Hasta la vista soccer!

Well, Spring in Utah this year totally STINKS! One of the greatest casualties for our family has been Spring soccer. Tonight was Allie's last game and I was hoping she would try and talk me out of making her go. Come to find out she was lured into going by the memory of receiving a medal at the final game last year. When it was time for the game to start, the other team still hadn't shown up (yay!) but they showed up as we were walking back to our cars (boo!). Allie & I took a wool blanket, a down quilt, and a nice big blanket to bundle up in. This was in addition to the coats, gloves, and hats that we were wearing. As I dragged our load out of the car I began to question my level of intelligence. Seriously, who does this? Apparently a lot of us do 'cause there sure were a lot of cars in the parking lot. And, for the record, Allie did indeed receive a medal at the conclusion of the game.

On a much happier note, tomorrow and Friday I am attending BYU Women's Conference...and Eric has graciously agreed to hold down the fort. I am looking forward to being inspired, uplifted, and enlightened.

Just For Fun

I thought that I would post some old pictures of Allie. I was talking to my Mom yesterday and we were reminiscing about what a cute little baby/toddler Allie was. It was fun to look through old pictures and realize just how grown up she has become.

ALLIE'S FAVORITE POSITION AS A 1-YR-OLD

CRAZY, CURLY HAIR

ALLIE USED TO HATE HIKING. EVEN WHEN SHE WAS BEING CARRIED.

ALLIE'S SOLUTION FOR GETTING HER BUSY FEET TO HOLD STILL...TAPE.

JUST TOO DARN CUTE!

AND TOO DARN HOT AND TIRED OF THE SUN IN HER EYES.

ALLIE PLAYED WITH HER TASSEL THROUGH THE DURATION OF HER PRESCHOOL GRADUATION.

Jennilee has her own identity!

Yay! I'm so excited about this that I decided to dedicate this post to you.

Everyone deserves their own identity.

Bye Bye Bottle

I really wasn't sure it was possible. But somehow we managed to follow the Pediatrician's request to have Landon off of the bottle by 14 months. It's actually kind of nice. I find that I am running my dishwasher MUCH less often (although I am sweeping and mopping my floors MUCH more!).

A Trip To Hogle Zoo

This week we had made plans to be in Moab. Unfortunately Eric's finals coincided with Allie's Spring Break. So...we had to find fun things to keep us entertained here at home. We've had a fun week going out to lunch, shopping for swimming suits for the kids, visiting the pet store, watching movies, reading lots of books, playing at the park, and taking a trip to Hogle Zoo. We were glad that Eric could take Friday off of work to be with us!

This trip to the Zoo was very different from the last trip we took there. On that trip Landon loved being in his stroller or being held, was able to be fed from a bottle, and slept on the car ride there and back. Not this time. Nope, this time he was a fiercely independent 1-year-old with a mind of his own. He roamed all over the Zoo, tried to climb under and over fences and barriers, collected garbage, rocks, and an assortment of food crumbs from the ground, scraped both of his knees, and kept us all chasing after him. Despite all that, watching his face as he explored and observed the animals was most definitely worth it. Every time we would walk to a new exhibit, he would look all around and we could always tell when he finally found the animals because he would yell out an animated "hi!".

Allie loved taking pictures and she has quite a few very good ones. She loves animals and the Zoo is one of her favorite places to visit. She is a terrific big sister and she spent more than her fair share of time pushing the empty stroller and chasing after Landon. Her help keeping Landon supplied with Cheetos on the ride home was invaluable!

On our way home we stopped by Grandma Hudson's house to wish her a Happy Birthday. We had a very busy fun-filled week.

Thanks for the fun

Toone girls. Last night was great. What would we do without lil' Grandma to keep us laughing? (Oh, and Jenn too!) For anyone who cares here are the mysterious Postum ingredients:

• wheat bran
• wheat
• molasses
• corn dextrin

I even found a recipe it. I tried to find some at a reasonable price to buy Grandma for Mother's Day but since production stopped the price is way too high for me. It's like liquid gold. Who knew?

For some reason

I just can't NOT do one of these when I see them on a friend's blog. The internet/blogging sucks up way too much of my free time. Oh, well.

You Are a Colon

You are very orderly and fact driven. You aren't concerned much with theories or dreams... only what's true or untrue. You are brilliant and incredibly learned. Anything you know is well researched. You like to make lists and sort through things step by step. You aren't subject to whim or emotions. Your friends see you as a constant source of knowledge and advice. (But they are a little sick of you being right all of the time!) You excel in: Leadership positions You get along best with: The Semi-Colon

What Punctuation Mark Are You?

Now, who are my semi-colon friends?

Soooo Nice!

After my last post, I decided that I better post about how lovely the weather was yesterday. Yay! We went to the park last night for FHE and had a picnic, played on the playground, and flew a kite. Well, at least we did until it broke. Dang kite. The funny thing is that we were at the Hillcrest Elementary park and the kite was flying really high when it broke and the wood part came crashing to the ground on University Parkway. We saw it come crashing down and heard it hit the road. Thankfully Eric was able to pull the kite in quickly and land it on the South side of the fence so that we didn't cause an accident on that busy road. That would have ruined all our fun.








Landon learned how to slide down the slide all by himself. What a big boy!

SOOOO cold!

Tonight I took Allie to Thanksgiving Point Gardens because her choir group was performing there for the Tulip Festival (ironic because there were no tulips to be seen yet thanks to the extra cold temperatures!). Lucky little Landon got to stay at Poppy and Grandma's in their warm house and play with toys and eat food, his two favorite things.

I think it is safe to say that the children in the choir and their parents who had to bring them there were the only ones crazy enough to brave the cold. The worst part is that the sound system hadn't been set up so we had to wait around for that to be put up before we could even begin. The children in the choir cheered the loudest when the concert was over because they were so happy to be done and able to return to their warm cars. Is anyone else finding it hard to believe it is supposed to be beautiful weather in just a couple of days?

Allie was so excited to be there...for the first 5 minutes.


Thankfully our little buddy Jasper was there to keep us laughing. He is one FUNNY kid! When I took a picture of Allie he asked me to take one of him too. Allie told him that I would post it on our blog. He was excited (although I'm pretty sure he had no idea what that meant).


It could be worse. I could be on the Scout camp out with Eric tonight! I hope he's staying warm.

Kambree vs. Landon

Kambree and Landon battling for the best view of the backyard at Mom & Dad's on Sunday...

Landon's Favorite Place

Landon has discovered a great little place to play, eat snacks, look at a book, or just sit and think. It's just his size. We gave up trying to keep him out of there a long time ago. Some things just aren't worth fighting over with a 1-year-old.

Bridge to Terabithia

I had several friends pick up a copy of the last book I recommended so I have decided that I will blog whenever I read a book that I think is worth investing the time to read. I read a lot--it's my guilty pleasure when Landon naps and my chores are all finished. As far as addictions go, I think an addiction to reading is not such a bad one to have. In fact, I am pretty sure it's being passed on to the next generation in our house. Even Landon has started to really love books (and not just for eating anymore!).

I have been searching for the book that I want to share with my book club the next time it's my turn to choose. After doing a lot of thinking, I decided that I wanted to choose something different, maybe something that would technically be considered children's literature. My searching led me to this book:

The Bridge to Terabithia is a Newbery Medal winning book. Since it is children's literature, it is a pretty quick read. I would highly recommend it...just keep a box of tissue close by!