A little yardwork

Since our backyard is not landscaped yet we don't really feel the need to keep up on the weeds, but they have gotten a little out of control on the sides of our house lately. So we decided we should probably do something about it.

Abe and I had some yard work gloves, and Hudson decided he needed some, too, so I went and found some of his winter gloves for him to wear.

He was our big helper!

These are all the weeds we pulled from ONE side of the house- they filled a small sand box!

Tomorrow's project:

The OTHER side of the house!


(Abe said we should just wait until it grows in a little thicker and then mow it like grass!)

Easter is coming!

Whether we're at the grocery store or Walmart, there are Easter things out everywhere already! (and they have been for a while now). Hudson has been asking to see the bunnies and ducks, so I decided we should get out our own decorations!

A sampling of our little decorations collected from past years

Hudson wanted an "Easter bunny" so I also found some stuffed animals I had put away with the Easter stuff. The first day I only gave him the lamb and baby chick (because I couldn't find the bunny). He was satisfied, and ran around chasing Zorro with them saying "baa!...bawk! bawk!" It was pretty funny.

He has been playing with all these stuffed animals for the past couple days. It is so cute to see him starting to pretend more. He wanted to change their "bipers" so I got a couple napkins out for him to pretend. He lined them all up on the table and gave them each a diaper.

I also let him have a couple of plastic eggs to play with. He thinks it's funny to put an open one on his face and pretend they are glasses.

We are getting excited for Easter!

Anyone have any fun traditions they would like to share?

Family time

Last week my dad's parents came to visit from Utah. Mary's parents are also visiting from Wisconsin for a couple months. Since my dad lives close to us we went over there pretty much every night for dinner last week! It was fun to get together, and of course to eat a lot of great food!

Here is Grandma Drue and Grandpa Howard with their great-grandchildren (plus Natalie because Karsten was not interested in taking any pictures)

And here are the kiddos with Mary's parents, G-Gpa Dale and G-Gma Diane.

We all got together for dinner on Friday night. All the little kids sat at their own table. It reminded me of when we were little and had a kids table when we went to grandma and grandpa's.

We even got some old costumes out for the kids to dress up in. They were actually all of our girls' old dance costumes. Brecken didn't really want to wear any because there were no boy ones :) Jacey couldn't exactly tell me "no" so I put the smallest costume on her!

Grandma and Grandpa got each of the kids their own special plate from McDonald's. It is very fitting because Grandma Drue's favorite place is McDonald's!

Then it was bath time! All five little rugrats fit (barely) into my dad's big tub. We decided, though, that after Natalie's baby comes we will probably have to divide the kids up for bath time :)

At the Zoo

Last week we went with a bunch of friends to the zoo. Luckily, we got to share Tenille and Tate's zoo pass with them, so we were able to go for free (thank you!). Hudson LOVES animals, so he always enjoys going to see them.

Hudson got to play in the cute "Little People" area, and enjoyed riding the horse and cow. We also saw some wallabies, which I realized I never knew what they were- pretty much just small kangaroos. You could get pretty close to them, so it was neat and Hudson was very excited. We also got to see the baby orangutan- my personal favorite :)

We went to the petting zoo area, of course. Most of the kids thought it was pretty cool. Hudson would go over to them and wave and say hi. When I gave him a brush he slowly walked up by one that was laying down. Just as he reached out to brush it, it turned its head, and Hudson jumped back. I thought it was pretty funny. After a few minutes he got more comfortable, and actually brushed a few of them.

We HAD to go and see the elephants- that was pretty much the only animal Hudson specifically asked to see (besides the tiger- but it got really warm, so we didn't want to make the climb to the top of the hill at the end of the day- we'll have to do that first thing next time we go). He just stood there and stared at the elephant like this. He probably would have stayed there all day if I let him!

Here are just a few of us- you should have seen our whole group in the beginning, there were seriously 10 or more moms each pushing a stroller- some of them double strollers! From the left we have me and Hudson, Gina and Porter, Corynn and Jake, Tenille and Cody and Tate.

We had so much fun! Hopefully we can do it again soon, but we'll have to go really early before it gets too hot!!