photo overload

 Like I said before, it takes a lot of convincing for me to sit down and blog. 

Some of our life in photos with short captions.

 Easter Egg hunt in Grandma's backyard.

 Easter festivities, my Mother in law sent me this really cute scavenger hunt to find their Easter baskets.

 Their Easter baskets were hidden in the garage.

 Easter pictures before church, kids cooperating as usual.

 Ben thought he was funny, I put the camera on a timer and it would take 10 pictures all in a row. He was doing some crazy poses, this was just one of the frames.

 Spring break in Las Vegas

 View from the hotel balcony, taken with my fish eye adapter.

 Our walk to the Bellagio to see the fountains.

 Once we got there and waited 10 or so minutes, an announcement came over and said due to high winds no fountain show.

 Waiting for the show to start.

Ben thinks he is funny when I am trying to take his picture.

Kids are back to school this week, from a nice spring break. 

Ben is deeply involved in hockey playoffs.

Alivia is starting piano lessons next week, she also passed off all of her times tables, onto division.

Cooper is getting Baptized this Saturday, more blogging to come about that (not sure how timely it will be)

He has been surprising me the last few days/weeks, he sat down to do his homework and I didn't have to be by his side the whole time and he also said that he was going to finish it before he went out to play.

He also hung up his church pants without me asking him.....say what?

Bauer is such a easy going little dude, not much in his little kindergarten world.

Kessler is also growing up and becoming more and more independent. He will now FINALLY put his own seatbelt on, he also has been saying, basically after everything you say "that's a good idea" it was very comical for a while.

April Update

Sneak peak of Cooper and his Easter/Baptism outfit. Easter pics to come.

Ben is at it again, not to mention the gardening and cleaning up the yard. He started a new playhouse for the kids. He copied the plans from a brochure we picked up.  We'll see how it turns out. 

Alivia posing her baby to takes some picture of her, she has recently started her blog. But is somewhat embarrassed to publish it . I hope she changes her mind the picture that she takes of things and her comment about them is pretty funny.

Ben's version of watching Conference. Multi-tasking:)

This is a picture of the base of the playhouse (picture taken through the window while it was raining)

Kids and their chores.

Cooper is doing good in school. He tries really hard to be a good boy. He gets really good comments about his behavior but still struggles to not feel overwhelmed when he has a lot (he thinks) placed before him. We have tried and tried to help him approach things in different ways. He is getting better slowly.

Alivia is doing well, she still does choir and has been working on her spring musical. Her part is a Cavarello (sp?) 

She loves to play outside with her friends, and has some really great friends, they sometimes disagree like sisters but then love each other again like sisters. 

Bauer and Kessler are doing well, Bauer came home from school today and said that he didn't want to go to school tomorrow. FIRST time ever he has said that, I questioned him, and he finally said that someone was being mean to him at recess and pushing him down. It broke my heart....we talked about what was ok and what was not. He then commented he would try and go to school again and not let that person do that anymore.

Kessler is so easy going he hangs with mom all day and just does his thing, he latest thing he likes to make his own breakfast and lunch, he tries to pour himself a bowl of cereal and sometimes is a disaster. Lunch is usually a little easier. 2 pieces of bread one slice of cheese. He puts the 2 slices of bread on top of each other and then the cheese on top. Whatever works right?

Getting egg-cited for Easter and Spring break, we are taking a quick trip south and are luckily found out some neighbors will be there at the same time. So we joined up and stayed at the same hotel. Hopefully we have some good weather so we can hang at the pool most of the stay.

Things coming up.

Meeting a new little baby, Keri-Ann (family friend)

Kindergarten Spring Party

Easter Egg hunt

Easter

Bauer's primary talk

Spring break

Andrea's birthday (hence the picture spotlight at the top) yes from high school:)

Happy Birthday to the Baby!

Kessler had a birthday and it is so CRAZY that he is 4, a couple times thought it was his second birthday. Where has the time gone?

He was so excited the morning of his birthday, it was Saturday and so everyone was home and they were all so excited to see what his presents were.

 Excited brothers

 We love transformers at this house!

 We took him Friday to choose a cake for his birthday, that had all the cool boy cakes available, Spiderman, Transformers, Iron man, Mickey Mouse, Sponge bob, you name it they had it, and he chose....Angry Birds.They did such a cute job, I didn't want a big sheet cake so we changed it up and did a little 7" cake and put all the fun things on it for him.

 A few pictures before church.

 Lots of fun things going on in the next little bit, General Conference, Easter, CANDY, Spring Break (hopefully somewhere warm we will go for a few days anyway) Cooper's Baptism, My birthday!!

