CA Trip Part 1: Water Play

I took these pictures in Lancaster during Grandpa Burkhart's birthday party. Bradley could not stay away from the water fountain... bird bath... thingy. And I could not stop snapping pictures.





This picture was taken right after the big thirsty pup "Berkley" cooled herself down with a drink.


Bradley thought it was ingenious.

More Time with "Fun Daddy"

I know I have already blogged about this I am sure, but because these are the times we treasure, I will do them again.

Things the boys love to do with Fun Daddy:

Horsey Rides!

Jumping on the bed!

I do NOT like this game.

Two reasons:
1. The kids always get hurt, and if they don't I am just waiting for it to happen, and so I'm constantly freaking out the whole time.
2. Now that we have an actual headboard/footboarded bed, I don't want them to break it!

But they love it. And so occasionally I will allow them this tiny pleasure in their lives.

Jumping off of the couch!

and other tricks...

Flipping onto the couch!

Bradley is definitely one of the boys...

Then Jaden wanted to give being the "flipper" a try...

Not bad...

Bathtime!

I'm sure the boys enjoy it a lot more when Charles is the one giving them their bath, because he lets them splash a heck of a lot more than I do. He also is more patient when Kaleb spazzes out about getting his ears wet.

And a shave!

It never gets old... What shower or bath would be complete without "getting rid of the scruff!" And boy do they smell nice afterward!

It's a Block Party

Lately Bradley loves climbing into anything. Buckets, laundry baskets, collapsible storage baskets that become stretched out and ruined, pots, pans... really anything. Here are his brothers joining in the fun.



Then I think Charles got little jealous of all the fun playing with blocks, so he busted out this little lego-number...


Well, not "busted out" exactly... it took him about 2 or 3 days. But the boys LOVE it. It's not so much a space shuttle, as it is a "spaceship." They like to collect as much "men" (animals and small action figures) as they can fit, to carry inside the ship and prepare for battle.

I'm not quite sure who they are battling, but my guess would be somewhere along the lines of... Darth Maul, Darth Vader, Count Dooku, or the... Chancelor? Is that his name? My kids know Star Wars way better than I do. Charles actually commented to me... "are we raising some sci-fi nerds, here?"

Yeah... probably.

Kare Came to Visit!

My sister Kare came to Utah for a spur-of-the-moment visit. It was SO much fun, but I am way too smart/lazy to re-invent the wheel, so I'm just going to post a link. Thanks Kare! And thanks again for taking the boys on their dates!

Click here to read all about it!

Pomp and Circumstance

Well, he did it. He finished his Master's of Business Administration degree. Woo Hoo! =)



I'm so proud of you, Charles. Even though you don't want to walk at your Commencement, or have a celebration, you still deserve some kind of recognition! I want you to know that you are amazing. You have worked so hard and have sacrificed so much of your valued family time and sleep! I know it was crazy and tough, but you kept on going. I am so happy for you to be done. We have missed you. I love you! =)

Valentine's Day

This year for Valentine's Day, we celebrated with our good friends the Holbrooks. Maybe I'll post a picture with all of us... [hint hint Julie ;) ] We started by ditching the kids, then heading to one of our FAVORITE restaurants. No, it wasn't Italian... we actually deviated form our norm that night. It's a place we hadn't been in a LOOOONG time. We hadn't been there since... our Provo days? Is that right? Maybe it wasn't that long ago, but it has definitely been a while! Can you tell where we went?


Mmmmmm. Indian food is SOOOO good! I wonder if I can google this recipe. It seems like you can get recipes from anywhere these days. Anyway, after dinner we went back to Ryan and Julie's and ate my favorite Ice Cream. Well, my SECOND favorite Ice Cream. My favorite Ice Cream I cannot find ANYWHERE in this blasted state. The one, and only... Chocolate Malted Krunch. (I can't wait till March when we go to CA... I'm totally gonna eat an entire gallon of it.)


Anyway, no... we didn't have my favorite, but a close second... Dreyer's Rocky Road. And it HAS to be Dreyer's.
Breyer's.. yuck.
Store brand... pass.
Farr's premium... that's actually pretty good.
But Dreyer's... never a disappointment.


And we also watched a movie. It was called Duplicity. Have you seen it? We had never even heard of it, but it sounded interesting. It wasn't exactly a sit-back-and-relax kind of movie. Ryan said it best when he said, "Man, that was good, but you really had to WORK for it!" I think I need to see it again, now that I know what the heck was going on.


Anyway, good food, good movie, great friends, HOT husband... awesome Valentine's Day.

The Last Stretch

Charles recently celebrated his last birthday in the 20's. Why the pink cake? I know you are wondering. "I colored the cake pink, because... quite frankly I wanted to see a pink cake..." No, really, he CHOSE a strawberry cake with strawberry Frosting. I told him that next time I was going to dye the frosting black to try and "man it up" a bit. So he had to settle for what I had on hand. Just enough red, white and green to try and add a little "touch of Italian" to his Fairy Cake. But it was appropriate for his theme.

We celebrated at my parent's house the Sunday before his birthday. We started off with a feast. Salmon (at Charles' request) for the guys, and Turkey for everyone else. Then he opened up some presents...


Along with many thoughtful phone calls, texts and cards from his family, he also got a "promise to clean out and wash the filth that he drives in" from Jaden and Kaleb. They wanted to surprise him with a clean car, but unfortunately things didn't work out, so they are planning on doing it when we have a nice stretch of warm, dry weather. He also got some dinner and movie giftcards, (which include babysitting, right?... Right?)

And here he is opening my present. Nothing special. Just something I should have done about 8 years ago. I finally put all of his mission pictures into some albums. Now the boys can see their Daddy as a missionary.


Charles also received a long-coveted gift. He had been trying to convince me to get this for a long time--An Italian language-learning course.


You may be wondering why... if he served his mission in Italy... why would he ever need or want this language course. Well... 2 reasons:
1. "Use it or Lose it!" He feels like he is forgetting. He needs a refresher.
2. He really wants his family to learn the language. Happy birthday to all of us!

It is actually pretty sweet and I feel like I am catching on way faster than any foreign language class I ever took in High School or College. It is fun to learn with Charles and have something like this to do together.

Every once in a while we will catch Jaden saying, "La bambina mangia."
Or Kaleb saying, "Listen and repeat."
Hopefully they won't catch on too quick. It would be fun to have a "secret language" that the kids couldn't understand! Mwah-ha-ha!

Next we sang Happy Birthday and had cake and ice cream.


Jaden was pretty quick to "help" blow out the candles.


So of course the other boys wanted a turn too.



Well Charles, here's to being
"one year older and wiser too...
Haaaaaappy Birthday, to you!"