Superheroes

Sorry for my bummer post last week.  I really was having a crappy day but I am happy to report that the next day was better and now I'm wonderful.  I even felt better getting that post out.  Weird right?  Anyway, I guess I should probably tell you about all the fun/quirky/kind-of-lame stuff we have been up to lately! 

Last weekend was busy and super fun!  Ian and I went with a few other couples to see Iron Man 3.  Ian was super excited about it.  I was excited, but maybe not super.  The movie was really fun and definitely way better than Iron Man 2.  And I loved getting to go out with other couples!  We stayed for almost an hour after the movie just chatting with our friends.  By the time we actually were leaving the theater we ran into another couple of buddies!  Haha ok, not really, but there were these Iron Man and Iron Patriot guys out in front of the theater taking pictures with people.  I hesitate to post this pic because I look really bad (Yikes!  I swear that outfit looked cuter before I left the house) but it was too fun and touristy feeling not to share.

That Saturday Davin had another soccer game.  Afterwards Ian took Talia on a bowling date.  She is obsessed with bowling since we went as a family a month or so ago.  She had a blast going bowling and out to lunch with her daddy.  She pretty much asks to go bowling every day now and gets upset when the answer is no.  I guess the next time the answer is yes she will be extra happy about it!

While Ian and Tal were out the big boys really wanted to set up a fruit punch stand.  They have never done anything like that before and Weston was stoked that I said he could do it.  He got it set up all by himself and I helped him make the Kool-Aid.  He and Davin took turns running or riding Talia's trike around the neighborhood yelling "Fruit punch for sale!!!!  10 cents!!!!" at the top of their lungs.  It was hilarious.  They ended up mostly doing a trade business with the girls next door who were selling popcorn.  But after about an hour or so a few neighbors (who happened to be Weston's primary teachers) walked by with their kids and bought popcorn and juice.  I think the grand total profit for the day was 1.00 and 6 cups of popcorn.

It was a beautiful, warm day.  That evening was our ward's Spring BBQ.  It was fun to get together and just chat with friends.  It was a long, busy day though and the kids were tired and ready for bed by 7:30pm.  So was I!

Sunday was Cinco de Mayo and we were invited to a friend's Mexican BBQ.  It turns out that the best place to have it was our house, so we ended up hosting 3 families and us Sunday evening.  We had delicioso street tacos, fresh salsa, beans, chips and nacho cheese, and fun homemade limeade.  The kids ran amok in the backyard and we ended the night with a round of the Name Game.  We all agreed we might have to make it an annual tradition.

Finally a few random cute kid moments from my days at home . . .
The nice weather has allowed us to head out to the little park by our house almost every day.  Talia loves riding her bike there, going down the slide once or twice then riding home.  When our new neighbor was there with her daughter it was all I could do to convince Tal to stay and play for awhile.  Beckett loves when I take him in the carrier.  He gets to be more a part of the action.

I also took a few pics of my pretty yard.  I especially love my tulips! I'm so glad they grew and finally bloomed!  After I killed all the plants in my front planter last summer I was worried I had a black thumb, but the tulips are gorgeous and the perennials I thought were toast last summer are green and vibrant!  Yay!  I have fun watering my plants and I'm surprised at how proud I am of them.

As much as I really do not love Winter, I really do appreciate Spring.  This is the tree in our backyard.  The first photo was taken April 26th.  And the second was taken two weeks later.  It's amazing!

 

I washed the boys' sheets last week and discovered some Sharpie markings on Davin's sheet.  Later that day I asked him if he had written on his sheet with a marker.  He said he didn't do it.  I pressed him that someone must have done it.  I saw a light bulb go on in his head.  He looked and me and said in all seriousness, "Mom!  I know who did that.  It was a ghost."

Hmm I'm not buying it.  I proceeded to explain that (hypothetically speaking, of course) if I ever caught him writing/drawing on anything that is not supposed to be written/drawn on he would lose all instruments of writing/drawing for a whole week.  :)

Now that Beckett can sit up without assistance he is really into playing with Talia's princess castle.  She doesn't like to share, but it's something she's going to have to learn.  Luckily Beckett is pretty easy going.  I just get a kick out of how excited he gets when I put the castle in front of him.

Talia is a goofball and loves this sunglasses-helmet combo.  She says "Mom, I supa cool huh?"  She also loves her first nightgown.  She wears it almost every night now.  I need to find her another one for the summer so she doesn't freak out on laundry day.

Tal is really into Wreck It Ralph right now and this getup make me want to nickname her Major Body Odor or maybe Swizzle Malarkey.

Blah

Today I feel like a failure.  I am anxious and grumpy.  I can't focus and I keep thinking about all of the things I haven't done right over the last several months.  It feels awful.

