Party

This weekend the kids were invited to a birthday party. They had fun playing with the other kids.
The kids decorated picture frames for one of the activties. Brooklyn put all of the stickers on her frame, and then took them all off.
Ethan was very excited to put firetrucks, airplanes, cars, boats, and other stickers on his picture frame.

The birthday boy (Thomas) had a cool monster truck cake.

The kids have been excited about our garden this year. Ethan's favorite so far is the parsley. He and Brooklyn will go in the back yard and pick it and eat it. Brooklyn has been loving to nibble the tops off of the green onions - while they're still in the ground! Jen was having her help carry things in the other day, and she ate one of the freshly picked radishes - dirt and all! She'll also peels the paper part off of onions in the kitchen and tries to eat the raw onion. We sure have to keep an eye on her and what she eats!

Bargain Hunters

As the weather has gotten warmer, our weekly tradition of seeking out yard sales has started back up. The kids get excited when we tell them, "Tomorrow we're going to some yard sales!" This year they have had good reason for their excitement; we've found some really fun stuff for them for some really great prices. Just last week we found this Power Wheels Jeep, and it only cost us...

$3.00

Ethan had been begging to get a scooter, but with all the other toys, Brooklyn has been the one getting really good at riding it. And it only cost us...

$2.00

We've been hoping to find a bike for Ethan to ride. We got this one at our community yard sale yesterday, and he's already spent countless hours riding back and forth between our driveway and the neighbor's (and he's very good at staying within these boundaries we've set for him). The bike, including training wheels only cost us...

$5.00

A few years back, we got a Little Tikes "cozy coupe" (the red and yellow Flintstone style car) that both kids love to drive. When we saw this mini van, we just had to grab it so they could each have a car to drive. Ethan's favorite thing about this one is that it has a "trunk" that he can store his toys in while he drives. Brooklyn's favorite thing about it is that she can use the trunk as a back seat that she uses to hitch a ride with Ethan. And it only cost us...

$5.00

We feel like our kids are already getting really spoiled this year, but for a grand total of $15.00 we can't help ourselves.

And now for something completely different:

The other day, Ethan went poop in the toilet just after a lunchtime quesadilla. When he was done, instead of yelling his standard, "Mom, I went poo-poo," signaling to us that he needs help wiping, he yelled out, "I see a big poop and some little ball poops. I think the big one was my tortilla, and the little ones were the cheese!"

Happy Mother's Day!

We had a lovely Mother's Day at home this year. Ethan sang with the Primary during Sacrament meeting. Brooklyn wanted to go up and sing with the kids really badly, too. Ethan was a little more reverent this time.

The kids colored some cute pictures for me. Ethan colored some pictures of things he liked to do with me. He drew a picture of the park with a rainbow and a soccer ball and a picture of dumb bells since he likes to go to aerobics class with me. Kyle also traced their cute little hands.

Brooklyn's Mother's Day picture:

Brooklyn's two-year-old hands.

Ethan's four-year-old hands.

Going to the park with Mom makes Ethan happy.

Kyle grilled some yummy mango pork chops for dinner with some yummy sides. We also enjoyed some chocolate fondue.

Last weekend we went to Logan to attend Owen's baby blessing. It was fun to get together with family. Grandma Taylor had an Easter Egg hunt for all the grandkids. Brooklyn was a bit grumpy at first, but had a good time once they started picking up eggs.

When we arrived at Grandma Morrey's house, Brooklyn was interested in finding Grandpa. She saw his horses and announced, "Want to be Jessie and ride Bullseye!" She got to have several opportunities with the horses during our visit. One of the days Grandpa Morrey took the kids to ride the horses. Ethan did a really good job riding Maximus all by himself. Kyle led the horse around the arena, and Ethan didn't need any help. Brooklyn rode by herself for a few yards, but got scared and only agreed to ride if Grandpa was on Bullseye with her.
Back at Grandma and Grandpa Morrey's house, Brooklyn had fun feeding the horses.
Tonight I was explaining to Ethan that someday I might have another baby in my tummy. Immediately after saying this he replied, "One day I will have a hot dog in my tummy." He caught us off guard with that one.

A few months ago, Ethan colored this picture in his Sunbeam class. It's a picture of the world. We thought it was funny that he put our house in Africa.

I'm not an Easter kid!

This morning, Jen welcomed the kids with a hearty "Happy Easter, kids!" Brooklyn responded, "I'm not an Easter kid! I'm Brooklyn!" Lately she hasn't liked us to call her anything except "Brooklyn." We'll say, "You're _________ (cute, sweet, silly, etc)," and she'll always correct us by saying, "No, I'm Brooklyn."

