Spring Has Sprung

Logan treated us to some awesome weather last week! It was up in the high 70's for about a week. I could really live somewhere coastal like San Diego where it never gets super cold or hot. As long as we had a cabin I could visit during the Fall, I'd be good. I love the Fall season, probably because where I grew up in St. George there isn't much of a Fall. Spring is also a pretty nice season. I love the sun and I love that my kids can finally start playing outside. Marin could run around barefoot and in her swimming suit all summer and stay outside all day if I would let her. My tulips are blooming now and Marin counts the ones that have bloomed every day. I get really excited about planting flowers in the Spring and then my excitement wears off when I have to water them every day. Mitch ran drip lines to all of my potted flowers last summer and now they do much better. I sort of lose the fever and forget to water them sometimes. But never fear, about this time of year I get the bug to plant as many flowers as I can. I always vow that I will be better about giving them plant food and watering them, but I always lose interest by July or August. Luckily my husband is handy with the sprinkler system and all of my flower beds have drip systems too. Tulips are a great type of flower because they don't require much care... well, any care actually. They are some of the first flowers up in the Spring and they give our yard some much-needed color. Okay, I'm done rambling. Here are a few pictures of my girls in front of our first tulips to bloom:

Miss Marin Turns 4

Well Marin's birthday was on Saturday and we had quite the busy weekend. I'm sitting here now in peace and quiet; Kate is asleep and Marin is playing at a friend's house. As I think about Marin's birthday and what to blog about it, my thoughts keep coming back to family. Marin's birthday was so fun, although it being only her 4th, she likely won't remember much of it. But I will. I hope when Marin grows up she will be able to fully appreciate what a lucky girl she is to be surrounded by so much family who absolutely adore her. Now I'm not someone who likes a huge deal made of my birthday, and although I want my kids' birthdays to be a special day for them, I try not to go overboard. I was planning more of a quiet family party. Then my parents told me they were going to come from St. George and Mitch's mom told us she was coming all the way from Wyoming too. Then of course the Nelsons were invited, who are pretty much like family, and Jaren and Callie, Avree and Matt, and well, we ended up with quite the crowd. So although this is a post about Marin's birthday, I may get a little sappy and share a few (or more than a few) of my thoughts on family as well.


First off, Marin's dad. Can I just say without being too sappy/braggy that Marin scored in the dad department? Mitch had a tax return to finish by Saturday so he left for work before Marin woke up. At about 9:00 he called Marin to wish her a happy birthday. The first thing she said was, "Dad, did ya want to sing 'Happy Birthday to You' to me?" I immediately started laughing because Mitch works in a cubicle surrounded by other CPA's. Marin put him on speaker phone and I heard him start quietly singing happy birthday to her and she stopped him and said, "Louder dad. That's not loud enough." So he finished the song a little louder. I guess his coworkers got a laugh out of that. Mitch came home later that morning and I think he was as excited about Marin's birthday as Marin was. The picture above is at the Treehouse Children's Museum in Ogden. We went there during the day and Marin and Kate both had a blast!


Mitch's mom, Darlene, drove 8 hours Friday night to come and spend Marin's birthday with her, only to turn around Sunday morning and drive 8 hours home. Can you believe that? Marin's "Grandma Wyoming" as she calls her, is one of the best grandmas a kid could wish for. She has 20 grandkids (and 1 on the way) and she still sends Easter, Valentines and birthday packages and cards for both of my girls. Marin just loves her.


There is also "Grandma St. George" (my mom). She and my dad drove 6 hours from St. George on Friday and turned around and drove back home Sunday too. She plays with Marin for hours. Marin absolutely adores her. She laughs as hard as I do about all of the funny things Marin says. She gets just as excited as I do about every one of Marin's accomplishments.


Marin's grandpas are exceptional too. Mitch's dad gets down on the floor and wrestles with the kids and teases them. Marin always jumps on him, even when he's taking a nap and he's a great sport about it. My dad is a tease too (it must be a grandpa thing). He laughs over funny things Marin says and does and Marin and Kate sure love him! Now you may be thinking, "What? President Obama was at the Treehouse Museum?!" But you would be wrong. It's just a cardboard cut-out. The blinding reflection of the camera flash off of his chest is a dead giveaway.


