Happy Mothers Day

     Funny thing...just as I sat down and started to write this post about the beauty of motherhood Breck came in.  He climbed up on my lab all snugly-like.  It's the middle of the day after his nap so I assumed he was tired from the fun weekend schedule and just needed to rest....until he started puking, over and over again down the fronts of both of us.  Kind of ironic, pretty typical of being a mom.  Now it's the following day and he's much better and life goes on and I can finish my post, here goes.    
      Is every mother completely taken with her own children?  They're so beautiful, unique, difficult, wonderful, amazing...I could go on and on.  I took a few pictures for my own Mom and Mother-in-law and loved this one!
     Happy Mother's Day to all you Mom's out there!  I've been so blessed to have an amazing mother, mother-in-law and friends who are great examples of mothers to me.  Corey is wonderful and planned a weekend of activities to celebrate the mothers in his life.
     He started out planning a date for us, babysitter and all.  He took me to my favorite restaurant, The Red Iguana.  If you haven't been there...call me and we'll go.  It's one of those places that I crave and wish for and then when I get there it's even better than I remember...yeah it's that good.  Then we wandered around city creek center and ended the date with shakes from Arctic Circle (I love Arctic Circle Shakes by the way). This date was the perfect treat for me. Thanks Babe.
     On Saturday afternoon we went to Corey's Grandma Rees' house to work on her yard and have a BBQ with his family.  It was great to see everyone and pitch in a bit.  It's not something we get to do a lot and I was grateful for the chance.  It's always good to catch up with family and Grandma's yard was beautiful!
     Sunday was filled with the best kid-made cards, the perfect gift from Corey (I asked for a trampoline and got it along with flowers for my planters, along with a really nice letter), and yummy food all prepared by Cor & the kids.  That night we went to my Grandma Gough's for dinner and visiting with my Mom.  It was a beautiful day, I couldn't feel more blessed.

     After note: Okay, I lied, I could feel more blessed.  A day or two after mothers day Corey called to tell me he'd nominated me for lasik eye surgery through a Mother's Day promotion from Ogden Eye Center and I won!!!  He wrote the nicest letter to them about me and then got a bunch of his family to do it as well.  Thank you everyone. Lasik surgery is something I've always wanted to do but haven't been able to justify it when there are so many other things to spend money on that would benefit my whole family.  I'm beyond excited for this and so grateful!  I threw away my last pair of contacts last night and am sporting glasses until surgery the first week in June.  Whahoooooooo!

Easter

     Happy Belated Easter.  My thoughts have been a little overwhelmed by concrete and such, but we did have a great Easter so I thought I should document it. 
     We had a great time dying Easter eggs.  Corey rolled his eyes when I told him we were doing four dozen (so immpractical to him) but it was fun.  I love the twins pics, Brecks little face just melts me and you can't help but catch Avery's enthusiasm.
     Every year (since I was little) we go to Scipio.  It's where my Grandma and Grandpa Peterson grew up and we love it.  They have a community egg hunt on Saturday morning and then we have a picnic up at the grove.

After the hunt

     At the grove.... This is a great picture of my Mom trying to stay out of the picture.   Hayley and Adam and sweet Wyatt. Below are the twins "fishing" in the streams.

     On Sunday we had an egg hunt at Corey's parents.  So much fun with cousins....such little time to take pictures, oops!

     I love Easter clothes, but I've found I need a little help in the photography department.  This is the best of the bunch.  I couldn't resist a few of Avery, somthin' about girls and their clothes...

The Goings On At Our Place

     Where to begin, I don't even know.  I guess at the beginning.  When we bought our cute old farm house we immediately remodeled the kitchen and painted and carpeted the rest of the upstairs rooms along with some significant wallpaper removal.  It was a lot of work, but it was okay.  We weren't living there.  We decided not to do the bathroom because it was expensive.  

     Last fall I decided to take off the wall paper in the bathroom which was already peeling itself off anyway.  Just to spruce it up a bit, a tide-me-over until we decided to really remodel.  Well, if you've ever owned an old home you know how it goes, one thing leads to another.  The walls underneath the paper weren't paint-able.  So we decided we'd just take the plunge and remodel the whole thing.  One problem, it's our only bathroom.  So we decided we'd wait until spring and put a bathroom downstairs first and then remodel the upstairs one.  We had to wait until spring because there isn't a sewer line to the basement and we'd need to put one in.  So I patiently waited the winter with my ultra-ugly bathroom with no wallpaper or even a light above the sink (Corey did offer to put a light up, he is an electrician, but I refused telling him we were not about to get comfortable with this ugly bathroom).  Spring came and we found out the sewer line would need to go under our driveway.  Corey and our very good friend Kevin spent an entire Saturday digging out leveling and installing the beautiful new line.  

