What? Snow?

This is what we woke up to this morning! Wow!
I was so glad it was a reading day today for BYU...meaning, Ben could take the boys outside while I relaxed inside with Spencer. Plus, I can't go out in the snow anyway with my cast.

So, this is my vehicle buried...


And this is Garrett's...

Introducing....

The newest addition to our family.
Our search for a minivan is finally over! We sold our 2006 Camry last week, and we've been working for several weeks to find a van that would suit our needs, (and pocketbook) and we have a winner! Love the color, the inside is very clean and we are getting some good work done on it by our good friend "Don the mechanic". He's taken good care of us. We've gone over to the dark side of being a Honda owner instead of Toyota...it is a 2002 Honda Odyssey. And see that black box on the ceiling?...it's a DVD player! Considering how old it is it's in great condition and has some neat goodies in it. I am excited to drive it...but that'll have to wait, as my right foot is still in a cast for 3 more weeks! Ha! Hmmm, the lighting from the rain makes it look kind of blue, huh? It's actually a dark gray with a slight blue tint. We have finally entered the world of minivan!!! Wahahahahahaha!I'm going to have to come up with a new hobby now, since looking for a van has been somewhat of an obsession lately!!! Some people do Facebook...I do ksl.com and craigslist...

Conference and beyond

The only picture I was able to get turned our fuzzy...sorry! I always think it's really neat when lot's of family get together, especially siblings! Here is Ben with brothers Daniel and Paul, and sister Sarah. Paul drove from Seattle for Conference and Daniel's family and Sarah live here in Provo. It was fun to have lunch together!
Richard is really getting the hang of reading, he gets frustrated easily, but he understands how to do it. Here he is with Ben and Spencer reading good ol' Dick and Jane. Lately Ben has been reading "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" as a bedtime story since his favorite movie as of late is the one that came out recently with Johnny Depp.

And, because I can't get enough of his cute chubbiness, here is some of Spencer. :) Looking solemn.

Looking smirky...


And loving Elmo!

My brand new foot...

After Spencer was born I started walking at the mall in the morning. My feet killed me! So I had bunion surgery on march 19th, and was anticipating not being able to walk for 6 weeks...but luckily the surgery went better than hoped for and I only had to stay off it for about 10 days. I lived in the living room for those 10 days, with a little crib next to the couch for the baby and I only crawled upstairs to take a bath. I didn't see my kitchen for those 10 days either...I guess it was somewhat workable since food kept emerging from within...Ben really is a good housekeeper when he needs to be. I am now in a walking cast and just have to stay off it as much as possible...which is darn near impossible with 3 little boys to take care...wait, 4 boys...I love being able to be up and moving around, and cleaning up my house!!! I would go crazy if I ever had to be on bedrest! Oh my! But now I have a lot of empathy for women who have to endure that.
Ben wrote "under construction"...I think it's funny. It doesn't really hurt anymore, just annoying. I'm so grateful for all the ladies who came to help me during that first week, including the cleaning, playing, meals and being company. Thank you so much!
The cast comes off in 3 more weeks, and then hopefully I'll be able to walk like a normal person. :) I'll probably have to wear orthodics for the rest of my life since I also have extremely flat feet, but oh well. At least it won't hurt anymore! We'll consider doing the other foot, but I'm sure not looking forward to it!
My Mom also got to come stay for a week on her spring break, so that was great too! She took the boys out to get them out of the house, provided meals and spent time with me!!! Thanks Mom!

Spencer pictures

Spencer is actually 'talking' in his own sweet way in these pictures. See him forming words? Ha...

And, "Dad, what are you doing?"He has also found his hands and loves to suck on them or clasp them together when he's getting upset...

Happy Birthday to Uncle Scott!

My brother Scott is on his mission in Ethiopia, Africa and recently turned 21, on march 8th actually. So here are Garrett and Richard wishing him a happy birthday. They helped make the sign. :)

Blessing Day

We blessed Spencer Evan in church on March 8th, so this is bit overdue, but here are some pictures from that morning. Grandpa Gary was with us for the day so that was special. We also had a lot of Ben's family over for a lunch afterward and that was a lot of fun. Thanks to everyone who came! We love being with our family!

Getting chunky!

Just a happy little guy! This picture was taken February 19th, he was 5 weeks old.


