Brazil 2009

We had such a fun trip to Brazil this year. It was the first time anyone in Lincon's family got to meet Seth. We got to go to Lincon's cousin's wedding, went to Beach Park which is a big water park in Fortaleza, the beach in Fortaleza and Lagoinha, Visosa where they have the best hot chocolate ever, and just visited with family. We found that Seth had absolutely no fear of the water. That part was a little scary. The boys also got sick down there which was not fun at all but they survived and the rest of the trip was so fun.

Full Xico restraunt in Paraipaba.

Tiangua, Visosa, and Lagoinha.

Brazil 2009 arrival and Beach Park

Yeah, it has been forever!!!

So it has been so long since I have blogged about anything and so tonight I am hoping to get all the stuff on here that we have been doing. If I don't get it all on here tonight maybe with the continual encouragment from Nancy and Karen I will actually finish. I do have a couple of recent funnies that I wanted to share.

It seems that both of my kids have been doing all sorts of funny things lately. Seth is talking more and more and saying things that surprise me. The other day I was loading my dishwasher when Seth came up to me and asked "what are you doing, Mom?" I said that I was loading the dishwasher and asked him what he was doing and he said, "I play with Sammy." I was just pleasantly surprised by the conversation. It is nice that he can tell me things and what he wants. Seth has been learning a trick out of Sam's book lately and is always wanting to be naked. He can get his a lot of his pants off and then his diaper right after. Last weekend we were up in Salt Lake visiting my family. I had just got Seth dressed and went to get Sam dressed. Seth went out and took his pants and diaper off and then stood infront on my mom, spread his legs as far as he could, and said, "Ta da!" My mom thought that was pretty funny. I don't know where he learned that one. I certainly don't run around our house doing that.

So tonight Sam has always loved making messes. A couple of nights ago he pulled every blanket we own out of the closet along with all of his toys out of the toy box. He piled them all into one big heap and then happily annouced that it was a castle. As frustrated as I was about the disaster he had just created I still had to smile. Tonight he decided to do a similar creation. This time he pulled all the clothes out of Seth's drawers and all the clothes out of his drawers, all the toys, all the diapers, all the wipes, and all the books out. This of course did not make for a happy mother. I was folding all the clothes while Sam was supposed to be picking up all the toys. I told him over and over, but he was not making very much progress. I remembered when I was a child that my mother would often have to sit with me and tell me specific things for me to pick up when the mess got too big so I would not get overwhelmed. I tried this approach with Sam. I told him to pick up all the cars. When he did that I said, "Ok, Sam, now pick up all the balls." Sam looked at me and said, "Mom, you're talking nice! That makes me so happy!" It made me laugh. Anyway, those are just a couple of our recent stories. These two sure make my life interesting. I adore them and hope I can remember all these little crazy things that make me love them even more. Kids really are the best!

These are pictures of our camping trip up on Pine Valley mountain with the Wilcock family. It was a lot of fun and they boys loved getting VERY dirty. Lincon hiked up to the top and carved Seth's name in the tree and then caught his first fish! It was really cold that night but it was a lot of fun.

Playing swords.

Sam somewhere learned that you put the sword on your back so he pretends that his bat is a sword and he puts it down his shirt and into his underwear to hold it in place. He helped Seth to do the same. They looked so funny I had to take pictures.

Swimming @ Craig and Janaina's

Our friends, Craig and Janaina invited us over to swim and our boys loved it. They are little water boys.

Easter Activites!

These are pictures of our Easter projects. The first one is a papier-mache egg and I am sorry that it is sideways. I always forget that I need to turn it before I put it on here. I gotta learn how to do that.... For now you will just have to bare with me and kindly tilt your head to the side. This activity we did with our friends Nancy and her cute son, Gabe. It was a fun activity but it was messy, time consuming, and definitely not one, two, and three year old friendly. However, we did persever! Thanks Nancy for being a trooper!!! The next thing I did was make marshmallows and poured them into egg shaped molds. Marshmallows are easy to make and so I was not paying very close attention and yup! I sure did burn the heck right out of them. The ones I made into egg shapes got pawed off on my on my poor unfortunate family. Sorry family. The other monstrosity that you see in the picture is what was left over. We took a couple brave bites out of it and then tossed it. Next year we will just do sugar cookies and call it good.

Sam's Birthday!!!

Sam had two birthday cakes this year. The first one was up at my parents house with all the aunts, uncles, and cousins that live up there. It is the Costco cake with the unbelievably huge mounds of frosting balloons on top. Does anyone honestly eat that who is over the age of two? Yuck! I guess it looked exciting though because that is the cake Sam picked out, although if you look at the pictures you would sure think that Seth is more excited about the cake than Sam is. Seth started taking bites out of it while I was cutting it. I guess that is paybacks for Seth cake on his birthday. It was a lot of fun though. Sam finally understands the concept of a birthday and was really excited for his. The other cake we had for Sam was a frog and I made that after we got home and he and Seth ate that one while we talked to Lincon's family online.

This is a picture of Seth wearing Lincon's thongs. He loves putting on all of our shoes. I always think it is so funny watching him try to walk in my high heels. Here he put on the shoes because he wanted to go outside.

Teaching Sam

We have been trying to teach Sam more scripture stories lately and sometime his interpretation is so funny. I took a few days telling Sam the story about Lehi leaving Jerusalem with his family and Nephi , Laman, Lemuel, and Sam going to get the brass plates. Later Sam was telling me about Nephi chopping off laben's head, and getting big owies with the sticks, and about the plates and eating pizza. I think maybe I need to explain that the plates are more like a book than an eating utinsil.

A couple other stories we have been teaching him about are the birth of Jesus, Jesus calming the sea, and Jesus healing the woman who touched his robe and was healed. I asked him to tell Lincon the stories after I had told them to him. When he told Lincon about Jesus calming the sea he said, "Jesus said 'stop!' and the rain go bye bye and safe." When he told Lincon about Jesus healing the woman he said, "BIG owies! Touched his shirt and all better!" It was so cute and I loved how inthrolled he gets with the stories.

Disneyland Vacation

I am finally trying to get back on the ball and update my blog. We got back from California last week and it was so fun. We left early on Thursday morning, checked in to our hotel and then headed for Newport beach. It was a little chilly but the kids still loved it. Sam got soaked! The next day we spent the day at Disneyland mostly in fantasy land. Sam was so excited to ride the elephants and rockets. I think Sam's age is about the best time to go because he was still young enough that we didn't have to pay for him to get in but he is old enough to be soooo excited about everything. That night my sister kept our kids and we went back to the park by ourselves. The next day we spent at California adventure. The kids we both so excited to see Lightning McQueen and Mator. They have a whole "Bugs Life" area at California adventure and it is seriously so fun! They have a little play that the bugs put on and Sam and Seth loved it. Seth laughed and Sam thought it was so funny that a bug crawled under his bum. There is also a ride where you can smell watermelon and cookies and it was really cute. The last day we finished up on a few rides that the kids didn't get to ride in Disneyland. Sam had been asking to ride the train since before we even left St. George! We got back on Sunday night and it was so nice to be home! I don't think I realize how much I love home until we leave for a couple days!