it for the first time and it made me think about what I was saying as if it was the first time I was hearing it. What a great blessing it is to have a Savior that died for us and does so much for us on a daily basis. We can lean on him when we are struggling and we have to remember that he knows who we are and what we are going through. I am so grateful for the knowledge I have of the Savior. I don't know how people get through life without that knowledge and without prayer.

Anyway, I hope you all had a great Easter.

These are the best shots I got of the boys Easter baskets. I tried to buy mostly books and toys and not a lot of candy this year.

Evan's basket

Shawn's basket
Easter morning. Shawn had the most amazing bedhead I have seen in a long time.

So I totally didn't plan a special breakfast for Easter and I didn't think it was a big deal until Shawn asked what we were having for our special Easter breakfast. Hence, the impromptu bunny pancakes with chocolate chip eyes. Shawn added the "arms" and "bunny feet" because how was he going to hop without feet. The amazing breakfast was topped off with some purple milk. :) Oh, and do you like that it is on one of our Christmas plates. Shawn told me we needed to go buy an Easter plate.

All dressed up and ready for church

After church I told Shawn to go change into different clothes and this is how he came into my room. He said he wanted to try things differently.

Then we headed to my Grandpa and Grandma's for our traditional dinner and Easter Egg hunt. Evan LOVES Easter eggs, if you couldn't tell.

Tiff (sister) in one of the egg trees

Amy (sister) told me I looked like a milk maid with my basket when I was putting the eggs in the trees.

Shawn's haul

What's the best way to get lots of eggs? Pretend like you have a little basket, but then have your dad follow you with a big bag to dumb your eggs into. (J.P. and Jack)

Or you could just bring a giant basket to begin with. :) (Natalie)

Jon was nice enough to help Evan reach the well hid eggs.

Happy little boys

Evan was having a great day

Not Easter related:
Shawn and Evan both love to be outside. Shawn especially loves to help his Daddy in the yard. So what happens when it is too cold for little boys to be out in the yard with Daddy? They just watch his every move from the window.

Shawn loves to rock Evan for a few minutes before he goes to bed. I have to make sure to be there because he will instantly decide he is done and let go of Evan and give him a little push.

When Daddy's away....

Jon went with my brother and brother-in-law to Moab this weekend. They did the slickrock trail which is very intense. Jon took his old, old bike and was sure it would be fine. Luckily they decided to do a practice loop the night before the major trail. Jon's chain snapped on one of the first hills he tried to climb. He ended up smashing his knee into his bike and having it bruise and swell. He was forced to rent a different bike. I feel like this is a blessing in disguise because he would never have spent the money to rent one if he didn't need to. Let's just say that the rented bike (worth $4,500) was much better for doing slickrock. Jon said he was very glad he went and enjoyed his little trip, but would NEVER do slickrock again.

Yay! Daddy's away, it's time to play! (actually we hate it when Daddy is out of town, but we are glad he got to have a boys weekend and that everyone came home safe)

Evan was very excited to get started on our fun day First we went to the church history museum, which has a new childrens play area upstairs. The kids enjoyed all the little activities until a primary showed up on a fieldtrip. :)

Boys just trying to be a master gardener like their mamma. Okay, I haven't planted a single thing yet, but I am sure I will have a great garden someday.....once I figure it out.

Also, stay tuned for when my flower beds look like this next year.

We walked around temple square and enjoyed the beautiful day. Well, mostly enjoyed it until Shawn got mad that James sat on the part of the bench he wanted.

Luckily James was willing to move so Shawn could smile again

Loving the warmer weather. As we were walking around temple square Shawn made me take off the long sleeve shirt he had on because he said his arms needed to breath. Apparently his chest did too. :)

Waiting for the fountain to turn on, which never did even though it was on a few minutes before we got to that spot.

Everyone headed back to my house where we had dinner and a sleepover. The children all ended up in the sandbox, which resulted in everyone taking unexpected showers.

This may or may not have been part of our dinner. If you haven't tried this cake from Costco, you should stop reading this immediately and go buy it.

After showers and pajamas, the kids watch an episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse while us moms chatted.

We had a really fun time with our sisters and cousins. When are the dads going out of town again?! (j/k)

Busy Boys

Evan: Evan is all over the place now. He pulls himself up to standing position any chance he gets. He loves to explore and go all over the house.

Only one more week of the helmet. Yay!

One of his favorite spots Every day he pulls everything out of my cupboards. I guess it is time to pull out the baby-proofing stuff.

