Boys' First Movie

This post is from Brent, and this is my first. Annie has been the one who has kept the blog up to date thus far, and so here is my first contribution. When I was a kid I used to love making movies. Now that I have kids, I now have an excuse to make movies again. This was the first one we made together. We have also done a Transformers movie that I will post in the future. I'm still trying to get the licensing squared away with Andrew (he won't let me post it unless he gets a royalty for each time viewed). Anyway . . . enjoy!

Mom takes too long blogging

I guess I spent a little too much time blogging this morning instead paying attention to my crying baby. Jacob put himself down for his nap this morning because "I just had to finish this one post". I find myself saying things like that a lot. Please forgive me. Sometimes I forget my priorities. Sorry Jacob, you do look pretty peaceful now! I do love you.

Cute Boys

Congratulations Annie!

One more exciting thing happened on Easter Sunday. I received my Young Women's Medallion for completing my Personal Progress. I didn't get it as a Young Woman so I have been working on it for the past couple of years as a leader. I finished up my goals last week and was presented with my necklace in sacrament meeting on Sunday. I am very excited about it.

Jacob is Walking

Jacob started walking last week. We had been practicing with him, but he still preferred crawling as of last Monday. We delivered some St. Patrick's Day cupcakes to Great Grandma Lucy and when we went in Jacob decided that he wanted to walk in her house. He amazed us all. Grandma said,"I didn't know he was walking". Well we didn't know either. Go Jacob! He is still wobbly but he sure is cute.

Easter Egg Hunt

We had a very entertaining day on Saturday. We opted to participate in the Twin Falls city Easter Egg hunt at City Park. I had to convince Brent that although he would see half of his clients at such an activity it would be enjoyable for our children.

This was the first time we have ever done this. We read in the paper that the senior citizens at the nursing homes colored 300 DOZEN eggs! So we figured they probably needed help from our boys to clean up such a mess. We showed up to the city park and there really were thousands of eggs lying on the ground (not hidden as you can see in the photo). There were 4 sections of the park roped off for different age groups. We found the section for the 5-8 year olds, and somewhere across the park was the section for the 3-4 year olds. Not wanting to split up the family we snuck Andrew in with the 5-7 year olds. We went and found an empty space to stand while we waited to begin the "hunt". As we approached our spot the lady next to us said, "you know they have this sectioned off for different age groups". Apparently she felt threatened that her six year old girl might miss out on some potential hard boiled eggs, taken from our 3 year old boy. We kindly informed her that it was ok, we didn't want to split our family up.

The funniest part of the whole experience was that after the police siren sounded, hundreds of kids went running for the eggs. It literally lasted less than 30 seconds and the whole thing was over. We went to find our kids. First, we found Andrew. He was so excited he had gathered up 7 eggs. He was very proud of himself. Then we found Will. He was just mad. We went to see what the problem was and as we approached him we could see that his disappointment was a result of finding only 2 eggs. He had his eyes set on one particular egg at the beginning, and by the time he got the one he wanted he turned around and all of the other eggs were gone. Needless to say this was a very stupid egg hunt. We felt bad for Will, but could not stop laughing at what a bizarre experience it all was. We probably won't waste our time with that tradition in the future. All it took to cheer Will up was a trip to Artic Circle.

Happy Easter

The Easter Bunny was good to our boys this year. We have spent the last two days watching and re-watching all of our new movies. We are sick from eating so much candy. But, aside from all of the goodies we had a wonderful Sabbath. We are so thankful for our Savior Jesus Christ, for his life and mission. We are thankful for the blessings that come to us all, through the atonement and resurrection. I hope you all had a wonderful Easter too!

Twin Falls Temple Dedication Announcement!

The dates for the open house and dedication of the Twin Falls temple were announced today.
Everyone mark your calendars. The open house will begin on July 11 and go through August16. The open house will run Mon-Sat. The Youth Cultural Celebration will be August 23. The dedication will be held on Sunday August 24. Anyone is invited to attend the open house. This is a chance for the general public to view the inside of the temple and learn more about temples and the work we do there. If you have any questions on how to get tickets let me know. The goal is that everyone who would like to see the temple is given that opportunity before it is dedicated. Once it is dedicated it is closed to the public and open only to faithful members of the LDS church. This is truly a once in a lifetime experience that we are so excited about. For more information about temples you can visit http://www.lds.org/temples/home/0,11273,1896-1,00.html

New Favorite Movie

Brent and I watched August Rush last night and we were blown away. It is sooooo good. We decided to show our boys the movie this afternoon. We thought they would enjoy the music. Will kept telling us, "I want to learn music, when can I learn music?" We pulled out Brent's guitar and he is still playing. It is nice to see a good clean movie. For anyone who hasn't seen it I would highly recommend it.

This is Will practicing his August Rush skills.

