Pre-Easter Fun!

Saturday we did some of the secular Easter traditions - candy-filled Easter baskets were enjoyed, eggs were dyed, and we spent lots of time outside enjoying a beautiful Spring day!

Dallin

Jameson

Avery wanted to call it "painting" eggs instead of "dyeing" out of concern for the eggs...

Dicie going for the double dipped effect

Mia

Beckham and Mom (Whoa Belly!)

The kids received a bubble machine and had a TON of fun chasing bubbles all over the backyard!

There is just something about bubbles that brings pure delight to children. I love watching their joy!

Let's Go Fly a Kite!

Thursday afternoon there was a pretty good breeze going and I told the kids it was a perfect day for kite-flying! But, it was a little too close to dinner time, so we waited until after dinner, grabbed the kite, and headed to the park while Brett was gone on visits. Of course, by then the breeze had died down considerably! We didn't have much luck. I wasn't able to help much, being as it's a little hard to run with a kite when you're 9 months pregnant. The kite got stuck in trees several times and we all finally packed up and went home, a little frustrated to be sure!

The next day when we got home from school, the breeze was back! But this time we didn't hesitate. We packed everyone up right then and there and headed to the park again. It was a gorgeous Friday afternoon, so I even texted Brett and told him to throw in the towel at work and come fly a kite with us! We had a nice time and especially with Dad's help we got that kite up!

"Up through the atmosphere, Up where the air is clear!"

Beckham loves running free at the park!

Dad and Dallin working together!

Annual Neighborhood Egg Hunt!

Our awesome neighbor, Tonya, has done an egg hunt in her yard every year for I think as long as we've lived here! And every year it gets bigger! Her 3 kids are getting older now, so we're thankful that she is still doing it, for now anyway. She had the kids and yards divided up into age groups and we had one kid in each age group! Dicie was too old, so she helped Beckham. It was a fun and very fast little activity!

 Avery - can't wait to start!

Beckham knows what to do!

 Jameson has the biggest bucket!

Dallin - enjoying his last year egg-hunting.

 Beckham and Dicie make a good team!

Pretty Mia!

Jamo's Birthday Derby Fun!

 Daddy's Famous Birthday Pancakes!

Jameson loved his new toolbox with real tools and his very own "big boy" lego set!

It has been fun watching Jamo play with these legos. Dallin is the type to put together the whole set per the directions and then leave it like that. Forever. Jameson built the 3 options from the set, then took them apart and has been creating his own designs ever since. He's actually very good at it and has his engineer Dad quite impressed!

Aunt Brooke always sends the most Awesome hand made birthday cards, but this one blew the rest out of the water! A pop-up Lego movie themed card with illustrations and a personalized word search? WOW! 

A week or so before Jameson's birthday I was worrying about what we were going to do since the Pinewood Derby was the same day. And then I realized I could spin that in my favor! "Hey Jameson, guess what? The Pinewood Derby is on your birthday!!" We bought an extra car and Jamo got to be in on the Derby building and racing action!

Dallin cheering on his Bullet Bill car (the black blur in lane one)! He won 2nd place overall!

Avery cheering on Jameson's skateboard car (in lane 2). Jameson didn't compete with the scouts, but when he got to race his car at the end, it was sure fast! 

Jameson, Avery, and Beckham all cheering on Jamo's car (in lane 1)

The Winner's Circle

Good Job Boys! (And DAD!)

Jameson is 6!

HAPPY 6TH BIRTHDAY JAMESON!

 Baby Jamo - AWWWWW!!

 Look at that irresistible smile! I've been told his Daddy also had a

heart-melting smile when he was a little boy.

My little boy is just not so little anymore! We love our fun-loving Jameson. We still call him Jamo a lot of the time, but more often than not lately he corrects us with, "I'm not Jamo, I'm Jameson!" Well, that's okay with me. What can I say about Jameson? He loves Kindergarten and school in general. Every day when I pick him up from school and ask him what he did that day, his response is usually, "I don't know..." But eventually he'll tell me about the things he did in music, or at recess, or he'll unload a stack of artwork from his backpack to show me, and he'll have a lot to say about it all. 

Jameson is another one of my artists. He loves doing art at school. His teacher has a "center" that is full of open-ended art supplies, and Jameson always comes home with creative artwork that he's done during his free time. He is usually the cause of the rapid depletion of printer paper and scotch tape here at home. He is perfectly happy to just draw with a pencil or pen, but has started to get more creative with color. Most of all, he is my junk artist! Cardboard boxes, plastic jugs, empty toilet paper rolls, and more are his most preferred medium! He creates all kinds of 3-dimensional junk sculptures. Honestly, it can drive me nuts sometimes because the junk gets left all over. I tend to hurry things off to the recycling bin before he sees them! Today he came to me with a granola bar box and those big brown puppy dog eyes and said, "Mom, I'm the junk boy! Right?" Of course I had to give in and I watched him run off with the box, totally delighted to begin a new project.

Jameson and some of his artwork in his bedroom.

If you walk through our house you will find random drawings and bits of his art on almost every wall! I finally had to draw the line and take down a drawing he'd hung up on the wall in my "nice" living room, next to the big picture of the temple! I guess I'm just mean like that.

Jamo also has the Dodds movie-quoting gene. He only has to see a movie once or twice before he is quoting lines from it left and right. And if he's seen the movie more than that, he can quote big chunks of it! Yesterday he started quoting the Olaf scene from "Frozen." From "Hi, I'm Olaf, and I like warm hugs!" right through the Olaf in summer song, he had it down pat. It just makes me laugh.

One last funny, quirky thing about Jameson right now. He will come home from school and take off his shoe. That's right, one shoe, not both. He'll spend the whole day running around with one shoe off and one shoe on - or if both shoes are off he'll take one sock off and leave the other on. Brett and I both think it is super weird because our perfectionist/slightly OCD natures go nuts just looking at him!

Jameson has been so excited about his birthday! He told everyone yesterday that we all needed to have a bath or a shower so we would all be clean for his birthday! Silly kid. We're excited for some birthday fun this evening. More on that to come!

Brush With Fame

We are big fans of Studio C at our house! The kids love to turn it on and watch it over and over. They were all a little starstruck when they got the opportunity to meet Jason Gray! Jason's parents live in our stake and his Dad owns a little pizza place down the street. Jason was there as part of their 5 year anniversary celebration! The kids were over the moon about meeting him and getting his autograph.

Dallin walked in the door, saw Jason, and immediately hollered, "Rhode Islaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand!!!" As he held the note out, Jason started rooting him on to hold it out even longer. What a crack-up!

When he got his turn to meet Jason, Jameson started in on the whole "Awkward Avoidance Viking" routine. I'm sure Jason's never gotten that before! HILARIOUS.

Anyway, he was a super nice guy and the kids are bigger fans than ever! They were thrilled to walk away with this awesome signed photo of the whole Studio C cast:

Dallin's Birthday Fun

Dallin was spoiled with not one, but 3 special birthday pancakes made by Dad!

Brett decided to pick up Dallin, Mia, and Jameson after school (Dicie had play practice) and surprise them with a fun birthday outing to the movies! They saw "The Lego Movie" and had the entire theater to themselves, which Brett said really made them let loose, especially during the credits! In our family we get up and dance during the music at the end of family movie night! They obviously had a great time and I got a kick out of the kids coming home singing, "Everything is Awesome!"

After Dallin's dinner of choice (pasta with white sauce) he opened his gifts. I think his favorite was a remote control helicopter. And of course he got a new batch of cub scout stuff for Webelos. This is the second year I've wrapped his little neckerchief slide in a million layers of wrapping paper and boxes. By the last few layers he is laughing so hard he can barely see!

We finished up the evening with Dallin's special Chocolate Wonder Pi Pie. Dallin is old enough now to think it's pretty cool that his birthday is on International Pi Day (3-14)! Happy Birthday Dallin!

Dicie in "The Rockin' Tale of Snow White"

I guess this has just been the time of year for performances! Dicie has been rehearsing intensely for this one. "The Rockin' Tale of Snow White" was put on as a fundraiser for the school, so all of the rehearsals were on weekends. They all paid off because the play went well! Dicie played the part of the angel. (As in shoulder angel!)

The huntsman's shoulder angel and devil face off!

Great job Dicie!