auntie boo

we had such a fun time playing with our auntie boo over the last few days. she is so much fun and the boys adore her. it is always hard to see her go because we are not sure when we will get to see here again. but we had a great time talking wedding details (yes, my baby sister is engaged!!!), laughing, eating and cuddling. i love her and feel so fortunate to have a sister that is also a best friend.

we hope that you have safe travels back home auntie boo. good luck with the rest of your semester. we are so proud of you!

family weekend

My sister Laurie from Montana (Auntie Boo) came to visit during her spring break from grad school this last weekend. My parents (Nana and Papa) also came. It was such a nice weekend all together as a family. Nana brought yummy food and some fun activities. The boys dyed Easter eggs and had a great time. Sulli is holding a cardboard circle over his eye in the picture above...copying Nana.

Here Benny is sampling one of the eggs, shell and all.

Papa...the master dyer.

Their beautiful creations!

Thanks for the great weekend! We love you all.

camp out nightmare!

we recently purchased a travel trailer from some friends of ours who are moving. evan has been wanting to have a little campout with sulli since we got it and last night was the night. my parents and sister are in town visiting and so all the beds were full, so ev decided that he and sulli would try it out. little did he know that last night, a storm from H-E-double hockey sticks (haven't heard that in a while have ya?) would sweep through the valley. it took me forever to fall asleep last night but the last time i looked at the clock was about 11:30. then at 1:30 my eyes popped wide open as i heard a very loud crash and thought the roof of our house was going to be ripped off. i raced downstairs to see what was going on outside and our bbq which was under the protection of our covered patio had been blown off the patio out into the yard. and toys and tarps were flapping in the wind ready to take flight. i ran around like mad scooping things up and bringing them inside. benny woke up from all the loudness of the hail hitting the windows. so i had to tend to a crying, scared little boy.

and all i could think of was "i hope that the trailer doesn't blow over!" i was expecting ev and sulli to come running in any moment...but they never did. i have never prayed the same thing over and over again for so long. i must have prayed "please keep evan and sulli safe" over 1,000 times last night. the wind would die down...and i would drift off...and then it would come back! ahhhh. horrible night. we are all zombies this morning. i had to get up early and sing at church and was planning on planting my garden today. don't think that it will be happening any more. darn weather!

anyways, hope you all had a better night than we did. just glad that we are all in one piece this morning...haggard but ok.

the many faces of sullivan

sulli was enjoying a "milkshake" (wonderful recipe for picky eaters...vanilla yogurt, chocolate pediasure, one banana and flax...he loves it and has no idea that it is different from mommy and daddy's milkshakes) and wanted me to take pictures of his silly faces. he is very into performing right now as you can see!

bit o' the blarney!

so the leprechaun's got into our food and made our eggs, butter and milk green. sulli was quite surprised at how mischevious the little guys are. he was a bit nervous too..."do they have googly eyes? will they hurt me? will they scare me?" these were some of the questions that he asked the night before st. patrick's day. i was at that point regretting my decision to talk about leprechaun's thinking that we would be up all night with a frightened little boy. but ev put him at ease and we were ok. sulli wore his "lucky and charming" shirt to school and had fun with the whole green day. i got an idea from my girlfriend and the leprechaun's actually peed in sulli's potty which was hilarious! i love holidays!

trying to get a cute posed picture of these two is impossible. in a couple of these pics, sulli is trying to protect his brother from a spider on the wall. pretty funny!

circle of life

last weekend we attended a funeral and a birthday party. we went to twin falls to celebrate the life of an amazing man, dave dellett who passed away all too soon from a long battle with cancer. the memorial was wonderful, filled with great stories, funny memories, and inspiring messages. i think the best messages was not from the pastor, but from my dad. DON'T WAIT. this was the premise of his talk. he got up and spoke about dave and shared some great things about him. but he also said "don't wait." don't wait to share with your family and friends how they have affected your life, what they mean to you, how you feel about them. don't wait. my dad never got to say those things to dave and now it is too late. although my dad has the reassurance that he will be reunited with dave someday, it doesn't help the feelings of regret of today.

