Daddy's Break (Part II)

 Monday we got to go to the Tracey Aviary in Salt Lake. If you have the Pass of all Passes every Monday is free! 

Since this was one of the only Mondays Devin would be able to come with us we decided to take advantage of it and go. 

 This is SUCH a fun place to go! There are so many fun birds that you get to see. Most of them up close too! Oma got to come with us! Lucy wore her princess dress (the day that falls apart will be a very sad day indeed).

 Here are the eagles! BEAUTIFUL creatures...pictures do NOT do them justice. 

 Cole rode on Daddys shoulders for a good portion of the time...and fought his hat almost the entire time :)

Here are some pictures of the cool birds we saw. 

 crazy weird skin on their faces.

 these owls were really fun to watch.

 I have never seen such a vibrant color on an animal. You can't tell in the picture just how red these were. They are called Scarlet Iris'. 

 Cole was crawling after a peacock hen. The kids wanted to touch her so bad. And she wasn't even scared. She just slowly walked around. Finally though she went and hid in the bushes, this is when Cole crouched down to try to find her. 

 Theres was an enclosure where you could walk through and the birds were free to fly around. Lucy's favorite part was the chain door entrance. 

A mamma swan peeking through a crack in the side of the enclosure...She almost got our fingers!

There were many more birds there and we had a blast! We will definitely be taking advantage of free mondays over the next year!

Monday night we finished Devin's break with a BBQ! It was beautiful weather and wonderful food! 

Yay for breaks in school! 

Daddy's break!

I had been eagerly awaiting Devin's break between semesters. I thought it was a week long. I had activities planned for the whole week. Fun things we could do as a family together. You can only imagine how bummed I was when I was reminded that this break was from friday to monday (he started school again on tuesday). BUMMER! 

   Thankfully we did get to do a couple of fun things over the extended weekend. 

On Friday we got to go to the Temple in the morning. That was wonderful. But as we were leaving Lucy asked if she could go too. I'm having a hard time explaining the Temple to her. It is an important place, where we make covenants, where we make promises with the Lord, and do work for our ancestors. But she cannot go in until she is twelve. Hopefully as she sees us go more regularly and as she grows in understanding the concept will stick some more. For now we settled her desire to go with a family outing Friday night. 

 We always get pizzas on fridays so we had a little picnic on the fields outside the temple grounds. And then walked around the Temple to see the pretty flowers and beautiful fountains.

 Walking up to the Temple.

 The water was probably the funnest part for the kids. 

 The children loved these signs....sorry BYU grounds :)

Another Singer

Lest you think Lucy is the only singer in our family....

Every time I watch this video I am reminded of "A Christmas Story". We were walking to church that day and it was rather cold outside...I didn't want him to freeze, hence the gazillion layers :)

Oh yeah, and our kids love to watch themselves on video....not sure if that is a good thing or not!

Naptime Creations: Memory Discs

Haha, I just realized that the last post was mis-labeled. Here is the real post about memory discs that we made. This project still counts as a "naptime" creation because it was made while Cole napped :) Lucy helped me this time which was really fun.

I found these round discs at Joanns. I think they were 30 cents each or something like that. When I saw them I knew exactly what I was going to do with them. 

 We bought 10 and took them home. Now that it's completed I would recommend buying 12 so that when you play they all line up evenly.. First, I pulled off the stickers.

 it left that annoying sticky-ness on the back so I decided I should just sand the whole thing instead of just the sides.

 (This picture was ridiculously hard to take...)

 Lucy wanted in on the sanding action

Then we moved to the kitchen and pulled out our paints. I thought I would just stick with these five colors but I ended up mixing a couple to make green, yellow, purple, blue and red.

  Mixing was REALLY fun! It reminded me of when I was in elementary school learning how to mix colors....

 Lucy really wanted to paint the discs too. I let her try but it got too messy for acrylic paints so I gave her a plate and a toothpick and a brush.

 She was very content with those and painted the whole time I finished these up.

Here they are all painted.

And here is the paper we glued on the back. These are really fun. The kids played with them a lot when we first made them but the magic has died so we'll pull them out in a couple of weeks again. 

This was a fun, short, easy project. I need to do more of these!! Haha, right now I'm working on a swimsuit and it's kicking my butt! Way more work than I thought, but I really like it and I didn't want to spend 100 bucks. So I'm trying to do it right and just get through it. 

I must really need to learn patience....it's not like I don't get enough practice with my kids, but i've got to give it to myself with my "fun" projects too! Haha, okay I'm done with my tangent. 

Have a good day!

Naptime Creations: Baby Shower Gift

I just wanted to give an update that I did finish Lucy's blocks! She loves them, and was more than excited when I told her they were hers. 

She always makes sure they are on her bed :)

 Along with her water, babies, and doggies. Haha. These blocks have actually become really fun toys. The kids will climb in Coles crib and throw them out. Or we all have block fighting bashes. Its really fun! And the kids enjoy it. 

Some of our friends from high school are having their first baby and its a boy. So I wanted to make them something for Sundays. When Cole was born I made a bunch of onsies with ties sewn on. I loved it but once he grew out we couldn't use the ties and bow-ties any more. So this time I made them with safety pins on the back so they can be used a lot longer. 

 Here is the tie. I really like this pattern.

 Here is a close up of the pin. Nothing fancy, but its functional and sometimes that is best.

 don't look too close at my sewing, I'm no professional. I just kind of make stuff up as I go...lets just say I learn a lot with every project I do :D

 and the bowtie

I thought they were fun, I really want to make some for Cole now!

Duck pond with Daddy!!

I've posted before about going to the BYU duck pond. We still try to go at least twice a month. The kids love it, and it helps us get rid of our stale bread. Lucy alway asks when Daddy will come with us, but he usually has work or school so he's pretty busy. Well, thursday was the last day of finals (meaning Daddy has the next week and a half off!) so Friday morning we packed a lunch and headed to the duck pond for a picnic with Daddy!!!

The turtles were out!!  They like to come out and bask in the sun on the rocks.

The babies finally hatched! we've been waiting all month for them to come out, and we were pleasantly surprised!

The kids really liked sitting and watching the babies. by the end they were both trying their hardest to peep like the ducklings.

Only about half the bred ever makes it to the ducks. Lucy and Cole will just sit and eat their pieces, before they share with the ducks....I don't think the ducks appreciate that very much!

This is the hold we usually have to have on little man. He dives right for the water, every time.

and just because they are so cute! Here are the ducklings :)

Happy Sunday!

Working Out & Making Bread

Our family has been working on getting in shape lately. We got Devin a pull-up bar for his birthday. He loves it.

 As do our little ones. Every morning he gets it out the kids go running over to him.

 Lucy is pretty funny because she doesn't even try to lift herself up...we have to do all the work.

 But little man really can still pull himself up (those crazy baby abilities). So we purposefully help him. 

We don't want these little people stunting their growth. But I really do think it is a good thing for them to get excited about exercising.

I've been waking up at 6 this week trying to get my workout in. It's not easy getting up when everyone else is sleeping. I just want to stay in bed. But I am doing it, and if I sleep in (like we did today) I will just have to do it tonight :) ). 

 Lucy loves playing on our rocking chair. She'll sit like this and sing songs, or rhymes, or just play with her toys. This particular day she wanted Cole to get up with her.

(doesn't he have the cutest smile?!!)

 I LOVE IT when they actually WANT to play together. 

 (sorry about the dirty lense)

 Goofy Lucy

 Cole was trying to get her so she hid! :) These two are too much fun!

 I've been working on my bread-making skills lately...lets just say they were less than satisfactory...I failed at bread every time! 

I found this recipe online and thought I'd give it a try.  This is what I got the first time.

Some very flat bread. We had mini sandwiches for a while :)

I tried it again and there wasn't much difference. So I asked Devin's mom for her bread recipe. (She makes AMAZING bread by-the-way). I've tried this recipe before, but I could never get it to work. I don't know what I did different this time, but it worked!!! 

We had a nice normal sized loaf and a rather large and puffy loaf! I was pretty excited about it :)

The other day I saw this recipe on Pinterest for Baguettes, and decided I'd try my hand at it! It didn't crust-ify like the lady said it should. But it still tasted good and had a good texture. We had spaghetti with the first loaf and BBQ chicken sandwiches with the second! 

And this is the newest favorite at our house. German pancake muffins! Lucy's favorite breakfasts are muffins or german pancakes. So one day we thought we'd try combining them :)