MILK{carton} DUDS

Our friends Jen and Kristy invited us over today to celebrate earth day...and to use recycled materials to have a milk carton car race...The pictures made me laugh and I couldn't help but post them, but cruise over to Jen's blog for the tale...

really...our cars were duds...but we had fun making them!

Swingers

Annalena {batgirl} and Darla came over to play for a little while today. They were so cute playing hide and go seek, tag and SWINGING...Max and Darla could not get enough of this...

Annalena and Ivy were laughing at them, too. We love those girls!

We have a new Cousin!

My brother and his wife just had their baby...and the first BOY Ellsworth! YeeHaw!

Little Carson B. was born on April 14 and weighed 9 lbs 4 oz...and she didn't have an epidural. {cuh-razy!} I don't know when I'll get to see him for real, but I got to see him on skype yesterday, and he is YUMMY!

Congrats, Chad, Katie, Sydney and Samantha! We love him!

random pieces of April

Ivy's new trick is climbing up and standing on chairs...grrr. she can't get down!

We went to a birthday party where Capt. Jack Sparrow was invited...and the scary Davy Jones guy was there, too...ummm, awesome!

Ivy didn't enjoy Jack so much...

This doesn't happen very often...both kids sitting at once...I had to take a picture.

and...Ivy might be a tomboy. Stay tuned for the next couple of years to find out. She LOVES to get dirty.

Davy, Davy Crockett,

King of the wild ump-tier {that's how Max sings it}

My friend Kastell called and told me that there was this log cabin playhouse sitting on her street with "freeeee" signs all over it. Well, we snatched it up and Max has been in HeAvEn ever since.

So, he told us he changed his name to Davy Crockett...and that's what we have to call him...And we are constantly invited into his Davy Crockett house. So cute.

So with his new obsession and his new name, Mar Mar sent him a little bit of Davy...a REAL coonskin cap! and now he won't take that hat off...

love it!

If You Give a MOUSsEr a Cookie

Today, we made cookies...

I know, can you believe that I let her have one? the sweet -nazi-mom?

...and if you give a Mousser a cookie,

one of them may ask for a cucumber instead...(what's with this kid? trades a birthday cake for a carrot stick, and a cookie for a cucumber? ha!)

Then they're going to ask for a glass of milk. When you give them the milk,

They'll probably ask you for a straw. When they're finished they'll ask for a napkin.

Then they'll want to look in a mirror to make sure they don't have a milk mustache. When they look in the mirror, they might notice that their hair needs a trim. So they'll probably ask for a pair of kids scissors.

When they're finished giving themselves a trim, they'll want a vacuum to sweep up.

They'll start 'sweeping'. They might get carried away and sweep every room in the house. They may even end up washing the floors as well! (or mom might swiffer real fast while they vacuum).

When they're done, they'll probably want to take a nap. You'll have to fix up a little box for them with a blanket and a pillow (or the ottomon would suffice). They'll crawl in, make themselves comfortable and fluff the pillow a few times.

They'll probably ask you to read them a story. So you'll read to them from one of your books, and they'll ask to see the pictures.

When they look at the pictures, they'll get so excited they'll want to draw one of their own. They'll ask for paper and markers.

They'll draw a picture. When the picture is finished, they'll want to sign they're names. With a pen.

Then they'll want to hang their pictures on your refrigerator. Which means they'll need...Scotch tape.

They'll hang up their drawings and stand back to look at them. Looking at the refrigerator will remind them that they're thirsty. So...

They'll ask for a glass of milk. And chances are, if they ask you for a glass of milk,

they're going to want a cookie to go with it.

We had a fun day in the life of a MOUSsEr.

hee hee

Ivy's 1 year pics

Oh my...my favorite little girlie, I just have to decide which to hang up...any suggestions from the peanut gallery would be awesome!

Have Kim take your pictures! She's awesome...always!

Club Ed strikes again!

I really need Dad to send me some pics...these were from my cell phone, which amazingly worked for 85% of the time!

I dropped my kids off with Jeff's Mom, Cheryl (ummm, they also had their cousins Julie and Lexi over and I think they had an amazing time, and probably would have preferred that I didn't come back so soon) and my Dad and I drove up to the Grand Canyon.

We spent the night on Friday night at a hotel, then woke up in the morning at started hiking. We went with a pack of maybe 25 people that my friend Ed puts together every year to hike. We LOVE Ed! He's hilarious! This is my second time hiking the GC with 'Club Ed' and it's always awesome! I was particularly excited to have my Dad with me this time, as I grew up hiking with my dad on so many trails, I can't even begin to name them all.

here's my dorky self saying hi to my kids at the top of the trail. It was FREEZING at the top! We started at 7:30AM

We hiked the South Kaibab trail down...it was a little over 6 miles down to the Colorado River at the bottom of the Canyon. I saw NO scorpions {last time, we saw soo many} and I was annoyed with going down when I got to the bottom...and my legs were tired...ha ha, not a good sign! There was a sign on the way down the trail that said "Getting to the Bottom: optional, Getting to the top: Mandatory." Made me laugh. Anyways, the views were obviously 'grand' It is so beautiful in the Canyon, you can't even believe it: way better than the view from the top looking down, and way better than the view from the bottom looking up.

Anyway, we made it to the bottom at about 10:30AM, I think. We ate lunch and fiddled around for a half an hour waiting to see anyone from our group, then started hiking the Bright Angel Trail on the route back up at about 11AM The Bright Angel is 9 something miles. This is Dad and me at the bottom. Note his classic white Derbish...love it!

Anyway, it was about 55 degrees at the bottom, so nice for the hike back up which was fabulous until we had about 3 miles to go. I could just look up and see about 2 football fields of canyon stacked on top of each other and knew that we had to get all the way up there...and it never seemed to shrink. sigh. I guess I'm getting old, yikes: my bones were aching!

I loved it, I'd love to do it again...but I actually prefer a mountain...really, I'd rather get the hard part out of the way (going up) at the start, and finish with the down hill than to save the killer part for last. Regardless, I can't wait for next time!

Loved it Dad, thanks for coming down to do it with me!!!

Another Trip to AZ

Our trip to Arizona went so fast, especially with the GC sandwiched in in the middle. But we had such an amazing time, and got to see lots of very important people! With 4 cameras, I don't know where some pictures are, and I know I have more than this, but here's what I have. {dad, send me the hiking pictures!}

Mar Mar {my cute mom}drove with us from HB to AZ...thanks SOOO much! We picked up Boo Boo {my Grandma} on the way...and then made sure that we took a 4 generation picture...

We haven't seen my parents for a year, so we went to the park with them and just had Mar Mar and Paw Paw time...My kids adore them!

My dad is so awesome with all of his grandkids (so is Mar Mar) it's so fun to watch them play with them, and wonder if that's how they were with me when I was little. I was sure lucky!

our little mini-mar-mar was enamored with her MarMar...it was so cute to watch her cuddle her any chance she got.

we also got to go see Jeff's mom's sister, Auntie La...she had never met Ivy, so that was fun to do for just 2 minutes...

{auntie La, Ives, Cheryl}

Then Dad left, Cheryl left, Mar Mar left, Dean was at work, and spent a whole day with our friends...we played with Shirley in the morning, and then the cute Cole family for the whole rest of the day. We miss our friends so much!

We got to see all the AZ Moussers (minus 1) for Easter dinner and egg hunt, watched conference {I actually listened to a few talks!} and played with Grandma and Grandpa and our cousins!

when do we get to come back?