Our Cute Little Bunny

I decided to try my hand at some Easter pictures of Aria (a la Sara Staker). Well, I'm no Sara, but my subject was so darn cute that the pictures actually turned out okay. I know, there are probably a million things I did wrong or could have done differently, but I was just happy snapping pictures of her cute little face. I just can't resist that sweet smile, it makes me want to scoop her up in my arms and plant kiss after kiss on her chubby little cheeks.

Happy Easter!

We had so much fun on Easter Sunday.  The kids woke up in the morning to see that the Easter Bunny had left them clues that took them all around the basement finding their baskets and eggs.  It was so cute watching Aria toddle after them, trying to keep up.  She really enjoyed all the goodies in her eggs, such as Banana puffs, Apple Bits and Cheerios.  The kids were thrilled with all the candy they got.  You can never have too much candy!  I love the picture of Chase protecting his eggs from Aria and Chase was loving playing with his cute cousin Gage.

After church we drove out to Lehi to Grandpa Larry's and Grandma Peggy's house for dinner (Yum!) and another fun Easter Egg Hunt.  Here's a picture of our cute family.  We sure have some beautiful kids!

The kids had a lot of fun running around the yard with their cousins searching for eggs.  They all came away with a ton of stuff.  Mike helped Aria fill her basket.  She liked dropping the eggs into the basket and dropping them on the ground so Daddy had to pick them up.  

  

I think Kaden's favorite eggs were the ones with money in them.  I saw him kissing the money eggs singing, "Money, money, money, I love money".  They all got water guns in their baskets and thought a water fight was in order.  Needless to say they all came home damp, dirty and happy.

Skating

Michela asked for roller skates for her birthday.  When she tested them out she wasn't so sure she was happy about getting them.  She took quite a few tumbles on her first day out.  Mike and I were laughing because we totally remember skating all the time.  My sister and I used to skate all over the place.  I loved my beat up roller skates.  Mike said he was the King of the Roller rink.  It makes me smile just to think about it. :)  

For Michela's birthday party she decided she wanted to try out ice skating.  We invited some of her friends to come along and Aunt Tiffy came to help me keep the kids in order.  Mike refused to skate, he said he didn't want to get hurt.  So he spent most of the time walking around with Aria, which made her pretty darn happy.  Chase went around once with Aunt Tiffy and he was done for the day.  Hunter stuck it out most of the time, but after a  big fall he didn't want anything to do with ice skating anymore.

Most of Michela's friends didn't fare much better.  I was getting kind of discouraged thinking the birthday party was a bust until I saw Michela skating around the rink.  She was having a blast!  No wall hugging for her, she was braving it out there in the midst of all the other skaters.  She fell quite a bit, but she would just get back up, brush her self off and keep on going.  I was so proud of her!! 

Tiff and I felt like kids again gliding around on the ice until we remembered how much your ankles start to hurt after awhile.  I knew it had been a success when Michela asked if we could come back again for Family Night sometime.  I looked at Mike's face and told Michela we would have to make it a Girl's Night Out instead. :)

   

Happy 97th Birthday Great Great Grandma Lowry

We spent the day up in Idaho to help Great Grandma Lowry celebrate her 97th birthday.  A bunch of the family met up at the nursing home and surprised her with a little lunch, cake, presents and well wishes.  She looked great and was talking up a storm. 

It was great seeing her and being able to get some pictures with her.  We got a good one of her hand, Grandpa's, Peggy's, Mike's and all the kids.  Thanks for the idea Megan! 

The funniest part was when Wes presented her with a big present.  Inside there were tons of wire hangers.  She had a good laugh.  Everyone should expect to be getting some crocheted hangers in the near future.  What a good time we had.  I think it is so cool that my kids get to know their Great Great Grandma.  I never was able to know any of my Great Great Grandparents.  I think Grandma is an example to us all.  She is such a hard worker and just keeps going.  I love that she is still so spunky, I think she is going to outlive us all!

Green Underwear

After reading Megan's blog entry for today I thought I would share our St. Patrick's Day morning too.  Michela and Hunter have to wear uniforms to school every day and they don't have any green on them.  Hunter borrowed a friendship bracelet from Michela that had some green in it.  I told Michela that she could wear a green clip in her hair and she announced that she was going to wear green underwear.  I told her that no one could see it so that wouldn't count.  She said she could tell people that she was wearing green underwear before they could pinch her.  I could just see her running around the playground with her classmates chasing her trying to pinch her and she would be screaming, "but I have on Green Underwear!"  She ended up going to school with a green bracelet instead.  :)

Happy 9th Birthday Michela!