Shawn:

Shawn coming up with his own contraption to make himself higher.....why you ask......

for this..... Buzz Lightyear got taken away and put on top of the entertainment center

and this is what happened

We decided to do some paper crafts yesterday. Here is Shawn's butterfly.

and his lion (which he said looked like mommy's hair)

We are loving the warmer weather and spent most of the day today outside. We all do so much better when we can do fun, warm outside activities. Yay for Spring!!!!!! (P.S. Jon thinks I am crazy every Spring when I turn into a giddy school girl. I just love Spring/Summer/Fall and I greatly dislike winter)

The Belated Leprechaun Visit

The leprechauns decided to wait until Friday night to visit to allow Jon to be home when Shawn discovered the remnants of that visit. Shawn woke up and headed straight to the restroom like usual. He found a toilet full of green water because the leprechaun used his bathroom. Shawn refused to use the bathroom until I had flushed all the green away. Then we found gold candy scattered all over the house along with notes telling Shawn where to look for his stash of St. Patricks day goodies. The said stash was located in the dryer, which Shawn thought was so silly. The leprechaun knocked over chairs, made small messes, and turned our milk green.

Shawn was certain that the leprechaun was hiding somewhere in the house so he made me go through the whole house looking for him even outside and in the garage.

Shawn found many, many things that the leprechaun did that Jon and I weren't even aware of. Such as, putting a pen under the couch cushion, leaving a sock in the dryer, leaving some books on the floor, putting the bread in a different spot on the counter, leaving the lid off my lotion bottle, etc. Everything single thing that wasn't perfectly placed in the house was considered an act of the leprechaun. Shawn literally spent about 40 minutes going around the house looking for things the leprechaun did. Even to the point that he was going through his books to make sure the leprechaun didn't rip any pages. He just kept saying, "that silly leprechaun".

I had no idea that Shawn would love this holiday so much.

Shawn eating his "leprechaun cereal"Shawn was certain that the leprechaun had broke his bug he made even though Evan had just been playing with it.He also blamed the empty juice bottle on the leprechaun Shawn asked Jon to lift him up to see on top of the entertainment center. He needed to check for leprechauns, notes, or candy.

Just a random picture from the morning. We got a baby gate recently and Evan does not love being restricted form the stairs.

St. Patricks Day Dinner Party

We had a St. Patricks Day dinner party at our house. We invited the sister missionaries from my mission who still live close. We also let their husbands come along. It was a lot of fun to get together again. I haven't seen any of them since Sister Tobler's wedding last Spring. As we started talking about weddings I came to realize that the only wedding I wasn't pregnant as was my own. I was due any day with Shawn at Sister Olsen's wedding, I was barely pregnant with Evan at Sister Moore's wedding, and I had Evan about 2 weeks after Sister Tobler's wedding. Anyway, that was a bit of a tangent. It just made me realize that we need to plan times to get together more often.

Me, Tobler, Olsen, Moore

(well those aren't their last names anymore, but that seems more normal to me than calling them by their first names)

I waited until the last minute to figure out decorations so the stores didn't really have anything left. I ended up making my own pot of gold and buying some balloons (side note: how can places charge so much for balloons?!?)

Some of the food we had. Everybody was so nice to bring things to contribute to the dinner.
All the dinner guests except Will (Moore's husband) who was nice enough to take pictures for us. Unfortunately, she was too busy telling him to the turn the camera the other direction that she forgot to smile. :)
I didn't have enough seats for Shawn at the table. Even though he looks upset in this picture, he was thrilled to be able to sit in the living room and eat at his own little table.

Cutie Pies

So my blog sounds a little bi-polar lately with loving my boys and then being frustrated with my boys. We definitely have way more good moments than bad moments. Those bad moments just seem to be REALLY bad moments. Between the snow earlier this week and Evan being sick with some sort of flu, we have spent the last few days inside. I have tried to do many things with the boys so they (and I) didn't go crazy. Hence my destroyed house, lack of clean laundry, etc. Here are some pictures of this week.

Shawn loves to lay by Evan, which is really cute until he lays on top of him and Evan starts screaming

We busted out the t-pee, tent, and tunnels to play in.I am not going to mention how long it took me to remember how to set up the tent.

Shawn really wanted me to put this picture in the blog. It may look innocent enough, but it is Shawn blocking Evan from being able to play on the Buzz Lightyear bike.You would never know that Evan threw up a few minutes after I took this picture. He is one happy little sick baby.

"Please Mommy, let us out of here"