Happy Easter!

We had a great Easter weekend. On Saturday morning Ben and I took them to Thanksgiving Points Easter Eggstreme. It was RIDICULOUS! They should have put a cap on the amount of tickets they would sell because they completely overdid themselves. It was totally crowded with lines a mile long. The boys had fun with some of the activities we were able to get through and with the easter egg hunts. It didn't help that it was freezing cold outside too. On Sunday the weather outside was much better. The boys got their Easter baskets that the bunny left them that morning. We went to church and came home and started cooking dinner. My sisters, Roxanne and Holly, my brother Andre', Roxanne's boyfriend, Todd, and Ben's brother Zach, and cousin Andrew all came over later that afternoon and filled some eggs for me and hid them in the front yard for the boys. The boys had so much fun looking for the eggs. I will say the bunny was quite sneaky and hid some of them under ground and in really high places! At least the uncle's and cousins were their to help them out! After the hunt, Ben's older brother Justin and his wife Kate and their kids came over and we had a wonderful dinner! Everyone helped with food so it turned out perfect! I am so grateful for this holiday and what it means. So not to forget the meaning of Easter we sat down with the boys before bed and read the Easter story. I love my Savior and the sacrifice he made for each of us that have come to this earth, so that we can return to live with him!

Graduation!

My brother, Andre', graduated this past Thursday from BYU in Biology of Life Sciences. Ben's brother Zach and sister Jill and her husband Eric all graduated as well. I am so proud of Andre' for what he has accomplished and for the amazing guy he is! I just love my brother so much and look up to him for where he is today after the hardships he has had to face. He is a great brother to me and uncle to my boys! My boys LOVE their Uncle Andre'! Andre' is genuine and kind and I am glad that just because he is now graduated doesn't mean we are losing him. I hope he stays in Utah as long as we are here! Congratulations Andre'!

Tulip Festival

We went to the Tulip Festival the first weekend it opened up because my mom and sisters were here and I thought it would be fun to go and show them this amazing garden. Well it was not the best because it's been so cold that little to none of the tulips were even open! There were some daffodils but it wasn't at all like it was last year when we went the last day it was open and all the tulips were in full bloom! It was still fun to go and walk around. The boys love just running through the gardens!

SLC Bees vs. Tuscon Padres

The other Thursday Ben got tickets from his work for the box suites at the Bees ballpark. My mom and two younger sisters were in town and so it was a lot of fun to go with them and my other siblings that live here along with Ben's brother, brother-in-law, and cousin! It's freezing outside, so that's why it was perfect to watch it from inside the suite. The boys had a lot of fun and loved giving the bee a hug!

Sleeping Boys are the Best!

Aidan's Scripture Mastery

Aidan was given the assignment to recite ANY scripture he wanted in primary on March 27. Ben decided on Mosiah 2:17. He worked with Aidan everyday and had him memorize it in two weeks. Ethan was so funny every time Aidan would recite it. He would cheer and clap and yell! He was Aidan's biggest fan! Here is a video at our family home evening the night before he was supposed to say it in church.

Aidan's Scripture from jaclyn on Vimeo.

Keaton at 6 months old

Keaton is almost 7 months old now but when he was 6 months old he had learned to roll over front to back, back to front, and has mastered sitting up on his own. He now has his first tooth as well on the bottom. I started feeding him rice cereal when he turned 6 months old and after two weeks of rice cereal once a day I have now increased his feeding to oatmeal in the morning and rice cereal at night. He still has breastmilk 4 times a day. I can't say enough good things about Keaton. He is the happiest baby you will ever know. Everyone always asks, "Does he ever cry?" and the answer is no, not really anyways. If he is crying then you know something is really wrong. Either he has hurt himself or he is beyond tired. Otherwise he is squealing and laughing! He is a definite chatter box. He still sleeps through the night until about 10 in the morning. His big brothers just love him to death. They are always so quick to help me with him! Ethan is always giving him kisses and hugs, sometimes a little too much for Keaton. :) Aidan is very protective of him. If Keaton is sitting up Aidan always makes sure there is something soft behind him to break his fall if he falls backwards. They LOVE their little brother. I just love this little boy. He has been a blessing from the Lord. I needed a break and he is just that! He saw the doctor last week and here are his stats:

Weight: 17.3 lbs--38%
Length: 27.4 in.--75%
Head Cir.: 17.5 in.--63%

Token System

I have been struggling to get my boys to listen lately. There had been lot of yelling and screaming which I had to take blame for and I just would break down and cry because I didn't know how to make them listen. I had tried everything I could think of. Nothing seemed to be working. I remembered when I was little my parents gave each of us kids little jars and if we did something nice or good or if we were just behaving well we would get poker chips. I don't remember exactly what we did with those poker chips. I think that each of them were worth a certain amount of money or something. So I decided to try it with my kids. I went to Hobby Lobby and bought these cute little glass jars and some precut wood chips. I brought them home and painted them and mod podged them with pirate paper. The boys now know if they are good then they get tokens and when they act poorly they get them taken away. When they fill their jar with the tokens then they earn a dollar. They can save that dollar or they can go to the dollar store and get something. Aidan and Ethan have really been wanting the Bone Knapper from How to Train Your Dragon, so that's what they are working together to get. This has helped me to not scream or yell because it gives them incentive to be nice or do nice things as where before they didn't have a reason to want to listen. They also start to understand the value of money which I think can be taught at a very young age. So far this has worked really well!

