Kids love to dress up

My kids love to play, for the most part they play really well together. There are times when I don't see them for a really long time. We have a dress up area in the playroom, but recently they have been using their own clothes to dress how they need to. They have come down in some great looks, but it does cause a lot of laundry. Here is Reagan as a princess. She always wears this dress, and of course the high heels, crown and princess wand.

Any guesses who Brayden is? He has been a bit obsessed with Star Wars since our trip to Disneyland when he was able to fight Darth Vadar. He is Luke Skywalker. He was practicing the moves he learned while he was a trainee at Disneyland. I heard "activate, left shoulder, right shoulder, left knee, duck, on top, deactivate" so many times the weeks following our trip.

Brayden has learned to keep his light saber close by, Dallin thinks it is pretty cool too.

Since Brayden is always practice his moves, Reagan wanted to show me her moves.

Their room

We finally finished the kid's room. This is one of our first rooms we painted, over a year and a half ago. It is pretty crazy how life can really take up so much of your time. Don't mind the blackout curtain hanging in their room, it is our temporary fix for helping the kids go to sleep when it is still so bright out. The kids love to sleep in the same room, but ever since Reagan no longer goes to bed with a binkie it has been a bit more challenging to get these two to sleep. If we can get Reagan to bed first, then we usually have them both asleep by 8:30. If we try to put them to bed at the same time, it is usually close to 10 before they are both asleep. They do have a great time playing, and they are the best of friends. It can be fun to listen to them, when I am not tired and wanting to go to bed myself. The left wall has some pictures of our family. Above their bed is their initial. Above their book shelf is a board that has all the Articles of Faith on it. On the right wall there is a picture of the Boise Temple and a growth chart. I love having the growth chart in their room. We try to add their heights on their birthdays. 

On the opposite wall is their dresser. Each of them have a basket that they can keep their things in. You can see Reagan loves to keep everything. We also hang their artwork on their wall to display.

Reagan needed to be in all the pictures I took, she loves her letter or as she yells, "It's my letter!"

The kids have been doing a great job making their beds each morning. They are both so proud to do their part.

I had to share, although the picture does not do it justice, this was the most brilliant rainbow I think I have ever seen. You could even see the difference between the blue and violet. For a moment there was a second rainbow above it. It was a great way to end the day.

Brayden wanted to get dirty too

After our last mud run Jared signed up for another run. This run had a run for the little guys so I opted out of the run so I could bring the kids and we could let Brayden run. He had a blast. We arrived really early and he kept asking when his race was going to start. Here he is with Jared just before heading over to the starting line. 

Reagan and I headed down the track to get some pictures. Brayden is on Jared's shoulders searching for us.  He did finally find us.

Here is Brayden's first obstacle.

They ran up a few hills and then they got to come down the slides. You can see they got a bit stuck, but made it down eventually.

You can tell he is having a great time. He loved hearing us yell for him.

This was his least favorite obstacle, the water was too cold. He did finally make it across.

After the water it was muddy the rest of the way to the finish line. This was his favorite part. He had a blast splashing, throwing and getting it all over. He didn't like it when he got dirt in the eye. Aunt Libby and I can speak to that, it does hurt.

All done and all dirty. He had a blast trying to give me a high five so he could get me dirty. On our way back to the car he had he held his arms out in front of him and and he kept telling, "Mom, I am so dirty." I think he had reached a point where he was a little shocked he was as dirty as he was. Reagan had a blast clapping for him. She was a great sport and spent most of our time at the race in her stroller clapping away.

After we made it back to the car we had a pretty sweet set up to get clean. We brought our big water cooler and our camping shower and we were able to get both of them all clean. Reagan and I sat in our lawn chairs and ate, I am sure we were a sight to see. 

Survivor Mud Run

A few weeks ago we talked Libby into coming up to visit and run in a Survivor Mud Run. The race was about an hour away, and as we got closer we got more and more nervous. This is what we looked like when we arrived.

As we walked to the starting line we were seeing a lot of people that were dirty, but they didn't seem that dirty so I thought that we would not be getting too dirty. The race was 3.3 miles and I think it had 14 obstacles. We also ran it with our friends Shannon and Rob (Rob works with Jared). Some of the obstacles were climbing under cargo nets in the mud, running through tires, climbing over rope walls, running through the river, climbing up a cargo net. These were the clean obstacles. 

Cargo net crawl.

Trying to make it up the wall.

Libby, up and over!

A little running, our knees down are pretty dirty.

Jared and Rob.

About half way through Libby and I decided there was no way we were coming out clean. So we slide head first into the mud pond where we tried to climb over logs (not very successfully). It was so slippery that everyone was knocking everyone else over. By that point we were a mess. We had several obstacles to finish. Jared got stuck in the mud when he tried to help someone else get out, and as he was getting out of the final obstacle he thought it was over and he went jogging from the obstacle through several puddles, except the last puddle was a deep puddle and he fell all the way in. We were all pretty muddy. Here we are waiting in line for a shower, and yes it is raining. 

 Jared's face was the best, all the mud was stuck in his facial hair.

 Here is Libby before a shower.

 And sadly this is me after a shower, and a rinse in the creek.

 This is Libby after she thought she was all clean too.

The race was a ton of fun and it took two showers for most of us to get clean.

