Ben's Birthday & St. George

Ben's Birthday was March 12th, and our anniversary (6 years!) was the 14th. We usually make a big deal of the anniversary so this year I was determined to make a bigger deal of his birthday. So in the morning Ben came down to a decorated house, a candle in his grapefruit, (I know a little lame but he's been on a diet and usually doesn't even eat breakfast, but he's lost 20+ pounds!)
and presents! He got a Life Jacket. That's what he wanted, I have no idea why. I think in hopes of having many adventures on other peoples boats this summer.
That night we headed down to St. George for a little get away. We had a great drive down, the kids slept most of the way and we listened to Dave Ramsey.
Friday we all slept in a little and my sweet Aunt Kay, whom we were staying with, made us a great breakfast. We then went swimming and went shopping later in the afternoon. A few weeks before this Ben had mentioned that he's always wanted an Ice Cream Cake, so as my Aunt and I were out we stopped at Cold Stone and brought home this...


It was delicious! Ben was totally surprised.

Saturday we decided to go to the Washington City pool and it was super fun!

Garett was pretty indifferent to his first swimming adventures. Not crying but not happy and splashing.

Grace absolutely loved it and we had a great time relaxing in the warm water, and playing outside in the sun.

After nap time we decided to head out and enjoy the weather. We just drove around a little and ended up by the Temple. We pointed it out to Grace and she declared that she wanted to go in, so we headed into the visitor center. As soon as we walked in she said, "That is a Big Big Jesus!"
She was pretty much in Awe.

Then we went out to the Temple grounds. I think this is such a beautiful Temple! Grace even smiled nicely and let me take her picture.

Then she had to try.

We had a great trip and enjoyed the warm weather and just spending time together!

The Dinosaur Museum

Our last Legislative Activity we went to was on Feb. 24 at the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point. This is such a fun place and it's even better now that Grace is old enough to enjoy some of the activities. It helps also that she has a Dad who is really a little kid at heart and enjoys the activities as much as she does.

Here is Nathan, Grandma Harper, Daniel and Grace.
The whole group minus me.

G & G with the two babies.

"Excavating!"

A family Portrait.

Garett hanging with the Dino.

After we walked through the museum we saw the 3D Dinosaur movie they had. It was pretty neat, Grace thought it was Scary.

Grace & Garett

Life is GOOD! I seriously have 2 of the cutest kids ever. Grace has been super mouthy lately, but I'm starting to rub off a little and every once in a while I'll get a very polite question coming out of her mouth- that includes please and May I? So I know it's working slowly. Garett has had an ear infection for the past week, but the sweet kid doesn't even give any signs except slight ornerieness. He is still as huggable and loveable and as kissable as can be! I LOVE BEING A MOM!

Grace loves sharing her blanket, and everything else with Garett. If she isn't smacking him with it she sharing it and loving him. Usually one leads to the other.
She is such a great sister, I often find them next to each other with her reading him books or singing a song to him to calm him down. It is so sweet!

I hope she always loves him this much!

And I'm back....

So my computer broke AGAIN!!!! That's the 3rd time since December. I'm bugged. But it's back and working so I will try to catch up since I'm like 2 month behind. (I like to do my posts in order because this is the only journaling I've ever been good at and I'm doing it for me to remember).

So at the end of February Garett finally met his Great Grandma Ridge. She was down for a short visit and we had to do a 4 Generations picture.

Me, Grandma Ridge holding Garett, and my mom.

Here is a good smiling one!
It was so much fun to see her!

My Birthday & the Discovery Gateway

My Birthday was fantastic this year! Ben took the day off to celebrate with me. He let me sleep in and made me this wonderful breakfast! It was delicious!

After we all got ready we headed up to Ben's parents to drop the kids so we could go Birthday shopping. He figured the money would be wiser spent by taking me shopping than buying actual gifts. He was right, and I was spoiled! Check out my new shirt, I love it!
And my four (oops, five!) new pairs of shoes thanks to the money from my Dad and Grandpa!

After shopping Ben and I picked up Garett and went to dinner at Texas Roadhouse, my absolute new favorite restaurant! In the meantime Grace headed downtown with the Granparents and cousins to the Discovery Gateway Childrens Museum. Another fun Legislative Activity. Here they are riding trax downtown.

I don't know what most of these pictures are since I wasn't there to chase her around, but they seem fairly explanatory. This place looks like so much fun!

Team Penning!

Another fun Legislative activity was Team Penning out in Tooelle! I have never done this before and it was a ton of fun. The basic point of the activity was to get the cow with your number into the pen. There were teams of 3 horses, and boy it is a lot harder than it looks! Here is Ben's Dad giving it a go. His team did really well the first time. They got one calf in....and then it escaped.

Usually only the legislatures participate, but Wayne signed Ben up for a round. He was pretty good on his horse. Here's an action shot of him chasing after some cows.
My only goal of the day was to get on a horse. So during "half time" we went down for some riding. Grace LOVED it! She kept telling Ben to go after the cows and they rode for a good fifteen minutes.

Then it was my turn. I got up there with a little help.... and then my horse wouldn't move! Ben said "you've got to kick it in the ribs" and I said, "I'm kicking I'm kicking". Apparently I wasn't kicking hard enough. After a few lessons from the local cowboys I finally got him moving, kind of. I rode around for a few minutes and then was done. So some guy held my horse so I could dismount and yep....my boot got stuck in the stirrup and I ended up flat on my back! He felt so bad he quickly helped me back up and I just laughed at myself and could see the whole family laughing along with me. Luckily they didn't get any pictures of that!

Here's Garett hanging out. He'll have to wait until next year for his first ride on a horse, and I'm definately going to send him with his Daddy!

The Living Planet Aquarium

Thanks to Ben's dad who is a State Legislature we got to do lost of fun family activities during the past legislative session. Our first fun one was the Aquarium! Grace had a blast! They have a whole section dedicated to Utah's fish and nature. The have a "boat" you can drive and the kids spent a good 15 minutes waiting and fighting over who got to drive. Here is Grace taking her turn.

I love this picture of Grace kissing the tank, or maybe she's just trying to be a fish.
Nemo!!!! It's not a good trip to the Aquarium until we find this little guy.
Mommy and Garett. As with most things he was pretty indifferent about the experience. Still just as happy and content as can be though.
The Sting Ray tank. I think Grace got the tail of one, but they were pretty smart and stayed in the deeper water away from the little hands.

They also had a whole station where you could touch star fish and other sea animals, they have a show with talking Birds and they just opened a whole section of South America fish and animals. It's not a huge aquarium but it was a lot of fun and I would love to go again soon!