St. George Trip

We took a fun little vacation with the Bull Family this weekend. Our nieces Amanda and Rachel had a dance competition in St. George. It was a quick trip, but we had a great time.
Pretty much all day Saturday we were in and out of the dance competition. We are so proud of the girls they did such a great job and Thomas and Nate were so excited to watch them dance.
(Sorry, I couldn't get this picture to turn the right way.)

Of course, the first stop was In and Out!

Swimming at the pool. It was so nice to have warm weather!

In between dances we spent time at the park just playing and hanging out.

Nate would have spend the entire time on the swing if we had let him.

Jeff, Rachel and Amanda who are always so wonderful and patient to watch after all our little kids. Thanks guys!

Thomas doing "tricks" and wanting me to take pictures of them all. This is just a lovely sample for you to enjoy.

Ryan drove his grandparents down and back. On the way down, the boys and I hitched a ride with grandma and grandpa Bull, but since they were continuing on to California, we rode home with Brittany and Danny. Don't they look like they are having fun!?

Easter

The boys looked so sharp in their new Easter vests courtesy of Mama Bull.

Easter Egg hunt at the Bulls

We really enjoyed being with family this Easter. Thomas and Nathan love playing with their cousins!

Don't they look like they are posing for a prom picture? So cute, matching outfits and all!

My mom gave the boys these matching blue rain boots for Easter and now they pretty much wear them everywhere. Shirts aren't required for Easter egg hunts are they?

Coloring Easter eggs at grandma's house...the real reason why they have no shirts on.

Besides the egg hunts at both grandparent's houses, I also took the kids to an egg hunt in Mama Bulls neighborhood the Friday before. Thomas, Nathan and Kelli got to meet the Easter Bunny and started the hunt enthusiastically until they realized that the eggs were filled with candy. Then they were just content to sit and eat their treats while the craziness continued around them!

Are you Irish??

I don't think that we are...but it sure looks like we want to be!
Friday, our library held some St. Patrick's Day activities. The kids had so much fun making hats, watching Irish dancing, doing the "shamrock stomp" (a cake walk where Ryan who thinks that we never wins anything, scored a box of green cookies!) and getting their face painted.

The "King of the Leprechauns" even came to tell stories! This was perfect because Thomas and I have been talking about mischievous little leprechauns who might just play tricks on us when St. Patrick's Day arrives. (It's silly, but I can't wait for them to wake up and discover that their milk has been turned green. I know, I'm lame.) Thomas came up with the idea to build a trap to see if we can catch a leprechaun. We will let you know how that turns out. It's cute to see how excited he is.

I was surprised that Nathan held so still to get his face painted. (I promise that I was just holding his little chin, although it does look very similar to a choke hold...maybe that is way he held so still?!

Random things we have been up to.

Thomas' friend Tristen from Arizona was in Utah and invited him to Chucky Cheeses for her birthday. Thomas walked from game to game all day with this same expression on his face. I had to keep asking him if he was having any fun, I guess he was just too overwhelmed to smile. Not the reaction that I expected of the day!

Since the boys are having with drawls from the swimming pool and warm weather, they now spend ALOT of time in the bathtub!

Thomas started preschool in January and loves it. He goes to Northridge High School were my mom works. Because the school's mascot is the Knights, the school is called "Noble Knights" preschool. As you can imagine Thomas thinks that this is just perfect for him. "How did they know, that I am a Knight?"

We now live 10 minutes from my parents, 2 minutes from Ryan's parents and around the corner from Ryan's sister Brittany. It is so fun to have family close by and cousins to play with. Whenever we get together, I always think to myself, "This is what it would be like to have three kids each a year a part!" Thomas and Kelli are like two peas in a pod. When the other cousins are playing princess or school, Thomas and Kelli are in their under ware jumping off the couches or climbing up the closet sneaking cookies with Nate always close behind.

Midway

Back to Blogging...I hope. Why is it that the longer you wait to update the blog, the harder it is!? These posts probably won't be in any order or show all that we have been up to the last...hmmm..two months. But, oh well.

After Christmas, we spent some time in Midway with my family. It was a nice little getaway. We enjoyed sledding, playing in the snow and a sleigh ride.

The horse drawn sleigh ride was the highlight of the trip. It was such a beautiful day.

Thomas wanted to sit up front with the driver and ultimately talked the entire trip. The driver was so patient and cute with him.

Nathan was so relaxed that he fell asleep for most of the ride!

The first day, Ryan took the boys sledding on a what I thought was a little hill just outside of our room. It wasn't until I went with them the following day that I realized that our sledding "hill" was really a little crater that was open at the top and warm dark mineral water was just waiting for one of the boys to slip right into, after a good fall!

Thomas trying to white wash Ryan, and instead getting Nathan. (Notice the delight/mischief in his face.) Good times!

Ry's graduation

The latest in the Bull family is that Ryan is DONE with school!!! On December 12th he graduated with his MBA in Global Management focused on Finance. I can't express how happy we all are about this. We are SO proud of him. His last trimester was a difficult and very time consuming one. And we are glad to have him back to ourselves!

Ryan's parents and my mom were able to come down for the graduation, to help the with the kids and the move.

Ry and I went to the graduation gala and enjoyed some time together. I even got him out on the dance floor! Sorry, no pictures of that though (probably for the best).

We really loved Arizona and made some great friends there, who we will miss a lot.

We have moved up our Utah townhouse in Farmington for the holidays and it is great being so close to family again. We are looking forward to what is next for our little family.

Yee Haw!

Last year at this time, Thomas always had his cowboy boots on. (and or hat, chaps and vest!) I was sad to see that phase pass. He just looked so cute! But I am happy to say that we are in phase two of the cowboys and this time Nathan has joined in the fun!
It started a couple of weeks ago when the boys were invited to a cowboy birthday party. Thomas loved putting his cowboy gear back on and Nate was happy to be all geared up too. (We were just missing the boots and hat, which were up in Utah.)

Then one day I found Thomas in his room crying. He said that he missed his cowboy boots. I said that he could call grandma and ask her to send them in the mail. It was the sweetest little phone message, he was seriously heartbroken. (Mind you, he hasn't expressed interest in his boots for at least six months.) When we got them in the mail, he insisted on wearing them even though they were too small and he ended up getting blisters.
He was going to continue wearing them no matter what, so I took him to get a new pair. (Thank you grandma!) He tried on every pair in his size and then picked the ones that looked exactly like his old ones! (This picture is from last year, but I love it.)

I don't know if he just wants to be like Thomas, but Nate insists on wearing his boots constantly. It's so fun to see that he actually has a preference. He gets mad when I try and put his sneakers or flip flops on, he just wants his boots!

These guys are getting to be such little buddies. Nathan is really catching up to Thomas and will do, or attempt to do anything Thomas does. Lately, people have been asking me if they are twins!! I don't get it, but I guess when they are sitting down, the difference in height isn't as big.