Our boys absolutely LOVE the Clark Planetarium. I guess with their nerdy parents, our kids really have no hope of disliking it! :) Anyway, we hadn't been there for over a year, so we decided to head up there for our Family Home Evening last night. The kids had a blast...of course. One of the favorites is always the ball machine (seen in the picture). This thing is so cool to watch. It's two-stories tall & it demonstrates every imaginable law of physics you can think of. It has little levers & pulleys that the kids can control to make the balls do different things and go different directions. The boys spent a good 20-25 minutes mesmerized with it. Other favorites included the pendulum (which Connor was enthralled with) & of course the telescopes.

Overall, it was a fun night...for two very nerdy people & their nerd-in-training offspring! --Lindsay

Random title, I know...but it will make sense in the end. Yesterday, my sister Ashlee & I held a bridal shower for our baby sister, Kristin. She gets married in about a week and a half. I think it's really weird for both of us to think about "little Krissy" getting married. In our minds, she's eternally five-years-old! But, anyway, she's getting married none the less...and, I should add, to a great guy who we love. Yay Dan!!! So, we threw her a bridal shower at my house with all our aunts & girl cousins from both sides of our family. It was a blast, and Kristin made out like a bandit! (Speaking of making out like a bandit, I made out like a bandit about 7 1/2 years ago...but all that stuff is getting a little old...it needs to be replaced. So, I'll be throwing myself an "8-year-anniversary shower" later this year...and you're all invited!!! Gifts will DEFINITELY be accepted & greatly appreciated! Just kidding, by the way!) Okay, back to Kristin's shower. So, we all had a blast! We ate a yummy lunch of chicken salad croissants, a variety of salads & awesome desserts. After lunch, we played the "Marinda Game". Marinda is one of my cousins & anytime she throws a shower, you KNOW you will play this game. Before the shower, she sits down with the fiance & asks him questions while video taping him. Then, at the shower, you play the tape...stopping after each question. The bride-to-be has to answer the same question with what she thinks her fiance would have said (kind of like the newlywed game). If she gets it right, we all cheer...but if she gets it wrong, she has to put a piece of bubblicious bubble gum in her mouth. By the end of the 21 questions, most girls are drooling all over the place. It's awesome. Kristin actually did pretty good, I think she only had 7 or 8 pieces in the end. After the game, we opened presents. Like I said earlier, she made out like a bandit with all sorts of good stuff. But, probably the best present came from my mom...she continued her tradition of giving each of her girls a quilt for her bridal shower. For those of you who don't know, my mom is an AWESOME quilter! Seriously, one of the best! Anyway, this quilt was absolutely gorgeous (picture above)!!! For you girls who are in her midweek quilt group, you will have to check it out...you'll absolutely DIE!!! Anyway, it was a really fun time for everyone I think. We all had a blast! Here's a picture of the "four sisters"...since most the time, my mom is mistaken as an older sister...after the shower (It was taken by our "family photographer" Connor...that's why the angle is a little bizarre.)

Okay, so that was the bridal shower part of the post. The "bulging belly" part comes along with this picture. I am now 23 weeks along, which means I hit my five-month mark a few days ago...but I feel like I look more like I'm 7 or 8 months pregnant! My baby bump is MUCH bigger than it was with my other boys at this same point...plus, I've gained more weight than I did with the other two boys as well! (Maybe Connor is right about my butt!) :) Anyway, I'm already battling the nightly heartburn (thank goodness for tums) & feeling kind of uncomfortable (stuff that usually doesn't happen until my 8th or 9th month). I know that people say, once you have your 3rd or 4th, your body just knows what to do & it does it a little earlier in your pregnancy. I'm just scared that my body knows what to do a little TOO well. --Lindsay

Wednesday was my monthly girls night. Mindy was in charge this month & she chose to go to Color Me Mine. We had so much fun...except that we joked that we had never been so stressed out during a Girls Night before. :) If you've never been to Color Me Mine, it's a ceramic painting studio. You go in, pick out the ceramic you want to paint (our group did everything from plates, to vases, to chips & salsa bowls, etc.), then you pick out your paint colors & embellishments, & then go to town! For a left-brained girl like me (I swear to you that my right brain is extremely lazy), this was no easy task! Luckily, I had a lot of junk food in the middle of the table & great girl conversation in order to take my mind off the fact that I was not blessed with a single creative or artistic bone in my entire body! By the end of the night, I was very impressed with all our little creations! Now, granted, we don't know what the final products look like yet, because we had to leave them there to be glazed & go through the kiln. We'll be able to pick them up on Monday. So, I guess we'll be able to judge our "artistic abilities" at that point.

