It's been a while

and not without good cause. It has been an incredibly rough 3 weeks... rough enough that I'm not even going to go into it. I just want to tell my amazing family and friends how much I love you guys and am thankful for always being there for us.

Amid trying to pick up the pieces, here's a few things we have been doing.


The weather was warm for a brief time, and the kids loved playing in the sandbox.


(even Buttons was enjoying the sunshine, that we hardly ever see)

My parents watched Devin so I could go on a fieldtrip with Ally. We went to some Utah Conservation Garden thing. They had to find certain plants on a scavenger hunt. Then they went to a park after to eat and play.


(I was in charge of these three cute girls during the fieldtrip, the one in the middle is Ally's best friend, Ashley)


The kids are also on their second round of swimming lessons.


(Ally's favorite part of swimming is having Ashley in the class with her).

(Not a great picture, but if you saw Devin swim, you would understand... this kid does NOT hold still for a second!)
His favorite part is jumping off the wall. At this age Ally refused to put her face in the water, but Devin does it on his own. He is always sticking his face in the water to blow bubbles, and loves being dunked.

So, that is a quick catch up. To all the people that have been there for us this last little while, I can't explain how much we love you. I couldn't ask for more amazing people in my life.

And to those cliches... "What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger," and "When one door closes another one opens"... Well we are going to be one buff family bursting through that door soon.

Easter Sunday

We woke up to several inches of snow... big sigh.

Easter was such a laid back kind of day this year. General Conference fell on Easter this year, which meant no getting dressed up for church... we stayed in our pajamas ALL day.

When the kids went downstairs where they had left there buckets for the Easter Bunny, there was only a note, which read:

I want to be a funny bunny this year,
But I brought you presents, don't shed a tear.
You'll just have to look and look
Beacause your next clue is by a vampire book.

Ally of course new it would be by the book Twilight... where she found a plastic easter egg stuffed with a clue. She loves this kind of thing. She raced around the house to find all the clues, until she finally found their easter baskets.



Devin didn't care at all about his basket... the first piece of candy was all he cared about.

Ally went upstairs to listen to her new Selena Gomez cd, and Alex hid the eggs. Then she came down to find them. Devin grabbed one, ate the candy out of it and called it good. He had then discovered a few of the toys in his basket and played with them for a long time, while Ally ran around finding plastic, candy-filled eggs.




(he loved the cheap wind-up animals so much I wish I would have filled his entire basket with them!)

The kids spent the rest of the day playing, and Devin was actually good enough that I got to watch most of General Conference. It still amazes me of the power of the Spirit the prophets radiate when they speak... how can anyone doubt they are God's chosen servants? I have always loved listending to President Monson speak, and again it was my favorite this time. He is definitely a spiritual giant!

Goblin Valley Pics

Like I said before, I just didn't feel good enough to get very many pictures, but here are the few I did take.

Even though we didn't stay over on Easter this year, it just isn't Goblin Valley if you don't have an Easter egg hunt... only this year we were smarter. We lose several candy-filled eggs every year (this year we left 9 eggs among the rocks and lizards). Instead, we hid empty plastic eggs and put all of the treats in a big bag for each kid... no more scrambling to sort the candy evenly. It was perfect!



(Devin was more interested in putting his eggs in a bush then finding any more)



Ally colored easter eggs while Devin took a nap.



This is what Goblin Valley looks like... a child's paradise... (my husband is included in the word "child").


And here are my kids enjoying the goblins.







They each found a great place to rest.