Happy 2nd Birthday, Link and Happy Easter to all!

Grandpa Tulett really got us into the Easter spirit by dressing up like the Easter Bunny. Look how excited he is to be wearing these ears!

We had a fun little friend/family birthday party with an Easter theme. Link was pretty grumpy that day, but all of the other kids seemed to have a great time!

We had a little Easter egg hunt for the kiddos, and it happened to be the ONLY nice day that week. Lucky us!

Brenadan found the golden egg!

Link got pretty excited when he discovered that there was CANDY inside the egg. This boy is a little bit of a sugar-holic like his daddy.

All of the kiddos enjoying the loot!

It was kind of windy that day, so we got his candles to stay lit for approximately six seconds, but at least he kept the ears on...and had a huge smile on his face...ish.

Cupcake time!

So, I bought cupcakes this year instead of making a cake due to all of the activity, AND due to the fact that I am not a great cake maker, so why stress myself out? I still felt like kind of a bad mom though...

Linkers got some great gifts from all of his cute friends. Thanks everyone!

The next day they had a city-sponsored egg hunt that we took the boys to, and it was sort of a disaster. There were a million people there, and they had each age group roped off and asked all of the parents to let the kids pick up the eggs, so naturally as soon as they said "Go!" all of the parents in the 1-2 year section that Link was in started shoveling eggs into their kids baskets. Link didn't get ANY eggs. He did find one piece of candy that fell out of an egg though. Lucky boy! After the 30 second hunt they announced that any kids that didn't get eggs could come over to the pavilion and get a few, but the parents in THAT line were pushing and shoving too. It was INSANE. I couldn't believe what some ADULTS would do for free candy. Yikes!

We had Easter dinner (made by yours truly!) Saturday night because Greg and his family were leaving on Sunday, and I gave the boys their Easter baskets and matching outfits (of course!) that day as well.

a little more candy can't hurt either...

As a fun side note, we took Link for his two year check-up and here are his stats:

Weight: 23 lbs-3rd %

height: can't remember-15th%

Still just a little guy, but he has literally EXPLODED with talking in the last few weeks. I was starting to get a little worried because he didn't say much of anything for the longest time, but now he sings songs, reads book with me, repeats everything I say and has even started asking for things he needs. Hallelujah! Just in time for baby brother to come!

I Heart Moab

One thing I have always wanted to do here in the great state of Utah is go check out Moab and Arches National Park. Another thing I have been wanting to do is get some camping and hiking in before this little one arrives. SO last weekend we invited our great friends Logan and Sara to hop in our car and do a little camping with us, and since they had been there several times we had our very own tour guides! Also, do you love how Reid is crammed into the third row with all of our stuff? 4 adults + 2 children + camping stuff for three days all in one Honda Pilot= not very much room for Reid (or one almost 9 month pregnant woman!)

To our chagrin it was the start of stupid Jeep week in Moab so EVERY camp site was filled by the time we got there on Friday. This was a major bummer, but we made the best of it and shared a motel room for the night. Then we got up bright and early the next morning and found a family that was leaving that day, so we could claim our spot!

After we unloaded some gear at camp we all headed up to Arches to explore the park. It was so fun, and Reid did so well on all of the hikes we did. AND I'm not gonna lie, 80 degree weather was right up my alley!


Love this picture of Nate and my Linkers. I think we will need to take our family pictures with Link in the hiking pack from now on. He always seems to be smiling in that thing!

Sara and Reid! He is sort of in love with her. It's pretty cute-too bad she's a little old for him, and already spoken for!

My little mountain goat! When I asked Reid what his favorite part of the trip was he said; " climbing on all of the big rocks!"

Sara and Logan (or should I say Indiana Jones...)

Love this face!

You know, I never liked this terrain before I moved here, but I just love living in a state that has such a variety of climates (without all of the rain that we used to get when we lived in Bellingham!)

We all did the hike up to Delicate Arch, (the one you see on the Utah license plate) and Reid got a little tired, so Logan kindly carried him like this up the steepest part of this hike. What a great friend!

Reid and Sara again

We finally made it!

Link was in heaven with all of the red sand. He seriously looked like a little red-headed boy by the end of the day. He got so filthy!

Right across form our campsite Logan and Sara and I found this awesome little hike that would have made for an excellent trail run, but I was pretty pooped by the end of the day. In fact, going to Moab made me want to run, hike and bike SO. BAD. After I am not nursing this little guy anymore I am going to need some girlfriends to camp and play up here with me!

Nate's favorite part was hanging around the campfire eating s'mores. Anything involving both chocolate and fire is a winner with my guy!

This is me waking up from the worst night of my life. I don't care that I look terrible, I had to document how horrible this night was. First off, the air mattress we brought didn't work, so we had to sleep on the ground (why did I want to do this 9 months pregnant again?). Also, Link had started to get sick when we left, and ended up getting a fever and puking most of the night (yikes), and then both boys got cold so, I had Reid and my BIG belly in my little mummy bag, and Nate had a feverish puking boy in his. Not a great night. At all.