Daddy and Son's outing

Ben and I decided it would be good for him to take each of the boys out once a month seperately on some sort of outing. It has been a lot of fun for them! So the other Saturday, Ben took Ethan fishing on the Provo river. Ethan had a blast with his dad!

My 28th Bday!

So every year that passes I get older believe it or not. I can't believe I will be 30 in two years…it's crazy. I had a really great bday this year filled with lots of family and friends. The weekend before my bday Ben took me out to Los Hermanos where all his family and my family met us for dinner. It's funny that I have been there for every bday since I turned 19. I love that place!
On my bday my sister Holly watched my boys so I could go get my hair done. And then later that night Andre' my brother watched them for me so I could go out with some girlfriends. My friend Stacy picked me up and we went and picked up our friend Cherelle and then met Kelley at the mall. We went shopping at the mall for about an hour. I had a lot of help from the girls! Then we went out to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. I had such a great bday!

Ethan's fall!

I have to say that Ethan is my most accident prone child. Whether it be his fault or he be the brunt of someone else's mishap. So this night he and Aidan were bathing. I tell him all the time to not get in and out of the tub because he might slip and fall. Well he did just that. He got out of the tub and somehow slipped and fell forward knocking two of his top teeth loose. I wasn't in the bathroom when it happened but heard a lot a crying and screaming which is pretty normal. I quickly went in there to see blood coming out of his mouth. I really didn't think much of it. I just assumed he bit his lip or something and started to rinse his mouth out. It wasn't until later when he says to me, " Can you put a band-aid on my tooth?" did I realize what he had done. I immediately called Ben freaking out because I didn't know what to do. He told me to call our brother-in-law in Vegas who is a pediadontist. I called Jaren up and explained to him what happened. He pretty much told me there was nothing anyone could do. I would just have to watch it and cut up all his food for him for the next two weeks so he wouldn't be using those teeth to bite into his food. He said either it will heal depending on if he damaged the nerve or not or if he did damage the nerve the tooth would eventually die and fall out. So this happened about a month ago and I am sad to say I am pretty sure it is dead and will eventually fall out! My poor little 2 year old might just have to have a missing tooth until he is nine or ten!

Blackout!

Yesterday wasn't a bad day at all. It was windy all day but other than that is was really warm outside. I came home around 5:30pm and bathed the boys. Then I made dinner and realized the wind was getting really bad. I checked outside and saw how bad it had got. I took the boys upstairs to bed and the lights would flicker. I didn't think the electricity would go out. I put the boys to bed and went into my room to pump. I was sitting on the floor talking to Ben who was on his way home from work and he told me it was getting really bad outside. That's when the electricity went out. I was completely scared. I had already been on edge because of the sounds the wind was making through our doors and windows. I didn't know what to do. I used my cell phone to go find a flashlight and then on my way downstairs to find some candles the flashlight went out. I was soooo scared. I'm ridiculous. I stayed on the phone with Ben because it made me feel safer! I was able to light a tea light candle because that was all I had. I was than realizing how unprepared I was. I was able to find some batteries for the flashlight so that helped a little more. I just waited around until Ben got home. It was actually really nice to sit around and talk to Ben without the distractions of a TV or computer. Here are some pictures and video of Keaton who didn't seem to mind sitting in the dark!

Keaton sitting in a blackout from jaclyn on Vimeo.

Happy Valentines Day!

