Easter, bipolar weather, haircuts and other goings on

We're doing this completely out of order because the pictures always load out of order and I don't feel like cutting and pasting today. I gave Ryker a much needed haircut today (pictures to follow in some future post) and Raelin asked if she could have a haircut. I get tired of raking a brush through her hair, seeing her chew on it, and trying to keep it out of her face and out of her food. So she got a haircut today too and it is really cute! She is really happy with it too. It's shorter than she told me she wanted it because I didn't realize that her shoulders were scrunched when I made the first cut, but I don't think she's realized that so don't tell her!
Before:After:

I just can't do it, I have to cut and paste so things are in order from here on. The haircut was today, but these pictures are from Easter. It was a really nice day and I was excited to think that spring was finally here. I was deceived. We (well, I) decided that this year I was going to teach my kids a thing or two about holidays and candy. Holidays are NOT about candy (except for Halloween)! So this year they got a few small toys and a few pieces of candy in an Easter basket and then they had an Easter egg hunt for eggs that were not filled with candy, but rather with the story of Easter. You know, the one from the Bible. Some anonymous person set up a hunt like this at my parents house one year so I coppied that. There were 12 eggs and in each one was a piece of the story and a little token to go along with it. There was a palm leaf to represent the ones waved at Jesus as he came to Jerusalem on a donkey, a cross (duh), a nail, some throns, etc. And that was it. No candy-filled eggs at the Somers' house this year! And I really liked it. I hope I can get Brice on board to keep that as a tradition, but I think he still thinks Easter is about candy. ;)

On Monday, I went to my parents' house to pick up some things and to check on it while they were in California. It was a BEAUTIFUL day! I had fun taking pictures of the kids and the kids had fun running, climbing, playing, and being out of the house!

They look like sweet little angels don't they. Well don't let them fool you! They sneaked toys into Grammie's house after I told them they couldn't and then they lost them and didn't even care enough to go look for them. They were new Easter toys too! Ungrateful swine! I was really ticked off about their lack of gratitude and appreciation for the fact that they live a life of luxury compared to most. I was also tired of being more upset when their toys get lost or ruined than they are. I was fuming as I drove home and I called Brice and told him I'd had it and I was taking away all their toys except for two for a month to teach them a thing or two about appreciating how blessed they are to have toys. He said he'd proposed that a while back. Why, oh why didn't I listen!!? So that night we did pack up all but 4 of their toys (Brice is a softee and let them have two more than I was going to give them). I don't know that they are learning to appreciate their toys, but the house sure is cleaner!If you ask me, that's WAY too many toys for two kids to own; and that's not even all of them! They have some that are stored high in their closets and some in the attic. Anyone need any toys? Seriously, come and get 'em if you need some!

Okay, back to our beautiful day in the momentary sun...

Ryker was trying to pull this tree down. Ummm, right, good luck with that.

Raelin climbed all the trees she could. She sure loves to climb. I can't tell you how many times she's been stuck in trees or on the outside of tunnel slides. One time she got stuck in a tree and when I went to find her, I almost didn't see her. She was at least a good 20 feet up a big pine tree! Kind of impressive if you ask me.

Two days later, the snow returned. Stinking bipolar Utah weather! I am SOOOO sick of snow! But here's Alaina all bundled up and ready to go sledding. Yes, there was enough snow to sled.

Finally happy (or at least not crying) right when it was time to go. It had been so cold that it was taking her breath away, but she didn't like having her head in my jacket because she wanted to see.

We played until the kids were cold and I had to carry the sleds to the car to leave. They wanted me to carry them but there was just no way I was going to do that!

These are some little shoes I crocheted for Alaina. I used the biggest hook that I have for this kind of crocheting and they just barely fit! She has the biggest feet ever!

And here I caught a sneeze on camera:

This is what happens when dogs want to play and cats don't know they want to play.

(Brice was determined to get a picture of her hissing at him (the dog, not at Brice). I thought it was cruel to allow the torture to continue, but the cat and I lost that argument.

Catching up a little

We'll start with this picture because it just doesn't get any better than this!

It's been a while... Well, I don't know how long it's actually been, but there are a lot of things I haven't posted about.

To start, my sister stayed with us for a little while before she went up to Canada to join her hubby for his summer job. We had a great time with her and the kids were really sad to say goodbye.

