Big Brother Jonathan

We have this red wagon. We've had it for years, since Nathaniel was little. For the past five years it seems we've used it more as a wheel barrow substitute instead of as a wagon.

We lost another tree over the Winter(or was it a Spring snow storm?) and had to cut it down. Of course we used the wagon to take all the branches and logs to the back yard and the boys helped.

Well, now the wagon was seen as a new toy and so Jonathan got to work playing with it and Brigham was more than happy to participate.


I told him that he could pull the wagon to the mailbox and back.


He went back and forth between our house and the mailbox four times! He was starting to look a little pink from all the work but he wanted to keep going. He even wanted to do it the next day.

I love it when Jonathan plays with Brigham.

Arrow of Light

Nathaniel was awarded his Arrow of Light at our last Pack Meeting a little over two weeks ago. I'm really proud of him for getting all these scouting pins and awards. He even went to scout day camp and earned several pins there.


All the boys who went to camp were awarded several pins.

After that Nathaniel was awarded his Arrow of Light.


One of the scout leaders made a ribbon necklace for the moms to keep all their pins on. With three boys it's going to come in handy.


Then I got to pin on Nathaniel's Arrow of Light patch.


Brigham is....somewhere.


I love this picture. Right as I took it Jaaromy dropped the arrow!


Nathaniel with his certificate. I'm so proud of him!


Here is Nathaniel and another boy getting his Arrow of Light making the switch from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts. Nathaniel's Cub Scout leader has been great for Nathaniel. I'm excited to see how he does in Boy Scouts.

Dinosaur Museum

We've been meaning to take the boys to the dinosaur museum for a long time and we finally did it a couple of weeks ago. We pass it every time we go to Orem and Jonathan always asks when we'll go, so we picked a date right there in the car that was a couple of weeks away. Jonathan was so excited that he wrote it on the calendar.


Nope, nothing was going to stop us from going to the museum. It was written on the calendar now.

One of the first things to do at the dinosaur museum is the star tunnel. I thought Brigham might get a little nervous, but he ended up running around to go through it several times. I managed to get him to stop long enough to get a picture by the planets.



Brigham was really anxious to get through to the good parts so we occasionally had to wait for everyone else. He finally stopped for a bit to try the computer games.



Nathaniel and Jonathan went on to the sand and water room



After last time I would have thought that Brigham would just be itching to play in the sand a water room. But he didn't even play long enough for me to take a picture.


He was much more interested in playing with my camera.

After about 10-15 more pictures like that one, we moved on.


It's hard to tell with the lighting but they are standing in front of a very ferocious looking Tyrannosaurus Rex!


After all the bones and fossils, it was nice to see something that was alive and moving.

Through this whole section of the museum Jonathan was anxious to get to the end to see one of the scariest exhibits.


The giant shark! You just can't turn away.


Or turn your back on it. You just can't trust a giant shark.

After all the excitement we ended, as usual, in the excavation room.




The dinosaur museum will always be one of our favorite places to go.

Memorial Day

I know, I know. Memorial Day was, like, a month ago. But here it is anyway.

Memorial Day was a good one this year. I suppose it always is, it's one of my favorite holidays. I'm not sure why, maybe it's just the quiet, reflective tone of the day. Or perhaps it's the picnic we always have at Pioneer Park. Either way, Memorial Day has always been one of my favorites.

Sunday we stopped by Redwood Memorial Estates to see Grandma Zierse.



The boys wanted to walk around a little bit. So we looked at the mausoleum. Nathaniel was always pointing out the dates, especially when the birth and death dates weren't very far apart. We also could just make out Bagpipes somewhere else in the cemetery. I love bagpipes, they always bring tears to my eyes.

Jonathan wanted to go look at the fountains in the front. As soon as we walked up and Brigham saw the water, he immediately got to work taking off his shoes. I was impressed with his boldness so I let him continue. Unfortunately, not only would it have been inappropriate, but it was also pretty cold. He was a little disappointed when we left without getting in the water.

On Monday we met my family in Provo. It was a little weird not being able to meet at Grandma Harding's house. We met at the park instead. It had been raining a lot lately and all the slides were wet. My dad, with amazing foresight, had a towel to wipe all the slides off with. After everyone was present we went to the Provo Cemetery.

We always start on the West side and work our way East. The Harding/Jolley side has a lot of family buried here. It's a really old cemetery and so it's always interesting to see the headstones. We have several ancestors buried here who came across the plains with the pioneers.


Grandpa Harding's grave.


Grandma Nash's grave. Brigham is getting a little better at posing for pictures, but I was taking too long. So close.

