A Whale of a Year

Our baby turned ONE!

And let me just say. It's a good thing these monthly shots are now behind us because it was becoming nearly impossible to get this wiggle monkey to sit still. 

I did a thing. 

And yeah, Jonah. I get it. You're definitely going to hate me one day for exploiting your name for a birthday theme, but when whales are trendy and your name is Jonah, a mom just can't say no to that. So I apologize. And I acknowledge you're going to hear an abundance of whale jokes through the following years. And I'm sorry that your own mother was the one who kicked off the over-usage of big fish in your life. But I dare you to tell me what I've done with it isn't adorable.

Not keeping with the big fish theme, we went to see baby animals. Close, but also not. 

We went to Cross E Ranch and it was cute!

I can't confirm that we killed any of the baby chicks, but I can confirm there were a few baby animals that seemed to drift off into a daze while in the tight grasp of my children's...loving...hands. Only to then be promptly dropped from treacherous heights the minute my children lost interest in them.

The bouncing birthday boy. 

The Excell group was having a "hay" day, but Brightly was ready to hit the hay, and she wanted Teresa to know it!

Jonah really took to the farm life. 

The benefit of being baby #4 is your mom has improved her cake decorating skills over the years prior to your birth. Jonah's cake is one of my favorites I've made!

When Carson saw the finished cake, he said, "Now Jonah gets to eat the whale!!" Ha!

Lincoln took full advantage of all the frosting supplies as soon as I was done with them. 

The Bess Bunch came over to help us eat the cake. Trouble is, none of us actually like cake, but the ice cream we served with the cake was really good! 

Happy Birthday to our one-year-old!

Easter Eggcells

I don't know what happened, but my kids lost their talent for travelling peacefully in a moving vehicle. We went down to St. George for Easter weekend, and the drive was a colossal nightmare. Eli and Carson wanted to listen to a Diary of a Wimpy Kid audiobook. Jonah and Lincoln protested the book with screams until we turned music on for them. When the music was on, the older boys were complaining they wanted to book. And that's how the whole trip went. There were at least two people screaming and/or crying the entire time. Not to mention Jonah refused to nap the whole way down, so there was no rest. It was a screamfest. 

While I'm on the subject, let's just mention that on the way home the ride was equally unpleasant. Carson was complaining about being hungry on our last leg of the trip so we stopped at McDonald's to grab a quick dinner. We got a million chicken nuggets and some fries. Carson ate many of them. We had leftovers. There was plenty of food. We got back in the car ready to finish our drive off without further incident or complaints. Only to have Carson LITERALLY FIVE MINUTES after we stopped to eat start whimpering. Upon asking him what was wrong, he began grumbling about how hungry he was. 

So it was with both rides. Every time I thought we were solving a screaming kid problem, another kid would begin screaming or our problem solving would not actually solve anyone's problems so there was just a constant hum of dissatisfaction. So basically we're never leaving the house again. 

But luckily while we were in St. George there was lots of fun things to do and lots of fun people to hang out with, so the grumbling momentarily subsided while at our destination.

We caught lunch at a park between conference sessions, and then Mary the party planner of the century had a super fun easter egg hunt ready for the kids.

Eli joined the Cox family for a game of baseball. Getting warmed up for his first baseball season.

Some parents get Easter baskets for their kids and some parents say, "Hey, can I have that leftover fried chicken bag?"

Jonah even got in on the fun.

That evening the kids watched a movie while the guys were at the Priesthood Session of conference and the ladies were catching up in the kitchen.

Carson and Coleman's favorite St. George activity was walking the dogs...er...having the dogs walk them. They had no understanding of the fact that they could lead the dogs, so they would just run here, there, and everywhere following the dogs around like a strand of toilet paper stuck to their shoes?? Ha. It's the first metaphor that came to me so I'm "sticking" with it.

After one particularly wild ride, the boys put the dogs back in the house with a laugh as they accepted, "We do NOT know how to walk the dogs!" They did get better with practice through the weekend though!

Mary had the kids invested in a coloring contest that kept them busy and quiet all through conference. Win!

Kaelynn made pipe cleaner creations for Jonah to model.

You know we have to go to "Choo Choo Park" whenever we're in St. George!

There's a big volcano that "erupts" (or interrupts according to Carson) every 45 minutes. Coleman and Carson patiently waited for 45 minutes to get the inside view of the volcano during the eruption. When the moment finally came, they were so excited and nervous and anxious and happy which led to one of my favorite moments of the weekend:

We had a few minutes of time before lunch on Monday, so we walked around the temple. I always love to get a milestone picture in front of the temple of how far we've come since Jeff and I were here the first time.

"These flowers are so pretty! Let me get a picture of Jonah in front of them." ...He had other ideas.

On Monday night we went to our other favorite St. George location: Pioneer Park!

Carson's our navigator. Always the first one anywhere, and always has an eye out for where he's headed next. Whether we follow him or not.

On Tuesday we went to Glitter Mountain.

Please see Jonah and Carson.

Another great weekend in SoUt. You know, Southern Utah. Like SoCal. But for Utah. Because Utah is just as cool as California. So we can say things like SoUt. Trust me on this one.