Hill Aerospace Museum

For our second week of Spring Break we went to Utah. Rick had a class he was taking at Hill Air Force Base, so we were all able to go out for the week. It was fun getting to see so much family & spend the days with my sister & her kids. It was also a new experience for us to stay on the AFB for the week. I was surprised with how nice the apartment was where we stayed. Today we went & spent some time at the Hill Aerospace Museum. I've driven by & off of this exit many times but have never gone. It was pretty cool. There are lots of airplanes outside & just as many inside. The kids thought it was amazing how big the planes were compared to them & that many of the tires were as tall as they were.

They also had a fun learning center inside of the museum where the kids could learn about science, dress up in uniforms, & fly some simulators.

It was a really great day!

Happy Birthday, Joseph!

Today Joseph turned 7! Woohoo! He was pretty excited & lucky to get to spend it with cousins. And they were nice to give him fun presents. First, he got new church clothes.

Then his cousins made him light sabers out of swim noodles & Grant gave him one of his Star Wars books. Joseph loved that.

Then we had some cake! It was only appropriate that he had a basketball cake for tonight.

It was yummy!

And then we headed down for a KU party where we had lots of red & blue & basketball treats for the NCAA Championship game against Kentucky. Unfortunately, UK won instead of KU...but still KU had a much better season than was expected!

General Conference

We loved General Conference! It's always one of our favorite weekends & there are so many uplifting & wonderful talks, we just love it! This year was fun also because 1) we got to see my niece, Megan, in the MTC choir and 2) Rick & Lexie were able to go to the Conference Center for Conference for their first time. (Thanks Doug for getting tickets for them!) It was awesome & Lexie did pretty well (she did say it was getting long-but what 8 year old doesn't think that?).

I'm so glad they were able to go & spend a beautiful day up there. They even ran into some friends from Colorado while they were there! It's such a small world!

The rest of us watched from my sister Kiersten's house & Lexie decided to draw a picture for us there as well.

Going Shooting

I need to get some more pics & video of this from Paul one of these days, but on our way into Utah we stopped at Rick's sister's house for the afternoon & evening. Rick took Joseph out shooting with the other boys. Joseph had never been around guns before so this was a first. He had a lot of fun doing it. He started out shooting a BB gun & soon after asked if he could try one of the bigger guns. So he shot a .22.

The .22 was too big for him to hold up so Rick held the barrel while he shot. His cousins found 4 water bottles & lined them up for him & Joseph went down the row & hit every bottle. Rick was rather impressed. Joseph wants to go target shooting again sometime.

While they were gone, Andrew & Lexie colored & had lots of fun doing that.

Popping

Spring is coming & our trees are starting to pop. I love it! Unfortunately, since we're heading out of town we'll probably miss lots of our flowers blooming. But that is alright, we'll see lots of other people's pretty flowers.

And Aunt Megan sent us a package today with lots of bubble wrap (one for each kid) & the kids had a great time popping away! Thanks, Megan!

Get Down-Or Not

Generally, each time Rick gets Eliza down from her high chair she dances. Here's a little taste but it's not great as each time I pull out the camera she gets shy & won't do her normal dance. But it still makes me laugh & is cute anyway.

Crazy Hair Day

Andrew's preschool class is having a fun week. Today was Crazy Hair Day. It's sort of too bad that we gave him a haircut on Saturday (it was super long). But alas, I tried to get him to let me spray color in it or hair bows. If we had kept it long I could have even braided it. Nope, he just wanted spiky hair. But for our house, that is pretty crazy.

And he spent most of the morning using his spikes as weapons against his "bad guy" toys. It was quite humorous to watch.

Lovely Weather

This week (& the next few days will be, too) has brought us some lovely spring weather! We enjoy spending lots of time riding scooters & bikes outside on days like this.

Lexie thought she'd give the old trike a spin.

It inspired Eliza to give it a whirl as well. She loved it but will not put her feet up at all to let anyone push her. She just likes to waddle along.

She also became our official honker. I have a feeling the neighbors may be annoyed by the end of the summer-just kidding. It sure was fun!

And Joseph has worked really hard at mastering his bike riding skills. I think he's got it completely down now!

We are all looking forward to many more beautiful days like this one!

Love of Books

It is awesome how much all of our kids love books! It's a rare site in our house to have all of the books put away.

And I love how they love to read lots together. It is so sweet.

Bucket Head

Eliza learned a new word from Plants vs. Zombies. "Nooooooooo!" It's funny because she says it so sweetly & I don't think she has any idea what it really means. The kids were convinced that she also being a bucket head zombie here. I don't know if she was, but she was being cute.

Lost Tooth in Primary

Joseph has had this tooth that's been dangling for quite awhile. Yesterday in Primary he was playing with it & one of his teachers offered to knock it right out for him. Of course Joseph was reluctant & his teacher told him he could probably do it himself, just push it a little harder. Sure enough, he did & out it popped!

Of course the tooth fairy left him something & he's been super excited about learning all about the back of the Sacajawea coin.

Star Wars Creations

Joseph is still really into Star Wars. He checks out books about Star Wars each week at the library & in his spare time he makes different characters with toys. Here is his R2D2. He's so excited about it!