Mommy-Type Stuff: February-April

With a very curious and active baby, my time lately is spent chasing her around as she quickly crawls from one intriguing object on the ground to the next. She sticks anything and everything in her mouth. Babies are hard work! But oh so worth it. Her smiles just make my day. I love her smile. Lately when she is "dancing" she bounces her bum up and down as she sits with that big smile of hers on her face. She loves it on the couch especially because it's more bouncy. When she is standing next to the couch she'll shake her cute little booty to the music as she bounces her knees to the song.

With the great weather we've been having the boys have been playing in the yard a lot. She will crawl over and just stand at the screen door watching and laughing at the boys. The boys love to run up and smile and call out to her through the screen door. Her given name is seldom used by the boys anymore. "Babooshka" and "Bubba" are their nicknames of choice. It makes me laugh that they call her those name. We don't know where in the world Chico got the name babooshka from considering it is a russian doll but can also be used as a term of endearment. I cannot believe the amount of love these boys have for their sister. It is just amazing to me, it started from the moment she was born actually from even before she was born. I'm so grateful for the bond that they have with each other.

We've now made it through yet another semester. It was a tough one yet again but I did have Brent around more which was really nice.

Brent was watching the kids while I was out on a photo shoot. When I met up with them at the park afterwords I of course had the camera with me and the light was really nice so we just took pictures while the kids played.

Brent is one year older and wiser too! On his birthday we went skiing and then came home and we weren't going to have a party or anything, we were going to just have homemade gyros and peanut butter bars. Brent's mom was going to stop by and bring him a present and found out he didn't have a birthday cake and they decided to buy him one. So Simon picked up a Tres Leches cake from Rancho Market and brought it by. Boy oh boy was it good!!! Sanna looks thrilled at this cake being presented to her. Oh is this for ME?!

It was such a good cake! I'll have to try to make one of those on my own someday.

The boys hair is getting so long that I jokingly said I could put a pony tail in it. They let me and laughed their heads off about it.

Then they went outside and must had needed to prove their manliness because they caked themselves in mud...

Sanna trying to eat a rock

I look back at this plethora of pictures that go clear back to February and feel grateful for my camera phone that helps me take snapshots to help me remember what I've been up to these last few months. The amount of pictures I took with my good camera is quite pitiful comparatively. Oh if only my Canon 5D fit in my pocket. :) But alas it does not so please do not judge this photographer mommy on her cell phone pics.

Or neighbor gave us some sweet Jazz tickets so we left Sanna with a babysitter and took the boys.

They liked the game and all but they LOVED the short ride on Trax that we took after the game. You woulda thought they had died and gone to heaven!

I love seeing little moments like this when they are showing affection to each other.

Good weather = Park Time!!!

What good is a box unless it is to be played in?

I love his little chipmunk smile in this one.

It was a sunny cold day at the park and I got Sanna to sleep all bundled up.

I'll type more about this on another blog post but my heart was so full of gratitude for art being back in my life that I had to take a picture of it.

A much needed date night to the symphony with my hubby.

Chico showing off his new reading skills to his Grandma.

Skiing with the boys, showing them the new trail we wanted to take them on.

Brent and Chico stayed out a little longer than Griz wanted to so I took some pics of them in the car while we waited.

Griz is always making us laugh. Love his craziness.

I needed to get some art supplies at Michaels and man those carts aren't easy with the car seats so I thought I'd put her in the seat on the cart instead. She did totally fine! My little lady is growing up so fast!

We decided to visit Temple Square on a Sunday afternoon. Chico was in the mood to draw so we let him bring his notebook and told him to draw as we walked around Temple Square. It was so cute to see him stop and draw things that interested him.

Yes his shoes were in the water. Good thing it was the end of our walk.

Another park day... another new achievement. She likes sitting in the baby swings now!

Pulling herself up to the furniture to say hi to mommy while she crawls around the room.

Powder skiing!!! We were lucky and got to go on a gorgeous day. We did a lot of skiing off piste. Woo boy it was hard but oh so fun!

