Fun with the Stewart's

Jen and Rick came down this weekend with their family and it was so nice to see them.  Emily, Colby, and Logan had a great time playing with their cousins.  Our first adventure was to the park.  

So it seems like we go to the park a lot but the kids love it and this was no exception.  Alex and Colby worked on their Spiderman skills by climbing the webs, Emily pretended to be a shopkeeper selling salads made of wood chips, and Logan and Annalynn had fun riding in the wagon.  Logan wasn't too sure if he liked the idea of someone else riding in his wagon...  He doesn't really like to share right now.  

That Friday night, our street had a block party.  It was really fun and it was so nice to get together with our neighbors outside of a church function because we got to know our less active and non member neighbors as well.  It was really great. We need to do them more often.  Anyway, we invited the Farnsworth clan to join us:

Colby didn't want to sit with the family, he wanted to set with his friends Braxton and Easton.  The block party was so fun and luckily the weather held out.  After we had cleaned up and gotten back home, it started raining.  

The next day we had an all girls Tea Party.  Emily has been planning and wanting this for so long so we finally made it a reality.

She invited Grandma Farnsworth, Traci, Jen and Annalynn, me and Logan tagged along too.  We drank lemonade, ate crackers, cheese, strawberries, and cookies, and had some great conversation.  Grandma Farnsworth asked each of the girls what their dream in life was.  Emily said hers was to be a Princess and I said that I didn't need anything else because I had everything I ever dreamed of.  It is true.  I have so many blessing and a great family and great kids that I could not ask for more.  

While we had the tea party. Grandpa Farnsworth took the boys on a bike ride to at the park.  The kids had fun but I think Grandpa and Tyler were glad to come back home!  Thanks guys!  Don't worry we saved some cookies for them.

Sunday was Stake conference so we took the day off.  Emily and Colby spent the night at Grandma's and had a cousins sleep over.  I don't think they got to sleep very early.  Grandma said there was too much playing to do to worry about sleep.  While I took Logan home to go to bed, Russell also spent a good part of the night with his sisters and brother.  They played Laser Tag, got shakes at Iceberg, and even did a few too many Chinese fire drills on the Boulevard joking (luckily) about getting a $400 fine for doing so.  I don't think I really believed the joke but Russell's parents fell for it.  Keith was quite mad until they told him it was a joke and then he laughed the hardest.  Well Sunday, we headed back to the park to ride our bikes.  Even Colby took his little bike to ride.  He loves that little bike but has not yet figured out how to pedal.  The goal this summer is to get him to ride like a pro.

After playing for a while, we took a break and had watermelon.  The kids were so sticky but so happy to have watermelon.  

That night we had a family barbecue and enjoyed one last evening with the Stewart's.  We always have a lot of fun when they come down to visit. 

After dinner Logan and Annalynn discovered the dirt and needless to say, got very very dirty.  They both love dirt!  And they both were coming around and enjoyed playing together by the end of the weekend.  

Finally on a exciting note, Jen and Rick told us they are expecting another baby!  She is about 8 weeks or so along and the baby will be due in November.  We are all excited!  After they told us, everyone turned to me and said, "Well what about you?"  I told them I was definitely not pregnant and didn't plan to be anytime soon.  Maybe next year...  But I realized something.  My girl was born in an even year and my two boys were born in an odd year so if I want another girl, she will need to be born in an even year.  So maybe 2016.  Huh that seems too long.  Well we shall see but no plans in the near future.  

Happy Easter

The third week in April we celebrated Easter with our family.  

Some of Russell's family from out of town came to visit so we had a picnic at the park with everyone.  We met up with Wendy and her kids, Dawnette and her family, and Ron's family too.  Carma and Larry Werner also joined us too.  We have kind of adopted them into our Farnsworth family.  After eating, all of the kids headed to the park to play: 

Even the big kids!

Logan loves the park.  Here he is having fun on the slides and playing peek-a-boo.

The swings are also our favorite.  Colby and Logan would swing forever if they could.  They never want me to take them out of the swings.  

