Every once in awhile we will let the kids have a living room picnic. They just love the freedom of getting to watch a fun show while sitting on a rug. They get so excited about it and any break from ordinary is much welcomed.

These pictures got a little lost, They are dated April 28th, so just pretend they aren't over a month old. Anyway! Mountains! We have some real beauties around here. The kids just adore going to the mountains and climbing all about. They have no fear and can be quite dangerous sometimes getting close to the edge and all. We are always close by though so no fear!  On this day we climbed and hiked around randomly for about an hour before stopping for a lovely picnic. It was such a blast. We are going to go lots more!

We love peanut butter jelly sandwiches in our house. For almost every meal Jude requests "Belly Sandwiches." But I am a bit of a snob about my jam. I want it to be actual fruit, no corn syrups or dyes. And I don't want to pay 5 bucks for a little puny jar. So I decided to make some jam of my very own. I found a super tasty recipe that used strawberries, honey, and apples. Sounds so tasty! I set about making it and before long I had two helpers. They helped me grate the apples and do "quality test" as you can see in the second picture. I don't have any finished product pictures but I will say that it turned out great and so super yummy!!!

Here is Alice in the latest of house helper chic. I was super cleaning the house and had found a robbon. Alice wanted it in her hair so that is where it went. A little while later Alice thought she needed to help clean and grabbed a broom. What a little lady!

It's a great day for science!!! Well that can be said of anyday to be sure but today was the day I picked. We were watching the neighbor kids who are a little older so I figured it would be a good time to try.  I found a great toddler science expirement and had to try it. You take some spoons and add a drop of food coloring in each one, then cover them up with baking soda. Then let the kids put them into cups filled with vinegar.  The kids would scream with laughter everytime the vinegar and baking soda would fizz and then they were so excited to see what color they had discovered.  After the fizzing had subsided the kids wanted to play "potions" and mix everything together. I hadn't though of this outcome and I felt a little nervous about staining (especially since I was babysitting)so I didn't let them do it for to long. Next time I do this (and there will be a next time) I will do it outside and just let the kids go nuts.

This is another "lost" picture. The pictures were taken on Angies camera and they got putten in a special folder and then were promptly forgoten about. But all is well now because they have been found. This is part two of Dereks birhday. We didn't do much but I did make him a cake. Well cupcakes. In the shape of pokeballs!(pokemon reference) They were super tasty but a little runny. I thought it would be a good idea to use marshmellow puff as frosting and let me tell you, when that stuff gets warm it drips. But it was still delicous so I call it a sucess! 

Whoop s! I thought I had lost these pictures but here I went and found them. So pretend this is some time in March when you are reading about this. Heather and Scott suprised us with wonderful news! They were coming to visit us. They were making the long drive up with the whole fam to come and visit us. WE were just so excited and we had every reason to be because we ended up having a ball. All the cousins loved to play with eachother. Some of our funnest times were just sitting around the house talking and laughing. But we did lots of other fun activities. We went to the park, we went to the sand dunes. To the temple, to Judd's out to eat. We were so sad to see them go. We love you Matthews family!

 And here is a good picture of Alice thinking she needs to be just as big as the big kids and jump into uncle Brians arms.  Crazy danger baby girl. (it looks like it but  she actually isn't falling in this picture, she is standing right now on a little ledge, so don't think uncle Brian let her jump from the top. Uncle brian knows how to keep her safe and still let her be just as big.