Saturday we took a trip out to the Bruneau sand dunes with Keith, Carmen (a very pregnant Carmen!), the Hibbs, and Karin.  I haven’t been there since I was a little kid and it is still just as fun!

Climbing up.  I was so winded when I got to the top it was ridiculous.

Luke was quite worried at first, but after a good 10-15 minutes he was having fun and crawling around.

Digging a big hole…

…to put Karin into.

The funnest thing to do is climb to the top and then run down.  Neil and Beth are racing.

Wheeee!  But wait, Bethany is losing control!

Uh oh.

Oh boy.

Oh dear.

Is that funny or what?! When I saw these pictures I was laughing my head off.  She was not hurt so it’s all good.

Thanks guys for a fun time!  We will definitely be coming back here more often.

I made this truck cake this week for my little buddy Jace.  The truck is rice krispy treat and modeling chocolate.  The mud is chocolate ganache.  I tried a new fondant recipe on this cake and it SUCKED!  Total P.I.T.A!  I found a tutorial on how to make this cake online so don’t give me any credit for the design on this one.  I can copy almost anything, but am useless when I have to come up with my own ideas.
For example:

This one I did a few weeks ago.  All I had to go off of was “orange and pink”.  So this cake took twice as long as the truck one because I had to come up with my own design which is the hardest part for me.   It was pretty tasty though!  My favorite chocolate cake recipe with Oreo cream filling.

We heard the weather was going to be really nice over the weekend so we decided to go camping.  I have never in my life been camping in April, it just seems way too early in the season and I figured it would be too cold, but sure enough it was as hot as a summer weekend.  We also convinced Shane and April and their kids to come along which was awesome.

Within minutes of getting the camper up, the girls were in their swimsuits in the water and the Dittrich kids were soaked in their clothes.

I put Luke in the pack n play so that I could start dinner.  He learned how to stand up last week and now it’s his favorite thing to do.  He is constantly on his feet now.

Neil decided that I was being mean by keeping him contained, so he put him on the ground which led to massive amounts of dirt eating!

Yucky.  The girls caught a frog and tortured it until we told them to let it go.  Also yucky.

Oh hey.  I’m just in a stream eating some bread.  No biggie.

One great thing about camping in the spring-there are NO mosquitoes!!  Not a single one!  We were able to sit by the fire late into the night in our t-shirts and shorts and not worry about being eaten alive.

Luke is still teething that darn first tooth (it has been a month!).  I can feel just a tiny bit of it poking through.  So he hasn’t been sleeping well lately.  He woke up at about midnight and cried for what seemed like forever and would not go back to sleep!  That was a highlight of the trip.  Fun stuff.

The next day we woke up and played some more.  This place was a favorite for the kids because they could splash around.

We went for a hike.  It was a gorgeous day, I couldn’t believe it.

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I completely spaced putting sunscreen on, so the three blondes in my family got burned.  I got my first farmer burn, Julia was toasted all over because she was in her swimsuit the whole time, and even the baby’s chubby arms were red.  I felt totally awful! Neil and Beth were safe because they have that nice skin that doesn’t burn.  And of course you don’t realize you are getting a sunburn until it is too late and it starts hurting.  Julia kept saying, “my skin hurts!!  I need sunscreen” but of course by then it was too late.  Oops.

It was quite the operation, but we did it.  5 complete 72 hour kits, ready to go!  I got the backpacks over a year ago for 5 bucks, and after getting lots of tips online I finally decided to tackle this project over conference weekend.

Each kit contains:
Food for 3 days
2 bottled waters, plus a Seychelle water bottle.
Change of clothes
Toiletries appropriate for age
Emergency supplies (flashlights, ponchos, emergency blankets, etc.)
The kids each have a bag of toys/games
First aid supplies
Emergency contact info
Pictures of the family

They are pretty heavy, but the little girls are tough.

Now there better be some sort of major evacuation so I can get some use out of these things!

The Easter fun began on Saturday morning with our annual ward breakfast and egg hunt.  I was happy to have my brother and sister and their kids with me!

Keaton mostly wanted to walk in the sand, he thought he was at the beach.  :)

Then in the afternoon we went to Keith and Carmen’s baby shower.  I brought the elephant-y cake and cupcakes.

Buntings on the top of cakes is trendy right now.  I thought it looked good at first but the more I look at it the more I think it looks like weird TV antennae.  Incorrect placement maybe.  It looked pretty cute all put together with the cupcakes though.  It was a great shower Keith and Carmen!  Loved it.

After that it was off to Grandma’s for an Easter party/birthday party for Richy.  Here are the kids waiting for the egg hunt to start!

Luke with auntie Deanna.

Luke didn’t hunt many eggs but he did find a ball!  He played with it in the grass for the longest time.  Those eyebrows crack me up!

Keaton has the prettiest eyes.

