Birthday Boy!

It was Jared's Bday last week! He slept in had a good breakfast and headed to school to tackle his dissertation. Darin, Tagg and I picked him up and took him out for lunch. He then came home to his requested dinner of lasagna and breadsticks. We laughed how his day revolved around food. :) We gave him presents after dinner. The boys each found or made something and wrapped it up for him. Jared is holding the sucker that Darin took from his Vday stash and gave to him.

In the middle of opening presents, Luke decided to rain a little on Jared's parade and said, "I just lost my tooth!" His first one mind you. So of course we had to stop and awe over the momentous occasion. Upon looking at it I noticed that his permanent teeth were already coming in! Needless to say I yanked the other loose one 2 days later.

But back to Jared...the boys giving bday snuggles.

We made him a caramel ice cream dessert instead of a cake - thanks chel!

What a great guy that works so hard for his family and is such a great example to all of us and a great teacher to his boys! Love you Jare!

Week of Love

Valentine's Day is always a fun time of year to express extra love to each other. I did it a little different this year. The FHE before Vday I talked about Jesus loving everyone and doing service to show his love. So I had the boys pick hearts out of a bag that had names of everyone in the family. They had to do one act of service or kindness a day for a week for their "secret valentine." They were excited and it was fun to watch them try to think of different things to do for each other, yet keep it a secret. Notes, candy, emails were left, beds were made and clothes folded for each other. It was really fun. The Sat. before Vday I had them all take $1 from their money and we all went to Michael's to pick out a present for their secret valentine. It was fun to watch them searching for that perfect gift for someone else and not themselves. I also had them make their valentine a card. On Vday we had a yummy breakfast and headed to Stk. Conference. Then we had a nice dinner, steak and baked potatoes, and I made them all stay dressed up so it would be nice and proper. Mom and Dad put our usually valentines on their plates with their cards revealing their secret valentines. We talked about all the things that we did for eachother. After dinner we gave out our presents and it was fun to watch everyone be so excited. We then had a special dessert - my mom would always do that for Vday.

The fixins'

My dapper young men.

The boys playing with their new presents together. Those flowers sticking out of the martenelli bottle is what Darin picked out for me - so cute!

Hodge Podge

It's been a while.....I will be the first to admit that I've been addicted to the Olympics. I stay up late every night watching the fun unfold. It may be the thrill of the sport, the love of competition that runs deep in my Snyder blood that I haven't tapped into for quite some time, or the joy of watching someone fulfill their dreams after so much work. I don't know but I love it. Therefore blogging has taken a back seat. I'm just going to throw some random updates and pictures together for this post.


This is a typical FHE. Let me explain...the boys get assignments for FHE, one of them being singing time. I believe Luke came up with this keeper - everyone wrestles dad and whoever pins him on his back gets to pick the song we sing. This usually goes til everyone has done it. Are you really surprised that our family of four boys figured out a way to involve wrestling into FHE? No better way to invite the spirit but with a little family wrestle mania. They love it, and I mean all of them (including Jared).

The boys had a 5 day weekend break from school so we blew up the air mattress and stuck it in the playroom and let them sleep on it all weekend while watching movies. I remember loving to sleep somewhere different when I was little. I think they thought it was cool. I snuck in later to get a pic when they were sleeping.

This pic I had to take because it reminded me of a pic I took 4 years ago when Rees and Luke were about the same ages. Sometimes I feel like my life is a big deja vu.

Over some of the break the boys did some art/wood projects they had. They worked hard and it was a good break from TV and legos. I didn't take a final picture of all of them, maybe later.

Walk Like a Man

Tagg is walking!! He started a couple weeks ago. He thinks he is pretty cool walking around everywhere. He's growing up way too fast. This is him showing us his powerful, chubby walking legs. You can't really tell but he finally got some teeth. He cut those during Christmas, that was fun.

There he goes.

Testing out the shoes.

His other favorite pastime is climbing into things. He's been known to climb into laundry baskets and toy bins, but this was my favorite when I found him the other day.