After the cemetery we all went back to the park for lunch. On the way I decided to stop by the tabernacle. I hadn't seen it in the day time yet and I wanted to see how it looked.


So sad.



The weather had been pretty nice at the cemetery, we were hoping it would last while we were at the park. It was okay for a little while, just long enough for everyone to eat. But then, it started to rain pretty hard.


We had anticipated this and so we got a spot in the pavilion instead of on the grass like usual. Everyone stayed dry. Everyone who wanted to, that is.

Good Memorial Day. It's good to have a day to remember those that came before us and sacrificed so that we could have freedom and prosperity.

Nathaniel the Animator

If anyone has read Nathaniel's blog, you know that he likes to use a program called Blender. Well, today he started working on an animation and wanted to post the results. He doesn't post very often and his blog is private so I wanted to give his blog a little shout-out and give everyone an opportunity to view his work.



It's not very long but it's not easy to do. Jaaromy has this same problem. He'll show me this "awesome text box" or something similar and tell me how it "took hours to make this" and it looks just like stuff I see on the computer/Internet all the time and take for granted. But programming really is a lot of work, and I need to show the proper excitement for the simple things.

Good work, Nathaniel. I can't wait until you are working for Pixar!

Day Out with Thomas #4

We decided to do Day Out with Thomas this year. We didn't do it last year because it's just so expensive. When it's over I really have to think about whether or not it was worth the money. It's definitely worth some money, I'm just not sure if it's worth the amount we pay. But since we didn't do it last year we decided to try again.


Our first stop is always the activity tent. They have lots to do, including coloring,


Legos,


and lots of train sets. There are so many little boys who love trains it's often hard to find a spot to play.


On the way to the maze, Brigham had to stop and play with the bubbles. It's one of his favorite things.


Once at the maze, it was hard to get a good picture of them since they were always running.


Time for the train ride! We usually ride in a open car but, I'm assuming, since it was overcast they only had enclosed cars. I was a little sad about that at first, but it ended up being a very nice and relaxing ride.


In fact, it was such a relaxing ride...


that some of us fell asleep.


After the train ride we got balloon animals. Jonathan picked a snake again this year and Nathaniel chose a bear. Brigham loved watching the balloon makers work and he loved his little balloon dog. He would wave it around and make the ears wag, it was super cute.


Jonathan, our bravest, decided to have his picture taken with Sir Topham Hat again.


On our way out we took a picture with Thomas...sort of. There was a huge line to take pictures with Thomas and I just didn't have the patience for it, so this is what we did. Looks fine to me.

Then we picked up dinner for the kids at Wendy's and Jaaromy and I stopped at Taco Bell before we headed out. This is the tradition. We never eat at Taco Bell except after Day Out with Thomas. I'm not sure why, it's pretty tasty.

So, everyone had fun. Was it worth it?

Brigham's Last Day of Preschool

Thursday was Brigham's last day of preschool and the kids put on a little program for us. I really do mean little. All the parents were crammed into the preschool room with the kids sitting on one end. Brigham wasn't in the room when I got there and when he came in and saw me he smiled and turned all shy. It reminded me of Nathaniel and it was fun to see coming from him.


The kids stood up and sang songs for all the parents. Brigham really didn't sing but he did some of the actions. After each song was over he sat back down and the teacher would have to stand him up again.


His teacher told me that she was surprised he didn't sing because he loves to sing in class. I wasn't really surprised. I know he loves to sing, but I didn't think he would with all the parents there.


His teacher gave all the kids their certificates of graduation.


Then the kids sang a goodbye song for us.


All the teacher aides told me how much they loved Brigham and how he was so sweet and that he was their favorite. I don't know these aides' names but they were sad to see Brigham go and were more than happy to have their picture taken with them.


This is his teacher Miss Katie. She started teaching Brigham's class about halfway through the year. It took a while for Brigham to warm up to a new teacher but after that he was just fine. She also told me that Brigham was everyone's favorite. I can't say that I blame them. I think he's pretty sweet.

Now it's on to Kindergarten. I'm so excited for Brigham to continue learning.

Nathaniel's Busy Day

So yesterday was a busy day for Nathaniel and I. First on our list of things to do was the band concert. Grandpa Jay, Grandma Bonnie, and Grandma Harding were able to come too. I love watching young kids play instruments. Love it! The parents were invited to watch along with the student body so we saw Jonathan there.


I tried to get a picture of him when he was looking but there was a class walking by and I didn't get a clear shot.


There was too much going on to get a close-up of Nathaniel before the concert started. Afterwords he immediately put his cello away so I didn't get a shot with his cello out. Oh well. Good job Nathaniel!


