Carter thoughts

I just had to record this for posterity.  Yesterday during sacrament meeting Carter was sitting on Garrett's lap and the deacons were passing the sacrament.  Garrett was telling Carter that when he gets older and after he gets baptized he would be able to pass the bread and water like the big boys.  He got the biggest grin on his face.  Then Garrett asked Carter if he was going to be baptized when he got older and he said "yes!"  Then Garrett asked, "so are you going to follow Jesus?"  Carter responded, "Yes! And not go astray!"  So cute!  He is actually picking up something from primary!  He's a big fan of the "Follow the Prophet" song:)

Post 200! Random photo update

I was just looking through our photos and realized we had a lot of cute random photos from March and April that never got posted.  So here is a glimpse into our daily crazy life over the last couple months.

My cute boys!  I love this little smile of Carter's!  Carter and Beck are really starting to be good buddies.  Carter used to just say hi to Beckett in passing and then go on his merry way doing whatever he was doing, but they are really starting to play together more and Carter even likes to hold him more these days.  It's kind of amusing to see him hold Beckett as you can see from this picture since Beckett is probably more than half his size.  That baby is so big!  More squish for us to love!

This is a spring picnic we had in March.  Rylynn and her friend Kylynn were dancing for the picture.  We have been having a lot of these little picnics with the neighbor friends lately.  Have I mentioned that I LOVE our neighborhood?

Carter is too busy stuffing his face to pose for the picture.  Typical boy:)

Rylynn has been wearing her hair in "piggies" a lot lately.  She always says, "let's do piggies for daddy!!"  She knows her Daddy just loves seeing her in piggies.

This is so typical Rylynn.  She is always setting up some little house set up for her and Beckett to play in.  Beckett gets a huge kick out of Rylynn and all her little planning.

Hey anytime there is a table for him to bang his hands on, he's good.

This is the typical outfit after dinner these days.  Seriously why will NONE of my kids wear BIBS!?  Thank heaven for OxyClean!

Rylynn has been such a great helper to me at dinner time lately.  Her favorite thing to do is to set the table "fancy".  She loves to surprise us with her beautiful table setup.  Don't ask me why she is making this goofy face.  That's our goofy Munch!

Rylynn's preschool had a little unit on animals and pets.  So each child in the class got a turn taking home the class pets, Mommy Kim and Tiny Tim.  They were supposed to do lots of fun things with the pets and take pictures for the class book.  So this is Rylynn reading a book with Mommy Kim.

The classic sit n' spin with Mommy Kim

She loved playing dress ups with Mommy Kim and Tiny Tim.  

 

Climbing the backyard tree!

Rylynn thought this was hilarious because Tiny Tim "climbed" onto her bagel.  It was really cute and we had a lot of fun with them.

Other than that, we have been enjoying the beautiful Spring in our beautiful town and playing outside a lot!!  I love the view of this mountain right out our front window.  We hope to be adding a trampoline to the backyard next month.  The kids can't wait!  Happy Spring!

Easter Weekend Extravaganza!

The week before Easter Garrett and I officially lost our minds and decided to take on a 14+ hour drive to St. George!  We weren't going to go anywhere for Easter, but it turned out that Easter weekend was going to include my Mom's birthday and my neice's birthday and general conference.  Not to mention that my brother and his family were going to be there as well as my little sister from BYU, both of which had not seen Beckett since he was 2 weeks old.  So we did it!  The kids were honestly amazing!!

Carter was so happy that he got to get a happy meal along the way and score this awesome two-headed dragon!  The kids didn't really complain at all, they were just so excited to see their cousins and swim in Nana and Papa's pool!

I was so happy we went when we did because I was able to attend my Mom's birthday luncheon that was put on by my Grandma Allred.  My mom had some dear freinds come and we got to enjoy yummy food and great stories about my favorite lady in the whole world.  I love hanging out with my Mom's friends!  I know it's weird but I always have.  She has some awesome friends.

Beckett was loving the 88 degree water in Nana and Papa's pool!

My little sister Abby brought some of her roomates down for the Easter festivities.  They were so cool and great with our kids.  Look at Garrett's wicked spike!

Rylynn was so brave and swam the majority of the time without her swimming vest.  Occasionally when she got a little tired, she would grab onto whatever floating device she could get her hands on.  In this case she decided to float in the basketball hoop!

It was okay though cause Carter was playing on the serious hoop.

The kids were soooo excited when Thais and Skyler finally arrived!  They adore their cousins.

I can't believe how big these babies are all getting.  Sweet Thaisy turned 4 on this trip!  We had a little cake and presents party for her after Easter dinner. The kids loved snuggling up in the giant towels on the porch swing in the backyard.

After plenty of swimming it was time for Easter festivites.  This is the massive Easter egg dying effort.  Everyone got to do a couple.  It was lots of fun.

Rylynn and Carter woke up on Easter morning and found their easter baskets!

The Easter bunny at Nana's was awesome!  She brought a Cars easter basket for Carter and a Tinkerbell basket for Rylynn.  They both got cute little bunnies and socks and lots of candy.  

After they found their baskets, the hunt began!

The eggs were in some tricky places around Nana and Papa's yard.

Papa was helping the kiddies find the eggs.

The whole gang trying to find the last couple eggs.  Skyler did the hunt pantless:)

The loot!  The kids were dying in this picture cause the sun was in their eyes, but they really were happy:)

I don't have any pictures of the adult easter egg hunt cause it was too intense to stop for picture taking!  It is the coolest easter egg hunt where you have to find nests of eggs and you are assigned one color of egg and you have to find all your color eggs in numbered order.  It is crazy.  The first prize was 30 bucks too!!  Garrett and I took second place and scored 10 bucks.  We also did our annual egg rolling contest and Garrett represented for the Halls and won first place and 5 bucks!  Of course we also had an amazing Easter dinner with family and friends.  Both of my Grandmas got to be there and also my cousin Sarah and her family.  It was so worth the drive and so much fun! 

We loved watching General Conference together too and feeling uplifted and inspired by the Lord's Prophet and apostles.  It was such a great weekend that we just had to extend our trip one extra day.

Thanks Nana and Papa for an awesome Easter weekend!  We are so thankful that this wonderful Nana was born into the world a few years ago:)

Nana and Papa come to town!

A couple of weeks ago, Nana and Papa came to town to see the new house and the office.  It was such a fun visit!  We went to Chuck-E-Cheese, Coeur d'Alene, checked out Daddy's office, visited Rylynn's preschool and even celebrated St Patrick's Day!  Every year I make Corned beef and cabbage for St Patty's Day since that was what my mom did for me growing up.  So when they arrived on St Patty's Day it was fun to make corned beef and cabbage for my mom this time.  We loved driving around and showing Nana and Papa Liberty Lake and why we love living here.  We tried to subtly hint that this is a great place to live so that Nana and Papa might want to relocate here sometime soon:)  After a fun-filled few days, we headed to Seattle to meet up with Marianne and her kids Nathan and Aria.

Papa was an excellent babysitter in the back seat:)

The kids were so excited to get to hang out with their cousins for a couple of days.  And it was a miracle because it was nice and sunny weather for us in Seattle!

The first day we took the kids to the aquarium.  This was the cool floor to ceiling fish tank at the entrance of the aquarium.

This was a huge star fish the kids found in the wave tank.

The highlight for my kids were the big touch tanks where they got to touch starfish, anemones, and sea urchins.

The anemones felt so cool.  If you kept your finger on them for a few seconds they would grab onto you.

The tanks were so colorful!

As you can tell we spent a lot of time there.

We also got to see the feeding of the seals.  They were so huge.

Carter was liking the seals, but he loved the otters the best.

Beckett slept for most of the museum but when he woke up he was loving this bubble tank!

It had different colored lights shooting through it and he was completely mezmerized.  I love his face in this picture, it's like he's saying, "can't you see I'm busy enjoying these bubbles?"

We had a slightly terrifying moment while at the aquarium when we lost Rylynn for about 7 minutes.  I panicked and we were running all over the place trying to find her.  It is really hard trying to keep track of 5 kids!  Luckily she had just wandered ahead a little ways into a different room and we found her there sitting quietly looking at the fish.  Man I hate those moments as a mother!

We did a couple of other fun things in Seattle like eating fish and chips at Ivars and walking along the pier, but the kids kept begging to go back to the hotel so they could swim in the pool so we spent a lot of time there.  What is it about kids and hotels?  Rylynn seriously said on the drive home that her favorite part of the trip was the hotel and swimming in the pool.  It makes me wonder why we spent so much money on the other stuff when the pool was free.

On the way home we got to see some of our favorite people in the world!  The Poyfairs!  We got to stop in and see Adam's office and have lunch.  Then we went to my favorite place in the world...

I've been so deprived since moving to Spokane, but I tracked down the manager and asked him when they are coming to the Spokane area and he said within the year!!  That man made my day!  We also left with a trunk full of Trader Joe bags (sigh).  Rylynn was so excited to shop at TJ's too.  That's my girl!

She was a little more excited though to be hanging out with her friend Olivia again.

Carter and Jack had their moments of scratching and hitting at lunch, but at the end of the day they loved each other:)

What a cute group of kiddos!

I just love this girl!  Seriously what could be better?  Shopping at TJ's with Carissa!  It was like old times.  Now if I could only get her to come to Spokane with TJ's!

We passed some amazing country on the drive down and back.  This partially frozen lake was so beautiful.  The picture doesn't do it justice since we are driving on the freeway as I snap the picture in the car but you get the gist.

Pit stop on the side of the road with the kids.  They were such troopers.  We had soo much fun seeing family and friends that we love!