I'm ready....

For Spring! and Summer too. I'm ready for it to be warm and sunny more often than cold and rainy. Friday and Saturday this week were nice and kind of warm outside. It was supposed to get to almost 70 yesterday. So we spend much of the last 2 days outside. We went to park both days and on trail by the park yesterday too. It was so nice to be outside and not be freezing.

Jack riding the motorcycle.

Jordan

Mackenzie enjoying the outdoors too.

Jack

Jack and Kenzie

Kenzie, Jack, and Jordan.

This was on our little nature walk...

We had a picnic at the park.

Doug and Kenzie. (Isn't Kenzie's outfit so cute? I love it... and she has a little bracelet. It's hard to see in the picture, but it's there.)

Jack on the slide ready to go down.

Jack on slide, going down.

Party Time

We had Jordan's birthday last Wednesday night, on St. Patrick's Day. It was a fun party. I spent most of the day getting ready for it. I always seem to spend so much of a day to get ready for a birthday party. And usually I'm still not completely ready by the time the party starts. But this time I was. It probably helped that my house was already pretty clean that day... Here's the pictures...

Inspired by my sister in law who had been blogging about the great cakes she's been making, I decided to try to make a 2 layer round cake. After baking both the cakes they looked like the above picture. Lopsided. I don't know why, but my cakes always turn out like that. I think my oven must be crooked. What else could it be? To fix the problem I thought I should just put the two lopsided sides together and it would fix the problem. It seemed like a great idea, but it just ended up breaking one of the halves. So I had to flip one side up side down and then the whole cake and used a lot of frosting to glue it all together and it turned out like this:

I like how it turned out. It's no perfect or professional looking, but I thought it was a cute cake... And that it tasted good, which is what's most important right?

The birthday boy. I've wanted to buy a birthday shirt for awhile, so this year I finally did. I think it's cute. But I"m not sure if it's really worth it. I spent $7.20 (I think...) and he'll wear it once. I could have Jack wear it for his birthday, but I think I'd feel bad having him wear Jordan's hand me downs on his birthday... (His shirt is wet from playing in the water, one of his favorite things to do.)

Jack loved wearing the birthday hats. He was so excited for Jordan's party. When I found the decorations he jumped for joy. Then he kept telling me to not use all the streamers so we could save some for his birthday. For the next couple days he asked if it was his birthday yet.

Kenzie in her St. Patrick's Day clothes.

Ready to open presents.

Opening presents...

With his cake. Isn't he so cute?

Blowing out the candles. He was pretty funny. After not blowing them out the first few blows he just kept blowing really fast until they went out.

Easting cake... (I have no idea what Sam was doing...)

In his new birthday jammies. I love them. I think he looks so cute in them.

Last night Jordan and I went to Cold Stone to get his free birthday ice cream. It was really full inside probably because it was a nice day yesterday. So instead of just standing around waiting for a table, we went outside to sit at the 1 outside table. I figured since it was a nice day, it wouldn't be cold. But I was wrong. It was very cold. But he wanted to sit and eat his ice cream, so we did, until he finally decided that it was too cold and we could go home. (You too can get free ice cream from cold stone for your birthday. You just have to sign up on coldstone.com. And sign up all your kids. You don't have to tell them about it if you want their ice cream too... :))

Look what Doug dug up...

A carrot! From out back yard. I thought one was growing and so Doug pulled it out. It's pretty big.

But also looks pretty gross. Even after washing it. It looks like it rotted at the bottom half of it. We'll see if any of it is edible.

We also found a frog in one of our pots.The kids were excited by the little guy.

Birthday Boy

It was Jordan's 2nd birthday on Saturday while we were in Utah. He's some pictures of him on his special day:

Jordan and Anna. It was Anna's birthday that day too.

Dressed for the funeral.

Changing clothes in my sister's hotel room.

Giving daddy kisses at Sconecutter.

With mommy in the snow.

Wearing Cousin Kenna's hat.

Ready to start the long drive home.

Here's some info about Jordan:

He's usually really happy. But he doesn't like to be told no and is very persistent. If you say no, he usually will keep asking, usually saying "please." It makes it hard to keep saying no...

He likes to do whatever Jack does. Really, almost everything Jack does, Jordan wants to do too. Especially if it's something that they're not supposed to do.

He's been more interested in Mackenzie lately. He usually is happy to see her and says hi without me telling him to say hi. He'll usually say "hi Kenzie-girl." It's cute. That's what we all call her.

He likes to eat. When he's hungry he has meltdowns. He like couscous a lot these days. He also likes sandwiches, waffles, cereal, and most anything. Except vegetables. I don't know if he's ever taken more than a bite of most the kinds we've given him.

He loves playing outside. But he doesn't really like to play out there by himself. He usually will just play for a second then run to the door and try to open it and then close it again, unless someone is out there with him. Then he just plays.

He's becoming more independent. He likes to try to get dressed by himself. If anyone does something for him that he wants to do he gets really upset.

He likes kisses whenever he gets hurt or sad.