Marin has some pretty sweet uncles too. Jaren went shopping for Marin's birthday and ended up with so much stuff for her it only fit in this enormous Tinkerbell gift bag. Uncle Matt sent Marin a giant candy bar and card in the mail at Christmas from Santa this year.


And Jaren's wife Callie is the favorite aunt. She will sit and play with Marin forever and is definitely the favorite of the kids in our family. Here she is being a good sport and playing "Pin the Princess in the Castle Window" game.


And of course, there's Aunt Avree (sorry Callie for the weird action shot of you, this was the only picture I had with Avree in it). We always joke that Avree is going to be that crazy aunt who comes to our house before Marin goes to prom and is at everything because Avree loves Marin so much. Marin calls her "my Aunt Avree" and loves her back.

Well this is obviously not an exhaustive list of all of Marin's family who I love. These were just the ones at the party. Marin had a Disney princess themed party of course. I took her to Macey's bakery to pick out her cake the day before her birthday and she picked the same one as last year. There were at least 5 Disney princess cakes to choose from but she wanted the same one. That's how I do birthday cakes... as in, I don't. I've had too many disasters. We all had a great time at the Treehouse museum and then we had a great pizza party in the evening. Marin got a pink scooter that she is already tearing up the neighborhood on. I really can't believe she's 4 years old... that I am actually the mom of a 4 year old. She's turning into my little buddy and chats with me in the car and asks me a bazillion questions every day. Here are a few more pictures of her birthday. Thanks again to all of our family (and friends) who came. We love you all!

The Megapost

It is starting to warm up in Logan, FINALLY. A few weeks ago we had a little taste of warm weather, so we took the girls to the park. Kate loves to swing and she loves to swing high. If you let her slow down she starts yelling.


This is how Marin preferred to go down these slides:


And this is what happened at the bottom. Of course, Mitch was just laughing and snapping pictures instead of helping her. She got up and yelled, "It's NOT funny dad!"



We dyed Easter eggs during the Priesthood session with Avree and Spencer. As you can imagine, Spencer was a little young (2 yrs old) to really care about the eggs, although when they were all done Avree showed them to him and he said, "Wow, pretty."

Marin had a blast though. She could have dyed 3 dozen. We stuck with 1 dozen because I'm not a fan of boiled eggs and they just get thrown in the garbage.


Easter morning was great. Marin was so excited, she had a perma-grin for about an hour. The bubbles were her favorite. She said, "The Easter Bunny always brings me bubbles! I just knew he wouldn't forget!" Who knew bubbles were that amazing?


And of course, what did Kate want the most? The grass! Doesn't she look quite innocent here? That fistful of grass promptly went into her mouth after this picture.


We cooked a whole turkey and had Easter dinner with my siblings and families (minus Blake). My brother Jaren and brother-in-law Matt went with the turkey legs. Mmmm, nothing like a huge turkey leg! Then we had an Easter egg hunt outside where apparently Marin's pants were on backward. Avree took pictures, but Marin was picking a wedgie in all of them. Jaren's wife Callie discovered this and fixed them for her!


Here are a few pictures of Mitch's birthday party last night. Poor Mitch, his birthday is 3 days before Marin's, so we don't usually have any big parties. We had a little family party and an awesome cake, if I do say so myself. It was banana bundt with cream cheese frosting.


Marin helped Mitch blow out his candles of course, and also unwrap all of his presents.


Stay tuned for pics of Marin's birthday. Lots of people will be joining us this Saturday to celebrate her 4th, including both sets of grandparents! She has been asking me every day for a month, "Is my birthday in the morning?" In a couple of days I can finally tell her yes!