Do you love the irony of this picture? We had so much fun, but were ready to head home the next day. Yay for camping!

Conference Part 2

First off, a 36 weeker. I'm 37 weeks now, and have started my final count down to D-day. I have also started right into the crazy nesting phase...it's unfortunate that one starts nesting when bending over to pick things up becomes the hardest thing in the world...Sorry for the blurry picture and the fake smile. Nate is not a great photographer, and I am not a great poser so...lose-lose, I guess.

So, remember how the day before was 70 and sunny and we went for a hike? Well, Sunday we woke up to LOTS of snow! Provo has INSANE spring weather. Lucky for me it snowed enough so that it was still fun to play in. I didn't get any pictures, but we went to Rock Canyon park in between conference sessions and thoroughly romped in about 7 inches of snow. I was so happy to get one more snow adventure in this winter!

This is how we roll. Watching conference on the big screen plasma. Link LOVES when the choir sings, but quickly finds something better to do as soon as someone starts talking. He also does this in church. And his nursery class.

What could be in this cupboard?

Peek-a-boo!

The boys discovered this great new game where they hollow out any given cupboard (making a nice big mess for me to clean up) and open and shut the doors yelling; "hello! Goodbye!" It's actually pretty cute when Link does it, and I have to say that I love when my boys play together nicely and make each other laugh.


Reid loves to have his picture taken, and I think he's so handsome that I'm always happy to oblige.

Even when he's sitting on the table...

Mr. Linkers

My Linkers is almost two years old these days (how did THAT happen?!), and it has been really interesting to see the dramatic difference between my two little dudes. One thing he loves is cleaning up, (and making huge messes. HUGE messes...) and he loves to sing about it too. Here he is helping daddy do some yard work. He's my little stink bug!

He wanted to carry them over and throw them in the garbage all by himself. What a big boy.


He is also getting really good at eating like a big boy. He loves eating cereal with a spoon and dinner with a fork. This may not seem like a big deal, but it makes life a little easier when he eats what we eat!

Another Link favorite is putting on other people's clothes. Especially shoes. He will walk around the house in everyone's shoes but his own. Here he has decided to put on my puffer vest. Funny kid!

In-between conference sessions today we went on a little family hike on the Shoreline trail. These boys love to be outside, and boy am I glad. If they were homebodies their momma would go crazy!

The last few days have been really warm and sunny, so I told the boys that we would be living outside before it snows again (that's how Provo rolls). Unfortunately, I forgot that when the sun hasn't been out much since the fall we tend to get a little TOO much sunshine TOO quickly, so we all have a little bit of a pink hue (especially me) because Mamma forgot that we needed sunscreen. Oops. Mom of the year award.

Yay for sunshine!

Elevate Triathlon Series

ammie and me after the race

So, I am FULLY aware that this is about the least flattering picture of myself in the history of the universe, but it's all I've got!

So, I signed up to do this indoor triathlon series at the Elevate training center in Orem. I thought it would be perfect because you swim in an endless pool, (not my favorite by the way) they put your bike on a trainer, and then you do the run on the treadmill. Perfect for a pregnant woman who doesn't want to fall off her bike! (although I DID fall off a stationary bike in spin class HARD CORE the other day. It was pretty much the most embarrassing thing ever, and I have MONSTER bruises to prove it!)

The first race was in November which would have been perfect because I wasn't pukey anymore, and I wasn't enormous yet. Unfortunately, I got a really nasty cold that week and didn't do it. Bummer.

The next race was at the end of January, and I did it with my great friend, Heather. We had SUCH a great time, and I believe I came in 4th from the bottom. I was pretty excited about this for being six months pregnant!

The final race was on Saturday, and Heather couldn't make it to this one, so I was ALL business! (and all belly too! I sure got some funny looks!) Anyway, I actually swam faster and biked faster this time, and my run was only a little slower. I ended up getting 4th place out of 12 women! I was so excited! I was fully prepared to come in dead last, but I actually beat two guys as well! I also got to do this race alongside Ammie, (pictured above) who I have met and chatted with at a few triathlons. We are typically fairly similar speed-wise, but she's not going to have a baby this spring, so I have a feeling she is going to pass me up pretty hard core.

For anyone interested here's how the course went:

-10 min. swim in an endless pool which means that you swim in a hot-tub like thing that shoots water at you so you feel like you're swimming upstream in a river. Your time is based on how high you set the water pressure. This series was the first time I had ever swam in one, and I did not love it. I would much rather swim outside thank you very much.

-13 mile bike ride on a trainer that simulates a hilly course. I actually kind of liked this because I wasn't worried about falling, and the fact that I don't have as nice of a bike as some of the other racers didn't really matter. I still like riding outside a little better though.

-3.1 miles on the treadmill. Running on a treadmill is kind of a pain, but running has been by far the hardest thing for me to do this pregnancy, and I like the treadmill better these days because I can pick a speed and just zone out. This was definitely my slowest leg too by the way.

Overall, I probably wouldn't do this race if I wasn't pregnant, but it was really a prefect way for me to motivate myself to stay in good shape and remind myself how much I love doing these!