I absolutely HATE that Valentines Day was on a Monday. It made it really hard for me to be able to get the boys gifts. I went to Wal-Mart at midnight on Sunday night to get them their balloons and gifts. They were completely wiped out but I found some things for them. I bought them 2 balloons, a Valentines Day book and 2 ring pops. It was really fun to have them wake up Monday morning and see their presents. They loved it! Valentines was pretty stressful for me. I hurried and got ready for the day and packed the two boys bags for the night because they spent the night with my brother and sister down in Provo. I headed down to Provo where I met up with my brother for lunch. Then I drove over to campus to get Ben's gift. After leaving campus I went over to Victoria's Secret for Ben's other gift! :) Then I went to my sister Holly's house so I could feed Keaton. While I was there I tried calling Texas Roadhouse to give a take out order. I felt like I was calling into a radio show to win something. I kept getting a busy signal. I called like 15 times before I finally got through. She immediately put me on hold. I was on hold for about 6 min. before she got back on and asked how she could help. I told her I needed to place a take out order so she then transferred me. I was on hold for 15 min.! It was ridiculous. I finally was able to give my order and she told me it would be done in 30 min. I wasn't able to leave Provo until almost 6pm. So I called Ben who was right close to our home and asked him to go pick up the food. He said he would and I headed home to set up the house. I was doing everything I could think of and realized how long it had been. It was 7 already. I called Ben and said, "Where are you?" He proceeded to tell me that they had somehow given our order to someone else and they were going to have to remake it. I said that is unacceptable and to tell them we get it for free. So that's what happened, Ben told them it should have been done an hour before and that we should get it for free. So in the long run it was worth a free meal! He came home and I had the dinner table set up really nice. We watched a movie I had rented which I would never recommend. It was called The Romantics. It was awful! We had a really nice quiet night in. I was so grateful to my sister Holly and brother Andre' for watching the boys and keeping them over night! I love you guys!

Brian Head

This last weekend Ben and I went to the cabin. We were the only ones there plus Belmont. It was a nice weekend away, however I wish I had felt better. I was deathly sick. The boys had a lot of fun though. We got there late Friday night and talked by the fire. Then we all went to bed. We got up the next morning and Belmont made us all breakfast. His usual, pancakes, eggs and bacon. It was delicious! Then Belmont and Ben took the boys skiing. They had a lot of fun. Ethan wanted to go a second time but Ben said it was way too hard to go again. So I took the boys back home while Ben and Belmont stayed and went skiing and snowboarding. Later that afternoon we watched the BYU vs. Utah basketball game and lounged around. Belmont left that night back to Vegas and our little family stayed and had dinner and cleaned the cabin. We left early the next morning. It was a short weekend but it's always nice to get away for a little bit.

Aidan skiing with Grandpa Belmont from jaclyn on Vimeo.

Ethan skiing with Grandpa Belmont from jaclyn on Vimeo.

Dinosaur Museum

I think I have mentioned that every Monday the Dinosaur Museum has family nights where they have extra activities going on with a theme. We went on the 7th of February and it was Cupid's Valentine Mask-querade. The night did not start out well. First of all a blizzard had just begun outside when we got there. That was a sign of what was about to come. We got there 10 minutes before it started so we were just walking around the lobby waiting for the booths to be set up. In that short amount of time I lost Aidan. He had wandered off. I didn't panic at first because I was sure he was close by. I started to look for him and began to yell his name. After a few minutes started to pass I began to panic. I was frantically looking everywhere. In the gift shop, the bathrooms all over the lobby and I even quickly ran through the museum yelling his name. I came back out to the lobby and told some workers that I had lost my son and I began to bawl! They asked me a few questions about him and told me it was going to be okay that they would find him. They told me to stay put. I just stood there crying, making a huge scene I'm sure! Then out of nowhere after a few minutes a worker came walking out with Aidan. Aidan was gone a total of ten minutes. He was totally laughing until he saw me crying and when I took him by the arm he stopped his laughing. I wanted to ring his neck! Instead I just hugged him and told him to never do that to me again! By this point I just wanted to leave. I was so embarrassed. But I didn't. I stuck it out and let them participate in the activities. So from these pictures you could never tell the traumatic experience I just had.

Roxanne's 24th Birthday

So my younger sister Roxanne turned 24 a few weeks ago. She always says to me if I were like you then I would have been married already with a child. What she should realize is, she isn't me and I adore her for who she is. I look up to Roxy in so many ways. She came out to live in Utah in January of 2007 and that was one of the best presents I could have ever received. I had been away from home for 6 years already before any family decided to come out here. Roxy decided to start attending aesthetician school at Dallas Roberts. She completed her schooling and became a licensed Aesthetician. She then started attending UVU and will now be graduating this April with a Bachelors in marketing. She already has a grown up job at Pinnacle Quality Insight in SLC as their new marketing director. I will be honest, I hate it but that's me being selfish. We just really miss her because we don't ever get to see her anymore. I love my Roxy Pants more than she will ever know. I am so proud of her and everything she has accomplished in her life. She is so dedicated to what's important, she is loving, kind, thoughtful, super smart and is a great friend and sister! She has been so fun to have out here. Roxanne has had a lot of trials in her life and I thank Heavenly Father for where she is now and how she has turned those trials into learning experiences. She is the best Aunt to my boys. She really loves them so much and probably takes more pictures of them than I do as their mother. I am grateful for her support of me as a mother of three and I just want her to know that I love her dearly!