The next morning was Easter Sunday.  The girls searched for hidden eggs in the living room and a few of them had clues leading to their baskets.  They finally found them behind the office couch.

Little Lukie got one too!

After church, Bethany lost tooth number 3!  She let Neil pull it out.  It was just hanging by a thread.  Eww.

After that we headed to Emmett for dinner and an egg hunt/Karin’s birthday party.  I had 36 eggs filled with toys all ready to bring to this shin-dig and forgot them at home.  Ididottt!!!  At Christmas we forget presents, and at Easter we forget eggs.  Sorry everyone.  It worked out alright though.  Here are all the bigger kids getting ready to gather eggs.

Neil “hid” eggs in the trees where the kids couldn’t even reach…haha.  Here is Bethany trying to jump at one.

The kids were exhausted from such a fun, long weekend.  We wanted to get in a visit to Papa Shadd’s as well but Luke had had enough of this Easter stuff.  :)  We’ll see you soon dad.

Happy Easter to all!!!!!

It’s an Easter FHE tradition!

Junior got bored and wanted down.  He looks like a pasty white bald guy against that dark floor.

I knew that Luke’s hair was getting long and needed a little trim.  What I didn’t know is that Neil would take care of it while I wasn’t home.  Except he didn’t just trim it, he buzzed it all off.  Now my baby is bald!  And I didn’t even get to take a picture of his little blonde curls before they went into the trash.  They were quite shaggy I know, but now he looks like Bruce Willis.

Oh well.  It’ll grow back.

I also wanted to document his first word.  He has been saying uh-oh for a few weeks now and it is so cute.  One of his favorite games to play is the “throwing things on the floor and saying uh-oh game”.  (The videos are pre-haircut)

Another one of his favorite things to do is to scream repeatedly at the top of his lungs.  It is so loud.

He sounds like a monkey.  He will do it over and over and over!

Since Bethany has a summer birthday we decided that St. Patrick’s day would be a pretty good time to celebrate her birthday at school.  She kept calling it her “pretend birthday”.  Having it around St. Patty’s day would mean that we could do some cute cupcakes to go along with the holiday or whatever kind of day it is (Irish celebrating day? Leprechaun day? I don’t know).  Anyhoo, here are the cupcakes we made.  The shamrocks are chocolate.

Along with having cupcakes at school, Neil and Julia went and had lunch with her for her pretend birthday.   Neil got the girls some Happy Meals and then played with them on the playground at recess.  Don’t ask me who is taking this picture.  Some random kid probably!

Neil said that he had swarms of children following him everywhere just like last time.  He had to beat them all in a game of tetherball just to show them who’s boss I guess.

After recess they went to the classroom and Bethany chose a friend to help her pass out cupcakes.

It was, like, the best day ever.-Bethany

The following day was actual St. Patrick’s day.  We wanted to try and catch a Leprechaun this year and Bethany was obsessed with the idea.  She built this whole trap setup that consisted of a big jar with some paper over the top.  We were going to lure the leprechaun up  so that he stood on top of the paper and then fell into the jar.  She rounded up a bunch of jewelry and green things as bait.  Apparently leprechauns get feisty when you try to capture them because he made messes all over the house after our trap was unsuccessful.  Bethany wrote a note that said “Dear Leprechaun, what is your name?  I am nice here is some gold.”  haha.  The leprechaun wrote “NICE TRY” on the paper and then scribbled on some nearby things with the marker (and then left the lid off the marker!)

Then he turned our kitchen chairs backwards and flipped our barstools.

And left some footprints.

He also colored the toilet water green and turned the milk green.  But then the girls wouldn’t drink the milk because they thought the leprechaun made the milk green by using the green toilet water.  Ha!

I wanted to post this funny story because I almost died laughing.  Don’t get too excited though because it’s probably one of those “guess you had to be there” type of things.

Bethany came home from school and was telling me about her day.

Beth:  There is this boy in our class who toots all day and stinks up our classroom.  It smells like a skunk.  He has skunk ass.
Me:  He has WHAT?
Beth:  You know…gas, he has skunk gas.

Ohhhh, skunk GAS.  Then I proceeded to laugh till I cried and she had no idea why that was so funny.  Seriously…say “skunk gas” out loud and see what it sounds like!

Apparently this was news to Bethany.  Luke is crawling!

He also had a well baby visit today.  He has been sick lately and it turns out that he has a double ear infection and is also teething his bottom two teeth (finally).  So he hasn’t been a happy camper lately.  Plus he had to get shots.  It’s not a good day for little Lucas.

Here are his stats:

Weight:  21.59 pounds-85%
Height:  29 inches-86%

He is slowing down on the “chunk” scale and slimming down a little due to his more active lifestyle.  Even though he just learned how to crawl yesterday, he has been “power rolling” all over the place and burning some serious baby fat.  I’m sure he will lose lots more weight now that he is crawling.