Later that afternoon his school class had a short little awards program for the 5th graders in the class. He is in a 5th-6th split and the 6th grade will get their own next week so Nathaniel's teacher wanted to give the 5th graders some recognition. There were only three parents there but I'm so glad I went because Nathaniel got the Most Improved Overall award and his teacher even teared up a bit when she gave it to him. Made me cry too.



That night was Pack Meeting and since orchestra is over for the summer I was able to go. It was fun. Nathaniel got several pins and a belt loop. They probably do this every month but since I usually can't go it seemed more exciting. There were a couple of Arrows of Light awarded and so the treat was blue and yellow cupcakes. The blue frosting was very potent.


It took a few washings to get it all off. In fact, the scout leader who made the cupcakes had some pretty blue fingers all through pack meeting.


I'm so proud of Nathaniel for participating in all these activities. I know it's hard for him to step out of his comfort zone but I'm so proud to see him participate.

2009 Family Yearbook

So I'm slowly but surely getting all caught up on my scrapbooking. I finished 2009 several weeks ago but I was waiting for photo books to go on sale for 50% off. Today they finally did. So here you go, if you're curious to see how our 2009 turned out, take a look.

Click here to view this photo book larger

Easter

Easter this year was good. It usually is, but for reasons I'll get into later, I think this year went really well.

It's too hard to get my entire side of the family together more than once a month so we had our Easter Egg Hunt at my mom's on birthday Sunday, two weeks before Easter. It was pretty cold and there was even snow on the ground that morning. My parents were planning on having the hunt inside. As horrible and terrifying as that sounds, they figured it would still be better than trying to get everyone together again before Easter. Well, we had a pre-Easter miracle. Just hours before the scheduled hunt, the weather cleared and even warmed up to a decent temperature.


The boys all had fun and found all their eggs in a decent amount of time. I apologize to Jonathan for using this picture. Brigham is notorious for his disinterest in camera posing and this time he was actually willing, albeit briefly, to pose and say "cheese" with his brothers so I had to use it.

I originally thought we'd spend time with Jaaromy's family on Easter Sunday but it was switched to the Saturday before so that they could play basketball and celebrate Connor's birthday. Lyenna brought paper so the kids could make bunny ears(super cute!) and Megan brought coloring pages. Nathaniel just wanted to play his DS and Jonathan wanted to play basketball with the grown-ups. But Brigham surprised me and colored for at least 15 minutes!

This left Sunday open for just our family. I didn't really have it all planned out and at first it didn't look like we were going to do anything. We have 9:00 church and so Jaaromy and I still needed to take a nap. But once we got that out of the way we colored eggs.


Brigham loves to say "cheese" now, so I'm obliged to take his picture.


I only did a dozen and we lost one egg in the cooking process, but it didn't feel too short. I think that's because Jaaromy decided to do the shrink-wrap thing on them. Our kit came with about six plastic wrap-thingys for the eggs. You slip them on and then use a blow dryer to melt the plastic so it fits around the egg. It seemed like too much trouble to me but Jaaromy wanted to give it a try. Turns out the kids, even Brigham, thought it was super cool and we did it for as many eggs as we could.

After dinner I made sugar cookies to decorate and while they cooled we had a little Easter Egg hunt. These are special eggs that we use to talk about Jesus' Crucifixion and Resurrection.


Nathaniel and Jonathan were following each other around, anxious to find an egg before his brother.


After the boys had found all the eggs we went inside to open them up and see what was inside.


Each egg had a little object inside and a scripture talking about what it means. One had nails in it for the cross, one had 3 dimes in it for the 30 pieces of silver, and another had a white cloth in it for wrapping Jesus' body to be placed in the tomb. The very last egg is the best one because it's empty, just like the tomb on the third day. We did this last year but I think the boys were more into it this year. I think it helped that we hunted for them, it made them more excited to see what was inside.

After the egg lesson we decorated sugar cookies. Macey's often sells sugar cookies along with some bags of frosting and sprinkles to decorate. We've done that a few times but the cookies aren't that good, so I decided that I would make our own. I didn't want to do it from scratch though so I used a mix. The only problem is the mix isn't stiff enough to cut out shapes. So I got this Easter form pan.


They were tasty and all, but a little too thick and it was hard to tell what the shapes were. Maybe I didn't do it right, I don't know. It didn't use all the dough so I just made regular circular cookies with the rest. Those are the ones the boys chose, so I guess the form pan didn't win anyone over that night.





Turns out that the sugar cookie mix has a recipe for cut-out cookies on the back. That was not the case last time I looked. Next time I am totally going to do that one.

It was a wonderful Easter.