Brent taking a break for my sake. He's an animal but I on the other hand can only do a couple turns in the powder before I either fall or need to stop to breathe.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the view from the top of Mineral Basin. This picture from my phone doesn't even begin to do it justice.

That's right, this sign was up and yes I was up there tearing it up on Double Black Diamonds. I can't believe it! I just had to get a picture next to it! (just f.y.i I don't actually consider myself an expert but I can make it through almost any situation, slowly but I can do it!)

Sanna just loves that baby in the mirror. She's always giving her kisses and smiles.

She thinks she's just one of the kids now, always trying to play with the boys.

The kid's cousin's cat had kittens! Sanna was so cute kneeling next to the box looking at them.

Grandma reading a story to the kids. Sanna is surprisingly calm at this moment. Usually reading books to her is near impossible. She wants to eat the pages too badly.

My sister invited me to come to conference with her and boy was I glad I went. I got SO much more out of it than I ever would have at home with my kids distracting me.

Later that day I came back up to Temple Square to walk around with Brent to celebrate our 7th anniversary.

Earlier that day the boys and I had made an anniversary cake that we would eat that night. I cut a piece for all of us and then after we ate it we all got distracted doing different things throughout the house for just like a couple minutes. I walked back into the kitchen and found our cake like this. Yes Griz decided to do a cake smash with our anniversary cake, lol. He just loves the frosting and could care less about the cake. I was talking to him about it and he was like, "Just put more frosting on it!" Simple solution!

My kids are getting old. It still blows my mind.

Chico did a chore at Grandma's and earned a dollar which he immediately wanted to spend on a new toy. He chose this monkey. As you can see he loves it.

Griz's turn for a pic. :)

Notice Chico in the background standing at my desk. This is the position he has been standing at a lot lately (perhaps yet another reason I haven't been spending much time at the computer) He likes to look up pictures on google images (with my help of course and the filter on) and then sit and draw the pictures he finds. He is especially fond of using the step by step tutorials. It's really quite awesome and I may be biased but I think his art is really getting quite good!

Chico has been falling in love with the scriptures lately thanks to Brent being around more to be able to read to him at night. It's been such a sweet bonding experience for them. Brent climbs into Chico's bed and reads him the scriptures in a way that Chico understands. He eats up every word and listens so intently. This picture below was Chico's idea. "Take a picture of me with the scriptures!"

Constantly exploring and standing on those legs of hers.

Brent really wanted us to see how beautiful the trees on the U of U campus looked this spring. So early Sunday morning we pulled the kids out of bed and went on a really nice walk around a part of campus. The boys had fun playing on the stairs and jumping off of ledges.

Sometimes it's just fun to take random pictures and Grizwald agrees. He took this picture of Sanna and me from across the room.

Maybe, just maybe our kids will learn how to ride bikes this year. Our neighbor is attempting to teach Chico. He's either not interested or the bike is too small. Griz rode the bike actually pretty well so I think it's a size issue for Chico.

I randomly took the kids on a hike one afternoon. The boys were such great little hikers. Once we got up high enough to look out over the city Chico exclaimed, "Woah! You can see the whole world from up here!" Then he pointed at Antelope Island and asked, "Is that Alaska over there!?"

When we were walking through the area that was burned in a fire a couple years ago Chico said, "It feels like we're walking through a graveyard."

Here are my little troopers at the end of the hike when we were back on the road. We didnt make it quite as far as we could have because a storm was blowing in but I was impressed how well and fast they kept up when we were on the trail. They actually hike better on the trail than on regular

Chico loves this shirt of mine. It's his now, he's totally taken it over. He loves how soft it is I guess.

My parent's had an easter party which they took pics at. I loaded these pictures from their camera. Chico was in a very good mood to have his picture taken in! How nice!

Whilst Grizwald was turning into the Hulk. Love this guy.

The Easter Bunny

Sanna is always getting into trouble when she try to crawl into places she doesn't belong.... She started crying pretty hard after we took this pic because she was totally stuck.