Update #3- May (so far)

Phew! Once this update is done, I am all caught up, and I can start making posts that are not a mile long. Well, May started out with a fun trip to San Diego to hang out with my mom after her surgery. She is recovering very well, and it was nice getting to spend time with her for a few days... even if her house is the scariest place on earth with 20 different doors leading outside and walls and ceilings that make crazy noises all night. I didn't bring my camera along for that trip, so no pictures here. But there are pictures of Davis in the superhero cape and mask that I brought home for him from Grandma Tamara. He is completely superhero obsessed right now, and this has only added to the obsession. He literally did not take off his cape and mask for about a week straight, as you will see from some of the pictures. He does make a pretty cute little superhero though.

Mother's day was low key and nice this year. I got to see one of my favorite families ever- the Passics. Jyl and her family were in town for her little sister's graduation from her graduate program. After church, we drove out to West Jordan to hang out for a little bit, and I'm so glad I did. I got to meet Jyl's darling little Alice and spend a few hours with some of my favorite people. Good times. After that, we went to Bry's parents house for the usual Sunday dinner... only this time it was entirely prepared by the men, so us womenfolk got a nice little break. Bry got me a massage package for my mother's day present, and I can't wait to use it!

Bryson has been busy with his sports teams lately. He plays on an indoor soccer league with some guys from church, and he plays on his work softball team. Davis and I love going to watch him and cheer him on. Davis is the best cheering section... he screams things at the top of his lungs like, "Go, Daddy! You can do it!" "Yes! That's my daddy!" "Way to go Daddy! GO!" etc etc. He also likes making new friends at the games. Every time we've gone, he has spent most of the game playing on the sidelines with a new buddy and having a blast. I can't wait until Davis is old enough to play on his own teams. In the meantime, Bryson is doing a great job representing the family, and he seems to be having fun doing it.

The final pictures in the slide show are proof that Davis needs a little sibling. We were babysitting Brody the other night, and Davis was so happy to have his little buddy over. When it was time for Brody to go to bed, Davis had to get in the crib with him for a minute before he was willing to part with him for the night. Davis also loves, loves, loves his cousins. I babysit them every week, but I never remember to bring my camera over there, so I never blog about it. He asks to go to Chase's house (or Rose's house or Sadie's house... depending on the day, you never know whose house it will be) every day. He also remembers to be thankful for all of his cousins every night in his prayers. He has so much fun playing with them and is always sad to leave them. I can't wait for his baby sister to arrive so that he will have a little friend around all the time!

Update #2- April

So the obvious big event for April was Easter. We had been having some nice spring weather until Easter rolled around, and then it snowed. So we had our easter egg hunt inside this year. Davis was still really excited to find all of his eggs and see what the easter bunny brought him. He looked adorable in his new Easter outfit that aunt Summy bought him. He dyed about a million eggs and made a gigantic mess, but he had fun doing it.

The other big event for the month was Pam's 60th birthday party. We had it at the stake center, catered food, decorated with pretty spring colors, put on a talent show, made a slideshow of her life, etc, etc. She loved it. All of her kids grew up on stage, mostly because she constantly made them get up there, but now they are all a bunch of hams and love performing. And of course she ate it all up. Even the grandkids got in on the fun. Apparently Davis takes after his dad because he loved being on stage with the microphone in his mouth... we had a hard time getting him off when he was done.

Other than that, we spent the month outside on the days that the weather was cooperating and inside on the days it wasn't. We spent an evening at the tulip festival, which was beautiful, as always. Davis spent quite a few days at the animal farm. He loves riding the horses, feeding the goats, and throwing rocks in the water. He also loves going with his buddies... we didn't get pictures of all of his outings (sometimes because I had too many kids and not enough hands to take pictures), but we did our best. Davis was thrilled when Aunt Mary went out of town and he got to spend a few days in a row with his cousins 24/7 (no pictures from that adventure).

As usual, I am very indecisive and put up way too many pictures, but you don't have to look if you don't want to! I threw in some belly shots for Grandma Lucky... there will be more coming in May.

Update #1 - March

Shocking, I am behind again. I have big plans to update the last 3 months in the next few days and then be right back on track.
So, the first big event in March was potty training. I probably should have done this earlier, but as a first time parent, I was very intimidated. It actually went really well, for the most part. Davis started going #1 in the potty almost immediately and had very few accidents, with no major accidents that made it to the carpet... but he was afraid to go #2 in the potty for the first week or so. He would go hide in a room or corner when I wasn't looking and go in his pants. Super fun. He kept telling me that it was going to hurt, or some other excuse. We finally had some success after a TON of bribery, including but not limited to, a date with Aunt Summy to go get ice cream and toys, special superhero poo poo toys from mom and dad, candy, etc... not to mention the very exciting song and dance performed by me when said task was finally completed. I'm so glad that we are finally done with that exciting phase!

The other big events in March were the Fablehaven parties. Brandon's 5th and final book in the Fablehaven series was released in March. So, of course there was the big launch party with thousands of Brandon's biggest fans, which I will get to in a minute. But before that, Mary wanted to throw Brandon a Farewell to Fablehaven party to celebrate the passing of this era in his life. She did an amazing job. Fun decorations, yummy cafe rio catering, really fun games, an auction with items donated from all of the Fablehaven characters (which we used Nero's gold coins to auction with, so we didn't actually have to spend any of our own money!), very fun people, and generally a great time. I helped with some of the decorations, which turned out really cute... I even taught myself how to make those tissue paper pom poms and made those for the first time. (If you're wondering, I was also responsible for the personalized water and soda bottles... an idea I happily stole from Jessie).

Finally the launch party was a huge success as well. Every year, Bryson's mom dresses up as Muriel the witch, and other family members or friends dress up as other characters from the book. After the show, while fans are waiting in ridiculously long lines to have Brandon sign their books, they can meet some of the characters, take pictures, etc. Well, this year, in addition to participating in the Divine Comedy portion of the show, Bryson also ended up as one of the characters. He and Ty were the Satyrs, Newel and Doren. He did a great job and was actually a big hit. All of the characters had to perform in the opening and closing numbers of the show this year, and everyone loved Bryson as a satyr. He was hilarious. You can look up Fablehaven 5 launch party on youtube and probably find a short video clip. Anyway, the show was great, thousands of screaming fans were very entertained and happy to wait around for hours to meet Brandon, and everything went very well. Davis and I had to leave right after the show was done because he was a little sick and wasn't up for sticking around to watch daddy sign books and take pictures with strangers, but we still had fun. We are so proud of Brandon and excited for his next series to come out. It has been so fun to watch him rise from an unknown to such a huge success!

Okay, now that I've put most of you to sleep, here are a few slideshows from March. Enjoy!