I try not to use this blog to brag about my kids too much, but I need to do a little of that today in this post. If you choose not to read, I understand. This post will be full of pride for my children. I love my 3 boys and have never been prouder! Scott and I were asked to speak in church yesterday. When the Bishop asked us, we asked if our boys could also speak with us and he said yes. Brad was hesitant, but excited from the start. He got right to work on his talk and wrote it all by himself. We had Brad speak first, we knew he would do a great job and be a good example for his older brothers. Mostly, we wanted Jack to go after his two brothers so that he wouldn't have to go first. During the sacrament, Brad was getting nervous. He told me a couple times, "I'm next." He was pretty nervous, but when it came time, he jumped up there and did an amazing job! As Brad was giving his talk, he became very emotional. He's always been in tune to the spirit. At a few times during his talk, he knew that what he was saying was true and could not hold back the tears. Jared was less than excited. He didn't want to do it, and we let him know that we didn't really want to do it either. But we were asked by the Bishop and when the Bishop asks you to do something, you should say yes. Once he sat down to write his talk, his attitude changed. He wrote most of his talk on his own, we only helped with some of the wording. As Jared was writing his talk, he became very emotional. We asked him what was wrong and he said that he was feeling the spirit. He said, "I just feel good inside about what I'm doing." He's also a tender-heart and has felt the spirit so strongly that it brought him to tears. When it was time to give his talk, he got up there and gave it like a pro. He did a great job! Jack insisted he wasn't going to do it. He had done such a great job on his part in the Primary program that I thought it wouldn't be a problem. We'd have him say a couple sentences, no big deal. But he refused, until we started practicing it with him. He had it memorized in less than 20 minutes. Then he was excited. When it came his turn, Scott told him it was time to go and Jack told him, "no, I don't want too." Anyone who was in the audience could see the look on his face that he was not going to do it. But Scott offered to go up with him and help him. Once they got up to the pulpit, Scott gave Jack the first word and he took off. He told his part and it was brilliant! Everyone in the ward loved it, as far as I could tell. We couldn't walk through the halls without someone stopping me or Scott to tell us what a great job they did. I was so proud of my 3 boys. The quickest way to bring the spirit to a meeting is by the testimony of a child. I don't remember having a testimony as strong as my boys' when I was younger. Their faith is so strong, they are great examples to Scott and I. When I was younger, we were always told that we were the "chosen generation." Saved for these latter-days because we were the most righteous. If that is true, then it's even more true for these children of ours. I'm so grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ, that I can raise my children with the knowledge of our Savior Jesus Christ. They can know that they are children of our Heavenly Father and that he loves them and they can be happy if they follow his teachings. Thank you for reading this, I'm sorry for the bragging and all the pride, but today my heart is full of pride and joy and love for my children.

We had such a wonderful Easter. Filled with good food, family, friends, and chocolate. What more could we ask for, right? The "Empty Nesters" of the ward threw a fantastic Easter egg hunt party for the children of the ward. They planned this party between the morning and afternoon sessions of General Conference. It was a great way to spend the day. We felt the spiritual high of General Conference with a fun activity with our ward family in the middle. Thank you "Empty Nesters," we love you so much! This was the first time my boys have done well watching General Conference. They actually listened and remembered what they heard! I'll be forever grateful for the Primary leaders for teaching Jack about Dieter F. Uchtdorf, I love hearing Jack say his name: http://youtu.be/tXyyRxDb7hw The Sunday before Easter, we had our McBride family Easter egg hunt. Always a great time hunting for eggs with cousins. And I got to hold my newest nephew, Matthew. So sweet! Then on Easter we had dinner with my side of the family. I love getting together with extended family, especially watching my boys play with their cousins.

By this day we were so exhausted! We were supposed to go to the lava tubes, but it was closed for the winter. Scott and I talked about stopping by Montezuma's Castle, but we'd already seen so many Indian ruins. So we spent the morning at the hotel pool and hot tub, then went home. I forgot to mention how much the boys loved staying in a hotel. They all said they'd like to live there.

Aww the Grand Canyon. I was really impressed. I don't know if the little boys appreciated the grandeur in this canyon, but I sure did. It was incredible! Brad loved it also, he kept saying, "Wow."

I did spend the day stressed about my kids falling off. I can't believe that people don't fall off! Those cliffs are terrifying and they don't have guardrails! One time Jack got really close to the edge while I was talking to Jared. When I realized how close he was, I freaked out and shouted, "Jack!" Or maybe I screamed it. My scream scared those around me, I saw a couple people put their hands to their hearts. I also scared Jack pretty good, he started crying, I almost started crying. It really freaked me out! So seriously, how do kids not fall off the Grand Canyon every day? That night I couldn't sleep because I kept envisioning Jack falling to his death.

I love being on vacation! I'm a different person when I'm not in my home. I'm a much nicer, fun mom. I'm not so wound tight worried about chores, eating healthy, homework, kids behaving, I'm a fun mom and I can recognize a difference. The only thing that stressed me out on this passed vacation was my kids falling off the Grand Canyon. Which really was pretty stressful!

It's Spring Break in this household! We left Monday morning and drove to Williams to the Deer Farm. The boys loved feeding the deer, especially Jack. He was in Heaven! He's the animal lover of the family. Our favorite was the parrot. She was hilarious! "Polly want a cracker!" "Hello" and she'd bark like a dog. I could really get her talking, but whenever Scott would get close and try, she'd run to the other side of her cage and be quiet. She must prefer a female voice.


Jack wanted to hug all the animals.






After a picnic lunch, we traveled on to Walnut Canyon. The boys each picked out their bedrooms on the side of the cliff! It was a nice little hike and very interesting to thing of these people living on the edges of these cliffs so long ago. If they knew how good we had it now...

Family pictures

I copied a video my sister-in-law made with her kids and we made a birthday video for Scott's mom. My kids are super cute! (it's my blog, I can say that)

I thought it was too cute to not share.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmiuk9QEIYU

About a month before Christmas, Scott and I bought roller blades for our older two boys. We were going to give them to the boys for Christmas. The boys had not asked for roller blades, so we talked about how we could get them to ask for them. We decided that we would pull our roller blades out (& dust them off because it's been a few years) and let them see us ride our roller blades and hopefully they'll get excited and ask for roller blades for Christmas. The problem was that we got them too excited!
When we rode ours around, the boys thought they were really cool and really wanted to try them out. We told them that Scott's skates wouldn't fit him, but he begged and begged and begged.
Since we're weak, we went ahead and gave them their roller blades that day, a month early. Here's some pictures of them learning hot to skate. I couldn't find the pics I took of our middle son skating, I'll add those soon.

The good news is, they love them!

Before

Jared

Brad

Jack

I think there was about a pound of hair in my trashcan when we were done.

Then things got a little silly: