Easter Blessings

 Henry 3, Evelyn 11 months

Baby girl's first Easter.

In some places there is sun and warmth.

For the first time in a long time, or maybe ever, we went somewhere warm for Spring Break. And while we didn't go somewhere tropical where I laid on the beach drinking adult beverages while a nanny (that someone else was paying) chased after my children, we did go to a land that had both my beloved Target and amazing outdoor recreation.

Having fun at the park on our first evening. Poor kid wasn't used to the heat and may or may not have thrown up on the pool deck an hour or so later. Whoops.

The adorable girl. Those poor leg warmers didn't stand a chance at staying clean.

The Narrows in Zion. Amazing and even more amazing is how prepared I was for this hike.

The bus was loaded with people in rented wet suits. Jake at least had water shoes and some fancy pancy Patagonia pants. Me? Workout leggings and Nikes and Jake's extra jacket. And well that's his hat too.

And, yes, I was quite worried that I would trip during this adventure, but trip I did not.  Stumble a bit? Maybe.

Hidden Canyon Hike

Four adults, four babes. Lots of attention. Too much attention. Hard to say if they were in awe of us, or just thought we were plain dumb. And as a side note, our wonderful friends pictured above are sadly moving at the end of the school year. Not sure how many other families we can find to pull stunts like these with us!

Jake later would point out that the sign Nora and I are about to walk by shows someone falling. Onward ho, yo!

The addition of the chain for you to hold onto made this hike seem a little more terrifying than it really was. Are 1000 foot cliffs really that dangerous?

Matching blue shirts for the win!

Swimming take 2! No one threw up at the pool this time, and more importantly no one seemed to remember us from the night before.

Snow Canyon State Park. So, so, so much fun...until it wasn't!

We hiked and climbed and explored some caves and then one of the shorter members of our group melted and there was no turning back.

 Now don't worry, Jake wasn't empty handed while I carried the troops back to the car. Someone had to hold the car keys...oh wait, I had those too. :)

And we call him "Baby Saver"

Oh sure she looks sweet and innocent, but do not be fooled. She has a wish, a desire, a goal perhaps, to plummet to the bottom of our stairs. Take your eyes off her for .15 seconds and she will be at the top of the stairs one chubby wrist length away from disaster. Sure, one could solve this problem with a baby gate, OR one could just enlist of big brother.

She is less than pleased when this flying toddler leaps over her and plants himself at the stairs.

High quality cell phone pictures really capture the action.

He takes his job very seriously. Very. He will literally run and throw himself in front of his dear sister (okay or sometimes grab ahold of the collar of her shirt) to keep her from going down the stairs. And he's quite proud of himself- he always shouts, "It's okay, I got Sissy!" And then he will go about his business of washing the dishes or whatever other task his mother really should be doing.

Bravo Henry, bravo.

She's got spirit, yes she does.

Little Miss E is all about the personality. This girl is in what we affectionately refer to as "full on turd" mode." She is everywhere and into everything and luckily has not figured out that her shrieks of joy give away her location every time.

It used to be that whoever was on bath time duty had it easy. Sit on the toilet and zone out on the ipad while Henry played. Now that we've thrown sis in, it's a whole different ball game. Goodbye to relaxation and hello to there is a slippery baby trying to drown at any moment. Her favorite bath game at the moment is to pull herself up and then promptly throw herself back down in the water. Oh the hilarity.

Say what? It's spinach/pea/broccoli mac and cheese night? Sign me up! And no, I sure won't keep my bib on. Mom has plenty of time to work on getting stains out of my clothes.

If it were realistic, I would install a playground swing in my living room. Scrunched up nose and squinty eyes mean this girl is loving life.

When they aren't pooping in the tub or shrieking in the wee hours of the morning, these two sure do warm my heart.

Sissy at 9 months

I'm beginning to think we should have named this dear child Sissy instead of Evelyn. Someone called her Evelyn the other day and it sounded so foreign. Sissy Denbrook has a nice ring to it, right? I mean, we live in Wyoming where people name their children all sorts of strange names so maybe we should just go for it?

This delight of a child is now nine months old. I would like to think that it is due to my superb parenting that she is the way she is, but alas I do believe it has not much to do with me, or what I do or don't do. This girl is just a dream boat of a baby. She's the baby that makes people who do not want babies, baby hungry. And she will probably be a terror of a toddler, but for now I will soak up all of her goodness- all 28.5 inches and 17 lbs of it.

She is one happy camper who loves to race crawl across the living room floor while shrieking or making other noises to show her excitement. She pulls herself up on low furniture and has fallen off numerous things way too many times. She eats whatever you put in front of her and loves that big brother of hers whole heartedly. She stills sleeps in our closet ( now, now it's a large closet with its own heat source) because she's my last baby and I want her close. Forever.

Bath time and eating cheerios are two of her favorite past times as well as taking every last magnet off of the refrigerator. Seriously, whose brilliant idea was it to make all those educational Leap Frog  magnet toys and why do I have them on my fridge at her level?

She also enjoys exploring the bathroom and all I can say about that is thank you Jesus for immune systems and that the toilet brush has found a permanent new home.

Big brother Henry is a great helper and is quick to grab tiny choke-ables out of her chubby hands, and is also quick to lift her onto the couch when my back is turned.

Life with these two is never dull, at times trying and always a reminder if what is truly important in life! That being said...a TV without scratches isn't really that important, right?

One day there will be jumping.

And possibly one day there will also be Christmas cards sent out of said jumping.

Until then, here are some of our recent attempts at a family photo. There was no jumping and unlike photo ops before, no strangling of babies. And no real winners either.

We call this, "someone forgot to put mittens on the baby and it's -15..."

And this one, "we are too tall and that's a really ugly background + where is mom's body?"

Then we have the look of disgust on mom's face and the escaping toddler.

And finally everyone is looking at the camera and smiling, but is that the head of a wild animal above Jake's head?

Cuz yo mama is cheap part 2

A little over a year ago someone had the brilliant idea that I should get my Masters. One day I will go back to work (or at least that's what I tell Jake) so it seemed like a good enough reason to pursue that golden piece of paper that would one day bump me up on the pay scale.  And I only had Henry at home and we lived in the middle of nowhere so really what else was I going to do with myself? Get pregnant, have horrible morning sickness, have a new baby, spend a summer in Oregon..and yes start and finish that dang masters program is what I ended up doing. It was definitely not fun and I wanted to quit about 700 times (let's be honest the work wasn't  hard, but it sure took up a lot of time). Now remember I am cheap, so to save our family mucho buckaroos I finished my two year program in a little less than two semesters. Now my personal hygiene, the state of our house and well-planned (or planned at all) meals may have gone out the window the last month or two of my program, but I AM DONE! So to answer the many people who have asked if I have graduated yet, yep sure have! And now I can put that degree to good use by...staying home with these two loves.