Circus time

Last Thursday (April 3rd) Hailey and Ryan got to go to the circus (with mom and dad and Grandma and Papa too!). We also went with Ed, Rainya, Hailey T., and McKenna so it was a fun time. The circus was a lot of fun...great acts...lots of laughs...and a good time. The kids got to have popcorn, peanuts, and cotton candy, and even got one of the crazy light-up toys!! :)

Now...I suppose this is where you expect to see pictures. Well, give me a little more time on this one! :) Watch out........I got a new camera!!!!!!!!!! And the circus was the first event I got to "play" with it...so there were a lot of pictures. Just this morning I figured out how to get the pictures from the camera to the computer, but still need to work on resizing them (they are too big to post here in their original size).

UPDATE....finally the pictures from the new camera!!

Here are a few pictures that I took of Hailey when playing with the camera the first night. She is LOVING it too! :) She keeps finding things to model with...and keeps telling me "take a picture of this mommy"! :) I have created a model! :)


Here are the circus pictures now. Hailey got to ride a pony (Ryan didn't want to) and they both got toys (of course!).

Here is just a funny picture of Ryan...a picture of Hailey with her friend Kayla...and one of Ryan acting crazy with popcorn in his mouth! :)


I have hundreds of more pictures from the circus of the acts, but didn't add them right now. I have more to come! :)

Ryan's first movie

On Friday night (March 28), Chris and I took the kids to see "Horton Hears a Who!" movie. It was Ryan's 1st time to the movie theatre (and his last for a little while too :) ). They were all excited to go to the movies!! We even went out to eat before the movie too.

Here they are outside the theatre ->

And, no trip to the movies is complete without POPCORN and CANDY!

When we got into the theatre, it was EMPTY! We couldn't believe it. However, it did fill up before it started. The movie was great...but Ryan just didn't want to sit to watch it all. He went to the bathroom twice before it started and twice during the movie (and we were only there for 2 hours!!). He still did good, but just isn't into sitting for a movie yet! :) Maybe in the fall we will try it again. It was still a fun time for all 4 of us!

Our 1st fire of 2008

On Wednesday, March 26 we got to have our first fire of 2008 in the backyard. It was a nice night, and it was time to say goodbye to the Christmas tree! :) The kids loved it, and wanted to sit out there all night, but we had to get ready for bed. Still fun! :) How fun to have a fire pit in our backyard!!!!

Swimming Lessons - level 3

Hailey finished up her first session of "level 3" swimming lessons in March. She did very good...especially considering there was a HUGE class and not as many instructors as normal. The first night was tough on her (new class, deeper water, teachers expect more, etc), but she kept going and was swimming a lot by the time class was over. Here are a few short videos of her swimming. Not the best video, and not the best swimming she has done, but you get the idea! :)

Here is Hailey's 2nd attempt at diving into the 12 feet deep water. The first attempt when I was recording a kid walked right in front of the camera when she started diving so you cannot see her at all! Figures! :)

No more swimming until July now...at least for lessons. She started t-ball last week so we didn't want her to have too much to do! :)

It must be spring....

Yesterday I heard a noise I haven't heard in awhile....the lawn mower!! Yes, Chris mowed the lawn for the first time yesterday and even put down the first helping of fertilizer. Oh it is going to be a loooong season for him! :) I cannot wait for the green grass though!! We have buds on some of the plants already too! Yahoo!!!

Easter 2008

Happy Easter!! Warning : this is going to be a long post with a TON of pictures..but it is so worth it!!! Enjoy!!!

Our Easter morning started with the kids waking up to find their colored Easter eggs in the hallway, down the steps and all over the main floor in the house. They loved finding all the eggs and wanted MORE! Ryan got mad that they didn't have candy in them too! :) It is funny that they will walk right by their baskets and not even care about them. They are only worried about the eggs. Then they did go back to their baskets....no surprise there.

<- Pretty eggs!!

Hailey wanted to pose for a picture for EVERY ITEM in her basket!! She would sit there, hold the item up next to her, smile and wait for me to take a picture!! :) Ryan's best moment came when he found "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" DVD in his basket. He starting THROWING things out of his basket...until he could finally get the movie out. Then he had to point and tell us which picture was of the girl that was a "bad nut"! It was funny!!!


I did let them eat one piece of chocolate before we went to church. Ryan wanted Chris' cadbury creme egg ('ohhh there is FROSTING in here!!') and Hailey started on her chocolate bunny!


Okay...hold on....here come the pictures of the cutest kids in the world (to me anyway!!). How BEAUTIFUL does Hailey look!?!? And, Ryan, well he is just ADORABLE!!! :) Gotta love 'em! :)


Hailey had to lay out her whole outfit on Saturday morning! She had it all planned out...but couldn't decide on which purse to use! :) She loved twirling in her dress and wearing her new white shoes too! Such a little GIRL!


Ryan, on the other hand, is ALL BOY! I wasn't sure if he would wear the tie...but he did! He said he was just like Papa Buckhouse!! :) And he loved that his pants matched Chris' too! So HANDSOME!!!


And one of all of us using the self-timer on the camera. :)

And, a few of the kids together too :)

After all the pictures we finally got to go to church!! After church, there is ANOTHER egg hunt outside. It is separated by ages and they always do a great job with it!! Hailey and Ryan BOTH filled their buckets! More candy and toys!!

You would think it would be over, but not yet!! When the kids got home they found out that the Easter bunny left them NEW BIKES in the front yard!! Ryan was so excited to get his first bike...and a "motorcycle" too! (he told me today that he wishes his bike didn't have petals...but was a real motorcycle. dream on little boy!!)

Back inside for MORE Easter baskets. Thanks to Tim for the confetti filled eggs!! Oh, and the kids were FIGHTING over the recorder too! :) Ryan went right for it! :) Hailey's favorite out of these was her Hannah Montana pink glitter lipstick (as you can tell in the picture below). Ryan was also happy to finally have his own copy of the "Elf" movie so we can watch it at home now too!! (he was quoting the movie in the bathroom during church and didn't know he was getting the movie from Grandma and Grandpa after church!!)

Finally we were able to have our lunch!! Clay, Marjie, Brian, Catherine, Doug & Doran were all over. And, a friend I scrapbook with (Jill) and her children (Camille and Jantzen) came over as well. It was great to have some kids for Hailey & Ryan to play with!! After a big, yummy lunch, we had one last egg hunt in the backyard. Between Doran and myself we had TONS of eggs!! All 4 kids had fun getting them (even little 1 year old Jantzen!).

What a fun day...but everyone was exhausted when it was all over! And I am exhausted from this post!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

I have to include one last thing...a video of the kids!!

Potty training update

We are SO PROUD of Ryan! Something must have "clicked" with him last week...no idea what it was, but we are happy! This weekend he wore underware all weekend long and only had one accident a day!!! Saturday he went from 9:00 am until 9:30pm with NO ACCIDENTS! And, he even had to hold it until we got to a bathroom on Saturday afternoon after the Easter egg hunt!! Sunday he did great again (went TWICE during church alone!) and only had one accident that day too. Now he needs to continue to do good at daycare. Oh...the end of buying diapers/pull-ups is close!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!