Cody Court

The two things you should know before I tell this story, if you don't already know, is that Brent is an attorney, and our street is called Cody Ct. The boys have learned over the past year that when dad is getting dressed in the morning, if he wears his suit, he will be going to court that day. This morning as Brent, dressed in his suit, was kissing the kids goodbye, Andrew looked at him and said, "Are you going to Cody Court today?" We tried to explain that Cody Court was where we live and the courthouse is where dad goes to work. Andrew's response to that was, "NO, I said Cody (saying it with an accent making it sound something like K-YODEE) Court." The way he said it was as if he understood the difference between the two, it was us who did not understand him. The courthouse and Cody (pronounced-Kyodee) Court are the same thing. Cody Ct. and Cody (Kyodee) Ct. are two entirely different things. So anyone sending us any mail in the near future,make sure you are careful not to send any mail to Cody(Kyodee) Ct. it may end up at the courthouse. Just clarify with your postman before mailing.

Binky Babies

Jacob at age 1 succumbs to a binky. We can't believe it! We can't tell you how many times we have tried over the past year to get Jacob to take a binky. We have spent so many Sundays pacing the halls of church because this boy loves to be noisy when he is tired and bored (like most babies I know). We have even tried to force it on him a few times. I went in to his room last week to check on him and found him sitting on his floor with his blanket sucking on a binky he found under his dresser. Who knows how long that had been there, or what was living on it. He didn't care. He loved it. He has been sucking on it ever since. He is so quiet now. I will put him down for a nap and have to guess when he is awake because when he does wake up he will just sit in there quietly sucking his binky until I come get him. (I've been able to get a lot more done this past week :)

Andrew too was a binky lover. Probably our worst. He has a new habit of sucking his bottom lip that just drives us crazy. His lower lip is always chapped. This is Andrew at 1year.

I promise this photo is from this century. This is Will at 1 year. We did not have a digital camera back then so the few pictures we have of him, I recall we always wanted the binky out. This is the only documentation I could find that he in fact loved his binky.

Twin Falls Temple Tour

Brent and I had the privilege of taking a private tour of the Twin Falls Temple with the temple committee a couple of weeks ago. I just have to say what an amazing building this (and all temples) is. The construction is not complete, but they are hoping to have things finished up by April at which point they will turn it over to the church for all the finishing touches. (Detail work, decorating, etc.) I continue to find myself having experiences like this, thinking to myself, "Who am I, that I am here, having this experience?" I don't know the answer to that. I know that there are so many people more qualified, experienced, worthy, deserving, however you want to fill in the blank. What I do know from having these experiences, however, is that I have a Father in Heaven who loves me. I feel that this is another one of his "tender mercies" that he continually bestows upon me. I am so excited for the completion of this beautiful Temple when everyone will have the opportunity to see the House of the Lord in Twin Falls.

Thank You Twin Falls Public Library!

One of the few winter activities there is to do in Twin Falls, is to go to story time at the public library. Since November, the boys and I have been going to story time every Friday morning. The boys usually sit and listen to the stories while I walk around with Jacob finding books and movies to check out for the week. We have been pretty consistent at taking home about 40 books each week. Each week as I check them all out I promise myself that I won't get as many next week. Then as we return the books the following Friday I remind myself of how annoying it is to haul 40+ books in and out of the library with 3 boys, and again promise myself that this week we will cut the number in half. This week I actually stuck to my promise for the first time in 4 months. I only found about 25 books this time. When I went to check out they reminded me that I had a "couple" of books on hold. I remembered that Will and I had looked online a few weeks prior at all of the dinosaur book options, and placed them on hold for when they were available at our library. Well the "couple" of books they had on hold ended up being about 25 more books. So I set a record this week for the most items I have ever checked out at one time.

The library has a limit of 50 items and today we met that...exactly.

I must say that as annoying, and I must say, stressful, as it is to haul out that many books each week with my boys, I must say I am grateful for the blessing it is. Believe it or not we return each week having read all of our books. So, today I am thankful for resources like the library that give me the opportunity to spend quality time with my boys, regardless of how inconvenient it may be for a few moments. I am also thankful for wonderful boys who love to sit with their mom each day to read.

New Template

I am sure most of you bloggers out there know that it's not such a good idea to change your template all the time. (Before I go on I guess I should let you know that I am not the most intelligent blogger so there may be solutions to my annoyances that I am just not smart enough to have figured out. If that is the case feel free to fill me in on your blogging secrets so I don't continue having all of these problems.)

I had the brilliant idea at the beginning of the year to change my template with each holiday. What a good idea, right? That's why I have had my Valentine background on for so long. When I updated for Valentine's I learned a few things about my brilliant idea. The first thing I learned is that when you change your template, you erase all of your widgets and sidebars. So now, when I find the time, I will be redoing all of that. Second, it's just tough to find the "one" template that matches your personality/mood/lifestyle, without copying all of the cute ones that your family and friends already have. It's kinda like wearing the exact same shirt on the same day to the same place....that's embarrassing. So I have been looking at so many templates in preparation for the big day (today) when I finally take off the Valentine's template and do something more permanent. I really wanted to do something that was somewhat reflective of my family. Well I found the "one". It was love at first sight. I know some of you may be thinking, "what?" but those of you who know my family well, know that I have 3 dino loving boys. I don't think they will be spending too much time checking out our family blog enjoying the T-Rex, but I am happy to have found one that represents my family in one small way. I also don't think the copying thing will be an issue.

So, for now, and for the next long while, enjoy this dino page and think of my boys each time you check up on us.