Corey about 8 feet underground, in our driveway

      Now for any of you who have seen our home the driveway wasn't the most impressive thing about it, but I didn't mind all that much.  It served it's purpose well enough, modge-podge and all.  But after pulling a good section of it out to put in the sewer line we decided to replace the whole thing.  This has turned out to be a crazy endeavor with multiple problems including wet sinkholes large enough to park a car in...not exactly what we had in mind.  Thankfully my husband is very handy and resourceful and has done an amazing job.  With the help of many family, friends and neighbors we've got it level and just about graded for concrete.  It will be very nice when it's done, we'll see if we're too burned out or drained of funds by the time we're done to actually do the bathrooms.  Either way we've made progress, we'll get there eventually.  Can you believe it?? All this because I took down the wallpaper in my bathroom!

Bring on the concrete!

 

April Birthday Boys

     April is always a busy month for birthdays at our house.  Last week we celebrated Tate's sixth birthday.  I don't know what it is but this one took me by surprise.  He still feels like my baby....before the babies and six didn't coincide with that feeling.  For his birthday he went to Classic Skating with his Dad and brothers to scooter and play.  They all had a great time.
     Tate is at that great age where he has his favorites and he doesn't deviate.  His favorite color is blue, his favorite letter is T (ya know T for Tate).  He'll often say things like "Mom, I like that word, you know why?" and I'll ask why and he'll say "it's because it starts with a T."  So cute.  He's a sweet boy who can keep up with the big boys and also play great with the twins.  We love you so much Tater-bug!!! Happy Birthday!
(Oh!  Tate wanted a blue ninjago birthday cake and thanks to his artistic brother he got it....except for his own name which he wrote.  Thanks Mac!) 

      McKay turned eleven this year.  He's such a great  young man and we're so lucky to have him in our family.  He's super creative and artistic and always amazing me with the things he creates.  He's a hard worker and a good kid all around.  He wanted to spend some time with his cousins for his birthday which is what we'll be doing tonight.  Love you Mac!!  We're so proud of the great young man you're becoming!!

Builder Boys

 This Spring Break Keaton was sick so we've been doing a lot of at-home-playing.  I thought I'd show off my builder boys.  McKay is an amazing builder....his main building materials???  Legos.  I love that they do this and McKay can spend hours at it. Above is Tate getting into the building action, below are McKays latest and greatest!

My favorite use yet for sticky notes...

These sweet notes keep popping up all over my house.  Above the sink in my kitchen, on the door to my bedroom and underneath my pillow. 

Moab

     Last weekend we had the fun opportunity to go to Moab.  It was a great trip with lots of hiking in Arches National Park and  hanging out with wonderful friends.  The weather was a bit chilly, but it was sunny and clear which made it nice. 
     I haven't been to Arches since I was a teenager so it was fun to be there and marvel at the formations.  It was also great to realize that most of the arches take less than a mile hike to get to which was perfect for little legs that are too big to be carried.

     First off...Double Arch.

These Arches are huge...those green and blue dots at the bottom are Corey and Avery.

Cute kiddos all bundled up!

Hiking down

Cute boys! 

     We found an awesome place for lunch that was fairly contained with lots of room to run around and climb boulders.  It was so fun, in fact, that we went there both days! 

The "kids" best climbing spot.

The "Dads" best climbing spot....this picture does no justice to the height of this baby.

 

Keaton partway up the big one...adventurous child.

     After lunch we decided to hike to landscape arch.  It was fun and about a mile and a half so good and long for little legs...oh yeah and a 28-week-pregnant-with-twins-friend.  If you've never carried twins you just can't know the exhaustion....Lacey, you're a rockstar!! Not to mention that she carried her two-year-old probably half of the time.  At this time in my twin pregnancy I was on complete bed rest taking two naps a day and still sleeping through the night.  I'm so impressed Lacey and it was great to have your company.

There was a great sand hill on part of this hike...I couldn't resist the "action."

Proof that all these kids made it to the end of the hike...and the parents even survived. 

Thank you Larkins for planning such a great trip! 

A very successful one indeed!