Owen turns 1

Owen turned 1 in April! Time has gone by soooo fast! My baby is 1! Something really awesome is that Owen took his first steps on his first birthday! How cool is that?!
Owen brings so much joy to our lives. He has the goofiest, loveliest grin! Can I say goofiest and loveliest in the same sentence and have it make sense? I think all you Mom's out there know what I mean!

Quick stop for a diaper change before presents.  Owen thinks it's funny to try to wrestle the clean diaper out of your hands...I think he wants to stay naked! lol

Owen's big present from us was this water toy...we thought since we've got grass in the backyard now, this would be a fun thing to put in the backyard for Owen. Really, his big brothers (and the neighbor kids) play with it more than he does, but at least it's getting some use! lol

Connor turns 7

My Connor Monkey a.k.a. Cheeks turned 7 in April...yes I'm behind in my blogging! I'm trying to catch up! Connor's birthday fell on Easter day this year. Since I'm writing about Connor's birthday, let me just take a second to write about Connor. He's a sweet, kind-hearted boy. He seems a little shy and quiet spoken and he can be at times, but he's also my biggest dare devil! If he could live on a 4-wheeler or a dirt bike I think he would! He loves to make "jumps" out of scrap wood and dirt in the empty lots around our house. He also loves the skate park by our house. He loves to go 4-wheeling when we visit Grandpa Rick in Idaho, and he loved going dirt-biking with his Uncle Travis last winter. I feel bad that we don't have any of these neat toys for him...maybe some day. Connor also has a big heart. He likes to write nice notes and draw pictures for people. He'll also ask, yes ask, if he can vacuum and do things like organizing the game closet! Wow! Hope he never grows out of that. He'll even pick up the clutter on the floor so he can vacuum. 90% of the time Connor is an easy, easy child...so easy going and sweet, and 10% of the time he gets his little temper/tantrum going and that drives me crazy because once he gets going he won't give in or give up...it usually ends with me banishing him to his room and occasionally he'll cry himself out and fall asleep! Usually that's the problem to begin with...Connor needs lots of sleep, like his mom ;) to function well. So, as long as Connor's had enough sleep he's a very sweet, kind, generous, wonderful boy. I'm so blessed to have this wonderful boy as my son. I love my sweet Cheeky Monkey :)

Here are the kids digging into their Easter baskets...I forgot to get baskets until the day before Easter...yeah...there wasn't much left, but these gift bags worked great!

Grass!

For the past 3 years, we've lived with mud and weeds in the backyard...not just any mud...nasty clay that I've only ever seen in Utah...it sticks to the bottom of your shoes like 2-3 inches of glue! Nothing will get it off except letting it dry and crack and beat it off of your shoes...which isn't always possible in the winter when everything stays permanently wet! I never thought I'd be so excited to have so much grass to mow, but I am! It looks like heaven to me. My kids still play in the empty lot behind our house sometimes, but at least I have grass in the backyard that I can squirt them off on instead of squirting off mud while they're standing in mud! I know this sounds silly, but I was praying that somehow we could get grass in our backyard this year. It's SO expensive to pay for someone to dig out and lay the sprinkler system and then pay for the sod. We thought about trying to rent the equipment to dig out the sprinklers ourselves, but we have no idea what we're doing...there's also the electrical component to think about. Then there's the sod...we don't have any fences, so planting seed was out of the question because weeds would just blow in from the empty lots...it would just weed and seed at the same time. I decided to call a couple of places to see if we could get a better quote. One guy came by and quoted $1,000 less than the other guy. Then he mentioned that I could check out his website, but how horrible it looked because he'd had someone do his website for trade and they did a horrible job. I mentioned that my husband works on websites and maybe we could do a trade. He met with Jason one night and they went over the website and what Jason could do to fix it. The lawn guy was excited about it and we agreed upon a deal...he pretty much did our whole backyard with drip-lines for the garden and laying the sod and everything for less than 1/2 of what he quoted originally...I think it was "at cost" for him for the materials plus they did all the work and laid all the sod! Like I said, I know this sounds a little silly, but I really feel like this was an answer to my prayers...it just really shows me that Heavenly Father is aware of us and our needs...even seemingly silly needs like grass for the backyard. I'm just so grateful to a loving Heavenly Father who is mindful of us and wants to bless us.

Baseball Season!

