Excellent News!

Ry finishes his very last final before he graduates on May 3rd!  This alone is excellent news - but what's even better?  Ry starts his very first job at a Hatchery on May 7th!  We'll be moving to a little town 10-15 minutes from Lake Powell called Big Water!  We are SO excited and can't wait for this new adventure.  Some quick facts about Big Water:

• There are about 475 people total in the little community.
• It does have some people who follow Polygamy there (it was in the news, etc.) - which I find really  interesting and exciting!  According to my work friends, I'll have sister wives before our time is through there - right, Ry can barely handle me! haha
• It's 6 miles from the Arizona boarder (Page, AZ is the nearest city/town and 17 miles away) and 57 miles from Kanab, UT.
• Lake Powell, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument are just minutes away.  Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Zion’s National Park, Mesa Verde Indian ruins, Monument Valley and several others are within 3 hours of Big Water. (got this from their city website)
• The entire Kindergarten class this year had FIVE students!  This, to me, is great for many reasons!  It means that even though the community is small, there are plenty of kids Aiden's age and for educational reasons, Aiden will do MUCH better in a smaller class setting than in a classroom with 30+ children!

We look forward to this new chapter in our lives!  It does only go until the beginning of January as of right now, so the adventure will be ever changing, but what a wonderful place to start! 

Easter!

 Once again...I only got pictures of less than half of the festivities!  Our Easter started on Saturday night after the Birthday party.  All the grand kids colored eggs at Grandma Terry's house.  Aiden and Jackson were so excited to make tie dye eggs!  After all the eggs were colored and we spent some time playing outside, we all went out to eat at a buffet style diner.  I won't really get into it...but it was a NIGHTMARE!  Seriously!  There were kids touching my belongings, I had to get Asher out of his car seat where he was trying to fall asleep because a couple kids kept pulling up the blanket and getting way too close...I think my brother and sister in law were waiting for smoke to come outta my ears! :)  Sunday was much better!  We started the day at my parents house (I forgot the camera) and Aiden colored more eggs, Ry and I made dinner (it turned out really well) and we just spent some time with my family.  It was a nice, quite time.  Then we spent the evening with Ry's family.  We had another really nice dinner, and the kids got to have an Easter Egg hunt!!

 Aiden LOVED it!

 They were running all over the yard, counting eggs, SHARING eggs!!  They were so sweet!

 Cole and Grandpa Doug

 My super sweet baby boy!

 Jackson and Aiden.  These 2 are so funny!  I'm so glad they can be such good friends!

 We also attempted to get a group shot of all the cousins (minus Ellie - she was at her other Grandparents home).

 It's amazing how hard it is to get the group all together!

The 2 baby boy cousins!  I hope these 2 grow up to be such good friends!  They're on their way I think!

We finished the night playing games with Ry's 2 brother and his mom.  We played a game where you are given a word and you write down the word, draw a picture and pass it.  The next person looks at the pictures (not the word) and guesses what you drew, then they pass it to the next person, that person draws what the previous person guessed (the word) and so on.  It was SO fun!  I loved seeing all the drawings and guesses!  Some were SO far off the original word...it was funny!

We're so blessed to have such great family members!  I hope y'all had an amazing Easter filled with family, food and fun!

My little ones are growing up!

We were lucky enough to celebrate Aiden and Asher's birthdays with ALL of our families this year!  All of my and Ry's siblings were in state!  Aiden was really lucky and got to have TWO birthday parties within the same week!  I didn't get any pictures, but my best friend Krista had us over for lunch.  She made spaghetti and meatballs (Aiden's FAVORITE) AND some delicious cupcakes!  They were going to be out of town for Aiden's birthday party, so she put one together for him and her kids!  (Her daughter is Aiden's BEST friend).

That weekend we put together a fun party!  I was so impressed with how it turned out!  I didn't take enough pictures of the decor...my dad put a BIG spider web of Red and Blue with a big spider hanging down...it was so neat!  My mom helped with the superhero drawings!  I couldn't have done it without them! 

 After everyone ate (we had TONS of food...including the new Papa Murphy's cheeseburger pizza...everyone was scared to try it, but it was GONE ... NO leftovers.  It really is good) and the kids decorated their super cute reversible capes I made (NEVER buy capes from the store!  They're super easy to make and will save you at least $2.50 each!) we went outside and the kids shot "villains" with silly string!

 They LOVED it!  Between the 5 kids who participated...16 cans of silly string were GONE!

 Most of the family...a few were out of shot.

 Once we were done we came inside and played pin the symbol on the superhero.  We had Batman, Spiderman and Superman.

 Even Uncle Brian had to participate!

 We had a "Bat Cave" which was just the toy closet under the stairs filled with streamers, glow sticks, and "eye lights" (they're Halloween strand lights in the shape of eyes).  We also had a guessing game.  There were 6 water bottles (3 for the adults and 3 for the kids) filled with various types of candy.  Everyone had to guess how many were in each one and the closest won the candy and bottle!  Easy and fun!

 We sang Happy Birthday (please ignore the fact that my cake is SINKING!!)  Aiden loved the cake, and I think I figured out what I did wrong...so next time it'll be fabulous!

 Asher's animal cake.  It was a simple icing job with cute little plastic animals on it. 

 Next was PRESENT TIME!

 I absolutely LOVED watching Aiden open his presents this year!  He was so excited!  It was

 He got an awesome Iron Man mask from McKinley and Ry and I got him these arm shooters!  What a lucky boy!

 He also got a Green Lantern claw from his cousin

 A Spiderman basketball bath set (which he LOVES!  Thanks Rob and Jen!)

 A Darth Vader suit and mask...he has worn these almost every single day at some point in the day since he received those!  Thanks Grandma Marlene!

 A Green Lantern lego set from his cousins!

 An awesome light saber and star wars gun!  He was SO excited to get this!

 Then the biggest present for last a Sonic the Hedgehog game!  If anyone has spent more than 4 hours with Aiden, you know how obsessed he is with Sonic!  We finally broke and bought him a game for his birthday!

 Jackson was pretty excited too!  We need to get these 2 together to play it soon!

 Next was Asher's turn!  It was fun to watch him open his gifts as well!  There's something so great about that first Birthday!

 He loves his squeaky elmo!  He got 3 new stuffed animals (the other 2 were from both of his Grandma's on Ry's side) He plays with them every morning (I keep them on the dresser by his crib)

 Aiden picked this toy out for him and he has LOVED playing with it!

Thank you so much everyone for making this party such an amazing day!!