T-ball and more

Gage is playing t-ball once on tuesday this month and he loves it. He is the smallest guy out there I believe, but he thinks he is the biggest! It is extra fun because his best buddy Jaxon is on the same team as him! They both think that they are pretty cool baseball players! Gage is funny to watch because he is the only kid out there that needs the small Tee and when he is in the outfield he gets all ready and watches attentively for about 1 minute and then he starts to chew on his glove or starts to pick his nose :) He has a great time playing though!

The kids are all paying very close attention to the coaches rules!
Gage and his little Tee.
Going for a home run!
Silly boy.
Here are some pictures of us playing outside on one of these beautiful days. The past few years it seemed as though beautiful days were hard to come by, but this spring has been just that, BEAUTIFUL!

The kids found a new way to play with their Little Tikes car.
Peek

Dylann is now a 2 year old! Oh my!

Okay so April is here and we have been about as busy at one family can be. April is a huge month for us as a family. First on the 3rd was Aaron and my anniversary and at the end of the month both Aaron and I have our birthday, but the most important day in April is our baby girls birthday on April 17th. She turned 2 this year!

Dylann has been just a wonderful little spirit in our lives from the day she entered this world. As a baby she was just so sweet. She didn't demand much from us, she was just content to sit in her swing and sleep for hours each day. When she was awake she loved to just sit with us and watch the world around her. Dylann has always been a great sleeper and a great eater. The complete opposite of her brother!

Even though she couldn't be more different from her brother, there in no one else in this world that she would rather be more like! She has always looked up to her brother and has done everything in her power to catch up to him. She started walking at 9 months old and hasn't looked back! Once she turned one she turned into a spirited little girl. She knew exactly what she wanted and would go to any length to get it (including some pretty outrageous temper tantrums) She knew exactly how to test us, although, to the untrained eye, she seemed pretty charming. I'm sad to see the "babyness" gone, but I'm thankful to be done with the "terrible ones"

Dylann has gotten a little better with her temper, but has kept a great deal of her spirit as she has turned into a little girl. She has her own style and doesn't really care what anyone thinks. She likes to play with the boys, Gage and Jaxon. She is rough and tumble about most things, but the one girly thing that she does is that she needs to have fingernail polish on at all times.

She is constantly amazing me with how smart she is. I can't believe what she catches on to and the things that she comes up with. She can count to 20 now. She started counting to 5 when she was 15 months old. She can sing the ABC song pretty darn good. Her favorite color right now is orange and she can point out shapes like square, triangle, heart, and star. She can sing so many songs that I have lost count! One of her favorites right now is Fireflies by Owl City and of course Boom Boom Pow by Black Eyed Peas like her brother. She also has great talent when it comes to dogs. She LOVES dogs and most dogs seem to take to her. Her Auntie Amy recently got a little Papillon puppy named Lucy and Dylann just loves to carry her around. Lucy doesn't seem to mind Dylann toting her around one bit either. She may very well be the next Dog Whisperer :)

Here are some pictures from Dylann's lovely birthday party. She had lots of friends show up. Including the Grandparents, Auntie Amy, and Auntie Amber. Some other friends showed up with their kids, Amy with Ethan(3) and Tayvin(1), Heidi with Jack (almost 2), Cindy with Asha (3) and Elias (20 months), and Jessi and Chris with Jaxon(4) and Jada (18 months).

Dylann is very lady like :)
Everyone checking out the house that Dylann got for her birthday from Mom and Dad and Grandma and Grandpa Sanden
Dylann playing house with her new boyfriend Ethan.
Opening presents with a little help from her brother.
Playing with her birthday drum that she got from our wonderful neighbors.
Attempting to blow out the candles.
Now with some help from Gage.
And finally getting help from Jaxon!
Yummy cupcakes
Taking T-ball lessons from Gage

And just like that, the snow is gone!

Well tomorrow is April 1st and March just flew by, just like every months seems to do lately. I do think that the snow melted in record speed this year and I don't think that there is a soul out there complaining about it. We have been very busy trying to soak up the warm sunshine and taking advantage of every chance to be outside in the fresh air.

The kids are growing up and there is nothing I can do to stop it. I was sitting with my baby girl the other day and it struck me that she will be 2 soon! I can't believe it. She is growing up and ready to take on the world. She really thinks that she knows how to do anything and doesn't show a speck of fear. She dances to her own little tune all day literally. She is constantly trying to keep up with her brother, which drives him absolutely crazy, but the funny thing is that she can keep up with him most of the time. We recently took the kids to "How to Train Your Dragon" and she fell in love with the movie theater. The minute the lights turned off she started laughing hysterically and she did that throughout the entire movie. She did manage to throw 2 large bags of popcorn on the floor and in the aisle in front of us. She also got our her friends Asha and Elias into the action. I'm pretty sure the family in front of us was not very happy with us, but I enjoyed watching the kids have so much fun.

