Ist Grader!

Nick is officially a 1st grader today.   It was a bittersweet day for him today.  Asked me if he could give cards to his friends with his phone number on them, so he wrote a bunch of them up yesterday and passed them out at school.  Great! (hopefully we don't have all 25 kids calling us, maybe it is good we are leaving town tomorrow.   I bought this mini rose bush for his teacher, and he said he was not giving it to her.   He did pose holding it however.  He really meant it, even though I tried to talk him into it for three days.  Finally, today before we drove away from the school, he yelled "Stop"  and I had to wait while he ran it in to his teacher!  Funny Kid of mine.   I think that he had a great year.  He has lots of great memories to take with him.  Field Day however, got a bit rough and this afternoon, he is sporting new glass frames.   He was a great Kindergartner and he got excellent marks on his "report card."  Mrs. Lemmon said she was proud of him.  I am proud of him too!  (by the way, his girl friend is the cute blond behind him in the first picture, he was to shy to ask her for a picture and made me promise not to take one).

1.  Good Kids

2.  St. George

3.  SUMMER!!

First Haircut!

Well, on Tuesday May 26, I finally gave in and took Zachary up to Grandma's for his first haircut.  We combed it up in a mohawk to get the before and after shots.

I wouldn't say he did too great of a job holding still, but he also was no Benjamin.   I think he looks even chubbier now!   Thanks Grandma, you did a good job.

Although we do have a few stray pieces here and there.     

1. Grandma's with scissors

2.  Saving money

3.  Not having to do it myself

Wow look at all my posts, and more coming!

I know with me blogging is either feast or famine, so stop complaining.   It has been a busy week, soon I will be back to only posting two or three times a month.

1. Something to Blog about

2. Sisters who check my blog enough to tease me about not blogging

3. Sleeping babies

Vernal Visit

Dad, Mom, Ryan, Zachary and I went to Vernal over Memorial Day.  For all those interested I thought I would post some pictures of Grandpa Willie's house and also the headstone.  Ryan got it a few years ago and I thought he did a great job picking it out, and matching it to Grandma Pearl's.  We did put some flowers on Grandpa's grave, they are just not in the pictures.    The house looked good, considering all things and we didn't really have yard work that needed to be done.  We also stopped by Enloe's and interupted the Walker Reunion. (Lois is a Walker)  Lois looks great, but says she doesn't make chocolates anymore, except on Holidays.   She remembered Amy saying "This is Heaven."   It was good to see that group of cousins.   It has been a while.    I got a great and pretty bad compliment, when Steve Walker (remember him, Mom's old honey) thought I was Carol!   Now I am not sure how to take that.  Does all this fat on me, make me look like I am 62?  And honestly Mom looks skinny and not a day over 50!    He is actually a really nice guy, and I have always taken it as a compliment when people say I look like Mom.  

1.  Ryan for getting the headstone    

2.  Babies being good in the car all day.    

 3.  Grandpa Willie

Newton

We had an exciting weekend.   Aunt Britta flew in to surprise the family.  (I was one of the lucky few, who got to be in on the secret.)  We were very excited.   She and Joey live in Virginia, and so we were thrilled that she got to meet Zachary.   The boys of course love her, and Nick has a hard time leaving her alone.  She got about 20 hugs from him:).  Zachary and I went to Newton, one of our favorite places.   Erik and the boys were on the Father Son Campout with our ward on Friday and Saturday morning.  We saw lots of cousins and played and ate lots.   It is always a party when we are there.  Some of the highlights were:  Jonathan's Birthday,  we went to see Prince Caspian, we visited lots of family grave sites for Memorial Day, (although there was much more of that on Monday after I had gone to Vernal).  I got to spend some time at Dad's grave also.  We also got to attend church together and we united our faith together in a fast for a family member who is ill.  We love you Kimberly!  We got to see Uncle Bill (Erika and Chifumi are in Japan), and spend lots of time with Grandma Berge and our Hodgsons.   I had to leave sunday afternoon, but it was such a great visit.  Thanks for coming Britta!  We Love You!

1. Family (again)

2. Grandma's house

3. Airplanes

more blessing pictures

I have no idea why the brownies are upside down:)

1.  Family

2.  Dick's Brownies

3.  "My" House

Zach's blessing and new photos

I know this posting is a bit late, but here it is anyway.   Zachary was blessed on Sunday April 13, 2008.  Erik gave him a wonderful blessing and I am so grateful to him for being able to use his Priesthood to bless our family.    Thanks everyone for coming.  It was a great day.   I was happy to have a place to host this party for Zach.  Thanks  Mom and Dad.   Oh and thanks for some of these great pictures Laurie.  (you can tell which ones she took.)  And another thanks to Grandma Berge for the beautiful blessing outfit.      1.  Zachary  2. The Priesthood    3.  Sunny Sundays                              

Two Wonderful Mothers!

Because today is Mother's Day, I am of course thinking about Great mothers.    I realize that of all the mothers in the world, I am one of the lucky ones who gets to have great mothers in my life.  In fact I am completely surrounded by great mothers.  I pay tribute to two in particular today.

