Applenana

Henry's new favorite snack... he discovered these while Vatti was visiting and now demands that we buy them every time that we go to the grocery store. When we try and get him to say 'banana' he just smiles and says 'applenana.'

Rain boots go with everything.

No more complaints from me about my boys not wanting to be more involved in what they wear. :-) How could anyone not want to wear these fabulous, easy to put on and fully waterproof shoes everyday possible.

Salt Lake Half- Marathon 2009

Today, Heidi finished her first Half-Marathon. In a few days we may hear whether she is ever interested in doing another one. But she was a trooper and didn't seem too annoyed with my endless coaching to help her get to the end. She did a great job, and we had a lot of fun. We did more running than walking, and her goal was just to be able to finish and not pass out. Yea!

This picture just cracked me up. It looks like I am yelling or something, but I wasn't, so not sure why my mouth is open.

Pretty sure this is where I was just being annoying trying to cheer Heidi to the end.

What a great cheering squad we had. And what great husbands who hauled all these kids around to see us, and didn't even lose one of them. ;-) (Henry of course, refused to be photographed, but he did come too and cheered a lot.)

Finally some Sun.

Today, we finally got some much needed and longed-for sunshine. We weren't sure most of the morning if it would actually come, but we headed out to at least enjoy the drier conditions.

First we took a trip to the zoo.

Stretch Rachel! You can do it.

Then we came home to play, play, play and express ourselves on the sidewalk. It was loads of fun.

We certainly used up some energy today... finally, the kids will all sleep well, and hopefully their parents will too. Tomorrow the moms run, and the dads have the tougher job was taking care of all the kids until after the race. We'll see who has a harder time. ;-)

More Cousins- Awesome!

Last week Gavin told his friend Lexi that he had different cousins coming to visit him. Lexi said, "Wow Gavin. How many cousins do you have?" and his reply was, "I don't know, Sooo many of them. Like 110, I think." Since 110 seems to be the biggest number in their world right now, Lexi was pretty impressed. 

While we don't have quite that many cousins, we did have 4 more of them come and visit this week, and we have been having lots of crazy fun.

Everyone is even smiling... that must be because it hadn't started raining yet. 

(yes, I know Henry is sitting in the flower bed and that it is against the rules, but what can I do. He is both looking and the camera and smiling, so I hope we can be forgiven for it.)

Sara, Joshua, Hannah, Gavin, Rachel, Henry

These visitors even have parents to join them. My wonderful sister, Heidi, looking beautiful. Mark was pushing the stroller in the background of this one. He has been a good sport to chase the kids a lot, and even watched them all for us to go shopping while Caleb was still at work. What a guy!

Hopefully these warmer signs of spring will join us again at the end of the week, especially in time for the race on Saturday. Though Heidi was a real trooper when we went running in the rain this morning.

Happy Easter

We had a happy Easter and mostly great Sunday. We had no traditional food, a stop from the Easter Bunny, for way too much candy, and plenty of hunting eggs. 

We took a few pictures after church, since I had quite the morning with the boys trying to get ready. By the time we even made it to church Henry had both dirt and blood on his clothes, so you can guess how awesome the morning went. Somehow we survived it though, and you can't even see his battle scars in the photos.

This was Gavin trying to be helpful and get Henry to hug him for a photo... You can see Henry holding onto the tree to try and keep from standing for a picture. It was really fun.

Happy Easter to you all!

Lots of Family

Before our next round of visitors comes in to town, I had to get a few more posts from the last round of family travelers. We were able to have both of our parents in town for a few days, and though we did grow up about 10 miles from each other, it has been a very long time since we had a dinner with both of our parents. Nathan and Stacy were nice enough to host just the thing, on Brennan's birthday just over a week ago. 

Just a few of our many moments of fun.

Our happy hosts... they are just like newlyweds- Right?

Grandma and Papa... Most of the time we see them they are laughing something like this, so I think I like this picture much more than an posed shot I could ever get of them.

Eating some Easter Egg Hunt treats.

The Birthday boy... snoozing... We were trying to get a picture of Denice giving him a kiss on the head, but he seemed to sense that something was amiss and opened his eyes just a moment too soon. Oh well, we have plenty of time to play tricks on him later.

Who are these two older gentlemen? Hehe... they always know how to enjoy themselves, and they have taught us well.

The Worstest in the Whole World

This afternoon Gavin asked me if we could get a car DVD player for our road trips this summer. When I told him we probably could for the very long drives he said to me, "First, I'll choose a movie and then Henry, and maybe dad can choose one, but you can't mom. You always choose the worstest movie." When I denied it and asked which movie I have ever chosen that he didn't like he said, "Enchanted... You always choose that and it is the worstest movie in the whole wide world."

Glad to see there is a lot of confidence in my tastes around here.

Training Wheel Express and a few days of fun

We have had some pretty tricky weather this week with our visitors from Oregon and New Mexico, but we have still been able to manage to have some fun. Kaylee brought her bike with her, so she and Gavin were able to take a few bike rides, though they had to wear gloves since they get going so fast of their little training wheel bikes.

We spent a little time at the playground...

...And threw some snowballs.

We even went to see the Budweiser Clydesdales in the Smith's parking lot.

Since it was date night this week, we also had a chance to drop off the kids at the neighbor's house and head to eat dinner and do some bowling. None of us had been bowling in a long time, so we had a lot of laughs and a pretty good time.

You can tell from our awesome scores on the second game just how good we were.

Caleb seemed to be the winner, though you can't see his initial... you might notice that Natalie did beat both Duane and me. :-)