I just got my weekly email from my sitemeter & realized that we have now had over 10,000 visitors to our blog! Quite the milestone I would say! I was actually pretty surprised...I would have thought that, by this point, I would have offended everyone of you & no one would be looking at it anymore! :) I guess I'll just have to try a little harder...kidding! Just wanted to say "thanks" for visiting our little site! --Lindsay

Connor had his first "coach pitch" baseball game yesterday. Apparently, once you're five-years-old you're "too big for a stupid tee"...at least according to Connor. I, unfortunately, missed his season opener. The game started at 8:00 am!!! Who in their right mind starts a baseball game at 8:00 in the flippin' morning? I don't even get off air until 7:58:30 (just in case you wanted to know the exact time in seconds), and even with my trusty lead foot & Nascar-like driving skills, I had to admit that I probably couldn't drive the 35 miles in under a minute and a half. Still, I thought I could make it by about 8:40 or so. That didn't happen however...thanks to the Salt Lake City Marathon. Apparently, according to the nice policeman I tried to sweet talk, a mom desperate to get to her son's coach pitch game does not warrant an emergency big enough to let a car through a road block & onto the marathon course...even though said mother promised not to hit any of the runners! Imagine the insanity!?! Honestly...

Connor is on Spring Break this week. To celebrate, Mike's parents came and kidnapped Connor yesterday. First they started out their day with lunch at Connor's favorite place...Arctic Circle...and then they headed over to Thanksgiving Point. They started out the day at the petting zoo. Connor had fun seeing all the animals and riding the horses...and yes, Connor continued his streak of horses relieving themselves while he is on their back. Apparently it happened twice yesterday! What is it about that kid that makes a horse want to pee?

After the petting zoo, they all headed into the barn to do all the fun activities in there. Connor put together puzzles, milked the fake cow & read books about farm animals and what it is like to work on a farm. I guess Connor pretty much had the entire place to himself...thanks to the 40 degree temperatures outside! And, of course, Connor didn't have a hard time spending some of Grandpa & Grandma's money in the farm house toy store!

After they were done in the barn, they headed over to the Dinosaur museum. They watched a 3D movie on the Mammoth Screen called "Dinosaurs: Giants of the Patagonia". I guess Connor was a little scared at first, but quickly started to like the movie. He told me his favorite part was when "The little raptor was sneaking through the forest and a huge T-Rex came up from behind him and bit him in half and blood went EVERYWHERE!" Sounds like a boy's dream come true!!! After the movie, they went through the museum and then, of course, stopped at the museum gift shop and spent more of Grandpa & Grandma's money!

One of Mike's co-workers sent this to him. I guess he felt it was appropriate & timely for our current situation. I can't, for the life of me, understand why! :) --Lindsay

Yes, it’s true. I put a picture of my butt on my blog. This is a picture Connor took of my lovely rump a few weeks ago when he was on one of his “picture-taking sprees”. Why did I do this, you ask? Well, truth be told, I’ve actually become quite fond of my derriere lately. After 2 ½ kids, it’s finally beginning to do something it’s never done before…actually look like a rear end (as opposed to looking the way it usually looks…something similar to a pancake, a table top, or piece of plywood). I grew up being called “Flat Butt” & “No Butt” my entire life, so a little curvature has been greatly welcomed by all (especially me…oh yeah, and Mike).

But my affection for my new found curves was cut short the other day when Connor shared his views on the matter. I was in the kitchen getting dinner ready. Connor was sitting at the island talking to me and eating a snack. I had bent down to grab something out of the bottom of the pantry when Connor exclaimed, “Mom! Your butt is looking FAT!” At first, I thought maybe my son was just ultra hip and he meant the good kind of fat, as in P-H-A-T, but that notion was shattered when he followed up his first remark with, “It’s getting HUGE!”

My love for my newly forming “Beyonce Butt” vanished in an instant. All the sudden, I found myself in the bathroom, turned around, staring at my butt in the mirror. This is not a new occurrence for me, but usually I’m asking myself if my butt is too flat. This time, I was asking myself if my butt was getting a little on the large side. Right then and there, I resolved to cut my “daily hostess brand product consumption” to only one per day (as opposed to my usual 3 +).

