Aspen got her cast off!! YEAH!!

She was too cute sleeping at night with her broken arm hanging out. She is such a goofball! She sleeps on the floor every night in the door frame. I don't know why. Kaylee used to do it when she was younger too. Each night we lay out her sleeping bag and get her tucked in then every morning she puts it away in her bed (well, shes supposed to anyway!) I sure do love the kids when they are sleeping! :)

Proud to be cast FREE!!!

She got her cast off on Tuesday (20th) and I wanted to take the camera to take pictures of them cutting it off, but Briggs decided to take a bath with the camera that morning so it wasn't working :( luckily I took it apart and let it dry for a few days and now it works again. Good thing!

One sneaky Leprechaun

Well,we had a sneaky Leprechaun again that slipped away from us. I do think we were a little closer this year to catching him.

This is aspens trap she and Kaylee built, with stronger tape than last year so it wouldn't get lose. She figured it would go in to get the fake gold and get stuck on the tape.

Both traps set out at night

The next morning... No little green guy. Just some nuts and candies- but they were trying to be happy about it.

This is the inside of Kaylees trap that she made at her friends house. She made him a bed and a couch with a friend to sit by and a coat hanger. He must have used the couch and bed because there was some fuzzy white hair on them, and some green string that must have came off him from somewhere. Maybe he tore his clothes and pulled some of his hair off trying to get free from Aspens tape?

The front of Kaylees trap..

A peek inside with the couch with friend sitting on it, bed and coat hanger as he came in.

This must be where he snuck out of.. Tape stuck on the door that must have came off his foot, and his little bag of gold that wouldn't fit under the door so he had no choice but to leave it.

Then there was a trail of tape from the traps to the front door. Darn, Maybe better luck next year. A pot of gold could come in really handy!

Adopt a park: Camp Floyd State Park

Thanks to the great advice from Daves Best Friend, Dan and his wife Deej, Dave decided in addition to his degree that he will have when hes done with school, it would be a good idea to do some volunteer work to get some experience and try to get his foot in the door for a job in a related field. So we as a family decided to adopt the Camp Floyd State Park in Fairfield. It basically requires us to do 4 service projects a year. Our first project was to clean the old school house and get it ready for the summer of visitors. It was in dire need of a good cleaning- We spent most of Saturday shining her up! Daves awesome and scrubbed every window of the place- inside and out. The kids had a blast sweeping, and especially cleaning the individual chalk boards and getting the desks all ready. We were there for a long time and they did super good to help and to entertain themselves.

Kaylee with her crazy face sitting at the desks. They loved these cool desks.

Caden sweeping away- work gloves and all.

What a dork- Love this kid. Any time the camera comes out he does the biggest Cheeser face ever. But, he liked the desks too.

Aspen cleaning the chalk boards that went in the desks.

Caden all ready to learn!

Briggs sweeping- with his big grin again.

They also loved to climb under the tunnels of the desks. They would have races through the rows.

Briggs making his way through.

Aspen chilling on the front porch eating her lunch.

Love this picture of Caden eating his lunch. With his flood overalls he looks like a kid that went to school in the era of the old school. Hes too cute.

Caden climbing through the tunnel

The girls were great helpers with the boys! Kaylee giving Briggs a piggy back ride.

Caden hard at work, scraping gum off the floor with Briggs supervising. You can kinda see Briggs face all scratched up. He fell on the stairs and scraped his head all up on the sidewalk. Poor kid.

Aspen the gimp making her way through the tunnel.

This is what happens when Kaylee goes one way and Briggs starts from the other. They get into a head butting war. Briggs won.

The whole fam in the shiny school. Notice the shine of the windows. Dave worked hard on those.

The kidos out front

All of us out front

The kidos after their long day of work, ready to head home. A pretty good looking crew I'd have to say!!

Teacher Appreciation Week

This past week at the school was teacher appreciation week or spirit week where each day they would dress up as something different. I didn't get pictures on some days but I did on some.

