March Madness

We have had March Madness in our house!!! Bryson has really gotten into BYU basketball this year. He was lucky enough to go to 3 home BYU basketball games and he got obsessed with Jimmer mania. For his second quarter report card he asked for a Jimmer jersey. After we bought it at the BYU bookstore we looked in the bag with the receipt and found that we got 5 free voucher tickets for home games. We were so excited. After the Colorado State game Eric and Bryson stayed after to see if they could get Jimmer's autograph. He never came out, but he did get Brandon Davies autograph the week before he got suspended.
Eric and Bryson also went to the New Mexico game and came home bummed.
We then were faithful watchers on TV of all the rest of the games.
As a joke early in the season I asked Eric if BYU went to the NCAA tournament and played in Denver, could we go. (My parents and brothers live in Denver and the drive is 8-9 hours) He said sure. Selction Sunday came and BYU was assigned to play in Denver. I was so excited, but Eric made me find a good deal for tickets. After I looked for 2 days, Eric got on the computer Tuesday morning and found a great deal. We snagged them and drove out to Denver after work on Wednesday. The tickets that we got included all the games on Thursday and Saturday. The seats were in the upper level, but we had a lot of fun. We got to see Morehead vs Louisville, Vanderbilt vs Richmond , Gonzaga vs St Johns, and BYU vs Woffard on Thursday. It was a long day at the Pepsi Center watching basketball. We were so excited when BYU won. Thursday night during the Gonzaga vs St John's game I happened to notice the BYU team come out and watch the game. Eric took Bryson down to the lower level and Bryson went down by himself and got Jimmer's autograph on his jersey. He was so excited.
On Saturday we got to see Morehead vs Richmond and BYU vs Gonzaga. The BYU game was amazing and fun to be at especially when they won.

Outside the Pepsi Center. We got 4 tickets to the games and my Dad was able to come with us. My mom and sister in law watched the girls while we were at the games.

Me, Bryson, and my Dad


BYU vs Gonzaga


above: Jimmer has the ball by the half court line

Final score BYU 89 Gonzaga 67

For the sweet sixteen game we had a party at our house and the kids dressed up in BYU. We were sad that BYU lost, but we had a fun season watching them and Bryson is still obsessed with Jimmer.


Bryson teaching Maddy the cougar fight song. this is where they roll their hands saying "GOOOOO Cougars"
The cheerleading outfit was Carley's from Halloween a few years ago.

Visit from Cousins

In the middle of March my mom, brother and his kids came out to visit my Grandma, who isn't doing very well. They were only here for a short weekend, but the cousins had fun playing together and having a sleep over in the front room.
Little did we know we would see them in a week when we would take a quick trip to Colorado.

Spring Fever

We have spring fever in our house and spring keeps teasing us. Some days it is beautiful outside and we can go play in warm weather. Other days it is snowing. On one of the beautiful days I took the girls and went down to Orem, which is a few degrees warmer, and went to the park with Sarah and William


Carley loves to swing. Maddy won't have anything to do with them



Train of people coming down the slide

Madalyn's 2nd birthday

Madalyn had her 2nd birthday last week, but we weren't able to get together with family until Sunday so that is the day we had her party. Maddy is our independent little girl who doesn't talk, but lets her wants be known. She does say mama, dada, and bubu for Bryson. She makes most all of the animal noises. She loves to read books. Her favorite movie is any of the Toy Story's or just within the last week "Beauty and the Beast". She can hold her own against Bryson and Carley and she pushes and shoves when she doesn't want them. She loves to snuggle. She is an early riser and wakes up at 6:00 and usually we just snuggle in bed. She has the cutest giggle and I love to hear her laugh. She loves to play dolls and house with Carley. For her birthday we had Sarah make a toy story cake and because she was turning 2 - it was a toy story 2 cake. maddy recieved all toys related to toy story. She loves buzz and to say she wants to watch the show she does the buzzing noise like a bee.


Maddy running out excited and seeing the presents

Opening presents




A buzz lightyear. After opening the Buzz she didn't want to open any more and she even pushed the presents away. We helped her with the next one and once she saw what was inside she put her whole body in the bag to get the toys out. it was so cute. In the bag was a soft woody, jessi, and buzz doll



Undoing the stupid wrapping that held buzz in the box


there is still a wire attached because you had to take buzz apart to get it off and she wasn't patient enough

Sarah is her favorite person when she is around. She loves Sarah and we love the cake she did for Maddy.









Blowing the candles out

Yummy Orange Julius

I feel like I don't blog very much any more so I am going to try harder to do more posts to remember what everyday life is like these days.
Anyways orange julius have been a tradition in our family since the winter after Eric and I got married. When he was younger and living in Bakersfield they used to go to orange orchards and get "juice oranges" and have fresh squeezed orange juice. So that first winter and every winter since whenever someone is coming up from Bakersfield we would have them bring oranges up. Some years we would get 1-2 boxes other years we would get 4-5 just depending. I always thought that i needed the oranges from Bakersfield, but this year Spencer wasn't able to bring any up so I started buying oranges from the store - I think the produce man thinks I am crazy. I figured that if oranges were less than $0.50/lb it is cheaper and TASTES LOTS BETTER to juice the oranges yourself than to buy the "fresh sqeezed" oj from the store. So far this year I think we have gone through 7-8 boxes of oranges. (each box weighs 40 lbs)
My kids love fresh oj and we make orange juilius at least 4-5 times a week. What started off as just oj, bananas, and ice cream has now added raspberries. My favorite is still without the raspberries, but the rest of my family loves it with raspberries. Also I just recently learned how to make homemade yogurt and I freeze it in ice cube trays and use that instead of ice cream. I love our healthy breakfast full of vitamins.
Oh and another thing that makes squeezing the oj fun is that I use my grandmother's 30-40 year old procter silex juicer that is the best.

Maddy loves the orange julius. She makes the funniest slurping noises as she is drinking and of course makes a mess all over her face. But she is so cute doing it.

Carley is 5

Carley turned 5 the end of January and she wanted an ariel birthday party so for a present eric and I got her a ariel costume that she could wear to her party. She was so excited. She had a friends birthday and they could come dressed up as any princess. Also Eric's sister makes cakes (http://www.sarahjanecakes.com/) and made an awesome ariel cake for Carley.
My mom was in town the next week so we also celebrated with her and then we had a family birthday dinner the next week. Carley is a joy to have in our house and is the typical girl who loves princesses and dolls and all things girly