The Mortensen Family

Owen is officially walking. I took him to the park today and he was walking (and climbing) all over the place.



He just went in for his 15 month check-up. He's doing great and healthy, but still only saying one word (Tucker). Hopefully he'll start talking soon!

He is 23 pounds 7 ounces (50%) and 32 3/4 inches long (80%).

We did it! We bought a new car. We decided it was time to get a car that gets good gas mileage for Todd to take to work, instead of driving his truck (13 mpg) to work. Oh, don't worry we didn't get rid of the truck. Todd wouldn't hear of that.

We were running low on a few things so I decided to take a family outing to the cannery. We all had a great time and the kids actually helped a lot. We came home with 18 cans of food!

We decided it was time to do another round of one on one dates with the kids.
Wyatt decided he wanted to go fishing. He started out his day digging for worms in our side yard. Then he got to go in Daddy's truck on some dirt roads high up on a mountain (which scared him a little). They went up to Big Bear and fished on Bear Creek. After a couple of lessons, some rock throwing, and stick collecting, they caught 4 fish. One of which he caught all by himself-ish. He was very proud. And he ended his date with dinner at McDonald's.
Carson is into Lego Ninjago's right now and we found a Ninjago event at the local Toys R Us. He went and there were tables set up for the kids to battle their Ninjago's against each other. The leader of the event taught them some techniques and turned them into Ninja Masters and handed out extra weapons for their guys to use. Carson had such a great time and said it was the best day ever. He also ended his date at McDonald's!


For Emma's date we went in to LA to the American Girl Doll store. She was in heaven looking at all the beautiful (expensive) dolls! She got to pick out two "Bitty Twins" from the store. She picked the ones that look like her and Wyatt. And you'll never guess what she named them, Emma and Wyatt. She hasn't stopped playing with them since. She also wanted to go to McDonald's but the area around the shop was not an area I wanted to stop in. I told her it wouldn't be safe for her new dollies. So we drove a little way home and stopped at Red Robin.

We went to Legoland and had a great time! It was teacher appreciation day so my mom and I got in free and I got discounted tickets for everyone else. They had a room where the kids could build their own Lego cars and race them down the track. The kids spent over an hour in there while Owen went to the Duplo room and played there. It was really crowded so we didn't do many rides but there were a lot of fun play areas for the kids. Emma's favorite ride was the bicycle ride (it was actually lame) which we waited in line for 90 minutes for. Carson loved the Indiana Jones ride where you shoot the bad guys and Wyatt's favorite was the really fast roller coaster. We ate lunch at a neat place (since we forgot our lunch bag at home). The kids played with Legos while they waited for our food and they had an all you can eat buffet just for kids with mac and cheese, hamburgers, hot dogs, and yummy waffle fries. There was a huge Star Wars Lego display that was really neat to look at. Our night ended with fireworks. Wyatt was in the bathroom apparently going poop and was so worried about missing them he came out half way through to watch. Then after they were done he told us he had to go back to wipe. I wish we lived a little closer, I think we'd go back often.

Wyatt and Emma graduated from preschool last week and had a little performance. They both did great. Wyatt sang his songs nice and loud (and not always with the rest of the class). Emma's hat kept falling off so she got "shy" and hid under the piano for a couple of songs, but got back up for her speaking part. They both had a great year in preschool and are looking forward to Kindergarten.
They got end of the year evaluations from their teacher She passed all of her skills except cutting with scissors. This is what her teacher said about Emma. "I love teaching Emma. She is a very sweet girl and I never had any problems with her. Model student! Thank you for letting me be her teacher. I will miss her!"
Wyatt passed all of his skills and his teacher said, "Aside from candy being his weakness, he is such a sweetie. He tries very hard to please everyone. He was a great friend to all. He was always smiling. Thank you for letting me and trusting me to teach your wonderful kids!"

"I know why they have mirrors in the car. So you can see if we're picking our nose."

Emma just got two new twin dollies that she takes with her everywhere. The other day she said, "Mommy, it's hard taking care of two babies!" Oh, I know, Emma.

Wyatt and Carson had a great time playing soccer this year. They were on a team made up of all their friends. Carson was the oldest one on the team and he really was a lot more aggressive this year. He even scored a couple of goals. Wyatt had some good kicks and saved a couple of goals also.

Yee-Haw! Wyatt and Emma's preschool class went on a field trip to ride horses. They both loved it. Wyatt had to wear his cowboy hat and bring his rope. Emma was very excited to wear her boots. The whole time Wyatt was on the horse he kept taking his hat off and swinging it over his head.

We had a great time in Palm Springs this year. We stayed at a nice hotel with a very fun pool. Every year I think there are all these fun things I want to do but all we end up doing is SWIM, SWIM, SWIM!!