The rational part of my brain knows that I'm being ridiculous and that nothing is all that different than it was a week ago when I felt happy and confident.  I keep trying all my tricks to snap out of a bad mood.  We've been on a walk in the sunshine.  I visited with my neighbor while our kids played at the park.  I've blasted good music and danced.  I ate chocolate.  I got dressed.  It's really just not helping.  Maybe cleaning my house this afternoon will make me feel better.  Or possibly an hour on the elliptical with Psych. Or a good night's sleep.

I have been snappy with my kids all day which makes me feel even worse.  I forgot to send a stuffed animal and a snack with Davin for his preschool's teddy bear picnic.  I have a long list of to do's and only two items crossed off.  The kids watched movies all morning.  Mom of the year over here.  Please let tomorrow be better.

Spring Fun

We have been so busy lately!  I'm definitely phasing into the busy, running around season of motherhood.  It will only get busier from here on out.  It definitely makes me grateful for the rare days where I have nowhere to be.  Like today.  Which is why I'm finally getting around to posting about all of our fun activities.

Soccer is still going strong.  Davin is no more motivated to get in there and go after the ball than he was at his first game, but he seems to be having fun, so I'm not too stressed about it.  We will give him a chance to try a few different things.  Maybe soccer is just not his cup of tea.  He tells me he wants to try karate next.  One thing is for sure, he looks adorable whether he scores a goal or not.

This is pretty much the only time he kicks the ball in his games, so I had to get a video of it.  

Thanksgiving Point extended the Tulip Festival, so for FHE last week we went to the Children's Garden.  There were still some beautiful tulips to see and the kids loved playing in the water.  It was a nice, warm evening.

Just a couple of days later we woke up to late snow!  It was really coming down.  It all melted and dried out by the afternoon, but it sure was cold!  Gotta love our bipolar Spring weather here in Utah.

In honor of the cold weather I finally made time to try out my Aunt Pam's homemade granola bar recipe!  Oh my goodness these are delicious.  And they are really not hard to make at all.  The hardest (aka more time consuming) part was wrapping each bar individually.  I felt extra domestic making these because I was able to use the honey powder from my food storage.  Definitely cheaper and healthier than the store bought variety.  I'm a fan.  Maybe you will be too!

Aunt Pam's Homemade Granola Bars

2 c. old fashioned oats (not quick oats)
1 c. flour (wheat or white)
3/4 c. toasted wheat germ
3/4 c. brown sugar
3/4 t. salt
3/4 t. cinnamon
2 eggs
1/2 c. canola oil
1/2 c. honey (pour in the oil first then use the same cup)
2 t. vanilla

Mix all of the dry ingredients, then add all of the wet ingredients and mix well. Line a 9x13 pan with foil and spray cooking spray on the foil. Pat mixture into the foiled and greased pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes or until pale golden around the edges. Cut into bars while warm, then allow to cool before removing and wrapping bars individually in foil.

***This recipe works really well doubled and baked in a jelly roll pan or cookie sheet. The mixture is too thick to use your KitchenAid. You really just have to do it by hand.

One evening the boys got to snuggle up and watch Superman with Ian.  They love watching "adult movies" (we are trying to having them not use this terminology to describe movies that aren't animated since it kind of sounds bad). :)

By the end of the week the weather was all warmed back up.  Weston had been asking me for a buzz cut all week.  I decided it was cheaper for me to cut his hair and a buzz is the only style I am capable of.  So Thursday afternoon we made the change!  He loves it and said it makes him "feel like a new kid."

Finally a few videos of the little ones.  This first one is my most adorable daughter singing (It starts as Twinkle Twinkle, but then she morphs it into Popcorn Popping).  She can be so super cute when she wants to be.

And when she doesn't want to be . . . it looks a lot like this.  Oh the 2 year old tantrums of a little girl. 

Beckett is pretty much always adorable.  Even when he cries.  He loves watching Ian play guitar.  This was after dinner while I was cleaning up the kitchen.  I had to hide behind the armchair when I was done because if he saw me then he would no longer be content to just sit and listen.  

Tulip Festival etc.

The Tulip Festival has been going on for a couple weeks but it has been so cold and windy that we hadn't been yet.  The stars aligned this week though.  The sun came out, the wind died down, Ian came home from work early (!!!!), and we headed over to the Thanksgiving Point Gardens as a family Wednesday night to check out the Tulips.  

I wanted to find the Secret Garden, so we grabbed a map and set off.  We started at the waterfall.  It's the kids' favorite.  We did finally find the Secret Garden and it was really cool.  Picturesque and definitely reminded me of the movie.  Plus it had a fountain that the kids played around.  Talia could have stayed there for hours.  As it was she managed to soak her shirt in only 15 minutes.

We also stopped and fed the hundreds of koi in the lake.  This was a highlight.  It's kind of scary how crazy the fish go when you feed them and there are SO many!  Anyway, it was a very fun, exhausting outing.  Lucky for me Weston thinks pushing the stroller is cool.  :)

ETC.:
Weston's school did Spring photos a couple of weeks ago.  It was nice that they sent home a proof of the picture then you could decide whether or not to buy it.  I couldn't stop laughing when I saw the proof.  He's such a 1st grade mess!  Crazy, messy hair.  Shirt on backwards. (He told me he realized his shirt was on backwards later that day.)  Needless to say, I had forgotten it was picture day that morning and we did not pay to order these pictures, but I felt this photo still needed to be documented.  Love my cute grade schooler!

Also in this post I just have to include a bunch of pictures of my cute little Beckett.  He is getting big so fast and I feel like I forget to document it like I should.  He is now 7 months old.  He still just has his same 2 teeth.  He has slept through the night the last couple of nights, so I'm really hoping we are getting settled in that department.  He's pretty much the cutest little guy ever.

This was a random little hat I tried on him while wandering Hobby Lobby.

He's definitely on track to become another Bowles vidiot child.  He loves watching Baby Einstein!  This is his zoned out face.

He is finally trying more foods.  We've had carrots, green beans, apples, and squash mixed with our oatmeal so far.  While we were eating at Carl's Jr. last week I fed Beckett tiny pieces of bread.  He loved it!

This little guy is no longer content to lay on his back and play.  He immediately rolls over on his tummy to play.  He scooches backwards and moves in a circle.  He can lift himself up into push up position too.  I have no doubt he will be my earliest crawler.

He babbles and chats up a storm.  He just started babbling "mama."  I love it!

Just For Fun

Just for fun . . . 

-Here is what our mornings look like.  These kiddos love their shows!

-Beckett was up a few times in the night and was a very tired baby the next day.  I was trying to get him to play but he was just too worn out apparently.

-Ian just finished a big, long, busy project at work that kept him there a lot.  He tried to make it up to me by taking me out on a date to see The Host and let me do a little shopping.  I got a new outfit!  And even better it was all on clearance and I paid $25 for the skirt and top.

-Davin decided to do a little writing practice on the mini magnadoodle.  I think he's getting really good at his name!  I didn't even say anything about the backwards "N" because it was too cute.  :)

-I love my baby boy's baby blues.  I really hope that his eyes stay blue!  We shall see.

-Ian was working late and we really needed to get out of the house so I braved an outing with all 4 kiddos by myself.  We ate at In N Out then played at the dinosaur museum.  The kids did great and we had lots of fun in the practically empty museum.  Oh, and Talia insisted on wearing the red cape.  It was adorable.

Two Wheels!

One of Weston's goals this year was to learn to ride his bike without training wheels.  We really wanted him to accomplish this goal too.  I mean, the kid is seven years old.  It was time.  Ian worked with him several times during Spring break and took the pedals off his bike so he could get used to balancing.  On Saturday afternoon Ian put the pedals back on and within half an hour Weston was riding a two wheeler!  He was so so happy and excited and proud of himself. 

When he first started learning, Ian had told him that when he rode around the block on his own then we would take him out for frozen yogurt.  Weston told me that he was even more excited that he could ride his bike than he was about the frozen yogurt.  But he still wanted to go.  Saturday night we all went out to celebrate Weston's accomplishment. 

I'm so proud of Weston for sticking with it and trying hard even though it didn't come easily.

Soccer

It's official.  I'm a soccer mom.  Davin started Spring soccer last week.  This is Davin's first extracurricular activity and he was SO excited.  He was clueless and adorable and had so much fun.  His team met on Tuesday for a practice, but it was really windy and cold, so they only lasted about 20 minutes.  I'm not sure how much instruction he really got. 

 

The game on Saturday wasn't much better.  It was overcast, windy and cold.  Davin ended up wearing his zip up hoodie jacket under his jersey.  Mel and Brad came to watch and were very fun to have there.  They were also much more prepared on the snack front than I was.  :)  Davin pretty much stayed on the very fringes of the game the whole time.  He ran back and forth and did an awesome fist pump/yessss thing every time anyone scored or they stopped playing to kick the ball back in.  He kicked the ball two or three times, but mostly stayed away from the other kids because he didn't want to get "squooshed." (as he told me after the game)

 

Talia was pretty miserable and whiny the whole game.  Beckett endured it without a fuss.  Weston claimed he wasn't cold.  Davin's favorite was getting a juice box at the end of the game.  He said he had fun playing soccer and is excited for his next game.  I'm hoping it's a little warmer this Saturday.  And Uncle Brad put out a bribe for Davin to get in there and score a goal.  I'll keep you posted on our little soccer player!