Birthday Bash

Well Kate the great turned ONE YEAR last Thursday. I really cannot believe how time flies. It seems like she was just my tiny little newborn with a squished face and huge blue eyes. Luckily, she's kept the huge blue eyes. I think they're gorgeous, but I am a bit biased. We celebrated in sunny St. George. My mom is a school teacher and she was on spring break so I went down with the girls on Wednesday and Mitch came down later for the weekend (still tax season). The weather was so nice and warm. The grass was green, the trees were blossoming. Oh... why did I leave St. George? I'll remember during July. Anyway, on Saturday night we had a little bash for Kate's b-day. My mom's uncle died and the funeral was on Saturday so some of her family from far away happened to be down and they came and celebrated with us. We all had a great time telling stories that we've all heard millions of times and laughing very hard (standard for my mom's family get-togethers, we laugh the hardest at our own stories or jokes).

Kate really is my special little sweetie. When I had Marin I couldn't imagine loving any child as much as I loved her, but I love both my girls and can't believe how different they are already! My mom always says Kate is our "little gift from heaven," which is true. She is happy and smiling all the time, but quite mischievous too! Here are some pictures of our fun week:


Jaren and Marin blowing out the mega candle (we put 4 together)

Kate was fascinated by the flame. Sorry weird editing, but these inside pictures were pretty bad. This was the best I could do.

Kate liked her cake but didn't like getting her hands messy. She kept screaming about it! Wonder wear she got that from?

Random Bits

I realize that I haven't been posting as often. It's because not a lot of anything new has really been going on in our lives. We're all doing great and having a nice winter, but nothing new and exciting. Like our neighbor's 2 week trip to Hawaii. Now that would be something lovely to blog about in the middle of winter. But alas, no Hawaii trips for the Moncurs. We still enjoy life though. Marin continues to ski every weekend with her dad. She got poles last week and is pretty thrilled about them. Kate is walking and tearing my house apart as I type. I continue doing all of those wonderful mom things like cleaning the house, cooking food, trying to entertain Marin inside while it's still freezing outside... let's see, my big accomplishment last week was getting Kate's and Marin's scrapbooks up to date (I don't scrapbook as a hobby, I scrapbook purely for journaling purposes... as in buy cute paper, slap the pictures on the cute paper and label them-- every so often adding a sticker or bit of ribbon so someday my kids will feel like I put a little effort into it). Oh, and I figured out how to make the most adorable little fabric roses for headbands and hair clips. I'll blog about that later with pictures if I'm feeling ambitious. Mitch works 60 hours in 5 days so he can ski with Marin on Saturdays. I trained in the NICU at the hospital so I work there occasionally now. We had a nice Superbowl party with the usual crew and lots of good food (pictures below), my parents came to visit, a little Aggie basketball, and, let's see..a few illnesses of course....and that is about it. Hey, reading over this post I realize it sounds like a Christmas card update. If I just would have added all of our church callings it would be complete. I will now post a video of Kate walking, for Nicole and any other family members who may be interested. Sorry it's so short, apparently my blog can't handle me uploading a video longer than 10 seconds!


Rueben... I specifically said,"Smile!"



Kate makes these growling/screaming noises constantly. Mitch always calls her the Gremlin or Tasmanian Devil because that's what she really sounds like!

Well folks...

I've gone and topped my previous most embarrassing moment. My sister-in-law Nicole was right, as long as I blog, you will never be done hearing embarrassing stories from me. This embarrassing story is actually so embarrassing I can't share the details on the web, it is along the lines of way too much information. I will give you all a warning though. If you've ordered something on the web and had it shipped to your parents' house previously (like for Christmas or something), be sure to change the shipping address when you order something again from that sight. Otherwise, you may ship something to your parents around Valentine's Day that should not be. The end.

Kate the Great

This is our nickname for Kate. Marin came up with it, actually, when she was frustrated with Kate for knocking down her toys. She said,"Ohhh, Kate the great!" in her very most exasperated voice. Well the nickname has stuck. So Kate the great is almost 1 year old. She is 11 months and I just want her to stay tiny. Well, she actually is pretty tiny still... she only weighs 17 lbs (20th %ile). She can run across a room now. That just blows my mind. She has the tiniest chicken legs and I can't believe they can wobble her all the way down our hallway. She's very busy of course and yesterday got into both bathrooms' toilet paper rolls twice (that's 4 times being caught with a mouth full of TP). Here is a picture of the little stinker:

Kate is great!