Emily brought her scooter to ride at the park.  She did a great job riding until I took her picture then she crashed.  I thought it was a cool picture of her in the air as she crashed.  She didn't think it was very cool though.   We had a great time at the park with our cousins.

When we came home from the park, we colored our Easter eggs.  

The kids had a blast coloring the eggs. Logan especially loved dunking his egg in the green dye.  His hands were dyed green afterward.  Logan even tried to drink the dye but instantly spit it out when he tasted the vinegar.  What a funny boy.  Colby's hands were also dyed blue, his favorite color.  Emily made some pretty cool multi colored eggs.  She dyed most of the eggs while the boys played and ate their eggs.  In all we dyed two dozen eggs.  This is my favorite part of Easter.

Easter morning the kids got a lot of fun things.  Emily got her new soccer ball so she can practice at home.  Colby got a wooden boat that he can paint.  Finally, Logan got a bucket and shovel to play with in the dirt, his favorite thing to do.

Instead of going to the city Easter hunt, we decided to stay home and spend time as  family.  We worked on the Easter crafts we received. 

Emily and Logan painted their plaster Easter eggs and bunnies while Colby painted his pirate ship.  These kids love doing crafts and are quite good at it.  Colby painted his whole ship by himself and it turned out so good.  Emily's rabbit egg turned out good to.  As you can see they also had a lot of candy to eat.  They had just got done eating a blue ring pop which explains the blue mouth and teeth.

That afternoon, we went to the Morwood Easter picnic at Santa Clara Elementary.  We had so much fun.  Every year we have this picnic and a big game of baseball (Morwood rules).  It is so fun.  For the past few years I have not played because of being pregnant or taking care of babies and what not but this year Russell and I played most of the game.    We played for probably four hours and it was so nice to get out and exercise and just have fun with the family.    

It was Klint's 40th birthday this day and we all had fun teasing him that he was old.  If you can read his shirt is says "The Vintage: Old Geezer Club:  Perfectly Aged Without Compromise: Est: 1974."  It was the perfect shirt that Lacie found for him.  We all had a good laugh.  Their friends, the Scott's, made Klint this cake.  If you can't tell, it is a coffin and a grave dug out of the cake.  Priceless!  Needless to say, Lacie and the kids had a great time "celebrating" this birthday.  Good thing Klint is such a good sport.

Sunday we went to church and found out we were getting a new bishopric.  Our previous bishopric has been awesome and I totally have more respect for the bishopric now that I have a small glimpse into how much they do for a ward.  That calling is one I do not want to wish on anyone and it takes special men to fill those callings.  Any way, our new bishop is Bret Olsen (he and his family are our friends, and he is Emily's soccer coach).  His counselors are 1st: Tony Smith (my cousin's husband) and 2nd: Greg Alldredge (our neighbor!).  It seems crazy to be connected to these guys in one way our another but that just gives us a better knowledge on how they will be great in their callings.  The funny thing though is that my cousin Shawna and her family just moved into the ward like a month ago.  They had been to church in our ward once before Tony was called to the bishopric.  In fact, they read their records in and then announced the new bishopric the same day!  I don't know if that has ever happened before.  Well at least I have never heard of it.  I know he will be great though.  I know the whole bishopric will be great. 

After church, we headed over to my parents house for an Easter hunt for all of the grand kids.  Everyone loved getting so much candy especially my kids:

Logan gathered a few eggs but when he discovered there was candy in the eggs, he just wanted to sit in the grass and eat his candy so Grandma helped him fill his bucket.  Colby ran right out and started gathering eggs, then, when he found out there were little packages of M&M's, he abandoned the eggs and gathered every single one of the M&M packets.  Can you tell he loves M&M's?  Emily wanted to get all the eggs she could find even if it meant reaching into the tailpipe of Clint's truck.  They all got so much candy that we have been eating it for days.  We had a great Easter with our family.

