May is the month for Birthdays!!

May 25

Today is my Grandpa Hutchings birthday and I wanted to give him a little birthday tribute. He would be 77 today! He died almost 4 years ago in a car accident driving from St. George to Salt Lake to visit the family and we all miss him so much.


He was such an amazing person. He was completely selfless and his family always came first. He lived to make his family happy and he was such a huge part of all of our lives.



I think this is my favorite picture of me and my grandpa. I remember him always taking us for rides in the car and buying us ice cream. He was always singing and a couple of the songs I remember him singing were 'Who is That Doggy in the Window' and 'Take Me Out to The Ballgame'.

He was there for graduations, weddings, sporting events, good times, bad times, almost every memory I have growing up involves my grandpa.

I love you Grandpa and miss your cute smile and warm hugs.





MAY 24
Happy Birthday to my big sister Jen! I found this just today while looking through some other pictures and thought it was so funny! I have no idea when it was taken, but I remember making those scary faces... actually, don't you still make those all the time?

Ten things I love about Jen:

She is the most generous person I know
She is very selfless

She knows how to make me laugh until I cry

She knows everything anyone could possibly want to know about Jewelry
She is an expert with make up as well
She is always there when you need her
She makes the best chocolate chip cookies
She tries to make everyone happy
She loves my kids and is a great aunt

She is an amazing big sister

MAY 31

Happy Birthday to my step-dad Pat. He doesn't get a lot of recognition, and doesn't like to be in pictures, so I had a hard time finding one of him. He is also very generous and would do anything for anyone. He has done so much for us and is so cute with the grandkids. He always wants the whole family to be together and is so great at making that happen. We love you and appreciate you very much!

And finally I want to give a big happy birthday to four of my best buddies, all of whom I have known since Jr. High... going on 17 years!! These girls all have birthdays in May, within 9 nine days of each other, so it makes them easy to remember :)






This fun picture was taken in 9th grade at Lagoon.

May 23

Katie who could forget those awesome prom dresses! We always had so much fun together and no matter how much time has gone by we can pick up right where we left off! We will accomplish our goal of running a marathon together, if it takes us until we are 50!

May 31

Kris we have had some awesome times! We could always be silly together and I'm so glad we live so close and can still hang out all the time.

May 28

Rachel has always been the crazy one! She is hilarious and now lives in Colorado so far away! But don't forget we are planning to celebrate the big 3-0 with everyone when you come to visit in June!

May 22
Sadie I love that we still see each other often and can reminisce about the good old days. You are still as spunky as ever!

This last one is from my wedding shower with the girls

I love you guys and hope you all have a great 30th Birthday! We are now officially old but still have the best years ahead!

Luke is sick today and threw up all over me and the bench at church and has thrown up numerous times since... poor little guy! It's funny though, that when kids are sick they are extra cuddley... I guess that is the reward you get for having to clean up vomit all day, at least you get some cuddle time!



I was just thinking how crazy it is to be a mom and the hard times you have to go through with sickness and tantrums and countless other things, but how I wouldn't trade those things for anything! I love being a mom and am so happy I have two cute boys.



I was looking through some pictures today and found a funny video of Thatcher. This was taken in April of 2006, about two months before he turned two. This kid was always a riot and had so many amazing little quirks. This is also for my mom... we had to teach him to hold up his hands and say "no cookies and no candy" because she loved to give him sugar when she babysat, so we were trying to teach him to decline her offers of sweets... I forgot about that, so funny! Mom, I think this still pertains!!


















Mat gave me one of these for Mother's Day and I totally love it!!

I'm excited to finally have an ipod of my own to load up with my favorite songs... which are vastly different from those of my husband, so sharing one was just not working out!

I wanted to add a picture of Luke just because he is so cute!

We are back from our vacation to Mexico... and am happy to say that all the worrying and nightmares were for nothing, it was paradise! And we returned to find the kids alive and well nourished... I think we will just have to do this more often!

Before we left I had had countless nightmares about getting to the hotel and it being a roach infested shack, or it not existing at all or having bed bugs and being totally disgusting. But lucky for us it was beautiful AND clean!

We went diving in Cozumel one day and saw amazing things.... huge nurse sharks, sea turtles, two lobsters the size of me, parrot fish, barracudas, a sting ray... It was so AWESOME!

We went horse back riding another day and got to ride the horses into the ocean bare back.That was a really cool experience. Other than that we just laid on the beach or by the pool and relaxed.

We went with our good friends Kristina and Jaron and had a blast with them. Jaron and Mat seem to have the same sense of humor and were amused at how funny they could be. I was thoroughly entertained by them both and had stomach aches from laughing so hard.

I would definitely do an all-inclusive hotel again. It was nice to be in a little tropical city of its own and feel like I never had to leave if I didn't want to. They had food, entertainment, relaxation, and fun all at our fingertips. What more could we possibly want in a vacation?

Most of all it was fun to have Mat all to myself for an entire week!!

