Spencer is 6!

 Spencer turned six on May 14th.  Here he is in his clothes from Grandma Gosney holding up his Spiderman from Grandma Coombs.

This is how James felt about Spencer getting all of the presents. Spencer was really good to share, but James was just mad that it was someone else's special day.

This is what Spencer really wanted, a Razor scooter.  He rides it all of the time, inside and outside of the house. 

We also did a pinata

And fruit pizza

And invited all the neighbors because that's what Spencer does, invite everyone, sometimes when I don't know that he did.

We will miss these people, about half of them will be gone next year.  I guess that means we get to make even more friends, the old and the new.

My boys

i just found these on my desktop.  I wrote them before Carrie was born, but probably right before since I never published them.  i just wanted to record my favorite things about my boys.  Lest you think they are perfect all of the time, I decided only to record the good stuff, that's all I want to remember anyway.

James

James is my calm child.  He can get plenty crazy when Spencer is around, but on his own his is quite mild.  James loves people.  He remembers the people that we know and always says hi to them.  He is good at noticing lonely people, and makes them feel welcome.  Everyone likes James.  Now that he can talk I love to ask James to tell me about things.  He usually includes sound effects and his own made up language when he is unsure of what to say next.  James loves to sing.  He walks around all day making up songs and singing them.  At sacrament meeting he always opens the Hymn book and sings some nonsense while smiling at me and making a very cute face.  James is very good at telling us he loves us, and will keep repeating it until he gets a reply, which sometimes takes a while with Spencer.  James is good with directions and remembers how to get places, which is usually good until he runs home when I don’t see.  James likes to play whatever Spencer is playing, but when he is on his own he usually plays cars.  He loves anything with wheels, and recognizes people’s cars in the parking lot.  It would be okay with me if he learned to fix cars since Devon and I have no clue.  James loves preschool and has no fear of being left alone.  He always asks me “Can I say good-bye mommy?”  Which means, are you going to leave today?  He rides the bus home and always says it goes “super-fast and Crazy.”  James is always happy to see you, he runs and gives Devon a hug everyday when he gets home.  The other day Devon was walking up with our friend Christy and James ran up saying “Christy, Christy,” and then hugged Devon instead, it was pretty funny.  James likes to have people around and asks me all day when we can go get Spencer from school.  James likes to cuddle and always wants me to carry him although I have to tell him no now, he is too big with the baby.  He is a mommy’s boy and always climbs on my lap when I’m working on the computer or anything.  James is a very good bike rider and may get rid of training wheels before Spencer does.  I remember he could ride his bike and steer before he could walk.

Spencer

Spencer is defiantly my crazy boy, but I remember before I had him I thought “I hope if this is a boy he’s curious and wants to learn about everything.”  I sure got my wish.  Spencer loves to know how everything works and is constantly experimenting with stuff.  Spencer loves to make things out of anything.  I can tell when he doesn’t have school because our house is a lot more messy.  He is really good at drawing, but he always draws imaginary things like machines that make toys and candy.  Spencer loves to make up games (like his dad).  The other day he found a block and said “I have a game, lets roll this dice and when it lands on the cherry we can take a bite of our snack.”  I try to say “yes” whenever I can to his crazy ideas, they are usually messy and time consuming, but very creative.  Spencer has a huge imagination.  I can see him writing a fantasy book when he grows up, he is fascinated by fantasy stories.  Spencer is in Kindergarten and tolerates school.  He loves the learning part, but not taking a rest or having to sit still.  The other day he told me he wanted the angels to take him up to heaven because then he wouldn’t have to take a nap.  I told him he has to wait to go to heaven for a while.  Spencer memorizes things really well.  They study Bible verses at his school and he has about 15 memorized.  Spencer has so much energy.  He loves to wrestle with his daddy and have races (if he wins).  Right now he loves sledding, and goes everyday on the little bit of snow that we have left here in MV.  He loves to explore and always wants to go to the field behind our house.  I see spencer being a writer when he grows up and traveling to find cool places to set his stories in.  He loves reading.  I got a graphic novel once from the library and he looked at it all the time.  He also loves super heroes and can tell you the names of most of them.  Spencer says the craziest things and is always making us laugh.  He loves to be scared.  He always decorates our house for the next holiday and makes Valentine’s for people all year round.

Horton and Fly Guy

Our local library (where I am not the librarian anymore) had a "bring your favorite book character to life" night. Spencer dressed up as Horton from "Horton Hears a Who" and James was Fly Guy from the Fly Guy series. They each won first place in their categories, which were "best Horton" and "best Fly Guy." We had a great time coming up with the costumes.

Carrie also took first in her category of cutest baby, no surprise there!

Company

We were lucky to have Devon's mom come for a week before Easter to help us out. On Friday Devon had the day off so we went to Bluff Fort.

We have been here a lot of times, but every time we see something new.  This time Devon and his mom got to go into Jens Nielson's house.  A worker at the fort lives in it, and invited them to come and see. 

On Saturday Melissa and her family and Devon's dad joined us.  The dare-devils- everyone except Devon's mom and I and Huck and James and Carrie) went on the hike behid our house.  Here's Naya crawling through the crawl space.

This is the first time we have let Spencer go on this hike.  He had a great time.

James and Huck had a great time here.  The next time I asked James to take a bath he said "I want to take a bath with Huck!"  We love family!

Easter 2013

We got to participate in 3 egg hunts this year. We only have pictures of 2- but there was plenty of candy to be had in our house!

Our Easter Bunny comes on Saturday morning.  The boys- oh yeah and a girl now- got stuffed bunnies, chocolate bunnies and a marble race.

The most wonderful thing of Easter was that we blesses Carrie on Easter.  Devon's parents and my sister Melissa and her family got to join us.  It was a wonderful blessing.  We had a big dinner with all of our friends here, and the weather was wonderful.  it was a great day.

Here is our sweet Carrie in her blessing dress.

holi day festival

Our neighbor had a Holi Day celebration again. This time I got to attend, and it is even more fun than it looks.  I love the bright colors, and how clean you feel after taking a shower.

Leprechaun traps

So we have a new tradition that we started last year to make leprechaun traps.  In case you didn't know leprechauns only come out the night before St. Patrick's Day.  They love money and sparkly things, so we build traps to lure them in.  If your traps are good enough they leave you a treasure.  Spencer loved doing this, I had to limit him to six traps.  The leprechauns left us a treasure of chocolate coins, green tattoos (temporary of course) and wind up bath toys.  They left pretty convincing footprints too!

I can't get the video of Spencer to load, which is too bad because he really made six intricate traps.  He is very creative.

The boys demonstrating their traps. Also over Devon's Spring Break the boys finished their stickers on their "good choices charts." the grand prize was camping with Daddy, but it was still too cold at night for our level of camping gear, so they camped in Devon's classroom- and loved it.