Disneyland!!

Our other big May event was a trip to Disneyland!!! We went with my whole family and had a marvelous time. Hallie even rode her first big roller coaster and Hallie & Jake both did Tower of Terror. I had to keep my growing belly under wraps so that I could ride the kiddy rides with my Mason. Not an easy thing to do with all those yummy churros around.

Hawaii

February was mostly a pretty miserable month because Kyle had to be in Hawaii working for almost five weeks. The one big highlight was that I got to go over and spend a week with him!! Kyle still had to work almost every day, we spent a ridiculous amount of time at Kinkos making sales material, and I was already about 16 wks pregnant so we couldn't go diving or do anything too crazy but it was still an amazingly fun trip. Thank you Mom & Dad for watching our kiddos!! And here's a little sample of the fabulous sales material we made:

Snowbirdies

Our annual ski trip with the Young Fam fell on Easter/My Birthday weekend this year. We had tons of fun playing in the snow, swimming, hanging out in the condo and skiing. Hallie and Jake were both awesome little skiiers this year and loved skiing with Ryan and Kevin and their Nana and Papa. We're excited to get Mason started next year.

April Fools!!!

Full Moon

Mase still wears his Man-Man costume whenever he can get ahold of it. I manage to keep it "in the laundry" for about a week between wearings. He doesn't like to take it off so it can be really hard (intense wrestling match with a surprisingly strong 25 lb. kid) to change his diaper when he has it on. So he gets a little saggy from time to time....

I'm trying to talk him into potty-training but he wants nothing to do with it. We even bought him this cool truck toilet and talk him into sitting on it every once in awhile. He stays on it for about 30 seconds before announcing that "It's not working! My water is broken," and running off. We'll keep working at it.

Spring Snow

Here's the boys playing in the snow after a late-March storm. Three days earlier it had been mid-seventies and I had them in shorts! There's nothing quite like Springtime in Utah to keep you on your toes.
They came in after for some Hot Chocolate and then wiped out on the couch. It was a good day.

It's a........

We couldn't be more excited about it!!!

Family Pics

We have been trying for the past few months to get some family pictures taken before our family (and my belly) grows even bigger this summer. We finally scheduled with a photographer my Mom knows, found a break between snow storms in this crazy spring weather, and got it done yesterday. Yay! It was a gorgeous sunny day, Hallie and Jake were super cooperative and smiley, and we even got a few smiles out of Mason. Mase was really good at saying "Cheese!" but the smiles got fewer and farther between as the day wore on. To his credit we did take over 600 pictures in a little over an hour. Maria (the photographer) put up some sample pics on her site this morning and we'll get a disk with the rest of them in a few weeks. Here are a few, if you want to see more click here.

Cupcake

Hallie got a cupcake making set for Christmas and we've been promising her a Cupcake Party with a few of her friends ever since. So we handed out invitations and made cupcakes today! This is actually a big moment in my life too--posting an event on the very same day it happened--but Hallie is really excited for Kyle to see the pictures so I decided that was reason enough. So this is for you babe! Just don't get used to it!! ;) Here's Kyle on the video chat: We kept it simple and had a lot of fun, Hallie really has a talent for planning and organizing parties. I probably won't think that's quite as cute in ten years or so. While we waited for all the girls to get there Hallie got everyone warmed up with a game of "cupcake, cupcake, frosting."
As the official Man of the House, Jake did his best not to get too caught up in all the girly fun. Mason didn't mind letting Hallie and her friends decorate his cupcakes, just as long as he got to eat them!

FeBruaRy <3

Kyle's been gone all month :( So to keep from going home and feeling sorry for myself on the day he left I took the kids to the BYU Basketball Game! We spent the first half down with my parents in their awesome second row seats. We got an up-close look at all the players and the kids loved getting some personal attention from Cosmo. Mason spent 5 weeks straight in his Man-Man costume so of course he wore it to the game too. (just ignore the old guy yawning in the bottom of the pic, it was the only one I had with everyone looking my way)By half-time enough people had shown up that all six of us were squished into three seats. So we headed up to our ticketed seats in the tippy-top of the Marriot Center. The kids pretty much ignored the game from then on (it was really far away) but we had food so that kept us all happy.
This picture sums up Mason's life this past month or so really well. He wears his Man-Man costume and he eats as many pancakes as he can talk me into. The question I get all the time as he wears it everywhere but church (I had to draw the line somewhere) is "Can he even see out of that thing?" The answer is no. But it really doesn't seem to bother him so I just pull it up every time I walk past him and keep him away from busy streets. I don't let him wear it to bed either but he sleeps with it wrapped in his arms under his covers. I think he likes to keep it close in case of emergency. You never know when the world will need saving.

Our biggest news this month is a new baby!!!! No it's not ours. Jeff and Alisha welcomed #4 on February 10. He is a darling, beefy little guy (weighed in at 8 lbs. 13 oz.) named Logan R Young. We skipped school that morning and hurried off to the hospital to meet him.

Hallie especially coudn't get enough of holding him. She's going to be such a great helper when our own #4 comes along!

Hallie is such a cute little scientist. She figured out how to Google the other day and I found her upstairs Googling animals in China for the animal journal that she was making.

I am just kicking myself because I only got 1 picture of the most exciting thing we had happen all month. On Valentines Day Daddy came home!!!!! He stayed for three days and we loved spending all that time together as a family. He brought home little stuffed honu's (sea turtles) for the kids. They got right into their swimsuits so that they could go swim with their new toys. There is nothing like having to spend time apart to help us appreciate how much we love to be together.

This one I tacked on just cause it's cute. I went in to check on the kids and found Mason on the floor snuggled up to his Sully.

Holiday Recovery

Well, the Holidays are officially over! I've spent the last couple of days boxing up our Christmas stuff and trying to detox my body from the massive amounts of chocolate I managed to eat. But it was definitely fun while it lasted---I've always loved Christmas but there is something especially joyful about celebrating it with little kids. Here are a few of our memories.

We made Gingerbread houses (actually decorated the pre-made ones from Costco) with the other Utah Woodruffs.

A favorite Young Family Tradition is the matching PJ's that we get every year.

And here's the Ghost of Christmas past...Mason forgot to take the pillow out of the case before he stuck it on his head.

Aren't they just so cute?

Reading "Room for a Little One" and "The Night Before Christmas"

A few Visions of Sugarplums....I don't know if you can tell but that middle picture has four kids (Jake, Mason, Hallie & Alexis) all in Hallie's top bunk.