Ethan's Preschool Graduation

Just knowing that I have Caleb around home next year to keep me company - makes it so much easier to see Ethan graduate from Preschool.  He is so excited to go to kindergarten next year, and not only kindergarten but ALL DAY Kindergarten.  I think the most exciting part is that he gets to eat lunch at school and that he will get to be with Devyn and Jacob. 

~

Here is his teacher Ms Andy

 And his other teacher Ms Bristy

 Their little program was so cute

I wish my little camera wasn't broken - it had a way to video

If I had a video you would have loved it

 Ethan was lucky to have some supporters

Here is Grandma Strong and Caleb

 Caleb was such a happy boy

More Birthdays

Seriously  . . . . . why can't my birthday last for days.  Ethan had like 4 or 5 celebrations.  But this was the last one  . . . . kinda. We like to have grandparents over for dinner and cake and ice cream.  It was fun to celebrate over and over again.  Ethan got to choose his dinner.  He chose Chicken on a bone (drumsticks) and French Fries.  I went ahead and made a salad which he wasn't happy about.  He didn't want salad, but I did it anyways. 

Ethan has been into sleeping on the floor at the end of his bed.  Between the bed and the wall is like a little cubby space.  He loves it and won't really sleep in his bed anymore.  So what did we do?  I made him a cushion / doggy bed for him to sleep on and he LOVES it.  Now he sleeps on that every night. 

Suprisingly the other kids loved it too.  Caleb wouldn't stop loving it

 This time for his cake he wanted DONUTS

and Rapsberry Ice Cream

So easy

Happy Easter

Early Easter Morning

 The kids all got knockoff Camelbacks

Great for long bikerides and lots of hiking we'll try and squeeze in this summer

 Jacob seemed really happy about it.

We also got a few new chicks

aren't they cute?

We'll see how long they last.  I'm already thinking we need to release them out on the farm.  Chickens might be a little bigger than I was thinking.  Yes they would lay food  - but they also lay larger logs that I thought.

Ethans Birthday Party!

My little guy turned FIVE

(Which means he starts kindergarten this fall)

It's been a little crazy lately.  It's been one thing to the next and I'm barely hanging on . . . . or am I?  I don't know.  But when my kids turn five their get their first birthday party and then every odd year after that until they turn 13.  So Ethan had his first friend party and ya . .  . I didn't even do his hair.

 I don't know what is wrong with me all I can say is I'm glad five year olds don't care that much.  He wanted to have an Easter Birthday Party which made it easy.  And minutes before the kids got there I drew a picture of a rabbit to play pin the tail on the rabbit.  I'm far from an artist my rabbit almost looks like a hippo - but the kids were fine with it.  They had fun anyways.

The kids made egg shaped pizzas for lunch

decorated eggs

went on an egg hunt

pin the cottontail on the rabbit

played bunny bunny chick

They had fun ---- I think

 Here we are opening up eggs to see if we won any prizes

 And I had to get a picture of this cute little guy.  I was sure all the neighborhood kids hated me because I seem to always have to get after them for doing things they aren't supposed to do.  But he looked up at me when I was explaining something - he took a deep breath - then he told me I was beautiful.

I had to get a picture with the sweet boy

 Ethans buddy (and cousin) Grady

I also need to publicly thank his mama for helping me with the party

You are awesome Brit!

 He wanted cupcakes with blue peeps on them and balloon candles

It was wonderful!  ~  Happy Birthday Buddy!

 

Ethans Potluck

My family has a potluck dinner once a month and we celebrate whoever's birthday it is that month.  Well we ended up having potluck at our house the month that Ethan's birthday was celebrated.  It was a fun time with the Strong family.  We had an early easter egg hunt and celebrated five birthdays.

 Ethan has wanted a battery powered car for his birthday for a couple years now and he's never going to get one.  We decided that a peddal car would would be the better thing and he was fine with it.

Snow Canyon

We got the BEST campsite ever!  I'm not even kidding.  We decided to head down to Snow Canyon for Spring Break and thought it would be fun to take the bikes and ride some trails.  It was so much!  The problem was that all the campsites were booked except for a couple that were first come first serve.  I was so worried that we would drive all the way down there to find out that there was no where for us to camp and that we would have to come up with a new plan for Spring Break while we were down there.  I definetly wanted to go somewhere warm for the break so we had to drive a little bit.  We got there and we were lucky to get the last campsite available.  And for some reason it was the BEST!  We felt like we were all by ourselves.  Noone around us.  A large area for the kids to run around with bathrooms and showers still close by. 

 A nice place to relax and feel the heat

Oh . . . I miss it

 Just chillin

 My sister and her kids stopped by our camp for a visit. 

Britney helped by pulling earth out of Calebs mouth

 It was so fun to have the bikes for the kids to ride around on

 And ride some trails in Snow Canyon too

 We even got a new little seat so Caleb could enjoy the rides too

Soooo fun!  I'm ready for another little trip already

Cindercones and Lava Tubes

We really enjoyed ourselves on our little Snow Canyon vacation.  We did a few hikes and one hike that the kids really wanted to do was hike the cindercone volcano.  You can't tell at all from this picture how steep the thing was.  But we went straight up instead of following the real trail.

 Here is Ethan climbing up the volcano as lava rocks fall down on the person behind him. 

 We made it to the top!

 We found these lava tubes on a different hike

Ya - I was basically freaking out!  I didn't enjoy my kids walking up right to the edge of the hole to find theirself falling thirty feet down.  I was think we would run into a tunnel for some reason not just a hole in the ground.  I guess once you get down inside the hole you can crawl through tunnels.  It would have been fun when I was 18 but not so much now.