nothing better

There is nothing better than listening to Brady's belly laugh after a long day.

(Ryan is fake burping and then trying to blame other people by saying, "Excuse you, mom!" We think that kind of stuff is funny around here.)

Winter Came Back for 1/2 a Day

It snowed last night and this morning we woke up to a winter wonderland! The boys and I played in the snow after breakfast and then headed up to Salt Lake to go sledding at Grandma Great's house. It was a fun morning and early afternoon and now the snow is all melted and we are looking forward to the rest of the week being in the 60's! Bring on Spring!

Lindsey's Birthday Dinner

One awesome thing about being back at BYU is having Sunday dinners with my sister, Lindsey, each week. Tomorrow is Lindsey's birthday so this week I decided to be sneaky and invite some of her friends over and have my grandma come down and have a surprise birthday dinner in place of our routine Sunday dinner. My sister, Anne, even came down from Rexburg to celebrate with us! Lindsey was surprised and it was awesome. (see videos below)
Lindsey's favorite meal is Hawaiian haystacks (thank you Lindsey!) so that's what we had.

Some of the guests:

The birthday girl:

Lindsey and Brady make for the cutest pictures:Group shot:
It was super fun to have both of my sisters in one place!

Happy Birthday Lindsey! Thanks for being born!

St. Patrick's Day!

St. Patrick's Day was yesterday. Ryan's favorite color is green and ever since I told him about St. Patrick's day back in February he has been asking me about it. My mom knew it was going to be a fun day for him and sent a package a couple weeks back. Since then, the anticipation has grown with each passing day!

Ryan and Brady wore their green shirts from Grandma Jodi to church last Sunday and for the past week Ryan has been asking me every morning, "Is it St. Patrick's Day today!?" It was so fun to finally tell him, "Yes!" and go celebrate!

We started the morning off with green pancakes. They were a hit!

I was so happy that Ryan knew what the whipped cream was supposed to be. He excitedly told me, "It's a shamrock!" when I put it in front of him. He told me he played a game with shamrocks in it at preschool. Thank you Holly!
This picture is awesome. Ryan was sick of smiling so I told him to get excited and say "It's St. Patrick's Day!" This was my attempt at catching the excited face.

We had decorations.

And we all wore GREEN!The party really began once Zach's sister, Kylene, and her family came at lunch time. We set the kids up at their own table and they loved it. Ryan loves his cousins so much and they had a blast all day long playing with each other!

For lunch they had green grapes, celery, green jello, green macaroni and cheese and green lemon lime juice. For dessert: Green cupcakes!!!
The older boys went the park while the littlest boys napped, had a shamrock scavenger hunt and went to Jump Around Town after dinner. It was a fun day!
By dinner time I had run out of green food ideas- but it didn't seem to dampen the mood at all!
I can't believe all the Bellows' grandsons can sit at their own "kids table" at family dinners. It is awesome.

Thanks for the fun day Brooks family and J&Kristen!

Until next St. Patrick's day...

we have already started a countdown. :)

Lindsey's Birthday Videos

We had a little surprise birthday dinner for Lindsey tonight. She turns 20 tomorrow! Here are a few videos we took:

This is her just arriving. At first she just sees the birthday banner and is surprised, then Ryan pops out and yells, "Surprise!" and then everyone jumps out. Her reaction was awesome.

My mom bought Lindsey a Wii for her birthday. Lindsey had no idea. She mentioned it in an email as a "know I'll never get it but I'll throw this out there" item on her birthday wish list. It was so fun to watch her open it in person!

This is your standard birthday cake video. Notice how badly Brady wants to touch the fire on the candles. haha.

Happy Birthday Lindsey! We love you!

Tubing

We went tubing at Soldier's Hollow in Midway with our friends, The Poultons, yesterday. There is something so adorable about kids all bundled up. All that cuteness seems to disappear as soon as someone utters, "I need to go potty," but I don't want to get ahead of myself. Looking back I should have taken a picture of the kids outside- but doesn't the trash can in the background scream "winter wonderland"?!


We went with a group of MBAs so there were a lot of kids. Unfortunately, no one under the age of three could actually go up the hill- so Brady and I stayed at the bottom for the first run and Brittany was nice enough to keep Brady with her during the second run (and potty break #1) so I could go with Ryan and Zach. Ryan ended up loving it and has requested to go tubing for his birthday in June. We're working on it.

After the second run we took a second potty break and Brady and I camped out in the lodge and had hot chocolate (Down-graded to warm after all the snow we put in it) while Zach and Ryan went back out to squeeze in one more run down the hill. It was crazy and cold but we had fun! Thanks for going with us Aaron and Brittany!

Howdy Brady

Brady has been lovin' Woody's hat lately. So have I.

Dear Grammy,

And, uh, how cute is sweet little Nathan in this picture?!

Rock 'n Roll Brady

Best Buddies

The highlight of our trip was getting to hang out with our good friends, the Johnsons, on Saturday afternoon. They came up from Las Vegas when they heard we would be in St. George. Ryan was reunited with his best buddy Jake and they picked up right where they left off. Jake ran up to the car when we arrived and hugged Ryan while he was still strapped into his carseat and said, "I love you!" It was so sweet. We miss them so much.

Jake's little brother, Ryan, is just 10 weeks younger than Brady and from the looks of today- it looks like we might have another Jake-Ryan friendship up and coming. They threw balls, shared sippy cups and followed each other around all afternoon. The Johnsons are irreplaceable. Our families were made to be friends.