Grandma Barbara Day

Scott lost his mom to breast cancer 10 years ago. So it makes Mother's Day a bit rough. His siblings started a tradition of getting together every year on Mother's Day and talking about their mom and their memories of her. This year we got together at Sugarhouse park to remember Grandma Barbara.

 

We brought some old bread to feed the seagulls, geese and ducks. 

Adri was in heaven. She is the duck queen. She has a whole little flock of stuffed ducks that she carries around with her. They all have names. She spent five minutes saying goodbye to the ducks. Blowing them kisses and promising to come back soon.

Sally and Adri are my darling, darling nieces. I made Sally promise me that she wouldn't grow up and go to kindergarten, because it would break my heart. She looked at me and said,"I going to be big and go to kindergarten." Now she is going into 3rd grade! and Adri will be in first!! They are growing up so so fast! I changed both of their diapers. I feel really really old.

 Hottie Amber always has a big beautiful smile on her face!

 Oh Ben. Running like a wild man. Again. Up and down the hill he went about a million times.

 Dilly Bars are one of Grandma Barbara's favorite treats. So April brought some for all of us!

 Who doesn't love Dilly Bars?

 I think it is safe to say that the love of Dilly Bars runs deep in this family!

 Ben found a dirt pile. So of course he started digging and kicking and throwing dirt everywhere. I couldn't bring myself to stop him because he was having so much fun!

 Then he turfed it. Face first in the dirt. Awesome.

Then we had to show dad the damage. As he came around the tree he said, "Don't freak out dad!" He knows that dad gets a little crazy about dirt on clothes.

 Look at that face! Seriously?

next stop . . .

 Ethel's Chocolate Factory and the Cactus Gardens! The chocolate treats we ate were so so delicious. A bit of a chocolate overload, but that is my absolute favorite thing in the world!

 The cactus gardens were unbelievable. I have never seen cacti in bloom before! So so beautiful.

 Ben of course liked digging in the dirt the best.

 And running around like a crazy.

 I got a bit carried away photographing all the cacti. Secretly I want to be Imogen Cunningham, but I do not have a green thumb to grow cool plants to photograph.

 Ben's absolute favorite part were all the airplanes. All of the air traffic coming into Las Vegas fly right over the Cactus gardens. Plane after plane after plane. All day long. He really didn't want to leave.

 I played around with my new macro lens. So much fun! I still have to mess with it some more. But so far I love it.

This shot was such a happy surprise!! When I took it I didn't see the bumblebee!! When I got home and downloaded it I squealed with joy!!

Cole loved every second of his nap in the sunshine.

CAT dealership

 What was one of our fist stops in Las Vegas? The CAT dealership of course! I drove by it when I was in Vegas last March and I knew Ben would be bananas for this place.

 I was right. We could not contain him. He ran from digging truck to digging truck screaming that this one was his favorite. He loved the ones with the "WALL-E" tires. He loved the ones with the huge scoops. He loved them all.

He was so happy that he even agreed to cooperate, slightly, for a family picture. How funny is it that we all match the digging trucks? Totally unplanned. Hilarious.

He couldn't resist doing a little digging himself.

This is Ben helping the digging truck scoop up the dirt. He thought he was really helping. My favorite part of this picture is his underwear sticking out.

Why not test out the scoop?

What handsome boys I have!

The face says it all!

AWESOME!! Favorite picture ever (so far). So so so Benjamin.

Yeah, there was a store inside, and we found "Bruder" brand trucks. He is spoiled. That is all.

sleep training . . .

I finally broke down and had Cole cry it out. I had prepared myself for at least a couple of weeks of zero sleep along with the agony of hearing my baby scream for me. After sleep training Ben I was ready for another World War. But once again Cole proved to me that every single child is so so different. He cried for about 30 minutes the first night, with only one middle of the night wake up. He has only had one other "long" cry (30 minutes) since then! WHAT? We actually slept more when we were crying it out than we were pre-cry it out! He has slept all the way through the night the last couple of nights (knock on wood)! Wow. That was too easy. I will take it.