Vitamin D!!

Last week we finally had a REALLY nice sunny 60 degree day, so we weren't about to waste it sitting inside...Gunnar and I played outside for a long time before it was time to go get Ashton from school. I told him all about vitamin D and how good it is for your body and it felt so good to sit out in the sun! This really has been a mild winter with not much snow, but even so it hasn't been really nice enough to be outside playing a lot and these boys have spring fever big time!

After I just sat and enjoyed the sun for awhile, I finally went and got my camera. Gunnar was already done playing with the bubble machine, riding his bike and his scooter and just running around. Then he got out the sidewalk chalk and started drawing. Lately he loves to draw tornados...so he drew this one, then I helped him color it in :)

  Then I told him I would trace his body with chalk if he would lay on his back. He loved that idea...here is his chalk Gunnar :)

He thought it was so funny!

Another nice day, it must have been a Sunday we had the boys ride their bikes down to the school park to play.

It was fun to see them on their bikes again and having fun on the playground. Winter is long!

Visit from my cousin Beth...

The week before last my cute cousin Beth stopped by and was able to stay a couple nights with us on her way out to California. She was headed there to do a rotation with her uncle who is a dermatologist there. Can't believe she will be a doctor in the next few years!!

Oh and I think you'll make a fabulous pediatrician Beth ;)

It was so fun to have her here with us for a couple days. The boys loved having an extra person to play with. She was so sweet and brought them the Angry Birds "board" game and the Horton Hears a Who movie :) Thanks Beth! Gunnar played that game for hours while she was here. Ashton was having a bit of a rough week, so she didn't really get to see his best side...I felt bad. 

 Anyway we loved having you here Beth and are so glad you made it to California through all the snow! Come back anytime :)

12 years!

On Sunday the 26th, we had our 12 year wedding anniversary. Wow...where does the time go? It really is crazy to me!

We actually went out to celebrate on Saturday night.

(Gunnar took this picture before we left :)

We went to Hamilton's for dinner, then went and saw This Means War...

which we both loved!

So it was a fun night out and the boys got to play with their babysitter Olivia and sleep downstairs again. Lars set up yet a different tent for them and they both slept in it together.

Oh and earlier in the day he brought me these... :)

And an itunes gift card and some gift cards to the Crepery...yum!

Happy 12 years Hunnie! Thanks for all you do for the boys and me...I was going to try to list 12 of my favorite memories over the past 12 years, but there are just too many!

Love you :)

Tents!

The weekend before last, Lars went out of town on a fishing trip for a few days. He left on Thursday afternoon and came back late Saturday night.

This has nothing to do with this post really, but Thursday right before he left I had gone to pick the boys up from school. As soon as I saw Gunnar, I could tell he didn't feel good and he told me he didn't when he got in the car. I kept looking at him in the rear view mirror feeling bad because he looked like he felt miserable. So then we went to pick up Ashton and he still wants us to come into the school or at least to the door he comes out of when we pick him up. So I carried Gunnar in and got Ashton and we got back in the car and pulled out of the parking lot when Gunnar said "I feel like I'm going to throw up." So I hurried and tried to pull over, but it was already too late. He threw up all over himself and his carseat about 3 times by the time we pulled into the driveway. Ugghhh....I really hate cleaning up throw up and I felt so bad for him. It was EVERYWHERE! So I hurried and got him out and stripped him down in the driveway, then took him in and got him in the tub and took all of his clothes into the laundry room. Then I went back outside and rolled all the windows in my car down to let it air out, then went inside and forgot about it. Well Lars came home a few minutes later and got the carseat out of the car and somewhat cleaned it out before he left on his trip.

Luckily after about half an hour Gunnar was totally fine...he never threw up again. So who knows what that was about, but I was glad it didn't turn into a stomach flu for all of us all weekend while Lars was gone.

Anyway we went along with the rest of our day which brings me back to the reason for this post. Earlier in the day I had set up this little tent of Ashton's for Gunnar to play in. Well when Ashton got home he wanted to play in it and make it into a little home for himself with a bed, chair and all sorts of other things. So then we set up another old tent of Ashton's for Gunnar to make a little home in and they played and played and played in those tents the whole weekend!

Ashton slept in his the first night and then they both slept in them the 2 or 3 nights after that. They thought it was the most fun thing ever!

 And they got along so well all weekend.

Oh back to Thursday...after the boys had gone to bed, I finally got around to shutting the garage and everything for the night at about 10:00. So I looked out the garage door and realized Lars hadn't pulled my car in for me before he left, so I went out to do that and noticed that all of my windows were still down too! And my keys were still in my car, so of course when I went to start it, it was dead. Grrrr....

Luckily we have the best neighbors, so I called Kent and he came right over and jumped it for me and drove it around for a few minutes to make sure it was okay. And it was, the next morning it started right up, I'm sure it was just a dead battery since I'd left the keys in it in the accessory position or whatever it's called.

Anyway those little tents have been so fun for the boys in this long boring winter!

Cutie Gunnar...

I thought that the green shirt phase for Gunnar would never end and now it seems like so long ago that all he wanted to wear was his green kickball shirt or that other green shirt of Ashton's that was way too big for him! I guess it's been at least 2 or 3 months now since he's even thought about them. And I can't really say that I miss them, but I do miss that little stage.

One thing he wouldn't wear for really about the past year is footed pj's or sleepers. And I LOVE sleepers...I think they are so cute and that they just make kids seem more like babies still :) So the other day when Gunnar pulled his super cute monster sleeper out of his drawer and wanted to wear it, I was so happy! That's been about a week or so ago and it's still all he wants to wear when we're at home :)

Last Friday morning we didn't really have anything going on so he and I (and his cute monster sleeper) cuddled on the couch ALL morning. Really for at least a good 2 hours. Of course I had a thousand things I could have been catching up on, but these days are going so fast and if given the choice I would always rather lay on the couch with him than clean or do dishes or laundry. It was so nice. I love that he is my little cuddler....and he is just SO cute :) I mean really how could I choose chores over this??

One of Gunnar's other favorite things to do lately is play Memory, and he is so GOOD at it! He beat me fair and square and was so excited...haha :)

(love his crazy hair!)

I always feel so blessed that I've been able to stay home with my boys and enjoy all these fun stages :)

Love DaY...2012

Like all holidays, we LOVE Valentines Day at our house! Any excuse for me to try to be crafty...and a day all about telling and showing eachother we love eachother is great. Of course we do those things everyday, but it's still fun :)

This was Gunnar's first year to do a Valentine exchange at school, so I tried to think of what he and Ashton are into right now and they love SONIC Hedgehog so I decided to design their Valentines this year and print them off and attach some candy and of course pictures I took of them (pictures always have to be involved!) They turned out pretty cute and they had fun putting them together with me. Well Gunnar had a lot of fun...

 ...and I got Ashton to at least write his classmates names on his.

He is just way too busy for stuff like this now as a big 7 year old!

(have to interrupt this post for a second...because my sweet little Gunnar in his cute little fuzzy sleeper, yes he all of a sudden loves wearing sleepers again! ...is downstairs with me playing Ashton's DS and he just asked if he could come sit on my lap while I type...of course I let him and I asked him if he will always want to sit on my lap, even when he's big. He said yes then kind of laughed and asked "Even when I'm big like Dad?" Cutie...I will miss these days so much of him wanting to sit with me and snuggle all the time :( Yes Gunnar you can sit on my lap anytime you want!)

Anyway here are the boys' Valentines and the pictures I took of them to attach and also to send with cards to grandparents...

So we got all of that done the week before Valentines Day...

Then on V day the boys woke up with a little trail of paper hearts coming out of their rooms that lead them to a bigger paper heart with the first clue written on it for their heart treasure hunt. I've done this for them the past couple of years and they think it's SO fun, so we will continue on each year with this little tradition.

After going from one heart clue to the next...I think there ended up being 12 this year, they finally got to their Valentine treats. Sonic t-shirts a little box of candy...for Ashton chocolate covered cookie doughballs and for Gunnar m&m's.

 Gunnar was funny later that night, he said..."Hey Mom, how did the Valentime Guys know that I like m&m's??" So I said "Uh Gunnar...I'm the "Valentime Guy"...haha! Made me laugh and think  hmmm...what reason would he have to think there aren't valentime guys??

So after our little treasure hunt we had crepes with bananas, whip cream and hershey's syrup for breakfast...YUM!

Then it was off to school for Ashton. Gunnar had school later and while he was there I helped out with Ashton's party at school. Valentines Day is so fun for his age...I totally remember loving it! After school they both came home and dumped out their stash of cards and treats.

Later that night Lars made us all a yummy dinner...it was a fun day.

Love these boys so much :)

Sulphur Creek Ice Fishing tournament...2012

Last Saturday February 4, Lars and I went to the ice fishing tournament at the reservoir called Sulphur Creek that is about a mile from Grandma & Grandpa Harry's house. We have actually been a couple times years ago before Ashton was born when it used to be a HUGE tournament with thousands of dollars being given away in prizes. These days it's a much smaller tournament with just three prizes given out to the people who catch the 3 biggest fish. They also do a raffle for a few other prizes, but it is nothing compared to what it used to be.

We drove up to Evanston Friday afternoon. Ashton and Gunnar had been so excited all week and couldn't wait for Friday to come around. Ashton was even more excited when Lars went in and checked him out of school an hour early. That was his first time being checked out and he thought it was so cool...haha :)

We got to town and went and got our licenses and some food for our lunches the next day, then headed out to the Grandpa & Grandma's house. The wind was howling as usual, but we were hoping it would die down by the next morning. Anyway it's always fun to go home...Grandma made us lasagna and Papa Murphy's pizza for dinner and her awesome caramel browies that I was hoping she had. Ashton and Gunnar immediately find things to play with until bedtime.

They were actually excited that they didn't have to go fishing with us and just got to stay home with Grandma and Aunt Kelli and wear their pajamas and play all day.

We got up early Sat. morning and were at the reservoir by 6:30.

There wasn't any wind when we left the house, so we got our hopes up that it might be a nice day, or at least wouldn't pick up till later, but we were dead WRONG! As soon as we got there it was already extremely windy and we had to walk straight into the wind out on to the ice to pick our spot. That was a cold walk.

So we didn't end up going out very far. Lars told me to pick a spot, so I did and we started setting up our tent. Which is no easy task in the wind! Oh and it was dark. I just kept thinking (all day really) Thank goodness we have our tent! And our heater! So we got all set up and started fishing at 7:00. It wasn't long before we started having bites and then catching fish, and more fish, and more fish...really pretty non-stop until about 12:30! We caught 40 fish between us all day!

 We've never had much luck at Sulphur Creek at all.

The one year we went, and it was a two day thing back then, I remember we sat there for two days straight (with no tent in horrible wind and blowing snow!) and had one, yes ONE bite the entire time! So my spot I picked ended up being a good one.

Pretty early on I could tell I hooked into a big one and was getting so excited until I saw him coming out of the hole and realized it was a SUCKER!

They are so gross...I had to make myself touch it for a picture.

Talk about disappointing since they don't count :( So we measured it anyway and it was 21 inches long. We ended up saving it, just because there's no use throwing trash fish back really. Anyway in all of the other fish we caught all day, not a single one was big enough to be taken back at the end of the day and measured. They had to be 16 inches or bigger.

About an hour before the tournament was over, so at 1:30, I hooked into another big one. As soon as Lars saw my pole he could tell it was a big one, so he came over and kneeled down by my hole and got ready to help me and I got it almost up to the hole and it snapped my line!!!! We really think it would have been a winner. The sucker didn't fight at all and this one fought hard and broke me off. Oh well.  We couldn't believe we'd actually caught 40 fish. More than we've really caught anywhere we've been ice-fishing.

And if only my 21 inch sucker had been a trout, we'd have been $900 richer!

The winning fish of the tournament was 20 inches.
Lars said he was going to talk to the guy in charge and suggest that next year they award a prize to the best trash fish :)

After the tournament we went home and hung out for a bit, then my Mom and I went to church, then they boys and Aunt Kelli & Grandpa Harry met us for dinner in town.

After not much sleep Friday night, everyone slept better Saturday, then we got up Sunday and had breakfast, then packed up and got ready to come home. We wanted to get back in time for Gunnar to go to Amalia's party.

It was a fun little weekend getaway that I think we'll be doing again next year!