Then my brother Jesse came through on his way to Canada for work as well. I was so glad he came; I was worried that he wouldn't and then he wouldn't get to meet Alaina until at least the end of summer. He and Gina and Toby moved to California for work two or three days before Alaina was born. So it was lots of fun to see him play with the kids and meet Alaina.


Then my cousin Asher came through with his band (Our Satori--they're great!!!) on tour and stayed at my parent's house for a few days. He was so cute with Alaina! It was so funny to see all these big, tall guys loving this baby!



Right about the time Jesse and Gina left for Canada, my most fabulous friend Kari came to town! It was great to see her and her family. We just love them! We got together for lunch before Jesse and Gina left and then we surprised my dad for his birthday by inviting Kari and Glen and their kids as well as Kollin and BreAn and their kids over for dinner and cake. Kari and Kollin are part of the "gang" from when we lived in California. Now they're both married and have kids! It was fun to get all of us together and catch up.




Last Friday Brice's brother came through town on his way home from a business trip to borrow a Tahoe and trailer from his sister-in-law. He was going to drive the Tahoe down to California to help move his father-in-law up to their Deweyville house next month, but true to form, he broke down. He called us from Cedar City on Friday night and we arranged to come down for the weekend while Angel (his wife) came up for the weekend. We all stayed in a hotel, swam in the pool, watched General Conference, and celebrated my birthday. Then Angel took William home and we towed the trailer back up here. The Tahoe will stay in Ceday City until it's fixed. It was a fun surprize weekend trip and a great way to watch Conference. Conference was wonderful and uplifting and it was great to get to see William, Angel, and Liam. We also got to visit David and Konni. David and Brice were good buddies in high school.
Angel and I found this awesome park while the boys were at the Priesthood session of Conference. It was cold, but so fun!
Apparently this is Ryker's new way to figure out what things are. Right before he licked it he said, "What's this?"




On Monday I found a dog on KSL that I really liked, so we went to see if he would be a good fit for our family and decided he was! It's been almost a week and he's still nameless (Brice is in charge of naming him and he hasn't picked one yet--any ideas?), but he is definitely the right dog for us. He's so sweet and cuddly, but still playful. He'd been a purely outdoor dog before so it never seems to cross his mind to pee in the house (Halleluiah!). He's training really fast and he's so mellow in the house. He still doesn't have very good house manners, but he's learning. So watch your food if you come for dinner. And don't leave your shoes out when he's around either. He mostly likes to just carry things around in his mouth, but there have been one or two toy casualties so far. Also, he FETCHES! That is a great quality in a dog to me becuase it makes exercising him really easy without making me exercise much at all. On second thought, maybe this is a bad thing... Anyway, it's been so nice to have a dog around again and he is just the sweetest thing. For those of you that are interested, he's an English Pointer, the same kind of dog that we fostered for a few weeks last summer if you remember that cute little puppy (if not, you can be reminded if you go to the June post from 2008), and he's 8 months old. And papered and not fixed! And FREE! You all know how much I love a bargain.


And here are a bunch more pictures from the past few weeks:
Haha! I startled her with the red-eye flash! She'd been sleeping, but then the camera flashed and this is what I got.



She LOVES to stand up


Isn't that the cutest little face?!


Ryker is my big helper with Alaina. He loves to help change her diaper and this time he did it all by himself!

Raelin loves to carry her around, but it makes me really nervous, so we tried this!

This is a little dress Brice's mom got for her. Isn't it cute! Thanks, Mom!


Another cute smiley face (with some drool!)

Kari got this dress for her. She sent it along with some other things a while back. She magically knew that I didn't have many dresses and sent two!

We've finally been getting some nice weather and tried to get outside to play as much as possible. We go to the park a lot with some friends from church. Below is Chloe and above are Raelin, Ryker, and Enzo building a fire. Not a real one; they were playing camping.
One day last week when we were at the park, Ryker fell and whacked his face on a bar. He got a lump on the bridge of his nose and his cheekbone. He got hit right across the eye! Now I know why God gave us eye sockets! They're good protection. His eye didn't get hurt; just the bones protecting it. So here's the progression of his black eye (the first of many, I'm sure) this week, though they don't do it justice--it looked worse in person.
These three pictures:


were my attempt at capturing a second generation of this: