Catch up time--and Easter Eggs!

Well, here I am...thanks much to Emily...whose "Come baaaack" message was always in the back of my mind. I feel so bad having not updated my blog since Christmas. Just a quick update, though, and you will totally understand.

Since we moved to CO, I've been working full-time at Blue Cross and Blue Shield, doing something I love. I am also the Relief Society secretary in my ward, so that keeps me busy as well, sending out weekly emails and updating our Notebooks weekly. On top of that and being a mom (which is my MOST favorite part of my life), I am also pursuing my Masters Degree--but doing it online, so I can do it when the boys are asleep. Even though it's online, I'm going full-time, and it's pretty exciting--I'm getting my Masters in Psychology with an emphasis in Career Counseling and Coaching.

And, if that wasn't enough, Kalen is playing soccer, so every Tuesday and Friday night we have soccer games and practice. We also participate in a babysitting/date night exchange every Friday night (after soccer) and we have successfully kept our goal of going to the Temple at least once each month. So, if you were wondering what happened to me, let's just say, I've been busy. BUT, I missed blogging, so I will try to keep it up some more.

I've posted some updated pics of the boys.

Trace is now 18 months old--yay for nursery at church!

Brady turned 3 in March!!

And Kalen is the BIG 5!!

So, something fun we recently did was die Easter Eggs--but this year, we "Tie-died" them, literally--we died them with Ties!! The pics below are pictures of the finished products, and they are on top of the pieces of ties we used to die them--IT WAS SO EASY, and it was fun seeing how each tie turned out as we unwrapped it...

We had a lot more, but didn't want to bore you with all the egg pics--but here are the ties we used, pre-cutting them for the eggs!

Brady did the funniest thing tonight, he's getting so smart...stay tuned for my next post.

New Guinea anyone?

So, this year Santa brought my boys two Guinea Pigs! That's right--despite Brian's "No rodents" rule, we are now the proud parents of a boy and a girl guinea pig (don't worry, the boy is fixed). Here are some pictures from Christmas morning. The boys were excited, and we were surprised at how big Guinea Pigs really are! They're like little rabbits, and they're great with the boys as you will soon see:

Brady with his Guinea Pig named "Hamster"

(he named him himself)

Kalen with "Leafy" who evidently loves to eat
leaves (Kalen named her)

Here's Kalen posing with Leafy the next day--like I mentioned,

they let the boys handle them in all kinds of ways.

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Here's another one with Hamster and Brady--I like this one

because it really shows Brady's excitement.

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And to not forget about Trace, tonight he was feeding

Hamster and when I turned my back...

.

He stole the carrot!

We hope you all had a fun-filled and loving holiday.

We're grateful for each of you in so many ways.

It's not candy mom!

I feel so bad, I haven't updated my blog in a MONTH!! But here it is, and I hope to get back into the swing of things. What can I say, I'm a busy busy lady right now.

So, this past week we had a FUN family activity with Grandma and Grandpa Graham and Uncle Chris. We each were able to make our own Gingerbread House and show off our individual creativity. If you want, you can vote for your favorite in the comment section! (ps--I didn't make one--I helped my boys of course)!

Here's Kalen's lil' house--sooo cute. You'll notice others with snowmen on the sides, but Kalen was the original to place a snowman outside his gingerbread house. He also did all the "gluing" of decoration all by himself!

Brady was so proud when he was done. You'll notice that behind the snowman on the right there are three little gingerbread boys. Brady was adamant that one of the lil' boys have red hair, thus the licorice stick on top of the head of the boy farthest to the right

:-)

Here's daddy's beautiful masterpiece. I love how Brian always takes such pride and joy in his edible creations, this Gingerbread House being no different. Brian was also the one to create the icing everyone used, which was perfect for decorating. It dried fast!

Uncle Chris had high hopes to make a giant house, but we ran out of crackers before he got to his roof. He had fun decorating none-the-less.

Grandma stole ALL the mini-marshmallows!! You'll notice no one else has any on their houses...