When we first got there the kids put on their bathingsuits and wanted to test out the pool. Wyatt immediately jumped in, then bobbed up with a terrified look on his face saying, "Help". It's been awhile and I guess he forgot how to swim. It only took a couple of hours before they were all swimming like fish. All we saw of Emma for three days was her bottom poking out of the pool. Owen loved it too and spent his time either napping in the hotel room (my mom and I fought over who got to stay behind and read in the room) or chasing balls in the pool. Carson loved the hot tub and spent lots of his time there. We played a game with a bunch of little balls. Todd and I tried to throw them all into the hot tub and the kids tried to throw them all into the big pool. There were balls flying all over the place. After awhile Emma said, "This game is never going to end!"



After three days of fun in the sun we were all tired, sunburned, and ready to come home. But not before stopping for dinner at Bob's Big Boy and not too tired to demolish a banana split and hot fudge cake. I tell you, you gotta eat fast when sharing desserts with these kids!

Owen took his first step on Easter. He since has taken 3 or 4 steps, but I wouldn't say he was "walking" yet. He'd still prefer to crawl (and climb) at lightening speed to get where he wants to go.

He only says one word, "Tucker". He loves that dog. The first thing in the morning he says, "Uckah" and wants to pet him, hold his tail and give him kisses. He always goes to the back door and bangs on it calling, "Uckah" until Tucker comes over to see him. He actually says Tucker any time he sees any dog.

Owen's a great sleeper (7:30-6:30). He will take one or two naps each day depending what we have going on. He really just goes with the flow. He's my most easy going baby, mostly out of necessity. He loves his Daddy and follows him around whenever he is home. He is a good eater and outeats Carson most nights (still has a ways before he outeats Wyatt). Everyone loves to get good night kisses from him!

We had a great Easter this year. To try to help the kids (and me too) focus on the real reason for Easter we spent the week leading up to it talking about the Savior's final days. We ate unleavened bread and drank grape juice while talking about the sacrament (though the kids were more curious about wine). We acted out the triumphal entry with Tucker being the starring role of the donkey colt. We learned about the parable of the ten virgins one evening to the light of two oil lamps (one full and one empty). The next morning I made Emma's bed for her and she said, "Mommy, you put oil in your lamp!" I must say it really changed the attitude around our house. On Sunday, I even had to remind the kids about the Easter Bunny.

THE BREAKFAST:
Our family has a tradition of going to the park for an Easter Breakfast each year. We haul our cooking stove and have eggs, ham, and hash brown potatoes. We go for a walk/bike ride and have an egg hunt. It's so fun spending the day relaxing and playing with my family.
THE EGGS:
We had a lot of fun dying eggs this year. The favorite was Todd's "Jimmer" egg, though my pink polka-dot egg came a close second.


THE HUNT:
While I was off being pampered at Glen Ivy, Todd took the kids to the city egg hunt. The kids had a great time until they found out that most of the eggs were filled with toys instead of candy. Really, who wants an egg shaped eraser?!


We had the missionaries over for dinner and decided to put them to good use. So they hid the eggs in the backyard for our family egg hunt. Carson was concerned they'd be too easy to find, but they did just fine.

THE BUNNY:
On Sunday when we got home from church the Easter Bunny still hadn't come to our house. Wyatt even went outside to talk to him. I saw him standing on the sidewalk yelling, "OK, We're ready now!" But still no bunny. So left some treats on the doorstep to try to lure him in. They had lettuce (we had no carrots) in a bowl, an Easter card and two gold coins. We finally gave up waiting and went to go find him. We walked around the block and Carson spotted what he thought were footprints in the street. The kids asked a neighbor if they'd seen him and were told he was heading towards our house. When we got to our house he had been there and left 4 wonderful baskets filled with goodies: Bakugans, spinning toothbrushes, Sing-a-ma-jigs, Lego Star Wars guys, sunglasses, silly string, socks, glow sticks, church movies, bubbles, chalk, pinwheels, and of course a chocolate bunny.

My mom has been saving gift cards to Glen Ivy Spa for some time now and she decided to take me with her (wow am I lucky or what?!). We went for a full day of pampering.

We had massages to start out with with a body scrub. It felt so good like all the bad stuff was being scraped right out of you.

Spring break was kind of a bust this year. It was so early that the weather did not cooperate. It was cold and rainy all week so we had to postpone our Palm Springs trip. We did some other fun things though.

We went to Jumping Jacks to jump on all the inflatable bouncers. Even Owen loved this place.

We went to the park. There were lots of friends there to play with.

We went down and stayed the night at Grandma's house and played lots of wii.

We went to the Discovery Science Center: