Thanksgiving Point Field Trip

Ben's preschool had a fun trip to the Thanksgiving Point children's gardens. It has been a while since I have taken my kids to the garden's and they loved it! It was a rare sunny beautiful day for this spring! Even though Hailey is almost 3 years younger than Ben, I'm pretty sure she thinks they are the same age.

Our new edition Ryan

I can only claim Ryan for a few days a week for a couple of months, but he is our new edition to our family. Ryan goes to preschool with Ben and is such a cute kid. We get to have him play at our house 2 days a week while his cute mom works. Their preschool is over the middle of June so that why we only get him for a few months. I was a little worried about taking care of my 3 kids plus a friend, but it has been great. Ryan plays great with Ben and Hailey, and I am able to take care of Eliza. We even dragged Ryan visiting teaching last week, and my sister couldn't believe how good 2 five year old boys could be. Here are some pictures of our adventures in our neighborhood.

I never posted these pictures, but these are pictures from the SuperSpence Saturday Event. It was such a fun and amazing day. Eliza was still banned from going out in public at that time. So, me and Hailey went to the first half of the day, and then Ben and Mike went to the second half. Ben loved shaving his head, and he tells everyone "I shaved my head for Spencer who has cancer". Ben also loved his scorpion face painting. My kids always say "Spencer has cancer but it is going to be okay". We love the Gooches and we love Spencer!

Goo Baby is 2 Months Old!

We went in for Eliza's 2 month appointment, and it is documented, she is a chunk! She weighs in at 11 pounds 14 ounces! She weighed 5 pounds 12 ounces when she was born, so she is double the baby she once was. She went from the 5th percentile to the 85th percentile in weight, and she went from the 8th percentile to the 50th in height. She is a happy and cute thing! The last couple of weeks she has started "talking" to us, her favorite phrase being "goo". When we were at the Dr. she was smiling and talking to him. He said he was suprised at how animated she is, and usually doesn't see that until babies are 4 months old. She started rolling over from her belly to her back when she was 3 weeks old. But, the last little while I haven't seen her roll over, I think her chunk is slowing her down in the rolling over department. She still has awesome rock star baby hair, and we love her lots!

Her best smiles are saved for her dad. Allready a daddy's girl!


Watching conference

She loves to laugh!

Easter

This year we had three different easter egg hunts. Mike and the kids went to his families a few weeks before Easter (me and Eliza missed out because she was still in RSV quarantine). Then the week before Easter we were able to have a fabulous dinner, and hunt at my mom's (Mormor's). Then on Easter we were able to go up to Bestemor's for her easter egg hunt. My mom, Aly, Blake, Nicole, and their kids were down in St. George enjoying the weekend. So, we took Bri, who stayed home to work, with us up to my Mormor's. Unfortunately I only have a few pictures, because it is an accomplishment if I get all 5 of us anywhere, and my camera doesn't always cooperate and come. Easter was Mike's favorite holiday growing up, and my kids love it too.

It was so nice to have conference this Easter, and Ben (who is learning to read), read us the story about Jesus Christ and the resurrection. Ben and Hailey kept telling me all about the tomb, and the whole story -- their primary/nursery teachers did a great job teaching them the week before. (Mike and I just got called to teach Ben's primary class, and Mike taught the lesson about Easter Sunday)

Eliza and Aunt Bri

Hailey found her purple ball. Purple is her favorite color, everything has to be purple!
Easter egg hunt at Bestemor's (Great Grandma from Norway)

Thirty & Flirty & Thriving

Okay, so I only flirt with my cute husband. But, I would consider myself 30 and thriving. I have a wonderful husband that I have been married to for 8 & 1/2 years. I have 3 amazing children, and a fabulous new house. Life is happy!

Mike turned 30 on March 22nd, and I turned 30 on March 30th. I love being married to an older man! Mike and I were going to do dinner and a movie on his birthday, but the kids love birthdays so Mike decided to spend his birthday with them. He made Ben & Hailey invitations to his "beach party". The kids were so excited to get their invitations from dad for his party. Although Ben was very upset that Mike had to work on his birthday because "no one should ever have to work on their birthday". My mom and sisters watched Eliza, and Mike and I and the kids went to our beach party. We went to Chick-Fil-A for some dinner, and then headed to the South Jordan Rec Center to go swimming. Last year Hailey usually only lasted about 15 minutes, because she would always get so cold. Not this time! She had so much fun and loved every second. She was laughing and having so much fun. We played pirates most of the night, and had a wonderful time. We can home and had some cake and ice cream to end Mikes 30th birthday celebration.

I am lucky enough to share my birthday with my sister Aly, who is exactly 4 years older than me. We were able to steal her away from her crazy busy job, and go to lunch. Ben was at school and Mike was in American Fork, so just the girls went out to lunch. My mom, sister, brother, and sister-in-law were able to come also. We had a great time at lunch. We talked about all of the fun times Aly and I have had sharing birthday's. Our favorite was our "7-11" birthdays. When I turned 7, Aly turned 11, so my dad put together a great 7-11 birthday. We had a 7-11 cake, big gulps, slurpees, and my dad procured some 7-11 worker smocks for us to wear. It was so much fun! My birthday night I got to hang out with my cute hubby and kids, it was a great birthday year.

Aunt Aly and Eliza (Eliza's shirt says "I love my Aunt")

Birthday lunch at Iggy's

Photo Shoot

These pictures are from our photo shoot that we did on March 4th. I had to post most of the pictures because I just couldn't pick a few favorites. Ben was his normal gooofy self, and wanted to stick out his tongue in all of the pictures. Hailey had a blast with this, and was our little model. Eliza slept through most of the pictures, and was her perfect self. We had so much fun getting these pictures done for Eliza's one month mark.

These pictures were done by my friend Jana, she does an amazing job. Her website is butterflylovephotography.blogspot.com

Funny Kids (February 7th - March 1st)

Hailey's birthday is in June, and she is turning 3. There is a lot of talk about birthday's at our house all of the time. This morning Hailey informed us that she was "going to buy some friends for her birthday party at the aquarium". I wonder if I could find any friends for sale. We were talking at dinner about birds and what they eat. Ben informed us that "eagles steal food from people like hot dogs". I gave him a lengthy speech about what eagles really eat, but he was insistent that they ate hot dogs. About 20 minutes later it dawned on me that he was talking about seagulls, not eagles. We were lucky enough to have Mike home with us for over a month. It was great for me and the kids to have him home!

BEN

Ben is in indoor soccer right now and loves being able to play every Saturday. Last week he was the goalie and saved 6 balls. He loves going to school, and hates missing a day because he might miss out on learning something important. About a month ago he started bringing books home from school, and reading them to us. It is so fun to see him reading! He was humming a song one day, and quizzed Mike about what song it was. When Mike guessed wrong, Ben laughed and said "no silly that's Mozart", his fine art preschool is teaching him well. We got his registration for Kindergarten last week, which is a little bit hard on mom. I can't believe he is already going to go to school. Ben is ready for Kindergarten, and says he is most excited that there is a playground at school.

Eliza's First Bath

HAILEY

I sometimes forget that Hailey is only 2. She has talked fluently for at least a year, and is so smart. She knows all of her colors, shapes, can count to 15, and is learning some of the letter sounds along with Ben. Hailey loves hanging out with her dad, and has loved this month that Mike has been off of work and been able to play with her. Hailey is so patient and loves doing lots of art projects. She will spend hours painting, coloring, or playing with play-doh. She is feisty and usually gets her way. She is such a sweetheart and is very loving. It is amazing what a girl she is! She loves playing with dolls, babies, getting pedicures and manicures, and she loves cooking.

ELIZA

Eliza is growing and doing so well. I tried to weigh her today on the Wii, and it said she was 9 pounds. Hard to believe that she could go from under 6 pounds to 9 pounds in a month. Ben adores Eliza, and loves when she is awake. Both kids love when Eliza gets to do tummy time, and they lay on the ground next to her to check her out and encourage her. She has been rolling over from her belly to her back since she lost her umbilical cord. Her third week of life she did it at least 8 times. She gets hiccups almost everyday, and unfortunately has learned the fine art of spitting up through her nose. She has awesome hair, and a beautiful smile. I can't believe she is a month old! It has gone by so fast, but at the same time seems like she has been with us always.