Easter

Brad's convocation was actually on Good Friday, so it was nice having family in town for Easter weekend. On Saturday morning, Brad's mom worked on an Easter egg hunt for the grandkids at a park.

Johnny and Bela had fun finding the eggs and candy, but got a little distracted and played on the toys after they'd each found a few eggs.

Then in the afternoon we met up with my parents at BYU before heading out to lunch.

Johnny and Bela always love hanging out at Daddy's school.

After Easter dinner at Melinda's house on Sunday, we stopped by my parents hotel to say good-bye. Johnny is hard at work showing my parents how much he loves coloring.

We had such a fun weekend and were so happy to be able to spend time with family.

Graduation Day

The long-awaited day has finally arrived!! Brad completed his master's degree from BYU. It is so strange to think he will never be a student again, and yet so wonderful to never have to worry about homework, projects, studying and tests anymore.

We appreciated so much that Brad's parents and his brother Daylen, as well as my parents, were all able to attend his graduation. A very special thanks to my sister and her husband for watching Johnny and Bela during the ceremony so I could actually enjoy myself and cheer on my man.

Congratulations Brad, I'm so proud of you!

Peanut Butter Goodness

Yesterday the kids were being very well-behaved. No tantrums or huge messes made, so I should have known better than to let my guard down in the few minutes before Brad came home. They were out of my sight for literally 2 minutes, when I heard Brad come home and say, "Oh, let's get you kids out of this mess."

These rascals had gone into the kitchen, gotten into the peanut butter, and were having a great time rubbing it all over themselves and the kitchen floor. Please also note Johnny is wearing his sister's coat, he'd been pretending to be "baby Bela" earlier. They make me laugh because of the silly things they do, and also because in order to get the picture, they both insisted on sitting on the chairs. You can't really tell in the picture, but Bela, who I'd just barely bathed, had tons of peanut butter smeared in her hair. Well, better they did it in the kitchen than the living room, right?

In Memory of Wrinkles

One Christmas when I was little, my sisters and I all got pound kitties and my brother got a pound puppy named Wrinkles. During one of the many trips my mom took with just her and her 4 young children, we had a layover in LAX. My brother lost Wrinkles, and my family lost me. Thankfully I was found, but Wrinkles sadly was not. The other day I saw this pound puppy who looked just like him, and couldn't resist getting it for Johnny.

It's Chilly outside

Is it just me, or is it so much more colder this year than last? It seems like whenever it snows it stays on the ground for so long, solely because it just doesn't warm up enough to melt. My kids were getting tired of the "It's cold and icy outside," excuse I'd kept giving them so finally we just bundled up and headed out to the park to play.

Bela was loving running around on the icy packed snow. It didn't matter if she fell, she just loved being right in it.

Johnny all bundled up in what he calls his "kitty-cat" coat because of the fur on the collar

Bela not letting the 3 shirts and 2 coats I layered her in slow her down at all. She refused to wear the hat but with all the clothes she had on, she was probably overheating anyway.

When we came home Johnny passed out on the couch from all the fun. It may look like Bela is going for his bread, but she really was just climbing up to give him a kiss. These two really are each others' best friends, and that makes me so happy.

Not So Good

I have been behind on updating our blog lately. Part of it is due to keeping up with these two fun kids, part of it is traveling, but the largest part of it is this:

Yes, that's what our laptop screen now looks like. So when I use the computer I hook it up to the tv and use that as the monitor, not exactly ideal. It's definitely nice to not be jumping on the computer nearly as often as I would before, but it's also made me not check my emails or blog nearly as often. That may not sound like much, but one of my new year's resolutions was to blog much more frequently, so I could make a blog book of this past 12 months. Thankfully we made it through almost all of December before this happened, but I'm determined to not get too far behind so that I can post about this year before June comes.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

After dinner the kids were a little restless so I told them we could make cookies. Johnny always makes me laugh when he says things like, "Mom, we just need to get all of our ingredients ready," and as you can see Bela is trying to go to town on the salt shaker. Even with all the extra "help", the cookies were made without any disasters and were very delicious.