Spring has finally sprung (kind of)

Since I'm posting a day after Tyler's b-day, I'll post a cute little pic of him (no wonder people mistook us for twins).  Check out Amber's blog for more oldie but goodie pictures of him.  Also, Whitney's blog is back (yahoo!) for those of you that used to follow hers. 

Spring is finally showing signs it will arrive.  Actually, the signs (flowers, greenness etc.) have been around for a while, but now the weather is starting to cooperate too ...kind of.  This pic is Rivers after competing in her first spelling bee.  She's looking too old for my 8 year old.  She's so wise beyond her years.  I love the "deep" conversations we have because she always ends up enlightening me. 

 We had a dynamite semi-local (everything was within 2 1/2 hours from home) spring break this year.  We pricelined hotels along the way.... took off for an indoor waterpark first, then drove up to Willamette Pass and skiied the next day (just Rivers and I got to ski), then we drove down to Roseburg to go to Wildlife Safari the next day.  That place is pretty cool.  You drive through a safari with animals literally walking all around you.  The camel and the rhea birds tried to put their heads in our van.  The enormous papa lion walked right by our car, turned and peed on the car.  Luckily along the way after the zebras, giraffes, rhinos, grizzly bears etc. etc., they offer an.....

 elephant car wash!  We pull up and this enormous elephant named Kate comes over, sucks up some water in her trunk and sprays it all over our car several times while we are inside.

And then she picks up a sponge and wipes down the car and sprays it again.  For reals!  Reagan and CD were a little freaked out by it all.

I loved this little owl perched by the window.

At the little petting zoo part the goat kept trying to eat Reagans coat. 

Our kids always look like Carlos when they sleep.  Reagan's enjoying the plush bed compared to her hard crib.

That night we headed to Coos Bay on the coast for a couple of days.  It was a beautiful day and we found this fun little cove beach to play on for a while. 

We went crabbing off the docks.  We had some friendly sea lions swimming around and doing tricks for us so we had entertainment while we waited to pull up the nets. 

It's like Christmas every time you pull up the pods and see what's inside. 

This was supposed to be our couples picture but someone wouldn't be left out.

After a couple of days in Coos Bay we headed north along the coast, stopped at the Sand Dunes National Forest, and took a ride on a huge dune buggy over the incredible dunes.

I think they liked it...a lot.

I love Reagan's little piggies.

I keep finding Dreyton with his shirt like this.  He pulls the top part up over his head.

Tree climbing weather again.

And hiking weather...

This trail is like a kids outdoor natural playground, and here's the slide.  It took us almost 2 hours to go 2 miles because we stopped so many times to play on things like this. 

If you blow this picture up you can see how thick and plush the moss is on this log. CD could just lay down and take a nap.

We finally let the babies out of their stroller when we got to the flat gravel road.

We also accompanied Carlos on a work trip to Seattle for a few days.  Checked out Pike's Market (my favorite were the rows and rows and rows of cut flowers - mostly tulips!)

We also loved the fresh, hot, mini donuts.  Rivers kept saying "that is such a great invention!" about the conveyor belt that carried the hot donuts out of the cooker right in front of her nose.

We played around at the space needle.  We didn't go up because we decided paying $18 per person to end up with freaked out, crying kids probably wasn't worth it. 

They did have some fun mazes and stuff for the kids outside the needle.  This maze was huge and Rivers walked through the entire thing and wouldn't leave until she was done. 

We got to go to the Nike employee store on our way through Portland so Rivers and I went on a run through an awesome waterfront park in Seattle to try out our new gear.  That was the highlight of the trip for me - Rivers is actually old enough to go on short runs with me.  Yahoo!

After running, we played on the playground which had this zipline that you actually zip fast on.

Sunday we walked around the Seattle temple.

Community Easter Egg hunt back in P-town.  It was a nice, warm sunny day and the Twins caught on to putting the eggs in the baskets.  Well, actually Dreyton wanted to just sit down and play with his eggs once he had two.  Reagan on the other hand (as evidenced in this picture) is still trying to get more eggs to fill her basket to the brim. 

It was such a nice day that we just kind of hung out afterwards while the kids practiced their long jump skills.

Dreyton was asleep so I didn't get him in these Easter pics after church.  I gave him his first haircut the night before so he looked especially handsome.  My genius idea of cutting his hair while he sat playing in the bathtub backfired, but I eventually got it done. 

More of what's been going on..

For my birthday back in January, I really wanted to go skiing, so I let Rivers skip school and we headed to the slopes.  It was such a fun day.  There were about 20 cars in the parking lot so we had the whole mountain to ourselves almost and it was so warm and sunny that I didn't put my gloves or coat on for over 2 hours.  Rivers never put a coat on and she totally got it this time.  I love that she found a run that was challenging for her, said "I'm doing this hill until I make it down without falling", and we did it over and over until she zipped down it without any stumbles.  And when I say zip, I mean zip!  Towards the end, she just tucks and goes straight and I can't catch up to her.  Little speed demon!

We got up early, early to leave for skiing and this was the beautiful sunrise just as we were leaving. 

I love that they're always full of smiles in the morning..



Handsome dude

So, as I was stopped at a flagger for roadwork, the person behind me decided not to stop and slammed into the back of us with all 4 kids in the back.  It totalled our Acura MDX but everyone was fine and unharmed.  I've always wanted a Eurovan (if we ever had to go the van route), so we searched and searched (since they quit importing them in 2003), and finally found a nice one up in Portland.  It's actually a really fun bus to drive.

We got the bus on my birthday, so I guess we can count that as my present.  Here is the cheese and chocolate fondue party Rivers put together for my b-day.

Valentines Day Breakfast....rose petals (fake ones) led them from their beds to the table.

Valentines...with their Lovebirds and rose petals
 and new long johns :)

Dreyton will not stay in his seat to eat and for some reason he likes to try and squish into Reagan's seat with her.

Dreyton has the long, curly locks and it looks like we might actually have a child with straighter hair with Reagan.  She has a serious mullet that we try to disguise with pigtails.  I've had two people ask me if I cut her hair that way because the top just seems to get shorter while the back grows. 

Cousin Cassidy.  All three of the munchkins love this little chair and at least one of them is sitting in it at all times.

For Cassidy's 1st birthday party Whitney made us all wear fake mustaches of all different sorts.  They look a little too real in this pic.  Freaks me out a little.

We finally got a snow day.  Of course everything closed so we got to just hang out and play in it. 

I know I have lots of pictures of Reagan on this post, but she's always smiling and posing for the camera.

The girls

I found this super old school BYU t-shirt on a stuffed animal at my Mom's and it's a perfect fit on Dreyton.

He is 1/4 Mexican :)

I love this pic of Rivs and I love that she loves to hang out in my apple tree.

Superbaby taking a walk...I like that you can see Reagan and Carlos bringing up the rear.

I figured out where the rain that was supposed to fall in January went.......to March.  We have lots of puddles and splashing in them is the favorite thing to do lately.  I love Reagan in this 'crushers' sweatshirt.  It fits her determined little personality.  She is so feminine and smiley and sweet  but shows no mercy when it comes to getting what she wants.

After church, in her dress, she bolted to the middle of the big puddle when I made the mistake of putting her down to get something.  She refused to come in, so I switched from her soaking wet dress shoes to boots and

we had fun exploring around together.

She is such a fun little buddy.

I'm glad I had my camera with me - I love the bright greens and yellows this time of year.