A lot to update

I keep falling behind on my posts and a lot has happened. Starting May 1st Drew's schedule changed at work. He is now working from 6PM to 6AM. He works for 2-4 days then has 2-4 days off. This last weekend he had a 4 day weekend. It has been nice to see him more and spend more time with him. Drew worked on the 1st and 2nd but had the 3rd and 4th off. My parents were in Kanab teaching a class, so we made a last minute decision to drive 5 1/2 hours to Kanab. We left on Monday around 6PM and stayed until Wednesday morning to get back in time for Drew to go to work that night. It was so nice to see them. It took Landen only a few minutes to get comfortable with Grandpa and not too much longer with Grandma. It took Dade about half the day before he was comfortable with them both. It was a long drive and a short visit but it was fun. Every time we see family it makes us miss them all even more. I have a lot of pictures from our visit. On Friday the 7th Drew had his graduation from Salt Lake Community College. Drew's cousins, Mandy and Amber, were able to come to the graduation. I am so proud of him. I had a good Mother's Day. Drew had the day off so I enjoyed spending the whole day with him and the boys. I also want to say that I love my mom and my mother-in-law. You both are wonderful women and we are so thankful to have you both in our lives. On April 30th Mandy Graduated from Utah Valley University so here are some pictures from after her graduation at her house.



Levi is Amber's son.


Drew with his uncle Dennis.


Us with Dennis' kids. Travis, Mandy holding Levi (Amber's son) and Amber holding Kaleb (Amber's other son).


On our way to Kanab.


Giving me his cheesy smile.


He never quite got comfortable with the dogs.


Landen and Grandpa playing at the park in Kanab.




Dade loves to swing, even though he really didn't look happy here.


Dade would not look at him at all but you can tell he thought Grandpa was funny.




Grandpa gave Dade a Ladybug and he kept trying to grab it.




Landen loved walking the dogs.


I got Landen to swim all by himself. He would only tred the water but its a start.


Dade was quite curious about grandma's drink. My mom was teaching the class so we didn't get to spend as much time with her.


Drew and I at his SLCC graduation.


Mandy, Amber and her kids with us. It was nice to have them there to help us celebrate Drew's accomplishments. We hope that all our family will be able to be here next year when Drew graduates from U of U. I am so proud and thankful for all the hard work he does to support our family.

Garden

Our apartments have an area on one side of our buildings that is set up for gardens. It only costs $5 for a small lot, so we thought it would be fun to have a garden this year. We are going to plant some tomatoes but we have to keep them inside for a while before planting them outside. Landen helped me plant them a week ago.





Here is what the tomatoes look like now. Landen loves to look at them and help me take care of them. I am so excited to have a garden and to see the plants grow so quickly.

My projects

Here are a few projects I have finished recently. I just wanted to share them because I am proud of the work I've done. I first made a play blanket for Dade that has tabs on the ends of it, crinkly paper that I sewed inside, buttons and patches.


I am missing a patch still because I can't find another animal patch I like.


We decided we needed a place to put our keys, instead of just any place we find, and loosing them by doing so, so I painted a nice piece of wood and Drew put some hooks in it for a key holder.





My last project was for a lady Drew works with who is very sweet. It was her birthday so I made a scripture bag for her. Drew just gave it to her yesterday and she was so happy she kept crying. She called me to thank me and said she has never had one before and she would never use another one and would pass it on to her kids. That is the kind of lady she is.


The bag is reversible, with one pocket that I made in to three pencil holders and two bigger pockets.

Easter!!

Our Easter was a lot of fun. On Saturday we had an egg hunt in our court. Drew took Dade to find some eggs and he tried to put him down to get the eggs but since we had about 2 inches of snow Dade was not very happy, so this is what they did instead.







Landen had a lot of fun and did really good finding the eggs.





Here are most of the kids that participated in the egg hunt in our court. They all look pretty cold.



After that the school had a little carnival that we went to. They had a few games for the kids.





They had a little egg hunt at the carnival too where they just threw a bunch of eggs down the sides of a hallway and let the kids go get about 10 each. Dade did better with that one.



Later that day we colored eggs. They both had a lot of fun doing that. Dade had more fun eating the color I think, but he still did a good job. Landen liked to put the eggs in more than one color and he kept dropping them. It was a lot of fun.