Preschool Festival & Kite Festival

The second week of April was also busy and fun for us.  Friday was Early Childhood Learning Day or something like that so all of the Title I Preschools got together in the park for a fun preschool festival for all of the preschool students and families.  Emily, Colby, and Logan had a great time.  They started  the festival off with a little parade.  All of the preschool kids marched across the park and waved while the parents cheered and took pictures.  It was so cute.  Unfortunately I forgot my camera and my phone was dead so we took pictures with Russell's scratched phone camera and as you will see, they are not very good.  Sorry.

Their favorite part of the festival was getting their faces painted.  Colby wanted a Spiderman so the lady painted him a total mask.  It was so cool and Colby wore it proudly all day.  Emily got a cute little ladybug on her face and a butterfly on her hand.  She loved it.  As part of the activities, the kids were able to have sack races, do sand art, a cake walk, eat cotton candy and of course face painting.  It was a lot of fun and I was glad I was able to sneak out of work for a couple hours to go with them.

Saturday was a fun filled day too.  We started the morning out by going to Emily's soccer game.  Here she is with her team mates, Faye, Nichole, and Maya.

This was a good game and Emily is starting to get better.  With the help of her team, she was able to score her first goal!  She was so excited.  Russell was able to take a few minutes off work to come see her play which I think helped her confidence a lot.  After the soccer game, we headed to the annual Kite Festival:

The Kite Festival was so nice this year because there was actually some wind!  The last few years we have gone it has been really hard to even get a kite in the air because of the lack of wind.  This year was great though.  I was able to get the kites in the air and then Emily and Colby could hold their own kites and watch them by themselves.  They loved it.  Logan loved it too because he loved pointing at all of the kites in the air and calling them balloons or bubbles!  

We all loved the free ice cream and candy we got at the vendor booths!

Here are some pretty happy kids.  Probably the favorite part of the whole Kite Festival was the bus ride.  Parking for the Festival was about a mile away so we rode a school bus from the parking lot to the Festival.  The kids thought this was the best thing ever.  Emily told me she always wanted to ride on a bus and Colby loved bouncing on the seats and they both loved sticking their arms out the window.  Who knew that riding  school bus could be so fun!  We all came home a little tanner than we were before.  It was kind of nice to be kissed by the sun because we are so excited for summer!

Bubbles, Gardens & General Conference

April has been such a busy crazy month for us.  We have been doing so much but at the same time, I was trying to get through the last few weeks of tax season so I was working 10 to 12 hour days.  Not only that, Russell was also finishing school and studying for finals so he was busy too.  So long story short, my weekly posts have slacked and I am now posting four new posts of our fun adventures during April. Enjoy.

We have been having a blast being outdoors this month.  The weather has been so nice lately that we put way our winter clothes and got out the summer clothes.  

These kids love being outside so much that I cannot keep them clean.  Here they are playing with the bubbles in the backyard.  

As you can see, the bubbles ended up spilling so instead of blowing them, they splashed and played in the soapy water.  I guess that was their bath for the day.  Logan loves walking now.  He runs everywhere he goes and it is sometimes hard to keep up with him.

Also, we planted our garden at the end of March and first part of April.  We have a bigger garden this year than we have in the past.  We turned our old dog run into a garden plot.  Here is our beautiful garden:

And here is our messy dirty boy.  Logan LOVES the dirt.  Whenever we go outside, he heads straight for the dirt and buries himself in it.  In our garden we planted tomatoes, peppers, strawberries, onions, radishes, Brussels sprouts, lettuce, spaghetti squash, zucchini, cucumber, peas, and beans.  So far we have harvested some very yummy strawberries.  I hope our garden does well this yer.  I love home grown vegetables.

We also enjoyed watching General Conference this month.  Conference is always so good and this time was no exception.  I do wish we could have listened to the Saturday sessions a little better but we had to go to Emily's soccer game that morning.  Also it is hard to listen while fighting three kids.  I guess that is no excuse though.  The talk I liked the best was Elder Uchtdorf's on having gratitude even during times of trail.  He definitely pointed out that we are truly blessed even if it sometimes feels like we are not.  This message was something I needed to hear because I truly am blessed with a great family, and everything I need.