And last, but not least, Grandpa took great care cutting all of crackers into pieces to create a log cabin Gingerbread house. It was pretty creative, I think, although all that cutting made him pretty stingy with his knife. By the end, we knew not to ask him to borrow it :-)

AND A FUNNY FUNNY STORY:
So, throughout all of this, the boys were eating lots and lots of candy. About half-way through, I made a firm rule that they were not allowed to eat any more candy---they had had enough, we all had. After Brady got done with his house, and while I was helping Kalen, I noticed Brady trying to get my attention. "It's not candy mom...MOM, look, it's not candy." Without thinking about the earlier rule, I said, "You're right buddy, it's not candy, it's a marshmallow." At that announcement, Brady grinned and promptly shoved a whole large marshmallow into his little 2 yr old mouth! (I grabbed the camera)

Halloween stuff, lots of it!

So, in this blog my pics are all mixed up, but there are too many to try to arrange on this in a timely manner. Here is a fun craft/yummy treat Kalen, Brady and I made a few days before Halloween--Ghostly cupcakes.

We went trick-or-treating in our new neighborhood on Halloween night--and our cousins came with us--here's a group shot! My boys are the ones in front of me.

Our Halloween sort of lasted for a week!! My boys collected candy three times!! (don't worry, we mailed half of it to Uncle Thomas, in the MTC preparing for a Lithuanian mission).

The night before Halloween we went to our cousins Trunk-or-treat in Loveland, CO. The boys were the same costumes as above:

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Kalen was "Snake Eyes," the black ninja from GIJOE

Brady was spiderman, and soooo excited about it

And Trace was superman--it was much easier to carry than the rubix cube (see below)

And here are our ward Trunk-or-treat costumes--we did this the week before Halloween--and Trace won the costume contest (I made it myself).

Kalen stayed the black ninja, so no new pic for him.

It's been so fun, and now we get to start preparing for Thanksgiving and Christmas--so exciting!

Sometimes we should listen to the jibber-jabber of a 2 yr old

So this past Sunday, Brian and I had to meet early before church to get our temple recommends renewed. That meant Grandpa was left to get the boys ready for church. (Grandma would have helped, but she was sick that morning).

Before we left, I laid all the boys clothes out in nice neat piles--everything from shirts and ties, to the socks and shoes. As I was walking out the door I told dad the diaper bag was ready to go and to make sure and spike Kalen and Brady's hair with the hair gel I was putting next to the diaper bag (I am currently spiking their hair all the time to hide the fact that they need hair cuts. I'll get around to cutting it eventually, right?)

So a few minutes before church starts, in walk my handsome boys. And grandpa did a pretty good job...but Brady's hair was a mess. It kind of looked like a "cool" mess, if you know what I mean, so I sort of liked it.

Grandpa noticed me looking at Brady's hair and said, "So, about Brady's hair..." Then he proceeded to tell that when he was getting Brady ready and putting the gel in his hair, he told Brady he didn't know much about using gel for hair (my dad is bald). Well, Brady just kept jibber-jabbering away, but dad wasn't really listening to him until Kalen came upstairs and said, 'Grandpa, that's diaper rash cream!' My dad had grabbed the cream OUT of the diaper bag instead of the gel NEXT to the diaper bag.

When I questioned Brady later, he said, "Grandpa no listen me," with a little pout. It's true--Brady was trying to tell him all along. Here is a quick pic I snapped before church started:

Home Sweet Home...we love it here already

We made it!!

And today we're enjoying the snow storm :-)
I had so many fun pictures, I decided to try putting a collage on my blog--you can see the pictures better if you click on the collage below though. These were from this morning. Even Kaya loves the snow!

Moving on out

For those who don't know yet, we are moving to Aurora, CO--right outside of Denver. Our lease begins on Tuesday the 20th, and we are officially loading the moving truck and headed out of FL on the evening of the 13th. Brian is driving the moving truck, I will be driving our van with my Kalen and Brady, and baby Trace is flying on an airplane out to CO with his Aunt Ashley (thank goodness for smart aunts--it was her idea)!

We'll miss FL a lot, and we've had tons of fun here, but more than ever before, we know this is what Heavenly Father wants us to do. We don't know what is in store out there in CO, but we do know it's where we need to be right now. Thanks to everyone for loving and supporting us, and I'll be back online in a 10 days or so :-)

In the meantime, I wanted to include some recent pics I took of Brian and the boys .