Easter morning the boys got to see what the Easter Bunny brought them, then we watched conference. Drew had to work at 2 so the boys and I just relaxed and enjoyed the rest of conference.

It has been awhile since I last posted but not much has been going on. We are still getting snow and it makes it hard to talk to my Dad because he loves to rub it in that he is getting 80 degree weather. Love you Dad! (Sarcasm Intended!) Enjoy the warm weather for me. The boys are growing so much every day. I am still working on the Alphabet and Numbers with Landen. He is doing really good with his Alphabet and can recognize almost all the letters. He is doing good with his numbers but we are having a hard time getting past 11. We set up a play date with Landen's friend Owen, so one day a week Owen gets to come over and play and on another day Landen gets to go play at Owens house. He loves having someone to play with and asks me every day, numerous times, if he can play with Owen. Landen and Dade play really well together as well. Landen loves making Dade laugh and Dade laughs at everything Landen does. Dade is getting so big so fast. He is already running all over the place and he is trying to dance now. He babbles so much and has a very high pitched screech that he uses a lot. He is a very happy boy who loves to laugh and play and he is also a very big helper. When it is time to pick up toys Dade does a very good job putting them away. Drew and I were putting some decorations up after we moved in and Dade was having so much fun walking back and forth bringing me the boxes for my Willow Trees then taking the empty boxes back to Drew. It is so much fun seeing Dade understand things. When I ask him if he wants to take a bath he will go run to the bathroom, or if I ask him if he wants a drink he will go to the fridge. He still isn't saying very many words. He says dada, uh uh (and shakes his head no), and uh oh, but I cannot get him to say mama.

Drew is almost done with this semester of school. He will be taking a few classes over the summer then he will have one year left. Next month we will be going to his graduation from Salt Lake Community College. I am so proud of him for the hard work he has done, from working full time to take care of our family to going to school full time. He is still getting good grades at school and he tries to help me out as much as he can at home. I love you so much babe.

There isn't much going on with me. I am just trying to have the energy to clean my house and chase the kids around the house. I am tired of the snow. We get a few days of nice weather then we have a few days of snow. I am ready for it to be warm so we can go out side more instead of being trapped in this small apartment. I know the boys agree with me.

Since there hasn't been much going on we haven't been taking very many pictures. I will try to post some pictures after Easter. I hope everyone has a wonderful Easter and for everyone in Arizona I hope it is sunny and warm because we will be finding our eggs in the snow.

Ice Skating

I was looking through some pictures and realized I forgot to post about us going ice skating. We went on January 23 and Landen was able to go for the first time. We were worried he would get the ice skates on or step on the ice and then not want to do it any more. But we were very happy when he got his skates on and walked around with out a problem. Then we got out on the ice and he had so much fun skating around. We had to hold his hands and he stumbled a lot but he was loving it. Even when he was stumbling or fell he had a huge smile on his face. We carried Dade around until I tried to carry him and fell with him. I fell really weird trying not to land on Dade so I hurt my knee. So I sat on the side with Dade while Drew took Landen around. We were there for about 2 hours and I forgot my camera. So the only picture I got was with my phone of Landen getting his skates off as we are getting ready to leave.

Dade's first Birthday

Here are some pictures of Dade's First Birthday. Dade had a lot of fun playing with the balloons. We weren't sure how he would do with his presents since on Christmas he just wanted the wraping paper, but he did really good opening his presents him self. Then when we gave him his cake and he pushed it away and said "uh uh". He would only eat it if I gave it to him on a fork. I made him a lion cake and I liked it so much I didn't want to put the candle on it. We had some friends come over. After the presents and cake we played the Wii and let the kids just play. It was a really fun day. I just can't believe he is already one. Landen did pretty good. He kept saying things like: "It's Dade's Birthday", "That's Dade's Birthday cake", "Are those Landen's" (pointing at the presents). Once we pointed everything out as Dade's for his birthday then he kept letting everyone else know it was all for Dade's Birthday. Today Dade said "Dada" for the first time. He has said "Mama" once but I haven't been able to get him to say it again. He was having so much fun saying "Dada" I called Drew at work and let him hear Dade say it. He was pretty happy.