One of our favorite Easter traditions is making chocolate covered marshmallow eggs. This year, we also discovered how yummy it is to dip the marshmallow in toasted coconut and then dip it in chocolate.
This weekend, we took the kids to Discovery Gateway in Salt Lake. We took them two years ago, and they sure liked it more this time. Last time, Ethan got overwhelmed with all of the other kids and lay down on the floor, hoping no one would see him. This time the kids could have been there all day.

Ethan took Brooklyn and Mom on a drive to Grandma's house.

On the way to Grandma's house, the kids stopped at the grocery store.

This was taken as air was blowing in her face. Ethan loved sitting in the Life Flight helicopter on the roof.

Brooklyn had fun in the helicopter, but had as much fun crawling underneath.

They thought it was fun being on TV.

Yesterday was the Easter Egg hunt. The kids both did really well gathering up their eggs. We helped them get ready by practicing picking up eggs around the house all week long. They were really excited and had a great time (even though we didn't win any bikes this year - maybe next year).

This year was the first year we dyed Easter Eggs with the kids. They had a lot of fun.

Today at church, Ethan sang with the Primary in Sacrament meeting. He did a great job learning the song. It looked like he sang the first verse pretty well. As the song progressed, he must of started to get bored. He started making funny faces, then got tired of standing and knelt down, after which he sat down, and finally ended up in the "downward-facing dog" yoga position. His primary teacher was sitting behind us chuckling. We're already looking forward to his Mother's Day performance.

We had him reenact his positions tonight:

"Curious George gives me a headache!"

We've been pretty busy the last few weekends. Kyle went skiing one last time last weekend with his dad and brother, John. The ski resort had 14 inches of fresh snow, and it was a lot of fun. (Yes, that's John laying down on the ground after he fell down ;)

Unable to work in the yard due to inclement weather, we spontaneously decided to re-paint the craft room. It's always had an ugly pale pink paint job that looked very touched up. Since almost every light switch in the basement is about half a foot too high on the wall, we thought this would be a good time to move the craft room switch down about five inches to a more reasonable position. Needless to say, we didn't get our second coat of paint on this weekend like we hoped. While the craft room is being renovated, the computer we use to edit our photos and blog on is out of commission, so until things get set back up again we won't have many pictures to share.

This weekend to take advantage of the beautiful weather, we started the very large task of staining our fence. It took Kyle and I both about four hours of working straight to get about a quarter of it done. It's neat to see how much better it looks so far.

Ever since we moved to Salt Lake (around the time Ethan was born four years ago), we've made due with only one car. Kyle would carpool to work and let Jen have some freedom a few days a week. It was time to get ourselves a new vehicle, and decided to get a minivan since they're so stinkin' awesome. (Disclaimer: Jen is NOT pregnant). Ethan's been excited about the idea for months simply because Andy on Toy Story has a minivan. After we made the purchase, he excitedly exclaimed, "Now I can act out Toy Story 1!"

During the negotaition process, Jen took Ethan to the bathroom. After they got back (and Jen left again to change Brooklyn's poopy diaper), Ethan proclaimed, "Mom says we're probably going to buy the van!"

We're looking forward to some fun family trips this summer, and for years to come.

Ethan still refuses to watch Curious George - he used to watch it nearly every day, but late last year he decided Curious George was a "monster" and would run out of the room screaming if he got any hint of Curious George coming on TV. We think we're making progress toward getting this resolved - He no longer calls George a monster, now he just says that Curious George gives him a headache. Sigh.

Birthday Boy

Last Wednsday was Kyle's 30th birthday. Jen surprised Kyle with the Lego Harry Potter PS3 game, a recipricating saw, and a couple of Frog and Toad books to complete our collection. Kyle loved these books as a wee li'l tot, and loves to read them with our kids now.

We went to Benihana for Kyle's birthday, and it was a fun experience. We had never been there before, and didn't realize how talented their chefs are. Thanks, Becky, for watching the kids for us. Kyle's special birthday (he's 30 now) required a special cake. If you want the recipe, you can find it on Jen's recipe blog, http://eatdrinkandbemorrey.blogspot.com/.

We've started a tradition where we do Kyle's birthday candles in binary. If you look closely, there are four lit candles and one that's not lit (11110 = 30).

Earlier in the week, we made creme brulee for the first time. It turned out really good. Since we don't have a butane torch, we broiled them to caramelize the sugar on top.

On Friday, we looked out the window and what did we see? Popcorn popping on our apricot tree! Spring had brought us such a nice surprise. Bees! We didn't think they'd be out this early to pollinate our tree. Hopefully all the snow we had on the tree this morning doesn't kill those poor little apricot zygotes.