Happy Easter

We hope you had a great holiday!

Love,

The Swains

Happy Birthday to Me!

I celebrated my 30th Birthday yesterday on the 4th of July. I really hated having my birthday on a holiday when I was younger. Now that I have matured I realize what an incredible thing it is to have my husband and my children (and sometimes extended family, too) with me all day long. Here's a little recap of the celebration:

Eric woke up extra early to run the Freedom Festival 5k. He had a good time and is looking forward to doing it again next year. Maybe I'll join him? At 6:10 Landon decided he just couldn't wait any longer to wish me a happy birthday and beckoned me to his room. I tried to trick him into going back to sleep without any luck. Oh well.

A couple of hours later I was sitting in my living room reading when I heard someone outside whistling. I thought it was Eric but soon discovered it was my Dad's unique way of announcing his presence. Kind of strange, but that's Dad for you. (LOL, Dad) Angie, Mom, and Dad stayed and visited for a little while and we made plans to go to the Cheesecake Factory for lunch. Lunch was so yummy. We will definitely go back. Next time we'll leave the kids. They're cute, but it's just not the same relaxing experience with them along.

After lunch I had the bright idea to take a quick family picture. That's another thing that would be a lot easier to do without the kids along but that would kind of defeat the purpose. Here's a small sampling of how it went. (Check out Landon's face in the last one. Priceless.)

We had planned to go bowling but opted instead for a trip to the Living Planet Aquarium. It was pretty fun, but very small. The children both loved checking out all of the animals and it got all of us very excited for our trip to San Diego in a couple of months.

After the aquarium it was home for nap time. Yay! It's a good thing I took a short nap because the next item on the itinerary was picking up all of the Scout flags from the neighborhood. I volunteered to help Eric because he was a little short on leaders and boys and I figured that I would be less annoyed than if I sat home stewing about how long it was taking him to do it himself. (90% of the time I am fine with the amount of time it takes Eric to serve as Scoutmaster but there is that 10%...)

After the flags we spent a quiet evening at home. Allie was annoyed that we didn't do anything to "celebrate the 4th of July". We got to use our new toy from Ang, a Sno-Cone maker. It was fun and delicious. When we got the kids in bed we watched Vantage Point. It was a great day!

Thank you to my wonderful family and friends for all of the phone calls, visits, and text messages. It was so nice of you to think of me when I know that you were all busy celebrating with your own families!

Easter Weekend

On Saturday morning we hosted a Toone family Easter Party at our house. When I was younger we used to always go on an Easter Picnic with Grandpa & Grandma Hudson. It is one of my favorite holiday memories. We always had so much fun. One of the things that stands out most to me as I think back over those Easter Picnics was the crazy weather. I can remember being sunburned, rained on, wrapped up in winter gear, and every once in a while we'd luck out and have great weather. It has been a while since we did an official family gathering for the holiday. As much as my family enjoys being outdoors, we opted not to do a picnic since Easter came so early this year. Instead we invited everyone over and we introduced them to aebelskiver's for breakfast. After a yummy meal (Jenn, I need that quiche recipe!) we had an easter egg hunt and played "tough egg". The kids and the adults all seemed to have a great time. My funny little nephew Hunter told me 3 times "this is my favorite holiday ever!". Could it have had something to do with all the candy and cousins? I think so. So, family, I think we need to resurrect this time honored tradition. It was too much fun not to do again!

Check out Allie's gigantic easter basket. She chose it herself!












Kambree looks so innocent, but boy did she have a wicked arm when it came to playing tough egg. She was so funny to watch!

Giving Thanks, Welcoming Christmas, Celebrating BYU, and Other Fun

This post is going to cover a lot of ground so hold on. I've been slacking a bit on my blogging duties. Of course, it might help if Eric took a turn. Are you reading Eric? If so, it's time for you to take a turn. Maybe a "public" reprimand will do the trick?

So this week was filled with lots and lots of fun, food, family, friends, and football. Say that 3 times fast. We spent Thanksgiving with my family this year. With the addition of so many little ones since the last time we had Thanksgiving together, it was definitely a new experience. When we had Thanksgiving with my family in 2005, there were 3 grandchildren. Now there are 7. Babies come with so much gear that they take up at least twice the space that an adult does, making for some tighter quarters than we are used to. It is so much fun to be surrounded by all the noise and laughter that having that many little ones in a house brings. It was a very fun day...thanks Mom & Dad!

That evening we gave the kids their Christmas pajamas and a Christmas book. We think this is a fun way to kick off the holiday season.