Gage is officially signed up for Komet Connection preschool next year. He will be going 3 days per week and he is very excited to go. He is currently enrolled in the 3 year old preschool 2 days per week and it has been one of the best things we have done for him. I can't believe the things that he has learned. The most important change that we have seen in Gage since started preschool is that it has helped him to be a little more assertive. He still is our sweet little go-with-the-flow little guy, but now he is a little less willing to let other kids push him around. Another thing that I have noticed is that he loves "learning" He has some learning books that teach numbers, abc's, writing, simple math and things and he will spend hours each day working on these books. He is always asking to do these and I can't believe how well he does with them without much help from us.

Since our computer has been at Best Buy (not really being fixed) I have tons of pictures on here. Starting with Boxcar Dylann. We have decided that should be her Garbage Pail Kid name since she is always writing on herself and seems to resemble the beloved Garbage Pail Kids from the 80s :)

We had a little neighborhood Easter Egg hunt. We do this every year with neighbors and it is a blast. This year the weather was perfect and the kids had a blast. They all ended the day with tummies full of pizza, dirt from head to toe, hands permanently dyed green, yellow, and pink, and smelling of summer and I'm sure that they are all sleeping sound in their beds right now.

The girl corner.
Shortly after this Dylann decided to paint her feet with the egg dye.
The big kids Gage, Jaxon, and Hailey with their neat finds
Its getting heavy
The little kids kinda roaming around and occasionally stumbling upon and egg.
A few days ago we went to the City Easter Egg hunt and to our friend's Cindy and Jim's house to color eggs. Dylann is very seriously thinking about how she is going to get into this egg to eat it.
Gage coloring his egg.
Dylann and her boys Elias and Andrew.
Meeting the Easter Bunny. Dylann had to give him hug and thought that they were BFFs
All of Gage's eggs
Getting ready to go and it was crazy!
Dylann is a dog whisperer. She can get any dog to do anything. This is her little doggy cousin Lucy. She loved Lucy. Oh and she had to show Lucy how to eat her bone and that is what is all over Dylann's mouth.
Fun times at the park. We LOVE warm weather.

Gage is my handsome little man.
Checking out the giant tree stump at the park by Grandma and Grandpa Kilen's house.
Gage being about as daring as he ever will be by jumping on these.
One, Two, Three, GOOOOO
Gage's dream came true and he actually got to eat lunch with some super heros!
Dylann taking Baby for a walk
Aww... This picture really shows how Dylann looks up to her big brother :)
And to end this super long blog:

The kids playing Ring Around the Rosie.

Yes we did have homemade pizza for supper too :)

Mexico

We went on our first trip since kids have entered our lives the first week of March to Mexico. It was wonderful! We spent 6 days being lazy by the ocean, drinking lots of fruity drinks, and snorkeling. It sure was relaxing! The resort we stayed at was beautiful! The weather was great most of the time we were there. It was warm every day, but it got a little cool at night. It was windy most days, but that didn't keep us out of the water. We spent most of the time just laying on the beach and we would get up every now and again to go snorkel. I wasn't sure if I would be able to snorkel because when I tried to snorkel when we were in Jamaica 7 years ago I freaked out in the water and didn't enjoy it at all. This time it was great and I loved it! We saw tons of colorful fish, a big nasty eel, some jelly fish, lots of turtles, and a nasty Baracuda. There was one person who said he had seen a shark in the reef one of the days and a lady that had seen a squid.

We did go on an excursion one day to Tulum with some Mayan Ruins. We started the day by doing a repel line and then went to the 3 zip lines. I am scared of heights and could have gone my entire life without doing either of these things and I felt like I was going to throw-up and pass out by the time I was done. I am happy that I did it though. It just means that I don't ever have to do it again in my lifetime :) After we did that we went snorkeling in a Cenote (underground river) then we went to the ruins which were amazing! It was beautiful.

We missed the kids like crazy kept saying to each other how much the kids would like this and that. Before we left we asked Gage what he wanted us to bring him and he said that he wanted 5 sea shells and one sea star. The sea shells were everywhere so that was easy to get but it was next to impossible to find a sea star. I remember in Jamaica it seemed like there were sea stars everywhere so I thought that it wouldn't be a problem finding one for Gage. Very wrong we looked all over while we were snorkeling and nothing. We looked in every little shop that we came across and nothing. Finally, at the airport, waiting to fly home we stopped in one of the convenience shops and low and behold there was a sea star. This was so worth all of the adventures, just to see the look on Gage's face when we gave him his sea star from the ocean!

Dylann was happy to get her turtle bracelet and was proud to wear it, but she soon forgot about it and wanted to play with everything Gage got, like usual. She loves to drive Gage nuts by doing everything he does. So it was literally less than a half and hour after we got home that they were fighting like cats and dogs and it felt like we had never left :)

One of the many turtles that we had seen snorkeling.
Eating at the amazing Italian Resturant
Aaron climbing the Mayan Ruin that was on the beach at our resort.
A little bit of Tulum
Proof that I did this!
Aaron had tons of fun on the zip-line
I'm ready to cry.
Aaron being silly.

Here is a little video of Dylann singing her ABC's while she is busy destroying the kitchen. This little girl loves to sing. She can sing Twinkle Little Star, Happy Birthday, ABCs, Thumbkin, Jingle Bells, Lots of songs from Yo Gabba Gabba, Dora, and Diego, You Are My Sunshine, and Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes. I'm sure there are more that I can't think of too :)