This was taken a week ago. Spencer is now 2 months and weights 11 pounds 6 ounces. Anyone for cooked baby?

New hobbies

For Christmas we got the game "Perfection" where you have to put all the pieces in before the timer runs out and it pops all the pieces up and out. Garrett has mastered the "Pop" game, without the timer...:) He loves putting the pieces in, then running the timer, then running away from it as it clicks down to the big POP, saying "Scare me!" and pretending to be scared.

Richard's new favorite thing is cutting out snowflakes. He is very coordinated with scissors and I always find tons of little tiny paper shreds after he's done with his cutting. We let him hang up all his masterpieces and our living room is quite decorated now!

5 weeks

Spencer is now coming up on 6 weeks old. He has really filled out compared to his previous pictures and has fat rolls in his wrists. AND, his umbilical cord FINALLY came all the way off. He is doing well, sometimes I even get to sleep for 4 hours at a time at night! Then we get 2 hours at a time until 8am or so.

First Sushi

Our local grocery store has started making fresh sushi every day, a delicacy we enjoy. :) So here is Ben introducing Garrett and Richard to sushi. Richard enjoyed the california rolls and raw eel...I don't even like raw eel! Ben is showing the bite that Richard just took.

Daly Visit

My parents were here for a fabulously fun and helpful visit this past week. Dad was on the floor most of the time playing games and puzzles with the boys and Mom helped a lot with the kitchen and holding the baby so I could do stuff I wanted or needed to do. She also read with Garrett, who always insists on sitting on your lap to read.

Sunday evening

At 6pm we decided to go for a ride up the canyon to check on my cousins' cabin in Sundance. We go up once a month to make sure it hasn't been vandalized or flooding or anything amiss. We tried last week but once we turned off the main road, it's not plowed and we couldn't make it up the hill before the cabin...so we thought we'd try again this week. Well, it started snowing so we didn't even bother turning off the main road. But, we had told the boys we were going to the try to go to the cabin. All Garrett heard was "going to the cabin" and he got really upset when he realized we were going back home. So we stopped at the Sundance resort lodge and Ben took the boys out for a few minutes. They came back after about 15 minutes (during which I had to feed the baby in the car, surprising he doesn't like being in the car seat when he's awake!) and Richard says "Garrett burned his hand." WHAT? Apparently the boys went running toward the fireplace inside the lodge, Garrett tripped, and tried to catch himself against the hot fireplace door. I still need my mom's version of when my younger sister did a similar thing, at Garrett's age! So he cried the whole way home, even though Ben put some ice wrapped in a paper towel on his hand. I started making dinner and Ben took Garrett to the Dr. The picture of him on the floor was last night...he wouldn't eat anything and was quite traumatized, although it was luckily only a 1st degree burn. The other picture of him eating is today, showing me his blackberry and smiling. :) He didn't complain all day about his hand. Last night he kept saying "Glove hurt" He thought the glove was hurting his hand! I'm so grateful he's ok! We have to keep it bandaged foranother 2 days and I even changed the wrap myself this morning!

We all made it to church!

So yesterday started out as a happy and busy Sunday. Ben had a meeting an hour before church, and I was able to get everyone fed and dressed while juggling Spencer's moods. You know you feed a baby and think he's all ready for a nap, and you're just about to hop in the shower and you hear him crying...anyway. We decided we'd all go for the whole 3-hour block at church this week. This is the first Sunday we've all gone together since Spencer was born. We just keep Spencer covered in the car seat to ward off children and unwelcome visiting germs. :) So we all made it to church 15 minutes early so I could meet with the Bishop to receive a new calling after (for the first time in my life) not having one for a month. I basically swapped with my friend Claire; she replaced me as Primary President and I am helping with the organ for the Sacrament meeting. Claire was accompanying on the organ for the whole meeting, so now she has some relief since I get to play too. They also asked me to organize mid-week activities to give the stay-at-home moms something to do together. I'll start brainstorming and it should be fun. Anyway, so church was fine, I even got 2 visiting teaching visits in!

More of Spencer

Gotta have the one-eyed wink!
He sleeps for 2 long naps during the day, and usually sleeps for 3 hours at a time at night and goes back to sleep after a good feeding and diapering. He is really sweet and a lot of fun. He makes the usual grunty noises, but lately I've heard a couple of coos out of him. That's cute. :) We love him so much!