So Thatcher survived his first soccer game on Saturday, just barely though! He started out really pumped and got right out there and started running around. He made sure to stop and wave to us about every 5 seconds, it was pretty funny. I don't think he was at all aware of the ball he was supposed to be chasing, let alone the other players on the field. He lasted about 2 minutes and that was all he could muster. He decided that was all the soccer playing he had bargained for, and spent the remainder of the game on the side lines.





Here is Mat trying to coax him into getting back onto the field.










I also attempted to bribe him into playing some more, but there was nothing we could say to make him change his mind.

After the game he explained that the wind was to blame and how could we expect him to play in those conditions? He said he will try harder next week... if the weather permits


It was fun to find out that I went to high school with his coach. He was really cute with him, for the couple minutes he was in the game at the very end, he let Thatcher hold his hand while he ran around and gave instructions on the field.

Thatcher is such a fun boy, I feel really lucky to be his mom!




This is the scene Mat and I will be looking at for the next seven days...

We are off to Mexico as a present to ourselves for turning 30! That was hard work! Well, Mat isn't 30 yet, but will be soon. This will help ease the aging process. A little bit of relaxation is all we need...

I feel really anxious all of the sudden about leaving my boys for that long! Will they be fine for that long without me? I know they will be in good loving hands... Thanks to those of you who are taking turns with them! They will probably have a lot of fun and never even think of us for that week we're gone. We are so lucky to have such a great family who is willing to help!

We will surely post an update when we return to describe all the fun that was had...

HOORAY for warmth, bottles, and of course the Office!!


I was so excited to finally see some good weather this weekend! It's about freakin time! It was a long, long, long winter! But we took full advantage of the sunny skies and played outside all weekend.



I know noone ever thinks your kid is as cute as you do, but he is such a stud! I have to post some pics of Thatch in his soccer gear that we put him in for the first time yesterday. I played soccer for a long time and wanted to show him some mad skills. He is totally a natural! His first game is next Saturday and he is so excited, he is going to rock the soccer field. (I'm fully aware that once the game starts none of them will have any idea what they're doing and it will be a fun 45 minutes of kids falling and running into each other) But I think it's worth the money to get him to run around for two hours a week and drain his energy.








No this is not an illusion, Luke is weaned and taking a bottle!! Oh happy day! I never thought it would happen after trying for weeks and weeks and getting nothing but resistance. He is one stubborn boy. But Tuesday morning, it finally happened. He gave in after just a couple hours of starvation. He actually caved a lot sooner than I thought he would!






A whole new world has opened up! I no longer have to take hours out of my day nursing. I can fix him a bottle and he can feed himself. I decided that bottles are the best thing ever! Why it has taken me so long to realize this I will never know. All I know is that I am a changed person because of them.

Who wasn't excited about the new episode of the Office?!? Mat and I have been lovingly referring to each other as "Babe" ever since that episode... oh the crazy antics of Michael and Jan.

I wait with great anticipation for the following shows each week... American Idol, Biggest Loser, The Office, and LOST. I don't even feel so pathetic now with the blessed invention of the Tivo! My life doesn't have to revolve around tv schedules anymore, I can watch them all at my leisure. This probably doesn't make me less pathetic... just pathetic with a little more time.

There is a really funny show on FX that my brother in law alerted us to called 'It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.' Its hilarious, but offends everyone. So if you are offended easily I wouldn't recommend it...

Sunny California

Over Easter weekend we drove to California for a wedding for some friends of Mat's family.


It was amazing and definitely worth the drive, we had a lot of fun! Both the brides family and the grooms are Samoan and they know how to throw a party! Here is a pic of us enjoying the festivities and eating dinner.

I wasn't sure what the majority of the food was on my plate, but it was all really good and interesting!



Here is an overhead view of what the room looked like. There were a ton of people. It was decorated with a lot of bright and happy colors. They had a program planned for 3 hours of the reception and this is where all of the entertainment began!





They had people perform from both sides of the family... singing, dancing, it was amazing. Here is Thatcher enjoying watching some of the girls dancing while sitting on his Nana's lap.



We were thoroughly entertained!




We woke up the next morning to a beautiful Easter morning. Thatcher was quite impressed that the Easter Bunny could deliver to our hotel room!




















After the wedding instead of driving home we decided to go to Seaworld for a day. I have never been and was really excited about it! Here are some pics from our fun adventure.

HAPPY ST. PATIRICKS DAY !

ST. PATRICKS DAY








Thatcher woke up this morning to find that a leprechaun had turned his breakfast green...

I thought he would be excited, but he was quite perturbed. He didn't appreciate that a leprechaun would break into our house and turn his eggs green, apparently he doesn't like green eggs!

He's funny because he has been so excited about St. Patricks day for a couple of weeks after learing all about it in school... painting shamrocks and looking for gold at the end of the rainbow.

After I explained to him that the eggs still taste the same, they are just green for St. Patricks Day, he decided to try them and said, Hey! I like green eggs! Now he is happy again and insisted that we all wear green for this special holiday.

So here are the boys decked out in green

We will be keeping a lookout for leprechauns while on our excursions today