on sunday, we came back to boise and celebrated evan's grandma bertie's 90th birthday. what a milestone! we had a great dinner and yummy chocolate cream pie at evan's parents house. the boys were most impressed with the balloon decorations. benny so much so that dinner was not of interest at all.

experiencing what seems like quite a few deaths in the past months has really made an impact in my life. our church just completed a series called "30 days, no regrets". the idea is that if you found out you had 30 days to live, what would you do differently, what would be a priority, what kind of impact would you have on those around you?

dave lived his life so that all around him felt his compassion, knew his beliefs, and understood how he felt about them. he was just that type of guy. i have done a lot of self-examination. do the people i love KNOW that i love them? do i hug my children and my husband enough? have i told those around me how important it is to KNOW God and love Him? no. i have not done enough, nor will i ever feel like i have done enough. but i can try. starting now!

so to those of you reading this...i love you. if you are taking the time to know what is going on in my life, you are important to me. if you don't know Jesus, learn about Him. it is never too late to learn. and honestly, what have you got to lose by knowing Him? knowing that everything you do here has an eternal purpose just makes life all that much sweeter. knowing that everything here is just temporary and that all the hurts, trials and challenges here will soon fade away is so encouraging. makes this stupid recession a bit easier to bear.

DON"T WAIT!

Play time!

A couple of weeks ago we had a spurt of beautiful weather. So we played outside quite a bit. I didn't realize until Benny was acting tentative about the grass that it was his first time playing outside. Last year he was an infant and just layed around on a blanket when we were outside. He was so funny, not too sure about stepping off of the patio onto the grass. And when he would fall, the feeling of the grass on his hands was strange to him. It was pretty cute. Sulli liked pushing him in the swing but Benny was more into walking around and checking out the yard. Sulli is into silly faces at the moment. I have a feeling we are going to be in this phase for quite a while. Yesterday the weather went to the other extreme and we had another snow day. Evan took the family up to Bogus Basin for some cross country skiing. It was Sulli's first time on skiis and he did great. But he kept seeing other kids go by with poles and he was saying "I want pools". We are borrowing a chariot from a girlfriend of mine (thank you so much Amy!!!) and it works great. Benny took a ride in the chariot and was happy....as long as it was moving. That kept Evan busy!

We built a lego tower the other night in the kitchen and Sulli was very proud of his creation. Once again, into the silly faces. He was also doing the "lego dance" which I caught on film!

I sang at church last weekend and Ev had the boys. This was some of the Sunday morning activities. Sulli serenading Benny while he takes a little ride on the Zebra.

And the great warriors preparing for battle! They are playing together so cute these days.

We are still trying to survive the winter sickness around here and continue to have runny noses, coughs, fevers every once in a while, and Benny just had a wonderful rash last week. It just keeps cycling through. Hopefully the warmer weather that is just around the corner (power of positive thinking right?!) will get rid of all the bugs in our house. Any time the air is warmer than 50 my windows fly open hoping to air out the bad. Reminds me of "Dumb and Dumber"..."out with the bad, in with the good". Ok...now I am rambling. Have a great day!

Pay it Forward

I got this off of a friends blog and thought that it was a great idea. It is fun to spoil the people that you love and instill these values into your everyday life.

Pay It Forward …..So, here’s how it works: the first 3 people to leave a comment on this post will receive, at some point during the year, some homemade goodies from me. What it will be and when it will arrive is a total surprise! The catch is that you must participate as well. Before you leave your comment, write up a pay it forward post on your blog to keep the fun going (or copy and paste like I did). Then come back, let me know you’re going to play and sit back and anticipate the arrival of your goodies! Please submit in an e-mail or on the comment, your address, if I don’t have it already. Remember that only the first 3 comments will receive a gift from me, so be quick! Have fun!