In the past few months, Isak has discovered how to take pictures with the camera, reasonably well. I often find pictures on the camera of carpet, stuffed animals, furniture, and very unflattering pictures of myself who was unknowingly being photographed. Anyway, he also loves to put hopdog and dishtowels on the fan then turn it on low and let them fly off. I know, I am a hugely irresponsible parent. So below are some of the photos Isak has taken this last month. He also has a great knack for capturing messes around my house as well.
Something about these socks sitting in the middle of my floor drew his attention.

Self-portrait.

Gotta love the angle he does with this shot. Crazy kid. Thats his time-out chair in the corner :).

And on another note, this is Lucy's hair this morning. It was very volumnious, as it usually is in the morning, and she wouldn't let me touch it. So here it is, in all its tangled, crazy glory.
Lucy has recently discovered her dress-up shoes and likes to wear them around the house, even though they are way too big on her. I think she likes the way they clack on the floor.

Isak's Birthday!!

Isak turned 4 today! I can't believe my baby boy is already four. He was such a fun 3 year old, I'm sure 4 will bring its own set of interesting ideas and challenges. On Saturday, we had a party with his little friends from our ward. It was kind of cold, which it was last year too on his party, but we had fun anyway. We had it at the park, close to the toys, and had pizza and watermelon.
Isak and Lucy loved chasing the bubbles they got out of the pinata.

This was my first time making a pinata and it turned out okay. Spiderman originally had more of a body but then I thought it would be easier to hook it together with just the head. He sustained several whacks with the bat, however.
I made Isak a spiderman cake this year which turned out to be a lot harder than it looked. I did the head out of rice krispie treats and had to remake it a couple times as it was too heavy and kept falling forward into the cake. It still didn't turn out that great but Isak loved it and he was all I had to impress.
All the red frosting stained all the kids faces red and they all looked like they had attacked something.
Sunday night we had a family dinner with mine and kevin's parents and his grandma. Isak got even more presents, namely superhero squad figures, dr. doom's castle, and a large captain moroni and Nephi figure.

Today was his actual birthday and we did cupcakes at preschool, got a happy meal for lunch, and had friends over to play this afternoon. Then tonight was preschool graduation. I know, he's only four and he will graduate next year, but look at his cute hat! Isak's birthday was like a 3 day celebration. I think next year we will make it one day and I will just buy a cake from costco and make my life much easier. After all, he will be 5 and as Isak says, "When I turn 5, I will loose my teeth".
So Happy Birthday Isak! He loves to play super heros, hide and go seek, jump on the trampoline, go to the park, play games, have books read to him, cut paper, and talk to any kid who looks like they may be within 5 years of his age. He can be quite emotional at times which can be frustrating but with that he is also very sweet and really wants to do what is right most of the time. And he makes me laugh on a daily basis.

Last week it was quite warm here and the kids and I had a lot of fun. I couldn't get the pictures from my phone to upload or I would've written this last week. One evening Lucy decided she wanted to do watercolors so I got out all the stuff.

Only to find her drinking the blue paint water. She was really mad when I took it away.We made a volcano outside with baking soda and vinegar. Isak and Lucy loved this and kept wanting to pour more baking soda on it.

I am glad we still have a mud hole in the backyard since we put grass in. Someday hopefully it will be something useful, but for now, my kids love digging in the dirt.

We also went and saw the cows out at the dairy. Isak LOVED them. Its been a while since we have been out there and Isak wanted to see the baby cows, "they are so cute mom!We even saw ", the medium sized cows, and the big momma cows. We saw some pretty new baby cows that were trying to stand up, they were pretty cute. And yes, Isak is barefoot, He is a farm kid at heart. And I gave him a bath when we got home and scrubbed his feet :).

The warm weather has meant that the snow cone truck is back at the park! Baseball season is in full swing which means the park across the street is busy almost every evening and weekend. The kids got their first snow cones of the year and Kevin and I had some delicious tacos from the Taco Wagon.

Kevin''s sister Lindsey and her husband Nate came up from Rexburg on Thursday and stayed the weekend. We had a great visit and I got to sharpen up my dance central skills. My kids especially love Uncle Nate and that he is their personal play toy that will wrestle/carry/throw them where ever the please.

I had a great Mother's Day yesterday. Kevin let me sleep in, well, Isak came and visited me a few times but I still slept in. Then he made me breakfast and I got a pretty hanging basket of flowers and Isak and Lucy gave me a card. In the afternoon we visited my mom, and my brother made us homemade ravioli which was delicious. And I didn't have to change any stinky diapers, although Lucy dear did get kicked out of nursery briefly for knocking over other children in her excitement :). Above is the best picture we could muster at the end of the day, Lucy was sad because she just knocked her snack all over the trampoline and wanted to go eat it. My little, mostly sweet, boy who made me a mommy after 12 horrible hours of labor.
And my crazy, crazy daughter who took me by suprise by being a girl and has taught me lots of

patience. And a belated Happy Mother's Day to my own mom who I am lucky enough to get to see on a regular basis and is great mom and grandma to my kids. One of the many things I love the most about my mom is that she always shows an interest in what I or my kids or doing. She is always the first one I call after their check-ups or after they met one of their milestones because she is always just as excited as I am. She is one terrific lady!
This week it has been in the 70's here and we are loving the warm weather, spending most of our days in the yard, garden, and jumping on the trampoline. We like to put the sprinkler under the trampoline and then jump through the water.

I planted my garden a few weeks ago and today I noticed all my little bean and pea sprouts are showing. I also have some raspberry starts that I am hoping will give me some berries next year, so far I have managed to keep everything alive.

Lucy's favorite activity is snapping the heads of my tulips and then carrying them around. Almost as much fun as unearthing all the seeds in my garden. Almost.

Isak has been coming up with some pretty interesting stories lately. I love seeing how his little brain works as he tries to put it all together. This past weekend there was a carnival in the Wal-Mart parking lot here, which we did not attend, but Isak was quite fascinated by. On Monday we saw them packing it up and Isak kept asking me where they were going, which I told him, I don't know. Then he said, "Mom, they are going to a city called Trample, where there is lots of electricity. And there are flying cars. But we can't go there because there are lots of shock hazards". We are so glad that Kevin's CPA exam is over, he took it last Thursday. There were lots of late nights where the kids and I battled it out alone. He has one more this month, but luckily, its the easier one. Below is one tired Lucy lounging on the floor. She has to be wearing shoes at all times inside the house and gets mad when one falls off. She yells, "shoe off! shoe off!". If she doesn't like the shoes I put on her, she goes and gets a different pair and brings them to me. And then there is Isak, who can hardly be bothered to even wear shoes. There has to be a middle ground!
Now that Kevin is home in the evening, he can help with hair duty. Brushing Lucy's tangled mop after her bath is always a chore. We have also been busy getting our yard ready, now that we have grass and not dirt, its much more fun!