 

Here they are (both with Zachary)!   I think that they have many similar qualities some of which I will list.  Short and Sweet and then I must get on with the festivities.

1.  They love their children totally and completely

2.  They are two of the most Christ like people I know (everyone would agree, except of course, them)

3.  They are both extremely selfless.

4.  They are both beautiful women

5.   They are the mother's of wonderful children :)

6.  They are both great cooks, housekeepers, seamstresses, and I could add to this list forever...

7.  They are two of the most fun people I have ever been with.

8.  They both love to be with their families.

9.  They teach by example.

10.  They both always know how to make me feel better

11.  They are both always there when needed, I can talk to them about anything.

12.  They are the best possible Grandmother's to my children (what more could I ask for)

Mom,   I love you very much.  Thanks for the example that you are to me.  I couldn't have asked for a better mother and best friend.   I am grateful for all that you have done for me.

Ilda,  I love you very much.   You raised a wonderful son for me to marry and you are truly a mother to me.

I am the luckiest daughter and mother that I know.   

1. My Mom

2. Erik's Mom

3. Nicholas, Benjamin and Zachary

Yummy!!

Nick loves yogurt.   Especially if he is lucky enough to get this kind:

I bought a box at Costco, and he has been happily eating it for about two weeks.  Tonight he was eating some and said, "Mom, isn't it weird that this new kind of yogurt has strawberry and it also has blueberries in it?"  I was, of course cruising the internet and not paying much attention replied, "interesting."  He went on to say, but these blueberries taste really gross."   I went to look at the yogurt and find that is is filled with little round patches of mold.   Disgusting.   After further questioning, "blueberries" have been in all the yogurt in this box.  Apparently, Nick has been eating mold every day.  There are two left in a box of 16.   He said "oh well Mom, it tastes really good after all the blueberries are gone!" 

Warning:  Don't read any further if you like pink food!

Just a side note:  while getting this yogurt picture off the internet I came across this lovely tidbit.   Mold isn't the only gross thing in Nick's yogurt.    When you dig into a strawberry Yoplait yogurt, take a moment to contemplate where the beautiful pink color comes from. Strawberries? Think again. It comes from crushed bugs. Specifically, from the female cochineal beetles and their eggs. And it's not just yogurt. The bugs are also used to give red coloring to Hershey Good & Plenty candies, Tropicana grapefruit juice, and other common foods.

           

Oh, I saw something on a friend's blog that I liked, so I will copy it.  She puts three things she is thankful for at the bottom of each post.

1.  Nick

2.  Non-moldy yogurt

3.  yellow, blue or green food

So I am taking pictures of Ben and Zachary because they are sitting so cute together, and Zach is actually sitting on the couch for the first time.  Amy and Laurie will have to give me some photography tips obviously, (bad lighting, bad positioning, getting a 3 month old to hold still for two seconds).  Zachary spit up all over, pretty much right when I am taking this last picture so I run to get a burp cloth.  I come back, can't be more than 10 seconds later and this is what I find.  I don't even know where Ben went.  If only I could fall asleep like that.  Obviously he gets it from his Dad.

Go Transformers!

It was a sad day for Nick.   His last soccer game.  He has actually turned out to be quite a good little socccer player.  He is very aggressive and really goes after the ball.  He loves to play "defender."   He is super great at blocking goals and he hangs out in the middle of the field waiting to stop the other team.   Our coach has observed this and has given him some great tips to improve his game.   We have tried to encourage him to follow the ball after some of those great kicks of his so he could score some goals, but he is quite reluctant to leave his self-appointed position.   The weather has been crazy.   We have had so many beautiful days this spring.  It seems like all week is beautiful and on Wednesday morning sure enough it looks like another weird day.  (Rain, snow, sun, rain again, sun... etc) and then by Wednesday night we are sitting by the phone at the last minute waiting to see if the game has been canceled.   We had eight spring games scheduled, four got canceled and we froze at all four of the others.  Unfortunately we don't play on the same field as my photo savvy sisters, so we only have my snapshots of the only game I actually remembered a camera.    Poor Zach spent every game freezing in his carseat and Ben kept asking where his team was.    He will be so glad to get to play in the fall.  Next on the list T-Ball.   Nick said "Yeah, Mom sign me up, but it will be boring and I will goof around instead of listening to my coach"  At least he remembers it the same way I do!

Charlie Bit Me

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OBlgSz8sSM

I think this is hilarious.  These boys are so cute.   Nick and Ben keep asking me to play it over and over again.  You will have to copy and paste it to your browser, I couldn't get it to play on my blog.

We took Grandma Berge to visit a friend in the hospital, and I snapped these pictures by the waterfall while we waited.

Bountiful Lake

On Sunday we went for a walk around Bountiful Lake.  It turned out to be a great day, but a bit breezy.    These pictures aren't the greatest, but we had a great time.  You might even be able to see the little "treasures" that Nick collected while we were walking.   We saw lots of different birds and it was fun to see how many different creatures the boys could identify.   Zachary talked the whole time.  He loves riding in the stroller as long as he can see Mom's face while we walk.