We decorated our tree on Friday. I was totally unconvinced that this was a good idea. I was in favor of putting it up on Christmas eve and enjoying it for one day. Landon is in to everything right now. In fact he pulled something down on top of him on Tuesday and got a mild concussion. He spent the day throwing up and being mad. He is fine now but it was a little scary. I am learning what it means to have a son. Anyways, after that disastrous incident I was sure that the tree was bound to be a problem. We have a little lattice fence that Eric's brother Monte gave us when Allie was a baby. So far it has stopped him from toppling the tree. I am keeping my fingers crossed that he continues to be deterred by the barrier.

Later that afternoon we went and saw Enchanted. Eric, Allie, and I all enjoyed it. We give it a big thumbs up (especially for those of you who have watched more than your fair share of Disney princess movies).

Saturday was a big day at our house...BYU vs. Utah. Eric and Allie went and watched the big game with his Dad and brothers and Landon and I hung out at home and worked on Sharing Time for Sunday. We are all grateful and happy that BYU pulled out the win.

And finally today our good friends Gabe and Kristy blessed their baby. It was fun to spend a little time with them and their families celebrating their newest little one.

Happy Halloween!

I am not a big fan of Halloween, but even I must admit it can be a little fun with the kids. Allie came home from school loaded up with candy. But, because she didn't yet have "enough" we went to Eric's work and did a little trick-or-treating.

GETTING A DECENT PICTURE OF BOTH KIDS...

IS GETTING MORE AND MORE DIFFICULT...

CLOSE ENOUGH!

YUM...CANDY.

Next, we headed to Poppy and Grandma's for some Halloween fun! The kids got spoiled (of course!) and had fun handing out candy to the children who came to Grandma's.

TOONE COUSINS. POPPY AND GRANDMA ARE VERY GOOD SPORTS AND TAKE THE KIDS OUT TRICK-OR-TREATING EVERY YEAR.

We finished the evening in Scott & Leann's cul-de-sac roasting hot dogs and sipping hot chocolate. Allie got involved in the great candy swap that inevitably occurs among the cousins every year and Landon went crazy trying to get his hands on the cat and dog at their home.

Labor Day Fun

I always love it when Eric gets a holiday off of work. It's even better when it's a holiday that we celebrate by just enjoying time together with our children. Early this morning Eric took Allie fishing. It was their second attempt in the last few days. They went Saturday but didn't have any luck so they thought they would give it another try this morning. Unfortunately, it seems that the fish weren't biting today either. Is it bad to admit that I am kind of happy about that? I threatened Eric with serious injury if he brought any fish home to our freezer. Since we are not fish eaters at our house, it is pointless to bring them home to eat. In fact, I think it's pointless to fish but apparently I am the only one who thinks that way in this household. I believe that Eric sees it as a rite of passage for a young child to fish with his or her father. I guess I can't argue with them getting some quality one on one time with each other. In fact, on the way home Allie consoled Eric by saying "It's okay, Dad. At least we got to spend some time together." I think that went a long ways towards soothing his fragile ego when it comes to fishing. After the unsuccessful fishing trip we drove up to the U of U to go to the Utah Museum of Natural History. Just going near the campus was a little bit of a challenge for Eric. I tried to get him to let me take his picture by a U of U football poster...he wouldn't have anything to do with that. However he and Landon did pose for Allie in the museum.

Allie had fun entertaining Landon and taking a bunch of pictures of him. The sillier he looks in the picture, the more she likes it. Here is the most normal looking one she got of him.
Isn't he cute? He has changed a lot in the last month or two. He was always cute, but somehow he just keeps getting more and more adorable! Later on we took some family pictures up Provo Canyon (thanks Paul & Jenn!) and then went for ice cream. Eric bought himself a new suit that he can't wait to wear. The last time he bought a suit was right before we were married! I think it was time. Hope you all had a great Labor Day too!

Celebrating Pioneer Day

Last night for Family Home Evening we decided to go and see all of the floats for this years Pioneer Day Parade. It is an innovative way to see a parade. They park all of the floats inside the South Towne Exposition Center and you get to walk around see all of them up close. It's like a parade with great air conditioning. Both of the kids seemed to really enjoy it. Allie's favorite float was a "princess" one with a horse and carriage. Landon didn't seem to have a favorite. He liked anything bright and shiny...which pretty much included everything we saw.

While the floats were a lot of fun, Landon had an even greater time being entertained by Allie and her cousin, Camille.

If you're wondering what they were doing that was so funny, here's a shot of the girls.



We are still wondering why he found them so funny. After about an hour we had seen it all and headed to Grandpa & Grandma's for a visit. It was a fun family night!