The Sandbox and the Tree!

About 2 years ago Tory and I bought a Silver Leaf Maple tree for our back yard. It died! So last Saturday, May 2, we bought a new one. It cost us the same price as the last one but lucky for us this one is twice as tall as our now dead one.

So here are a few pictures of Tory digging up the dead tree... which isn't easy with roots that have had a few years to establish them selves.

And here is the new tree (being supported by our slide).

I took a far back picture with Chase by it so you can see how tall it is... Something around 12 ft. I suppose... our last tree wasn't much taller than 6-7 ft.

I thought I took more video's of Tory getting the tree planted, but I was helping him hold it so I guess I wasn't recording.

A story I forget to tell is the one about our new sand box!

Tory made Chase and Ty a huge 8 by 8 ft. sand box a few weeks ago. He was sad because I didn't get any pictures of all his hard work and effort... then I realized, these are the first pictures I've take of the boys and the sandbox, and we've had it for almost 3 weeks now!

I did break out our video camera the day we loaded the sand in it. Our neighbor Justen who use to mow our lawn for us and now at age 20 now has is own lawn care business, came over with his younger brother and a friend to help unload a trailer full of sand.

I was busy in the kitchen making pizza and preparing fruit and food for our gracious helpers so that is why I don't have those pictures.

But the boys love it!!! If it wasn't raining so much lately they would be out there every day. I'm learning how to keep the sand out of the house but sometimes they run in to use the bathroom when I'm not paying attention.

Needless to say the house gets vacuumed more often than it use to!

Chase has become such a "Boy" lately. His new thing is rolley pollies. He loves to find bugs and show them to me! He even wants to keep them!

I guess Boys will be boys!

My Husband...

As many of you know, My dear husband is a Varsity Scout Leader over about 12-15 teenagers!

Last Wednesday on April 29, There was a Court of Honor. I took 12 pictures of each of his young men who received awards which I did not post... but the point is, Tory dedicates a lot of time in helping each of the succeed, and being at the court of honor to watch all of them get awards was just another testament to me of how great Tory is at what he does!

I find my self complaining once in a while about how much personal time Scouts consumes, but I'm so proud of Tory!

Just a short Flashback: On April 23, Thursday, Tory spent the entire time he was home from work until past 10 p.m. packing to be ready to leave for a Scout overnighter at Bruneau Sand Dunes. So of course the next day he got off early and was home to grab and go. Then when he got back on Saturday around 2:00 he had just enough time to unpack and CLEAN the van (for me) and get things ready to be at the church at 5:00 for their Scout Fundraiser, which he didn't get home from until 9:00 and was busy the rest of the evening doing more scout stuff.

Then on Sunday he had a meeting before church and another one a couple hours after church. Then on Monday and Tues he was preparing for the Court of Honor you see on this blog.... plus somewhere in there he had a speech to prepare for Toast Master's at work!

He took me out on a date the next day! We went to dinner and a movie on Thursday. We saw "Taken" and ate at "Red Robin" ... all my choice! Anna was gracious enough to take my boys for us!

I went to this Court of Honor to see Tory recieve his awards. He compleated 5 very big goals called Ticket Items for Woodbadge and got a new neckerchief and some other things that I don't know what they are called... but the important thing is that I know they are a really big deal! The pictures at the top show before the awards around his neck and the bottom picture shows the After!

I love my husband and I am so proud of him! Though all this he still manages to help me when I need him the most (except when he was gone on this last campout and I had to change my nephew's 1 poopy underwear then clean up Tyler's puke after just getting him in bed, but that's another story!).

Fun at the Park 4-21-09

My sister and I decided to meet at Settler's Park in Meridian on a nice day. The kids had a great time.

It was a little hotter than we hoped, and there isn't any shade there because it is a new park, but we were prepared with lunches and sunblock.

Micah (I think I spelled that wrong) was a hard one to get pictures of but I got a few cute ones!

Tyler's favorite thing to do is swing! And I think I had some video's of him but my husband must have erased them because they aren't on my camera any more!

I love the spring weather!

I'm ready for more!

Easter in Utah...

On Saturday morning just before lunch time Tory's mom had prepared about 3 dozen boiled eggs for the grand kids to dye.

She got old T-shirts out for each of them and we got started.

I was a little nervous at the thought of all that dye around so many kids but they were all very careful and did great. And just as Chase's pre-school teacher, Kristina, always tells me, "Chase is one of the cleanest painters his age she has ever met." ... and he was!

I think I splashed the egg in the dye more than Chase did!


After lunch we went to a huge Easter Celebration at a farm. This place was huge!!!

They had a petting zoo, and pony rides...

They had all kinds of exhibits like an old fashion flea market with people dressed a pioneers showing how to make hand made crafts.

This is a picture of a stuffed elephant, and the activity is to teach people how to hunt an elephant in using a spear, (there were actually 2 sticks involved but Chase just threw the spear.)

This is Tory's brother Rodney on a re-make of an old fashion bike.

Of course my boys wanted to sit on the tractor!



One fun activity they did was a candy hunt. There was a big field sectioned off for kids 5yrs and under, and there were 2 cannons filled with candy, plus the field was already covered with candy. So they did a count down and fired off each of the cannons and then we let the kids run loose to collect candy.

Tory went with Tyler and Chase was close by when they started, but by the end Chase got turned around and got lost for a short little bit. I looked for it took 5-10 min after it was over to find Chase. He was on the opposite side of the field with a family consoling him. Of course he started crying when I found him!

And if you think that was bad... a short while later we went to another area by a puppet show. There was a "jail" with 1 door. I wanted to go sit down and asked Tory, "you got them?" and he said yes! Some how Tyler escaped without Tory seeing him! There was a forest section behind the jail with a stream down in it... there was another petting zoo area over there.... this place was huge and he could have been anywhere!

It too ALL of us (9 adults and 3 older kids) looking for him for more than 25 min. before we found him!!! I was asking everyone I could see if they had seen, "a little boy with a long sleeve, blue shirt on... His name is Tyler but he doesn't respond to his name very well when you call him?" How were we supposed to find a child how doesn't cry when he gets lost and doesn't respond when he is called?

We had workers at the Farm on their walki-talkies looking also!
Finally we found him... Him!!!


He had crawled into one of the big blow-up jumping/ slide party things and was having a great time!!

I didn't let my self panic, but after a half an hour of looking for my baby I broke down and cried when we finally found him!

These oxen were the most massive animals I have ever seen in person! The man told us ho much they weigh but I don't remember.

Time for an Easter Update!

On April 10, Chase had a Easter party at pre-school like he usually does around holiday time. That was a busy day!! I wish I could remember all the details but since I'm posting this almost 3 weeks later I'll do my best!

The first thing I did that morning was bake brownies for his party! Then being late like always on a Friday I ran him to school at 9:35 instead of 9:15, then I went to WinCo to do my quick grocery shopping trip before we left for Utah that day!

I also met Anna at Home Depot after that, to give her my video camera so she could work on her project of converting all her home movies to DVD. Then I had to be back at Chase's School at 11:00 for the party.

After that we went to the Library to get some movies for our trip, then home to unload the groceries still in my car, pack the clothes, toys and food needed for the trip, then load it in the car (which involved taking a seat out or the back), and get the kids some much needed lunch, and clean the house in time to meet Tory at work at 3:00. I was about 20 min late but we finally made it to Logan by 7:30 of 8:00!

Here are a few pictures and video's of my boy!

Easter Candy!

Ok... It has been forever since I've made a new post; and since I am trying to eat ice cream without my kids noticing, I am hiding in my room at the computer and figured I'd write some thing while I'm sitting here!

Just 2 day ago I got around to doing a little candy shopping for Easter, and now that I have the candy I'm glad I waited so long to get it, because if I had got it any earlier it would probably be gone by now! I have little-to-no restraint when it comes to candy! I have been able to control myself when the candy is specifically for my husband (after much practice, and mostly sorely disappointing him so many times for eating his 1 piece of candy he was saving). But as a whole if there is candy I'll find it and eat it. So there fore, the Easter candy is already open and starting to decrease!

Sixlets!!!! I love them!!! they are so much better that M&M's. Tory loves them too so I bought 2 bags of them, even though half of 1 bag is gone already!

Walmart sells a bag with individual packet that have about 6 little balls in each. The bag isn't very big but its good.

I also got plain M&M's...

I usually get peeps but decided against it this year since I'm the only one that seems to like them! We use to get them growing up so it was sort of a little tradition that I wanted to do until I realized how much I really didn't need that extra fluff!

And I got an assorted bag of Hershey candy with mini Reese's peanut butter cups little bars Hershey bars, and kisses!

The worst thin is that my glucose test is in about 3 weeks! I haven't eaten this much junk my whole pregnancy, and now 3 weeks before that blood sugar test I am eating lots of candy and it is not even Easter yet!

Now Chase is bugging me so I need to go, but that is it...

My weakness and maybe my eventually down fall!