It's baseball season and all three big boys are playing this year. I'm sure I'll post more pictures as the season goes on, but I just had to post this cute one of Aidan's first T-ball game. He got scared once going up to bat and started to cry. I didn't recognize that it was my kid crying...I was looking around thinking, man where's that kid's mom, he's pretty upset. Then I realized I was that kid's mom! lol In my defense, more than half the team consists of blond hair blue eyed little boys all wearing the same shirt and helmet! But, to make it worse, there are about 3 or 4 other kids on Aidan's team from our ward (Church), so I'm friends with their parents...once I realized that was my kid crying up to bat, I looked around and also noticed a lot of people I know staring at me wondering why I wasn't helping him! lol

Pinewood Derby

In April, Gavin had his first Pinewood Derby in Cub Scouts. We procrastinated making his derby until a few days before the race, so one morning as Jason was leaving for work he asked me to have Gavin draw an outline on the block of wood, and he would help Gavin carve it out when he got home. I was thinking, "huh?!" I don't know anything about how to draw a shape out for a pinewood derby! Plus, they have all these crazy rules of weight and size, etc. So, I google searched for some ideas and printed off a template to cut out a boat shape that Gavin was really excited about. He wanted to paint it like a pirate ship. Jason warned him that it might not be the best shape for speed to win the race, but Gavin said he didn't care so we went ahead with the plan. Gavin painted it except for the lettering on the side which he asked me to do. We were excited for the race until we started hearing about all the crazy, obsessed parents out there! I have since learned that pinewood derby's bring out the worst in some parents! One parent complained that he didn't trust the cub master to hold on to our derby's after they were weighed in because he might cheat for his son! What? We trust him with our kids at scout camp, but we don't trust him with the derbys?! Another parent bought a track and timer for practice races to make sure they got the shape and weight of their derby just right to win! Woah...obsess much? Another parent admitted to staying up until 2 am making his son's derby just right to win...so my question is where is the fun in all this? Where is the great experience and memory making for the boys in this??? But, I'll get off my soap box now!
Here's Owen watching the show...doesn't he just look so cute in those little overalls...I'm obsessed with baby overalls...so CUTE!

 

Watching Gavin's race...

 

Gavin's car took second on this race...

 

Gavin holding up his driver's license...the leaders did a great job to make it fun for the boys.

Gavin's car ended up taking 3rd place overall with the Wolf Pack. He was SO excited! And, we were so excited for him. I was secretly glad that some of the parents who had made such a fuss over having a winning car didn't even place. I know...mean of me, but the obsession must end so it can be fun for the boys! Oh wait...I said I'd get off that soap box! lol

Gavin likes to show his excitement with rock-on signs or other crazy dance moves...such a funny kid!

Skate Park

This is a skate park just around the corner from our house. Gavin, Connor & Aidan all love it! Connor is by far the biggest dare devil of them all. He loves to go off of the biggest jumps and get the biggest thrills...I'm a little scared for what's down the road for us with this kid's crazy joy of 4-wheelers, dirt bikes and skate parks! lol  He begs us to save up for a 4-wheeler some day...we tell him that he can ride Grandpa's whenever we visit him, and Uncle Travis has dirt bikes so he's set!  I know...we're mean...lol

Owen Likes to Get Messy :)

Time to JUMP!

If there's one thing my boys love about Grandma and Grandpa's house it's the trampoline! And, if there's one thing I love, it's that they get all their wiggles out so they can calm down later on in the day and go to sleep on time ;) It's the little things in life :)

My Boys

Gavin and Connor really are good friends, and I love it. I love when I catch them being kind to one another and giving each other hugs...hopefully they won't be completely mortified someday when they look back and see these pictures of themselves!

As soon as I snapped this picture they were back to their usual crazy, silly selves! I love them :)

Bath Time!

I decided to get some cute snapshots of Owen while he enjoyed his bath. He loves baths like most babies do. I just can't get enough of his cute face! :)

Meanwhile, I was paying more attention to trying new settings on my camera than I was on the baby, so I didn't see what he was checking out and getting ready to grab...those with OCD LOOK AWAY...it grosses me out just to see these pictures!

Yep...it took me a minute to realize what he'd grabbed and PUT IN THE BATH WITH HIM! YUCK! I had to clean him from his bath! lol

Owen's First Haircut

I'm a little behind on my blog...as usual! But, Owen had his first haircut in March. He didn't really like it so I had to be quick...I started out with the scissors, but ended up just buzzing it the best that I could with the clippers to get the job done. It might not look like that big of a difference in the pictures, but it looked much more neat and trim when I was done...no more hair piling over the sides of his ears or mullet in the back! lol

Here are a couple of before shots...hair sticking over the ears...

And the after shots...nice and neat and trim...I think I sound a little obsessed, but my boys all have really straight hair...nothing that curls around, so it never looks good longer (in my opinion).

Owen

Owen playing in his big brother's room.