springy

Our outside bushes are covered in butterflies... or moths.. probably both. But they are so pretty and springy. We love them.

Potty training in full swing

You can tell because Ezra is getting good at the map. He has known a bunch for a long time but he always gets silly when I grab my camera. This is all I could catch.

Easter a la Bowler

Easter Morning Rowdy woke up all excited. 

I now forget what we had been doing I just know we were all really tired. So Rowdy hung tight for a bit until it was a normal time for the littles to wake up. I felt so mean!

 

Elliot was hilarious when she found an egg she just cruised around shaking it listening to the candy inside. 

We were so tired the night before & I think Cody had been working. We were hoping he would get home in time to color eggs, but Rowdy just ended up Sharpie-ing some. The rest were goody filled plastics

Ezra was stoked about some Spider man underwear

 

The kids got gardening things and plants in their buckets. We all had fun planting them later on in the week. & I've decided if the kids ever want a dog I am going to make them maintain a garden first to see if they can handle the daily responsibility. But I love walking out side or coming home and seeing all these pretty flowers out front.

 

The Easter bunny brought Elliot a sandbox, but she stuck her hand in and wasn't excited about it. Ezra was!

 She loves it now though, as do the boys

 The Easter bunny surprised me with some peach trees! 

I am so excited for trees in our backyard

 When we came in from the front yard Cody had been hiding a package from Yaya and Papa. It felt like Christmas. There were a bunch of awesome clothes, including some great church clothes. sorry mom I forgot to take a pic :) and we also got an Easter letter from Nan.

It was really great to go to church. We have the best choir too. 

After church we had prepared stuff to  grill dinner at the park across the street but it was drizzly and Cody got called into work. After our backup dinner we went to the Carmacks & visited & had dessert with their family and the Cienna-Houcks. 

It was a great day. and really the whole week had been great. ...We talked of Christ we rejoiced in Christ.  I think the kids really caught the spirit of Easter (my favorite holiday.)

I heart Livee

Livee celebrated her birthday a while ago. 10 years old!!

We just love her. Especially Elliot :)

 

She is always so much fun to have over. 

She always loves the kids, and is so patient with them, and a big help to me on crazy days.

 Rowdy was begging me to make him a I heart Livee shirt too :)

We love you Livee. Thanks for being such a great girl, a good example, a fun niece, a nice neighbor, good company, patient helper, last minute car baby sitter, adventurous friend, good cook, silly car companion, a reverent activity day/ Sunday school atendee :) , an awesome cousin, and so much more. We love you 10 year old guts!!

Happy National Sibling Day

We didn't know it was national sibling day. We just decided to invite the Carmacks to eat w us at the park across the street. Cody grilled some steak and hot dogs and we had salad and chips. The Amelia Bowlers were picking up kids so they came too. It was nice. a little hot but nice to visit. The kids all rode bikes and played at the park and we ate some popsicles at our house afterward.

 The sand box is still a hit. It sticks to your skin really well,

 and can double as makeup

 

We love you Locke, Katie, Letti, D, Lynda, Craig, Bobby, Tiffany, Tad, Amelia, Sydney, & Michael. Happy National Sibling Day

Ezra is so cute

The moon was super bright Thursday night. I walked out our back door and Ezra who I had just tried to put to bed came out. I picked him up and asked if he could see the man in the moon. I showed him the face and asked if he could see it, he said "I see him. He is smiling at me!.. Is he Jesus?"
Aww.  Little Ezra is always melting our hearts. He has the cutest funniest little voice too. We layed down together on our swing out back for a little while and we talked. It was a sweet little moment.
He is also very interested in Baptism lately. He keeps saying, "I 'm going to be baptized by my Daddy." and he keeps saying Daddy with a funny long A.

We also to go to see Adam's baptism today to and hang out with the Brownies and fam. Ezra and Rowdy thought that was pretty cool to see him be baptized, "by his Daddy." It was a great Easter reminder. I loved being at his baptism on Easter Eve. and We love the Brownies...and the Stewarts. Happy Baby Blessing tomorrow Luke.

and as an interesting side note Ezra is teaching Elliot the,"Super Why" song. You can really tell she is trying to sing "Super Why!" There is no annunciaiton but there is a tune. Its funny cute.

zoo

Cody is such a sweet Dad. 

He has been working a lot. He was gone for 2 days taking a train out of town. The boys always ask him if they can go to work with him. He got home from work this morning, sick of trains,yet... we talked him into another train ride. 

Cody was totally jealous of this engineers outfit. 

 Cody actually wanted to take the kids to the zoo, but the miniature train is right before zoo. What a trooper.

 The train ride was actually great. It rode down and over the Trinity river over a couple mini train bridges.  It went all over a huge park. The boys were stoked to finally be on a train with Dad.

 Tickle fight!

 

The weather was amazing. Elliot loved the animals that moved. This baby monkey & his Mom were so cute. The mom would walk around on four legs and he would hang onto her tummy/back. Elliot would point at all the animals and talk in quiet jibberish.

 Cindy Lou Whoo. 

They actually start out as little knobbies but pop out

 Rowdy patting the "pig nose" turtle.