Brayden's Birthday Party

We thought it would be fun to have Brayden's birthday party in Utah while we were visiting. Brayden wanted an Army themed birthday party, and I have been putting together ideas for a few weeks now. We spent most of the day Friday getting ready for the party, buying all the decorations, and making the cake. Since it was an Army themed party and Brayden loves Army tanks that is went I went for. The only thing I knew for sure was it had to have a "shooter gun" on it. So I went to the internet to get some ideas. I had my sister-in-law Amy help me with the cake and between the two of us we put together a great cake.

Here is the final product.

The tank was so fun to make.

We were both so excited for Brayden to see it. While Amy put the finishing touches on the cake we took Brayden to have a special lunch at Chick-Fil-A. This is his favorite place to eat because he loves loves loves their chicken nuggets with honey mustard sauce. We don’t have any Chick-fil-A’s in Washington so we try to eat at one when we visit Utah or Boise. About the time we finished eating it was time for the party to start. I had dog tags for the kids to wear and Jared assigned them all ranks. The kids got hats and then camouflaged their faces if they wanted to. Brayden also had his Army shirt on of course. He wanted to wear his Army shoes, but it was too cold to have flip flops on. 

Marec is ready!

Sam is ready.

Reagan would rather play on the iPad.

Brayden was ready! (This is his serious face.)

Once all the kids were ready we headed outside for our Army boot camp. Jared was the drill sergeant and we played Drill Sergeant says, and minefield. I was Brayden’s partner and he was so worried he would step on a 'minefield' he walked on his tip toes most of the time; it was so cute. 

We also played a game where each team had to wrap a member of their team in crate paper and then carry them to the medic station. We wrapped Brayden, but our team didn’t win. After that we had an obstacle course and while you went through the course some of the adults were throwing incoming water balloon grenades. Of course, the obstacle course ended in a water balloon fight; which Brayden got in on the action, but only got himself wet in the process. 

After games we went inside and Brayden wanted to open presents first; since it is his party he gets to do what he wants. He got several nerf guns, a camouflaged blanket, and building block set, and a gift card. 

After presents we headed into the kitchen for the cake. He was pretty excited about the cake and he loved the shooter gun on the tank. 

Brayden adoring his Army cake.

We put a sparkler candle into the gun so it looked like it was shooting while we sang happy birthday. That made Brayden a little nervous, but loved it. 

He licked every bit of frosting off his cake and Reagan somehow managed to have two cupcakes. They were totally wired on sugar. Reagan had a great time and was just one of the kids trying to get in on all the action. 

Brayden got a lot of his energy out playing with his new guns downstairs. He had a great birthday and I hope he knows how much we love him. He is such a special boy, he can make so many people gravitate to him and his fun personality. After the party was over we had a little down time and then had dinner. It was nice to have everyone at the house for a while. Brayden had a great time playing with Adam’s girls and of course Chase, Rachael, and Maddie. It was a wonderful day.

Spring time

We have been really busy getting ready for our upcoming events. After Grandpa's visit we saw the end of Preschool. Brayden has LOVED preschool. I love that he loves to learn, and he is so excited about learning new things. He also loves that his friends join him at preschool too. Brayden has gotten really good at writing some of his letters especially his letter "B". 

 Reagan and Brayden also love to talk on the phone. They usual argue about who gets to talk first. Reagan still doesn't make a whole lot of sense when she is talking, but that doesn't stop her. Brayden just sits back and talks, and talks, and talks. This is him talking to Grandma Chris.

We also had fun going to a magic show at the library. Brayden was a volunteer and got to say "hee haa" when he put his scarf into the hat. The magic show created many questions that I had to try to answer.

I have been packing and getting ready for our trip to Utah to meet Marec. Here is the baby quilt I made for baby Marec; I think it turned out really cute. I hope he likes it.

Grandpa's Visit

The morning after my dad arrived Brayden woke up early and came into by bed, I asked him what he wanted to do and he gave me his standard answer, “play all day”. I Asked him who he wanted to play with and I saw his face as he realized that Grandpa was here. He jumped off the bed and ran into my dad’s room. He was so excited to have Grandpa here. Reagan was excited to see him too. The weather was not too bad so we headed up to Point Defiance park to have a picnic lunch and show my dad around. We walked along the rocks and the kids had fun throwing in rocks. Reagan would walk right in if we let her. Brayden had a blast too and wanted to have Grandpa right by his side. We walked up to the play area and had our lunch and let the kids play for a bit. The play area is a lot of fun, but it was pretty busy. When it isn’t raining the play areas are always super packed.

We spent the rest of the evening at the house and the kids had a blast playing with Grandpa, I don’t think Jared and I were even acknowledged the rest of the evening.  Saturday we went to watch the Daffodil parade in Puyallup. There were so many people that we didn’t have great seats, but it was still fun to see the parade. We saw pirates, a float for about every fruit festival you could imagine, dancing grandmas, and a band from every high school and middle school around. We stayed for over an hour and the kids started melting down so we decided to head out. 

We decided to head up north for a drive of the area. We drove up to Lake Tapps; which is really pretty, but it was super windy and cold. We went over to Federal Way and had dinner at Ivar’s; it was some yummy fish. Then we headed out to Browns Point lighthouse. It was pretty windy, but Brayden loved being able to throw sticks into the water and also being able to see a light house. We weren’t able to stay too long because it was so cold, but on our way home we drove by the shipping yards in Tacoma.  I am always grateful when we have visitors, because we get out and see the area. We need to start doing more of that on our own.

Sunday we went to church and let the kids play with Grandpa on his last day here.

It has been a great visit with my dad. The kids have absolutely loved having him. Reagan was a crazy brave girl and Brayden loved to hear stories about Excalibur from my dad.