Ben has been in crazy yard, garden mode again. I can't complain I do love the fact he likes to work outside and we can "try" and keep up on our yard. LOTS to do still but we made a major dent today and are getting ready to start some of our seeds for the garden, a few changes this year......Ben made some planter boxes and I dedicated one that is called the Salsa box, tomatoes, jalapenos,  cilantro, onions, peppers....we will see how it turns out.

He also splurged with some tax money this year and bought a roto-tiller. It is very nice to not have to rent one or borrow one. We bought the display model, our usual M.O. and got it for a great price let's hope it lasts us for a while.

Blah to blogging

I have had ZERO desire to blog and especially on these BEAUTIFUL days we have had. Life is good around these parts. I went on an amazing girls weekend to Idaho Falls, it was better than I thought it would be.
There are way too many highlights to mention, although I am considering buying the DVD that comes from the weekend so I won't ever forget the wonderful feeling I had while I was there.
The theme was "See the Good" and there were many spin offs of that and I really enjoyed it.

We have had family in town all the way from Canada, and have taken ZERO pictures what is wrong with me.
I am going to have to go all crazy and take a lot of pics in one day to make up for all that I have lacked.

Kessler's birthday is Saturday, the baby is 4....so crazy, as much as I hate the saying time flies, it sure does.

Maybe I will have more to say tomorrow.....probably not.....

ps, the Relief Society dinner we were in charge of was awesome!! yeah for surrounding yourself with amazing people.

March update

I unfortunately don't have a lot of photos to download. I have had my camera up on the shelf and haven't used it much even though we have had some adventures.
First was Coopers Birthday his REAL birthday. We treated him to a hockey game, at one point he said "I didn't ask for this, I just wanted a Darth Maul mask and light saber." Had I only known?
We took a quick trip on Delta down to PHX and stayed at a Marriott, my first choice in hotels always, but they are usually to pricey and so we end up somewhere else. But the price was right.
We ended up buying me and Alivia nose bleed seats for the Hockey game, Alivia did not want to go in true girl fashion she said "Mom why can't we go get our nails done or something?" That's my girl!!
Ben and Cooper had AMAZING seats, 4th row on the Canucks attack side, you should have seen Ben's face and how much it lite up when he saw where they were sitting. I didn't bring my camera, but we got lots of cell phone pics and video that I will upload later.

We came home Wednesday had cake for Coopers birthday.  Thursday morning, Ben and I dropped the kids off at school and dropped Kessler off at Grandma's we flew to LA to see the Conan O'Brien show. It was more waiting than anything! we showed up at 1:30 like they said, checked in and then they said be back at 3:00.....great you can't really go anywhere in LA in an hour and half and do anything fun, so we just hung out. 3:00 rolled around and they lined us up and had us walk over to the Warner Brothers Studios, that was probably the coolest part is seeing the studios. Then they had a wait in a roller coaster line gated area for another 45 minutes and then walked us over to his studio and waited another 30 minutes for the show to start. All said and done it was a fun experience but will most likely never do it again. Sorry Coco! after the show we jetted for the LAX airport and flew to Las Vegas for the night, the hotels were cheaper 27$ to be exact and the flights were easier.

 I have decided I don't like flying stand by with Ben, I could sit in the airport for hours. I don't want to but I could, he gets stressed and grouchy! The one thing about me, is I cannot be late I get so stressed out and grouchy! we were trying to get to the airport to catch a 7pm flight to Vegas, if we missed it we would have to wait for the 9pm. We were going through security with 15 minutes until the flight left. LUCKILY we cruised through security and our gate was the first one. They barely let us on. SO CRAZY!!

 Poor Cooper, he doesn't totally understand his birthday, I even wrote it down for him with a diagram trying to explain it. Well we gave him a hat that said today is my real Birthday. So everyone kept wishing him a happy birthday and asking him if he was two. The final straw the Pilot on the airplane saw him walk in and saw it was his birthday and invited him into the flight deck. Cooper came back and sat down in a huff, I said what's wrong. He said I AM NOT TWO!! I cracked up. Poor kid!

 We got a piano, the piano I learned on as a kid. My sister has been the keeper of this and hasn't necessarily taken very good care of it. So we begged to have it moved to our house. I have been brushing up on some of the hymns and my mom recently found most of the books I learned on even the dates I passed the songs off. Like February 6, 1986!! Crazy!

 A after church ritual Spaghetti and Kessler always gets stripped down, you can see why.

Things coming up for the Whidden's
We have to speak in church........crap!
Kindergarten Donut Date
Andrea's girls weekend in Idaho Falls, with the Time out for women! SO excited!
Kesslers Birthday! 4 years old!!
My new calling Relief Society Enrichment leader, helping put on the Relief Society birthday party!