Crazy hair day.... a back shot

Front shot that is kinda hard to see.
Briggs just had to be in the picture.

Then there was nerd day and so when I was taking pictures of the girls of course Briggs needed one and I figured he looked like a big enough nerd with that cheeser of his.

Dressed like nerds. I couldn't get either of them to wear glasses.. but they looked cute. At school they undid all the nerdy stuff, but o well. They thought it was fun.

Another crazy hair.

Girl Power

Last weekend Dave had a wilderness survival camp out with the Young Men so I decided with him gone I would have a girls night. We had the girls best friends Arlee and Dewie over for movie night and sleep over. My girls were ecstatic! When I told them they were having a sleep over they started running laps around the yard and when I asked them why they were doing it they said they were trying to get their excited energy out so they wouldn't bee super crazy for the night! The girls got here and immediately got in their PJ's and set up their beds and started watching movies. It was super easy. They just relaxed and ate popcorn and had a ball staying up late with their best friends!
It even worked out super good Grandma Snyder came out and visited and kept me company with Dave gone. It was a fun night for all of us! We are lucky to have so many great people in our lives!

Kaylee and Arlee decided since they are best friends, so should their stuffed animals. So they made this sleeping bag for their animals to all squish together in to sleep.

All bedded down. Caden joined for a little bit then I put the boys to bed and it was a true girls only party.

The next day they decorated their room and set up for a play they all dressed up for and practiced with music and dancing and all.

They all had so much fun and they were great.!!

Caden, Caden, Caden... what to do with him?

I've pretty much decided that for now Caden is my challenge in life! Don't get me wrong, I seriously love the kid to pieces! I really do. He is so stinkin cute and when hes being good he is so sweet. He is super smart and independent, which I think is part of the problem. Today for some reason he has almost pushed me over the top, so I am venting. (but, I'm cranky anyway, so it didn't take much.) The day started out not too bad, he got ready for church good, did ok during church, he did cry a little saying he wanted to come home, but he went to class and did pretty good. This afternoon well, lets back up to yesterday.. I was emptying garbages when I noticed the bathroom garbage had urine in it. I stared quizzing and the girls of course said, it wasnt them and that was gross. I of course knew who the culprit was, so when I asked him he said "nope, it was Briggs" and ran away.. really? blame it on the little one? So we had a little chat about how we only go potty on the toilet. So now back to today.. This afternoon I was sitting on the boys room floor changing Briggs messy diaper, when I happen to glance over and there is a log of fecal matter. I yell for Caden to come here and explain what this was on their bedroom floor when he again tries to tell me it was Briggs, which I know isn't true because I just changed his messy diaper. Caden finally fessed up to it and then I asked him if he did it anywhere else and to show me so he said he did and led me to a decent size pile on the back lawn just off the porch!! our poor neighbors, I hope they didn't see. He decided he wanted a bath so while I could hear water splashing I went to check on him and noticed urine in the garbage again. Now I'm super mad!! Got it all cleaned up and put Caden in a diaper because I insisted that big boys go in the potty and if he didn't want to go in the potty he was a baby and needed to wear a diaper. He wasn't very happy about that but I wanted to make a point. We went over to my parents to visit for a while and Kaylee came to tell me that Caden just peed on grandmas front lawn (sorry mom!) He had on the one piece foot jamies and he couldn't get them back so by the time I got out there he was waddling back home with his jamies around his ankles, naked from there up. He was already back to our house, so I let Dave deal with that. I felt I had my share for the day. So needless to say I was on my last straw and not to mention he kept escaping to my parents. We were all ready for prayer, and no Caden. Had to drag him home from grandpas house! He climbed up in his bunk bed and decided he didn't want hes Book of Mormon up there anymore, and hucked it on the ground, but missed and slammed right down on my head. Already had a headache, now instantly its throbbing. I couldn't help the tears! Tried to not let him have it as he came and hugged me better and climbed back in bed. Tucked them in and left, tried to compose myself for a minute when I hear a ruckus and Briggs stared screaming so I went to see whats going on and Caden had slammed the door on Briggs head so I lose it and yell for Caden to get to sleep. Re tuck them in and shut the door behind me. I decided I needed a long hot bath with a book! Caden stuck his head in a few times but I kept telling him to get back to bed. I just emerged form my 1 1/2 hr bath and went to check on everyone only to find Cadens whole room covered in baby powder. He must have been on his top bunk and just spraying it everywhere. EVERYWHERE!! I was glad to see Briggs still breathing and not suffocated from the powder. I check in Cadens bed and no sign of him. Only yogurt smeared or maybe flung? on the wall by a spoon and on his bed and some half eaten cheese sticks. Then I find Caden sound asleep in my bed. Looking so peaceful. Another thing he has started doing the last week or so is escaping and leaving our yard. He will take off around the block, or to his buddy Corbys house which is about 2 1/2 blocks away. Most of the time Briggs follows him or tries to until he cant keep up anymore, so then I have 2 lost kids. Then I panic!! I really am at a loss at what to do with him. He can be so sweet and so fun when he wants and other times he tries my patience like nothing else. Dave just kindly asks me to remember what I was like when I was little. Which if you know me when I was little, I wasn't great, but I don't think I was quit like this. :)

See, he can be so sweet and extra handsome (or something) :)

He loves dressing up in any play clothes he can find, and usually wears them all at the same time.

Climbing the tree in the back yard

Every time I load pictures from my camera to the computer I get lots of these shots. Anytime he gets a hold of the camera he tries to get a picture of himself which ends up a nice shot up his nose and his mouth. Makes me laugh every time.

I Love him to pieces when he is asleep! He got these new race car gloves that he wears all of the time. He has to sleep with them and I guess the rock next to him. He gets some pretty random things to sleep with!

There are many more stories of him lately, but for now I am done and i am going to bed and praying for a better day tomorrow!

Sorry so long, just venting, plus I need proof for when he gets older, he owes me!!

Promise though, I do love him!

Hold on for dear life, Chicken..

Caden loves to play with the chickens and really loves to take them for rides in his race car!

The boys and their new big bed

Some of our super awesome friends hooked us up with a nice log bunk bed set for the boys room. It was time to move Briggs out of his crib and so these came perfect timing for us. We got them all set up and they boys were so excited. I was worried Briggs wouldn't stay in bed but he has done way better than I expected. Some times I have to shut the door then he realized there is nowhere to go so he climbs back in bed and goes to sleep but usually he does awesome-as long as Caden stays in his bed. :)
Briggs looks so tiny in this huge bed! luckily it is big enough that he can move a lot and hasn't fallen off yet. My baby is growing right up to a little boy now.

This is how dad gets on the top bunk. Yes, he is a monkey! He holds on to the railing on top of his head from the bottom bunk and heaves his legs up and over like a back flip and ends up on the top. Reminds me of something I would do in my younger days..... much much younger days.

And he made it! Caden is in awe by the look on his face.

This is how Caden pretends he is going to sleep. He thinks hes pretty funny.

Yea for the new bed.

Caden sound asleep in his big boy bed. He hasn't fallen off either which is good because its a long fall from the top! Hes done really good to stay in it all night.

The really scary thing is We just sold all of our baby furniture!!! It was a weird reality! I had mixed emotions! Sad that there may not be any more babies for us and excited to move on and have some fun with the awesome kids we have and be able to do big kid stuff. A new chapter in life that we are excited for.. unless we change our minds :)

On a side note of babies.. My sister Jessica had her baby this last week. On Wed Feb. 29th (leap year day) She had a super cute little boy that is a perfect mold of her other 2 boys. Too fun! Cant wait to see him again. They named him Haze and he weighed in at 6 lbs 15 oz, 18 in long with lots of black hair like the others. CoNGraTS Brucie and Jared!!