Little Beggars

Kace had a baseball game and all (those that know Ty know that this would actually be ALL the entire duration of the game) Ty was asking me if he could get a treat from the concessions. I always said, "No, I didn't bring any money." It's smart not to bring money to these types of events.
FINALLY, the last time he asked for a treat I said, "If they will just give you one you can have one." That was good enough for him.....and his 2 friends that were also asking their mom for a treat. They ran over to beg.

The older boy is actually buying something. The other three are just begging for hand-outs.

It worked. And they were pretty proud of themselves. Luckily this is the only field we play on that has concessions so this won't be a regular occurrence.

Soccer Days.

I always loved soccer as a kid and couldn't wait for it to start. BUT, I couldn't believe it when Kace's soccer started again. It seemed too cold. But now it has come and gone and it is still cold. When I signed Kace up this year I wanted him to play with the older kids (2 and 3 graders) and told them we would coach if this could happen. When I went to pick up my coaching packet and soccer balls I looked at my list and it said K-1 grade. I went and mentioned to the rec director that I thought he was playing with the 2-3 grade league, but NOOOOO, they forgot and there was nothing we could do about it. Oh, well.
Kace really loved soccer. He does a really good job. Some highlights for the season were:

*Last year we had a problem with Kace not trying his hardest. He thought he was good enough, but this year he tried his hardest every single game.

*On the last game this kid came up to Kace and yelled, "YOU CAN'T PUSH. YOU PUSHED ME." Kace looked at him like he was crazy, said, "I didn't push." And the kid started CRYING! I was amazed. And just for the record, it happened right in front of me and there was no pushing.

*There was a time (probably more than once) that Kace did knock someone down. They were both fighting for the ball and is went out of bounds. Kace went back and offered his hand to help him up. Parents were shocked. What a good kid!

*Nearly every time he scored a goal he had this proud, chest puffed walk (strut) back to midfield. It was funny. I wish I would have gotten a better picture of it, but this was the best I could do.

*Kace loved being goalie, as did the rest of our team. Most of the time in time-outs and quarter breaks were spent fighting over who got to be goalie and/or begging to be goalie. We finally went to the system that if you asked, then you didn't get to be goalie. That seemed to work fairly well. Of course I am the mom, but Kace did a great job at goalie and had the best drop kicks of all :)

*After most games Ty would want us to get our chairs and come home and watch his soccer games. We have this goal in the front yard and he would go and kick the ball around and want us to watch him. He would also instruct us when to clap and cheer. It was pretty funny. By the time he was done he was pretty tuckered out. This is while he is eating his dinner (cold cereal-please tell me you have that for dinner sometimes at your houses too :) ). He has never done this, but I thought it was pretty funny!

Now on to baseball!

new addition

That's right people, the baby ducks have hatched. The mama ducks had been sitting on eggs and then at the last moment decided to abandon them (RUDE), so Nate put them in the incubator for the rest of their egg time.

So as they hatched we would take them out and put them in the box with the others (don't worry not all these eggs are ducks, there are chickens and pheasants too)

The boys would run downstairs to hold them and touch them every chance they could. Don't worry though, the minute they started to stink I sent the box outside :)

Easter and other stuff

For Easter we colored Easter Eggs on Friday night and then the Easter Bunny came on Saturday morning (Kace wrote him a note so he would for sure remember to come on Saturday). The Easter bunny brought the boys each a BYU hat (Kace wondered how in the world the Easter Bunny would know that we are BYU fans) and a book, sidewalk chalk and some treats.

The boys wanted to wear their hats like their uncle mac. They are also trying to look tough!

We then went in the snow to the town Easter Egg Hunt. The kids had a great time, but it was FREEZING!

Kace drew this lovely portrait of me :)

That night we made some Easter cookies that you read a scripture with each ingredient (found the recipe at the idea room) and then you leave them in the oven overnight and then in the morning they are hollow in the middle (get it?!). I don't know that the boys liked it that much, but I tried :) We are going to do it every year though.

PS And my dear sweet sister HEIDI came over during the priesthood session to hang out with us and make the cookies. That was SOOOO nice of her :) Is that better?

I was surprised at how much they liked finding the eggs they colored. They ran downstairs and looked for the eggs FIRST and then looked for their basket. (when I was growing up, it was definitely the other way around).

A couple of days earlier my Grandma Spencer sent an Easter box to the boys in the mail. They had so much fun opening it and seeing what was inside. Ty kept saying, "WOW, WOW, WOW"

Kace has been dying for me to put this picture of his abscess ("zit"). He loves to squeeze it and watch what comes out (SICK!). Nate lanced it so hopefully it will be no more.

So the duplex is now sold, so we (mostly Nate) is starting on the shed. He has been anxiously awaiting this day! So he has borrowed Roger's backhoe (good thing for good neighbors) and has been going crazy. He has dug a trench for the water and has put in the pipe for the septic hookup. Ty has been loving it (understatement). Everyday he is out in the tractor with his dad. He has to come in and get his little backhoe so he can pretend to scoop dirt as his dad does. He is his dad's little buddy.

the wide world of DANCING!

For those that don't know, I, Rachel Kay Andrew Jones, most uncoordinated dancing person of all time, took dancing for 7, that's right SEVEN years as a youngster. I took from Minnie Hall in Lewiston for a couple of years (please notice the wrinkles in our tights, we love them) and then went to Tueller's School of Dance in Logan for the remainder of the time.

Karen Cottle was my blessed friend to accompany me to dance for all those years. Now, I did like it for the first 3-4 years, but after that I really only took it so I could get the treat (I think I have mentioned this before) that we ALWAYS got afterwards (thanks Janet and mom :) ) There was the one time though that I got a butterfinger and it kind of crunched all over Janet's car and I (and Karen, I think she had to clean it up) got in trouble. But other than that my treat experiences were very positive.
Back to the dancing and uncoordinated part. I was never a good dancer. I am okay with that. I was always on the back row. Oh, well. At least I was good looking :)

I know that most of you are wondering who in the world did my hair (hopefully most of you are wondering who that is). But the truth is, my mom and I had a compromise. I did the back and she gets to take credit for the uni-bang! The next picture, I designed the hairdo all myself.......maybe I shouldn't admit that. At least I have nice legs :)

Now the whole purpose of this post is to show that my dancing skills have NOT been passed on to my kids (actually I think Kace may have my skills a little bit). But Ty, W-O-W. That is all I can say. He LOVES to dance and changes into these blue silky shorts every (and I mean EVERY) time he dances. He also wears these shorts to play basketball or run, but changes his shirt to one that has a number on it for those activities. This is an average dance for Tydon, sometimes he is crazier and sometimes he is more mellow. Anyway, watch and enjoy. You will probably have to turn the sound up. Hope you are entertained!

Craftiness

For those that don't know, I married into an extremely talented crafty family. It is nice for me because they have really great ideas and I get to benefit :). Nate's mom, Donene, is AMAZING! She is seriously the most talented woman I know. She can see something in her head and then create it (this is where I have the problem-seeing things in my head). I have to have her come over and look at paint, carpet, drapes, etc etc because I have such a hard time visualizing something.

Anyway, her latest adventure is making adorable hats, scarfs, flower, booties, you name it she can make it. She has decided to start a blog to sell some of her inventions. You can find it here.

Check it out, you won't be disappointed :) I stole some of these pictures from her personal blog, so you can see some of the other things she has done.

Life

Well, after two weeks of the computer being in the "shop" the pictures are no where to be found. They said that I could take it to another place but it could cost me up to $3000 and there was no guarantee. So if you have pictures of our family from the year 2009 beware because I will probably come find you so I can have some pictures from that year :) It could be worse.....

Lately we have just been waiting for the snow to melt and have really enjoyed (understatement) watching it melt a little bit each day. We made a new snowman with the wet snow that fell the other day. Tydon loved making it with just me and him. Kace added his touch when he got home with the broom and hat.

For Valentine's Day this year I decided not to get the boys a gift, because they get so many other things from their grandparents and great-grandparents that I decided to just do things that would create memories and traditions for them. So we made cookies, Valentine's Rice Krispie bears and Kace informed me that he had never had breakfast in bed, so I decided that should be our new tradition (although when you have breakfast in bed you are only allowed to have water to drink :) ). He was so excited!

Last month Kace invited a friend over and we went sledding. It was a pretty steep hill and there was a jump at the end. So Kace, having no fear, decided that he would try it from the top and had a really bad spill. It knocked the wind out of him and he was crying. But later I read in his journal that the things he was most proud of was "surviving" getting the wind knocked out of him. Other then that we had a great time together!

Sure do love this kid!