Outings

It's been a while.

Need to post the week my mother in law took on Jen's kids.  We did a few things.  Two of the things we did were go to Jungle Jim's and the Zoo...

Had a few of the kids just driving around in circles. It was pretty hilarious.

Man, it's been so long since we did this (I've been a slacker at blogging!!) that I can't even remember anything for the captions.  Oh well!

 And here we are at the zoo!  As you can see, Zoorassic was in full swing!  It was so fun.

 Sam and Ava were a lot more interested in sitting in the stroller than my kids!  Haha

 Claire digging by the new construction area.  Next year, the zoo is going to be amazing!!

 Ava digging

 Giraffes!

 And the carousel is a MUST.

 So Claire is the size of a juvenile!

"Monkey bars".... They always seem to find those.

It was so fun!

Easter!! Finally... :)

It was Easter, and so I made these delicious sugar cookies:



OK, NOT...more like these delicious sugar cookies. I wish they were pretty but whataya do? That's why I make cupcakes generally...they're very easy to make look good.


Easter with the Pace's/Taylor's:

First, some cute pictures of Anya...







With her cousin, Lexi

And there's the old man...uh, Grandpa Taylor ;)... helping the kids find eggs. Grandma and Grandpa Taylor are professional egg-hiders. They have to help ME find eggs. But then again, I'm totally pathetic at it. Most years, they lose a few eggs because no one remembers where they hid them and none of the hunters can find them either. ps. he was really wishing he was in Cancun that day, for SURE.





Cousin Sam-o :)

And Ava

Partners in crime:

Other partners in crime...

Sam ONLY got little beauty for Easter... Claire totally got something just as amazing...drumroll....

As much as we hate buying her toys because she already has so many (from the woman in the picture below this sentence, actually...) we got her the Ariel one of these. It's for the bath, so it's not something she'll throw into the toy chest and forget about. It stays in the bath and she loves it!

Ruth's Annual Easter Party!

Stole these pics from Heather's blog...I'd forgotten my camera... Here's Claire and Lauren eating pure sugar! Love it! Claire was excited to have "Spicy apple juice." "Spicy" is her word for soda pop, and they had Manzanita Sol...yummm.... the Mexican equivalent of Apple Beer. Lauren joined in on wanting some of that nectar of the gods, much to Jay's chagrin...they don't like to make her happy with delicious sugary food like I do :)

Hunting for eggs!!

So apparently, with the first egg Claire found, she promptly grabbed it, threw it back on the ground, and then stomped on it til it broke into pieces. Then she removed the candy. Ha!

Neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt:







It was a great Easter!

San Jorge

I've always wanted to exclusively call it that. I don't know why.

Anyway, my sister-in-law, Jessica (Jordan's younger sister) and her husband, Joe, eloped in Vegas last year. Well, time flies, and they were ready to be sealed in the St. George temple. So, we all went down to witness the big day!

The sealing was so beautiful. Performed by a gentleman from South Africa--could've listened to his accent all day :) It was great.

Here are some pictures of the day, taken by my father-in-law's long-time friend who lives in St. George:


















LOVE LOVE LOVE this picture of Claire. OF COURSE she has my lip gloss. Of course.

And here are some shots from the casual BBQ we had after the sealing:


Jess and her friends, Nikki and Katelyn

Lenore, Anya, and Jordan

Me and the Groom :)

Claire and Ava: Partners in Crime. They got SO DIRTY at the playground!


Daddy-daughter bonding time

Jen encourages her boy, Solomon, to bring out his feminine side and never shy away from that...


On the left, had to document the fact that Camille ate her ENTIRE raspberry cream jello salad thing (anyway, it's goooood) even though she had a huge heapful on her plate and I told her she'd never finish it. She proved me wrong. All 100 pounds of her little frame :) On the right, there she is with her brother, Ben... he just had shoulder surgery and had "lots of fun" being hauled around everywhere--not to mention driving to St. George in the first place!


Jess and Joe's niece, Marley, and our nephew Sam...or as Claire likes to call him, "Sam-o." He calls her "Claire Bear" all the time. It's really cute :)


Jess wanted cupcakes at the BBQ, so OF COURSE I volunteered! (leading to a cupcake hiatus I am currently on for the next little while...ok til May 21st when I make some for my sister's bake sale). I made chocolate peanut butter (the ones on the right), the vanilla dulce de leche ones, and a coconut cream (not pictured). They turned out yummy, if I do say so myself :)

Anyway, the day was so nice...so nice to be in San Jorge too...it was so cold in Utah still and it was great to be in the nice warm weather. Notice I didn't say "blistering hot?" Yeah, that would have NOT been nice...so I'm not moving there any time soon Honey, sorry...I know you are cold ;)