April Happenings

I'm sitting here looking at my May calendar wondering where the month of April went, not to mention March.  The days are flying by way too fast! April was a fun filled month for our family and I don't want to forget any of it.  So brace yourself for a ridulously overpacked post of our April happenings.

Amazing Spring Weather 

We have had beautiful Utah spring weather dreams are made of.  I am happy to say we haven't been wasting a single ray of that sunshine, and have been spending every moment we can outside.

I will never grow tired of watching these two best friends.

Such a happy boy

These two imaginative kids turned this cooler into their own GUP faster than I could walk to the fridge and back.

Our neighbor found a black widow in his backyard and caught it for Mason. YAY (said in Rachel's most sarcastic voice)

Love Love Loving our Playset

Scott's weapon of choice against the wasps this year is a fly swatter... hum, I'm not so sure about this.

Christopher Jeffrey Spaulding

we had another darling nephew born April 3 at 12:14pm

8 lbs 1 oz and 20 inches long

It looks like Mason might finally have another dark haired cousin on the Murray side.

Congrats Becky and Jeff...but why did you have to move so far away?

Easter

We had a really low key Easter, trying to keep our focus on the Savior.  But we did enjoy coloring some Easter Eggs.

These are Mason and Brynn's respective concentration faces.

Pooky and Papa's 80th Birthdays Celebration

My Grandma and Grandpa Allred both turned 80 this year.  We had a HUGE birthday/Easter party with all of our Allred family.  Leave it to my mom and her sisters to create our own private Chuck E Cheese with games, tickets, and awesome prizes. It was such a fun way to celebrate my amazing grandparents.

We can never pass up an opportunity to get a current family picture for my parent's wall. 

The Zoo

We had a great Hale Cousin outing to the zoo.  I was in the midst of a week long bout of Laringitis that left me with no audible voice for 4 whole days.  I don't recommend taking your children to a place like the zoo with no voice unless you have a mom and 2 SILs to be your voice in herding the kids. Thanks Mom, Kacie, and Whit.

Mason was super excited they had posion dart frog for him to ride on.

No surprise that the crocs were his favorite animal.

Brynn insisted on wearing her puppy backpack leash all day after my SIL returned it to us. What a funny girl she is.

She reports that her favorite animal was the peacock her and Grandma saw without the rest of us.  I think that her favorite part really was running around with her cute cousins.

Miles was happy as can be for the 15 minutes he was awake and then slept in his stroller like a dream child the rest of the time.

Trip to Zion

We were able to escape down to Zions for some fun with the Murrays. The weather was a little unpredictable switching from warm and sunny to snow overnight, but we were still able to get in everything we wanted to.  We did the riverwalk hike in Zions, Scott got in two rounds of golf and a morning of mountain biking with Steve, I got a week off of work and precious time with my kiddos, Mason and Brynn got lots of cousin time (p.s. we just call all Scott's younger adopted brothers and sisters cousins to simplify), and we finally got to meet little Miss Isla in person.  We got caught in a blizard on our way home and miraculously didn't get in an accident as Semis jack-knifed in front of us and cars piled up all around us. I honestly thought we were going to die.

Steve, Jenna, and Baby Isla hidden away in the baby carrier.

Isla and Miles spent lots of time bonding over tummy time and watching the Phillies and Jazz with their Daddies.

It's never too cold for a quick dip in the hot tub.



We celebrated Lyndee's 6th birthday with an awesome Troll birthday party.



Grandpa Mike and Grandma Linda's New House



Scott's parents moved to Woodland Hills and our kids absolutely love their new "house on the mountain".  We have spent some really fun nights visiting them.

Brynn loves running around with Karissa and Keyana. For some reason she has a hard time remembering their names so she always refers to them as "my friends".  I love that she doesn't even go up to their shoulders. Please ignore Brynn's outfit she insisted on wearing.

Mason thinks the video game room is the coolest.  The big kids are so kind and patient with Mason as he learns how to play their games.  His favorite is Mario on Nintendo 64.

S

TayLynn is always happy to take care of Miles for us.

Sunday Afternoons at Grandma Nancy's

These are just the things we had pictures of, but as you can see it was a wonderful month!!

Happy Birthday!

We decided to combine all the kiddos birthdays together this year and get them this:  

It took us two full weeks to put together, but it was totally worth it now that the kids spend every waking moment outside playing on it.  Now we just need Mason and Brynn to learn how to pump so we can get something accomplished during the day other than pushing them on the swings.

*Update 5/9*

Today I heard Mason yelling my name from the backyard. I went back to find him swinging on the swing all by himself. He finally figured out how to get started on the swing and pump himself high. As I excitedly praised him he exclaimed, "I'm like a grown up!" then shouted out to the universe, "I'm going to swing for the rest of my Life!"
Brynn is close to figuring it out but still shouts over and over, "Push me high to the very sky!!"

4 months

I took Miles for some quick 4 month pictures to stay consistent with what I've done with Mason and Brynn.  They actually turned out super cute and really captured Miles happy smiles.  This first one especially melts my heart because this is the big grin I get every time I walk in the room.

These last 4 months have flown by way too fast. I wish Miles came with a pause button so I could just keep him my baby forever.  Since I can't, I'll just write down a few of the things I want to remember about my little dude.

He has always preferred being held upright on my shoulder not cradled in my arms.  He likes us to stand and bounce, not sit and rock.  He loves to play in his saucer, bumbo, and on his back under his toys, but doesn't care for screaming time... I mean tummy time.  He quickly learned how to roll off his tummy onto his back and now he will even roll from his back to his tummy.  He is a serious chatter box and loves to "talk" and have "conversations" with anyone who will talk to him. He has mastered his hands and will grab anything within reach and immediately shove it in his mouth. He is a big time thumb sucker.  He has fairer skin, lighter hair, and bluer eyes than our other kids.  He is my ideal child, super mellow and happy, great sleeper, big and healthy....I wouldn't change a thing...seriously, nothing!   

Mason's Creature Party

Has another year really come and gone?  Is my baby really 5 years old?  Time really does speed up as I get older.  For some reason Mason has been looking forward to turning 5 pretty much since he turned 4.  I don't know what makes 5 years old so special to him.  Maybe it's that he gets to start Kindergarten, something he has been looking forward to for a very long time.  Or maybe it's just that almost all of his friends are a year older than him and he just can't wait to be 5 like them.  Whatever the reason, this was a very exciting day for Mason, so naturally we had to celebrate with a super fun party.  Mason is crazy about any kind of creature these days.  Some of his favorites include poison dart frogs, crocodiles, combtooth blennies, whales, sharks, and black widows just to name a few.  So we decided to have a Creature Party.  We didn't get too carried away with the theme this year, just tried to incorporate some of Mason's favorite creatures into the activities we did.  We used Mason's favorite picture of a blue poison dart frog for the invitations. Nothing fancy, but he thought it was the coolest.   

The cake was Mason's idea and super easy. I just frosted a cake like the ocean and let him adorn it with all his little creatures.

We started off the party with a fishing pond where the kids each got a couple of sea creatures like the ones on Mason's cake.

 Then we got a visit from our friends at the Bean Museum.  Mason loves the live animal shows at the Bean Museum so when I found out we could have them come do a private show at his party (thanks for the idea Coralie) I knew it would be perfect. We got to learn about all sorts of different animals and where they live.  There were even 4 special animal guests that the kids got to learn about, touch, and get their pictures taken with: Houdini the box turtle, M.J. the tarantula, Mo Jo the bearded dragon, and Elphaba the corn snake.  

We didn't get a picture of the entire group, but here are most of Mason's friends with the animals.  (Top to Bottom L to R) Jackson Dastrup, Cache McCann, Tanner Ferrin, Daniel Glaun, Benson Sommerfeldt (we were so happy he was visiting from Maryland and could come), Mac Christiansen, Benson, Cy Berge, Korbin Bascom, Cannon Hale, Jackson, Cy, Tanner, Benson, and Jackson.  Kennedy was there but didn't want to get near any of the animals.

Brynn held the tarantula with no hesitation.

Miles liked the turtle

And Mason of course loved them all.  His favorite is the tarantula, but he liked letting the bearded dragon climb on him.

After our special guests left we broke the Crocodile Pinata!

By this time the kids were all ready for cake and ice cream.  I made little ice cream cups for everyone with oreo dirt and gummy worms, but it was hot hot hot outside and the kids all devoured them before I got any pictures.