How has my little girl grown up so fast?!  It seems like yesterday the doctor laid her in my arms and I saw that beautiful little girl for the first time.  I remember all that dark silky hair, her beautiful skin, and her tiny little fingers and toes.  I'll never forget the day she came into my life and made us a family.  She is getting so beautiful and so smart.  She hates it when I call her beautiful, but there is no denying the fact that she is going to be a gorgeous little lady.  I am so proud of her.  She is a great big sister and is my greatest help.  She is talented, creative, athletic, generous, intelligent, independent and thoughtful.  I love her so much and I hope she will always remember that.  These past nine years have gone by fast, but they have sure been fun and full of surprises.  Enjoy the slide show of Michela over the years.  Did I mention that she is beautiful?  :)

Polynesian Cultural Center

I think the Polynesian Cultural Center was my favorite part of the trip. What an awesome place for these kids to be able to work there so they can go to school. It didn't look like work to me, they all seemed to be having so much fun. Our Tour Guide Tyler was awesome. He was from Hawaii and we found out he was getting married in two weeks. We started off in Tonga where we listened to the drums and the conch shells. Then we went to Fiji and thumped some big bamboo poles on the ground, learning different rhythms and banging along with the other instruments. The kids had to be careful not to smash their toes.

Next we watched the canoe show. All of the dancers from the different islands performed on flat rafts on the river. It was a lot of fun to see the different dances and costumes.

Then we went to Hawaii where we tried poi (it didn't taste like anything really) and learned to do a Hula dance. This video may be the only time you will see Michela dance. Look for me towards the end showing off my swiveling hips. :)

Our favorite place was Samoa. This guy in the picture was so funny, he was a seriously cracking us up. I thought the lady behind us was going to pee her pants she was laughing so hard. Some of the kids got up to do a little dance with some coconut shells. I was so surprised that Chase got up there, I was so proud of him for doing it. He tried so hard to keep up with the lady who was teaching the dance.

The best part was convincing Mike to volunteer for part of the show. He and another guy from the audience were taken back stage and given some pointers on making fire with two sticks and husking a coconut. Then they had to come on stage and compete against each other. Mike won both times! The kids were so excited, screaming for their Dad and proud that he had won. It was pretty exciting to see my Mikey up there showing off his manliness. In the video you will hear us all yelling and chanting for him.

Our final stop was New Zealand. We learned some different games that they play there. Hunter did awesome in this stick tossing game with Tyler. He was a natural at it.

Then we all got cool Maori tatoos. The kids loved this the most. They were so excited to get all inked up. Hunter ended up with two on his face and Michela had one on her face and one on her arm. Mike and I even indulged. Check out our great family picture of our little tribe.

We ate dinner at the Luau and then shopped around the market. The best part was the show at the end of the night. The dancers were incredible! The kids were all entranced, they couldn't keep their eyes off the show. Even little Aria stayed awake until the very end when she finally couldn't keep her eyes open for any longer. Everyone's favorite part was the fire dancer. He was so amazing. It was awesome when he had fire dancing on his tongue. What a great experience. We will be talking about this day for years to come.

The Pool

If we weren't at the beach then we were mostly likely at the pool. The kids liked the pool the best because there were no waves and they could actually swim. Hunter, Michela and Chase spent a lot of time kicking around the pool on the boogie boards.

Michela and Hunter liked diving for these torpedo darts I bought for the pool. Michela even got good enough to dive for them in the deep end!

Aria didn't enjoy the pool the first day, but when I took her in the second day she didn't want to get out. Mike was trying to teach her to surf on the boogie board. She was so happy playing and splashing in the pool.

The pool wasn't heated, so if it was cloudy the water was a bit chilly. Luckily it was usually hot enough outside that the cool water felt very refreshing.

Kailua Beach

The house we stayed in was only a few houses away from the beach and our little street had it's own private access. The beach was so beautiful! The sand was soft and clean and the waves right where we walked out were perfect for boogie boarding. We spent a lot of time there, not enough according to Mike, he was constantly begging the kids to come to the beach with him. Everyone tried boogie boarding, even me (I loved it!), but Mike wanted to do it all of the time. The kids could only take being beat up by the ocean so many times before they were done for the day.

Chase loved playing in the sand and even let himself be buried in it on our last day. What a funny kid.

Aria wasn't the biggest fan of the beach. She didn't like the feel of the sand and when I tried to dip her toes in the water she lifted up her feet and threw her arms around my neck. My favorite thing was going for walks along the sand in the early morning.

Aloha!

We just got back from our trip to Hawaii yesterday and I feel like death warmed over. The whole time difference, jet lag and changing the clocks has done me in. We had so much fun while we were in Hawaii and got to do lots of things as well as get in a lot of time at the beach and swimming pool. The kids didn't want to come home and go back to school, but I guess we had to come back to the real world at some point. Stay tuned for pictures and details of the trip. I don't know if I'll be able to get pictures posted today because all I want to do is crawl into bed and sleep for about 2 days. Having fun sure takes a lot out of you.