He usually only takes 2 hour naps now. Jack took 3 hour ones pretty much until he was done taking them.

He says sorry when he hurts someone, then gives them a kiss to make it better.

When Doug or I leave he sometimes says (like Jack) "be safe, don't crash." It's pretty cute. (I don't know why Jack started saying this...)

He can kind of spell his name. Jackson loves spelling people's names, so Jordan's heard it enough that he can kind of do it. He says "J-0-r-d-a-n" then ads a few more letters.

I guess that's enough for now.... Here's a cute movie of Jordan's birthday dance that he made up himself...

Utah Trip

We went to Utah last Wednesday to Sunday for my grandpa's funeral. The funeral was on Saturday. It was a good funeral. Sad, but good. The speakers did a good job talking about grandpa. My grandma seemed like she's doing good. It was hard to see her without grandpa. I don't have any pictures of the funeral, because I wasn't sure if it's ok to take pictures at funeral, and I was trying to keep my uncooperative children quiet and respectful. But here are some pictures from the rest of the trip.

When we got to Utah on Thursday afternoon we went to my aunt's house to meet up with my dad's side of the family. This is my grandpa Riding with Mackenzie. He held her for probably about an hour. She was so happy with him and he loved holding her.

We stayed with Doug's sister Candis and her family. This is Isaac holding a bunch of pine cones at the park. It was really nice weather on Friday.

This is Eva. She's 3 months older than Kenzie. I think this is a funny picture of her. It makes me smile when I look at it. :)

This is Anna standing on a pool thing at the park.

Jack swinging.

Jack and Jordan

Jordan and Jack ready for the funeral.

After the funeral we went to Sconecutter for lunch. I love Sconecutter. We went twice while we were there.

Kenna wanted me to take her picture.

Happy Mackenzie.

That night we had dinner at a church in Salt Lake provided by one of my cousins. It was fun to hang out with the family. This is grandma and Jackson.
Grandma with my parents, sisters and their families, and Doug and I and the kids.

Grandma with all the grandkids that came to the funeral.

Jackson wanted to take this flower with him. He pulled all the petals off pretty quickly after we started driving home. That day it snowed kind of a lot in Salt Lake. So when we were driving home we had to drive in snow for awhile, then it was clear for awhile, then there was snow on the ground and blowing around, and later there was a little dust storm we went through, and it was really windy for awhile. And all this in the dark. It was an exciting first half of the drive. :)

Snow

It snowed here last week. Just for about 20 minutes or so. Probably less. Jackson was excited though and put on his coat and shoes so he could go outside. He told me he loves winter, but he loves spring too. It was Jordan's first time out in the snow. He didn't seem that into it. Here's some picture of them out in it. Even though you can't actually see the snow in the pictures, it really was snowing.

Grandpa Carlson

Last Wednesday my Grandpa Carlson passed away. He was a great man. I just
wanted to share some of my memories and thoughts about him.

When I was little he used to take the grandkids to the park. I remember him pushing us on a big blue swing.

He also used to take us fishing. I loved fishing with him. I looked forward to it each time we visited him and grandma in the summer. I was always happy that he took care of the fish after they were caught. I thought (and still think) that fish are gross and didn't want to touch them. But fishing was fun.

He used to give the grandkids horsey rides too. We would sit on his knee and bounce us while saying "this is the way the ladies ride..." then the gentlemen, then the cowboys and each time he would bounce us a little more. Doug and I lived across from grandma and grandpa for almost a year and a half. Jackson was there for about a year of the time. He loved the horsey ride. He would smile and laugh.

Grandpa was always working too. He seemed to love working outside on their Condo Associations grounds. He always seemed ready to help out the neighbors. He also helped out in the house a lot. He loved things to be clean and organized and didn't mind helping to make it that way. I think for a long time he was the one that would get down and scrub their tile floors. He also did the dishes when he and grandma had the cousins that were in Utah over for Monday night dinner.

He was also a great spiritual example. I remember seeing him read the scriptures and talking about the gospel a lot. When we lived across the street from them, we were in their ward. Grandpa always seemed to be listening, even with the distraction of a cute baby (Jackson) around.

I also remember going camping with grandma and grandpa. He would teach us silly camp songs and was always having so much fun singing them.

I'm so grateful to know that families are eternal. I'm so happy that I know that I can see my grandpa again. The plan of salvation is a great plan! And I'm thankful to my Savior for making it all possible.

Here's some pictures of grandpa...

Alli, Jackson, and grandpa enjoying a popcycle.

Jackson and grandpa. Grandpa was happy around family. It obvious he loved being around us all.

Jack loving the horsey ride.

My aunts Sue and Nancy, uncle Rob, my mom, and grandma and grandpa.

This is how I think of grandpa. Happy with a huge smile.

at my baptism

Grandpa and Grandma and my cousins Laura and Danny, and me.

Grandma and Gandpa held hand a lot. I think it's cute how they did so much. I hope when Doug and I have been married as long as they were that we're just as happy and in love as them.