I love seeing what Mason's friends chose to give him for presents.  Each of the them chose things that totally reflect their friendship with Mason.  For example his friend Cache is Mason's lego buddy, those two can play legos together for hours, and he got him a transformer lego set.  Jackson and him play star wars every time they get together, so Jackson gave him some Star Wars fighter pods. I could keep going with all of his friends.  Mason got so many wonderful gifts.  I was very proud of him when he gladly let all of his friends dive in and open and play with all of his new gifts until their parents came. He really is growing up. 

The present that topped all other presents came from Grandma Nancy and Grandpa Val.  Mason is a huge fan of The Octonauts show and books.  If you're not familiar with it then the rest of this might sound like a foreign language to you. Mason loves playing Octonauts on the computer (*warning: do not let your kids look at Octonauts on disneyjunior.com unless you are willing to use an entire cartridge of ink printing things out).  While doing this he saw an advertisement for an octopod toy and decided that was the one and only thing he wanted for his birthday.  After looking into it I found that all octonaut toys came from the UK and were ridiculously priced.  I didn't want Mason to be disappointed on his birthday, but there was no way I was paying $120 for an octopod that wasn't that cool.  So I told Mason those toys were only in another country and too expensive to get in America, so we couldn't get one. He was perfectly accepting of that, but still longed for an octopod.  When his aunt Kacie asked him what he wanted them to get him for his birthday he asked her very seriously, "could you go to another country to get me an octopod?"  We all got a good laugh out of it.  So my mom and I went to work searching online for a deal and were able to find the Gup-A, Gup-B, and Gup-C toys for a reasonable price.  So my mom ordered them all for him.  We saved her presents for last and when Mason opened the first one and saw the Gup-A his voice raised to an octave only dogs can hear and exclaimed, "YOU WENT TO ANOTHER COUNTRY?!!" He was the happiest boy in the world. Oh how I wish I would have recorded it.

For the record these are the funnest and best quality toys we have gotten in a long time.  They can go in the water and each one has all sorts of little "tricks" it does.  They were a little pricey (even when we got them like 40% off), but actually worth it, I think. Thanks Grandma Nancy!

Mason is very proud to be a 5 year old now. The day after his birthday we went to the park.  I looked across the playground to see Mason going across the rings all by himself.  I was shocked!! Mason has never even come close to doing monkey bars or rings or anything and definitely doesn't try things like that on his own.  I waited until he successfully crossed then ran over to praise him.  When I got there he exclaimed, "I AM FIVE!" I love how now that he's five he knows he is capable of so much more.

These last five years have been so much fun! I am even more excited for all the great things in store for Mason in the next five years.

Thunder Thighs

I've always said a chubby baby is a happy baby and that is definitely the case with Miles. I swear this kid gets more rolls every day. It may not seem like it, but this is actually a flattering picture of his legs. I thank these thunder thighs (along with his thumb sucking) for the 12 hours stretches of sleep he has been having for several weeks now. Miles is an amazingly happy and good baby. He is such a blessing in our lives right now. We love ya Bubba!

Future doctor?

Mason is a very curious boy who likes to know how things work. After I had my c-section he had so many questions, including:

Mason: What did it look like when they cut your tummy open?

Me: I don't know, I didn't watch.

Mason: Did Dad watch?

Me: Nope

Mason: Then who watched it?

Me: The doctors and nurses.

Mason: Well did they take any pictures?

Me: No

Mason: Sigh. Mom, next time can you try to trip and fall so they have to cut your tummy open again. And tell Dad to take pictures this time!!
I explained step by step what the doctors did and none of my explanation was lost on Mason. A while back, I overheard him and Brynn playing doctor together and as I listened I realized he was performing a C- section on her. To his credit he had excellent bedside manner and explained everything he was doing in a very reassuring way.

So then a week ago I had a colonoscopy (Remember how my mom had colon cancer when she was 36? The doctor recommended us kids start getting checked at 26...oops I was a year late). As I was doing the lovely prep Mason had more questions about what I was going to have done. I explained they were going to put a camera in my stomach to make sure nothing was there that wasn't supposed to. He quickly requested that I ask the doctor to take pictures this time. I did just that, and the doctor got a good laugh out of it. That day Mason proudly showed all of his friends the pictures of inside my bowels. He even showed his friend's mom, who is one of my friends, and she called me laughing hysterically. Luckily I was able to talk him out of taking it for show and tell. This boy definitely got my love of the human body and medicine.

Miles is Mason and Brynn's favorite patient. Notice the toy bandaid on his ankle. That's because it wouldn't fit on his thigh where Mason gave him a pretend shot. :) I love his chunk!!