 Ezra wanted to see the elephants all day. They did not disappoint. They were kicking the balls, and playing with the tires, Throwing dirt on their backs too cool off. This guy kept eating the hay off the other's back. and he kept swaying to his own beat.

Ezra had wanted to see the Elephants and Rowdy wanted to see the "cantelopes"

 The Lion also gave us a show. It seemed like he just wanted to roar to see if he still had it. He roared like 10 or 15 times.

 Freaky cartoony looking alligator sizing up Elliot

 ooooh. I loved the birds. This Red Ibis was amazing

but Elliot was the most exciting to watch.

Afterwards we went to the Mellow Mushroom. mmmm. It was a lovely day. Poor Cody was hurtin' by this time, for want of sleep. I could tell because he didn't put up to big of a fight when I snuck into the driver's seat. He has a lot on his plate right now but he always carries himself so well. I love that he loves his kids. Thanks for the day sweet man.

Tornado Tuesday Update

This morning dropped Rowdy off at school. Went for a jog with the 2 littles payed the water bill on our jog. The lady helping me said you better hurry home before the storm comes. ? Had no clue. It looked like it might rain. anyway a few hours later the tornado sirens went off. But it didn't look bad at all. Cody was in Temple and Rowdy at school. I felt like we would be fine but it was almost time to pick Rowdy up so I was just in a quandry about if I should give it a minute or hurry and go get him. They turned off. Sweet Lynda got the boys and the sirens came on again as Rowdy walked in the door. Our teenage neighbor who was home sick from school and all alone came over pretty upset. As I was trying to comfort her I went to look outside there still was hardly any wind rain drops weren't even too crazy but there were some low fast moving clouds. Anyway we are all fine. I heard it touched down at the speedway right by us, but I drove by there later tonight ( ..the evening was lovely) and didn't see any damage from my side. They even had a ton of race stuff up for next weekend. So..? I think it was a rumor. Some people have Taco Tuesdays...not us :)

Celebrating w Yaya

Yaya always so creative when she comes down. She always something up her sleeve.

She did a leprechaun scavenger hunt for the kids (mostly for Rowdy to lead the way)

and she also stuffed a bunch of eggs and we had an early Easter egg hunt

 Elliot had the best time with the eggs. and they are still her preferred toys, a week later.

 

Then there is the usual deflating of the air bed. always a hit with the kids.

On Friday Yaya's flight left at 8 p.m. but before that we went and hung with the Brownies/ Stewarts/ Steuvenals. It was so fun to hang out with them all. (We grew up in the same ward) Thanks for the amazing food. The kids swam and had the best time. It was just really nice to be around our peeps :)

And always so hard to say goodbye.

Tyler Trip

While my Mom was here last week we decided to go check out Tyler, TX. IT was 3 hours away..perfect for a short road trip. The trees were phenomenal... although I did not get any worthy huge-o tree pictures. The scenery coming into Tyler was just so spring green beautiful. Big lush trees wildflowers, big beautiful homes and cows. It was lovely

We left home when we did just so we could get to Stanley's before 2. They are so good they only have to stay open from 11-2. Because that's usually when they run out of meat. The ribs were so amazing. We decided the guy has a pig supplier because I have never eaten pork ribs with so much meat on them. I ate 3 and was full. We loved the bluesy guy on the porch serenading us too. It turned out to be 80ish degrees, and that's hot when its your first 80ish of the spring.

Apparently Tyler has a tiger sanctuary? who knew. but we are too cheap for that so we went to the free rose gardens. In two weeks that place is going to be off the hook :) There were tons of buds.

 

 Do you see Cody over there to the left? The trees were all really tall and lovely. It was pretty warm so we checked into our hotel and checked out the pool. It was too cold for me and luckily Elliot. But the boys got in and had a good time. & My Mom was here snapping all these pictures

Ezra was exploring and then I realized he had jumped into the fountain and was having a good ole' time! Do you see that classy fountain? at night the fountain and the entire pool would flash crazy discoteca colors. It was so random.

Right across the street there were some awesome paved trails through more of the tall trees. It was sooo nice. and the people of Tyler were definitely enjoying them. I felt like a small town girl though In Justin on the exercise trail everyone at least waves to you most of them talk to you for a second. Tyler is a little bigger ;)

Elliot had been watching Yaya do her hair :) 

Yaya watched the kids and Cody took me on a date to see the Hunger Games. I really hadn't wanted to see it and I did close my eyes for a lot of it. But it was really well done. Then we shared a delicious strawberry shortcake frozen custard. Its always so nice to have a date when grandparents come to town.

We checked out an indoor waterpark just outside of Tyler. The area was sooo pretty. and it was right by a beautiful lake. they were advertising it to be like Great Wolf lodge.... which has towels :)  so um yeah we just drip dryed. The towels didn't even cross my mind at all :) The waterpark was ok. They just shouldn't have compared it to the great wolf lodge :)

Cody thought he might get called into work so he headed back after the water park. The kids had a great time playing miniature golf.... They were sort of stressing me out though :)

The next Morning we packed up and went to Canton's First "Monday" trade days. I have heard about it and so I was excited it randomly fell on the Thursday we were headed home. It was great. Amongst other things...found an old bowling pin!

They look like they just got in trouble :)

It was fun trip.