I’ve decided that one of God’s main purposes in having us bare & raise children is to keep us humble. Whenever we start thinking we are hot stuff, those little “angels” are RIGHT THERE to remind us otherwise with their ever faithful truth-telling! So, yes, apparently I’ve gone from having a “flat butt” to having a “fat butt”…at least according to Connor. –Lindsay

p.s. To all of you who now think I’m anorexic or body dismorphic or whatever…know that I just broke my own rules and ate a 2nd ding dong for the day…just to prove to you that I’m not! (Do you see the things I do for you people!?!) I may be upset about having a “fat butt”, but I’m not upset enough to start eating carrots instead of carbs (unless the carrots are LOADED with ranch dressing! Ummm….ranch, that sounds good! Got to go…)!

Well, I had another ultrasound on Monday and we got some good news & some bad news. I always prefer to hear bad news first, so I'll start with that.

Bad News: Cohen is still a boy! :) (You were expecting much worse, weren't you?) I was secretly hoping that his "extra appendage" would magically fall off, but alas...it's still definitely there! (I'm just kidding for all of you that think I'm a "boy hater". We're just drowning in testosterone over here, so some estrogen would be nice at some point!)

So flippin' cute! And, if your baby can look cute in an ultrasound photo, you KNOW he's going to be a handsome one! --Lindsay

Well, another general conference weekend has come and gone. We did all the usual traditions that we usually do, but this year was slightly different. After our yummy waffle breakfast, it is usually impossible for me (with my 3:00 am wake-up call) to keep my eyes open any longer, so I tend to do this...

Unfortunately, I did not get to enjoy my long, lovely sleep-through-the-afternoon-session nap (like Aiden did). Instead, I got the "privilege" of doing this...

We spent the day attaching, stuffing & labeling Kristin's wedding invitations...all 400 of them. And, these were not simple invitations either...they were extremely elaborate invitations that had to be "assembled". We started working on them around noon, right as the morning session got over, and we didn't stop for the rest of the day (except for a few short breaks). In fact, when I left at 8:00 last night, my mom, dad, Kristin & Dan were still feverishly labeling each and every one of them! It was the biggest pain in the butt, but...hey...at least it got us out of wrestling the kids for the day (because of this, we actually were able to LISTEN to General Conference--what a novel idea!), and we got to sit around and just chat with each other. Here's the finished product...


So, it wasn't a TOTALLY normal General Conference weekend, but it was still lots of fun! And, I think the invitations turned out pretty darn awesome, if I do say so myself. What do you think? --Lindsay

My parents bought this shirt for Aiden a few weeks ago. If you can't read it very well, it says, "This is my time out shirt. I wear it all day long." This shirt is EXTREMELY appropriate for Aiden! This kid is SOOOOOOOOOOO defiant! Let me give you just one of many examples... Aiden is obsessed lately with touching my curtains. This is a huge pet peeve of mine...curtains are to be looked at, not touched...especially by grubby little two-year-old hands. So, what does he do? He walks over and stands by them, waits until I'm looking, and then he shakes them with a little devious smirk on his face! He makes me so mad...and yet at the same time, he totally cracks me up because he thinks he is so funny! Sometimes it is so hard to discipline him without totally busting up!

Anyway, needless to say, he spends a lot of time in time out...hence, why the shirt is ultra appropriate! If anyone has any ideas for kicking deviousness in the butt, let me know. At this rate, I'll be in BIG trouble by the time he's a teenager! And, chances are "time outs" won't work too well at that point! Oh sigh...I did NOT sign up for this! --Lindsay

Mike was blessed or cursed (however you want to look at it) with a plethora of testos-terone. I swear it just seeps out of his pores! Because of this, Mike is not lacking in the hair department. Apparently, Connor is not fond of Mike's "hair growing talent". Here's a conversation that went down between the two of them the other night.

Connor was reading one of his school books when he stopped suddenly and said, "Dad! You've GOT to do something about that arm hair! It is just embarrassing to me!"

Mike laughed at him and they went on reading the book. When they were done, Mike got up to leave and Connor said, "Dad! I'm serious! You've got to be careful with hair like that! You could poke someone's eye out or something!"

Unfortunately for Connor, he will probably suffer the same fate as his old man someday. Hopefully, he does something about it so eyes everywhere can stay safe! --Lindsay