Hiking the Y

In celebration of completing his first year of school Ethan and I decided to hike the Y on the 22nd of April.

At first Kelsey refused to get into the back pack, but with some coaxing (aka Fruit snacks) we finally got her in and were able to make the climb.

Kelsey is not a little baby anymore so it was quite the trek getting her up the mountain. Ethan graciously took her the whole way up and down because lets be honest. I probably would have tripped and fallen AND (not even or) complained the whole time.

Once we made it to the top, Kelsey was pretty proud of herself. She kept saying "good job" and "I made it!" It was so cute to see her so proud of her "accomplishment." Its tough work riding in a backpack. 

 

 

Hiking the Y is a very uneventful climb. You go up, see the view of Provo, and climb down. On the way down, we decided to give Ethan a break and let Kelsey climb down for a couple of turns of the switch backs and she LOVED it! She kept talking to her self, telling other hikers "good job" as they passed, and kept saying "Kelsey hiking. " I tried to get it on camera but just couldn't. I was laughing too hard and too worried about slipping that I had to stay focused.

On the steeper declines Kelsey would  begrudgingly allow us to hold her hands, but very begrudgingly. One steep part, Ethan and I were both holding her hands, and she managed to shimmy her arms out of the sleeves of her sweatshirt so that Ethan was left holding the sweatshirt arm and not Kelsey's hand. She then tried to run off but luckily I was still holding an actual hand so she couldn't.  She is a sneaky one! She started laughing so hard at the fast one she pulled on Dad that we all started laughing and had to stop and recover before we could keep going.

Kelsey was a champ and climbed down quite a few of the turns. On turn 8, she stopped walking, sat down,  and said "Kelsey tired." She went from 100% to 0% just like that. There is no shame in that little body. She was done and she knew it.

Luckily dad is really nice and took her down the rest of the way. Once we got to the parking lot, without any prompting Kelsey started cheering,  "WooHoo!! I made it!! I did it!!" and threw her arms in the air complete with jumping and clapping.  Apparently we are VERY into self motivation at our house because it doesn't seem to lack EVER in any activity we do.

 I say go for it girl! If you can't celebrate your victories, who else will! Love that Kelsey!

 

Easter

 

Easter was a good time this year. Honestly, Easter is never really a let down for so many reasons but here's a couple:

1)I love that it is always on a Sunday. It helps me remember why we are celebrating in the first place. 

2) Out of all the holidays, Easter has THE best candy, hands down! You know I'm right

3) I love that NORMALLY it means that spring is here or really really close and that we can pull out our cute colored clothes once again. Who doesn't love a great Easter outfit after winter attire. 

We celebrated this year  by having an Easter egg hunt with Sadie and Scout before they left for London. This was our last hoorah together and we were pretty sad. Kelsey has already asked for Sadie and I just don't know how to help her understand that she's gone :( They really were best friends.

Anyway the egg hunt was really fun.

 Jamie was so cute and put different things in the eggs like stickers, toys and fruit snacks so it wasn't just delicious candy (which I stole out of Kelsey's eggs while she wasn't looking What! It was delicious). Sadie understood the "hunt" really well but Kelsey... well..

 She would walk up to an egg, shake it and if it didn't rattle she would throw it on the ground. If it did rattle, she would sit down, open her egg and eat what was inside. Luckily Dan taught her to do this much, because otherwise it would have been pretty boring. We tried to help her understand that if she waited to eat it, she would get more in the end but she didn't care. We are a now type of family so what'd you do!

 It was a beautiful evening so after the hunt we just visited and played in the front yard until the sun went down. We are really going to miss Jamie and Sadie. They were great friends and some of the kindest people I have ever met.

 On Saturday the 19th, we decided to go to the BYU Easter egg hunt at the stadium and I can confidentially say I will never ever go again and try to prevent any friends from going. To make this a positive post, I will be short in saying that they made us wait outside the gates for like an hour, corralled 1000 people into the stands to make us sit and hear announcements from a man who clearly was not a parent about BYU sports and other BYU events, only to corral us back down the stairs to surround the field, where they released all of us to gather maybe 500 eggs, only to end in about 5 seconds where we then had to corral back out of the gates to find our families, strollers, and lost children. The most ridiculous part was watching fathers holding infants run to the middle of the field collecting as many eggs and shirts as they possible could literally pushing kids out of the way. NOT my favorite BYU activity, but definitely the biggest waste of time, and I have wasted my time in so many ways at BYU. Okay to be totally positive, Ethan had the time of his life. He could live on that field and so for him is was a great time. Kelsey also had the time of her life climbing up and down the rows and rows of bleachers. I was the one with the no fun attitude.

 

The silver lining was that the Mannings came down to spend the day in Provo. It was such a fun day to be with cousins. We took Harper with us while Julie and Reo ran errands, and oh my goodness! We love Harper! The whole time she was at our house we listened to Frozen and she sang every song "word" for "word". It was so cute. She would even request songs and when they were done she would start singing the song that came next on the soundtrack before it began. SO CUTE! Every since that day, Kelsey now sings "let it go" randomly too. Harper has taught her well. I think my favorite part about Harper singing is that she squishes her face up and gets like super rock star on us. It was AWESOME!

She also helped me make a pie while Kelsey took a nap. Love this face

 

It was just fun to have the Mannings visit. We just love when people willingly make the trek down to Provo. We know its far but its nice not to always have to drive up to Salt Lake to see family. That hour gets old fast. Plus who doesn't love a good Holden comment! We were talking about Lent and everyone was saying what they gave up for Lent. Related but too long to explain, I mentioned that the world was not ready for all my judgments. Holden then told me that I should give up judging for Lent. It was hilarious. 

That evening came the egg dying with Hannah

We gave Kelsey an egg to draw on, and seriously within the first 30 seconds she dropped the egg. Three times!  After she dropped it the third time we noticed that she started peeling off the shell. She started peeling enough of the shell to realized that underneath was an egg. She asked for a spoon, split open the egg and started eating it! It was so cute and so helpful. It kept her more occupied than coloring an egg would have so strong work Kelsey Wing.

Easter Sunday was a GORGEOUS day!! I was able to sing with the ward choir and I felt like our talks and lessons were very inspired. I really felt the spirit of the atonement and am really grateful for that.
We also had a lot of fun with Kelsey on Easter morning. She was VERY excited to see a bunny and a chicken in her Easter basket. Her bunny has already made the night time request list "nigh-night, blankie, baby, books, bunny?" and she loves to get chased by her chicken (its a wind up chicken that hops around. Best dollar store find ever!)

After church we went up to spend a wonderful dinner with the Wings. Kelsey wanted to show Gramma her hat and bunny. She talked about it the whole way up.

 I just feel so grateful for family especially lately., I have not always been the nicest Aunt to my nephews and I get worried that I have ruined our relationships permanently.  I get too worried about being in control and not worried enough about being kind and loving. On Sunday morning, Skyler called me, just ME, to tell me that he had lost his tooth. I almost cried. We talked for 10 minutes about his two missing teeth and how he pulled them out all by himself. We then talked about his awesome Easter egg hunt the day before and how he was excited to wear matching ties with his brothers. Later that day, on our way up dinner, he called again and asked if I had gotten the picture his mom had sent showing off his giant gap in his mouth! It was such a great day for me! It is something so small and seemingly insignificant, but its nice to know that all my meanness has been forgotten for now and we can still be friends :)

The farm

One of Ethan's professors invited the whole section over to come play at his house for FHE on April 14th. He had a pony, baby bunnies, baby chicks, and lots of fun toys to play with. Kels liked all the animals just fine but as soon as she saw the trampoline is was game over. We  introduced her to a see saw and that was a major success too. Its fun to be able to go to so many different professors homes. Its one of the many reasons that we are so grateful that we have been able to be apart of the BYU MBA program. It is so based on family and we feel so blessed.

Kelsey didn't want a picture with the pony because she was busy jumping

The bunnies were hands down the soft animals I have ever touched. Kelsey and I loved the bunnies. She wanted to hold them so bad but her idea of holding things is to squeeze them as hard as you can. She literally would love something to death if we didn't stop her. I didn't think that that would be wise for Ethan's reputation and so I decided to not let her hold them but just pet them.

I don't get Graham Canyon ice cream very often but when I do it is a BIG DEAL!!! I am really going to miss this about Provo. I love this stuff so very much

Moving randoms

 

Ethan finished his last final Monday the 21st which means moving has officially begun. Its going as well as expected with a toddler. Kelsey is actually not getting too much in the way and I have only had one stressful melt down so over all I'd say we are doing great! We try to keep Kelsey busy by letting her play in the boxes or decorate the outsides of them, but that only last for so long. Ultimately we take turns getting her out of the house while the other person packs as fast as they can.

These are some of Ethan's gems that we were finally able to part with as long as we had a picture

Funny story. I have been trying to convince Ethan for 5 years to ditch this Popsicle stand because NONE of these shirts fit. They are all WAY too big but he loved them so much. Finally we were able to say our final goodbyes. Its been fun shirts. 

Kelsey found her Chicago box and fell in love with what she found inside instantly. Our little tourist is ready to hit the streets. Whats especially cute to us, is the fact that she thinks the hat, "pack", and shoes are a pair. She wouldn't wear one with out the other for a while. She'd put on the pack and say "shoes? hat?" and vise verse until we finally showed her that wearing them individually is fun too.

The ducks have been MIA lately and we finally found out why. 25 baby ducks were in the pond yesterday. I hate ducks but baby anything is pretty cute. Which leads me to this question: Where do all the ducks go? I mean 25 new ducks have just been born and yet the population at the duck pond never seems to change that drastically. Do they take them somewhere else, do the ducks just know to fly away when they are old, do they kill the old ducks? I mean seriously! I really want to know.

And this is what happens when I am busy on a Saturday morning. Do I dare add that this was taken at 9 am? Is there any wonder why Ethan is the favorite parent.

Steeplechasers We Aren't

Recently Andrea ran at the Stanford Invite and did amazing. While she was there someone was able to get a great picture of her jumping. We all thought it was cool and then Rich showed us a picture of HIM steeple chasing and oh my gosh!! Their pictures are just amazing!!! 

I mean not only do they look awesome, powerful, and so talented individually, but they look EXACTLY THE SAME as a pair!! 

Ethan and I were so impressed that we decided to show the family just how cool WE were as a pair. On Tuesday April 8th we went to the BYU track and had one of the best nights ever. 

Whats sad, is that we are really trying to look like Andrea and Rich and instead we look like, well,us...

This video is long, but Kelsey is pretty funny near the end, like at 1 minute exactly. Also if you watch it, at about 58-62 seconds I talk about "that youtube video." This is the youtube video that I am referring to. This is the reason I was scared to hurdle the steeple.

That was one of the hardest things I have EVER done!! I literally could only hurdle the hurdle one time without using my feet or hands. I  don't know how they do it. To run full speed at a 6 inch thick hurdle after running 8 laps as fast as you can without falling?! On top of that one time a lap they jump into water! Not only is it hard but it takes so much courage!  I have a new found appreciation and respect for steeple chasers.

Not all of us looked ridiculous while trying to steeple :)

While we were at the track, Ethan decided that it would be a great time to get a 400 time. Can I just say that Ethan is THE most confident person I have ever met. He hasn't been a on track since before Kelsey let a lone timed a 400, but he just knew that he was going to do awesome. He was determined that his former self was not going to beat his current self.  

He didn't do as well as he liked, but lets be honest, he was wearing basketball shoes. 

Kelsey had so much fun on the track. She tried the pole vault mats, the sand pits, threw stuff on the field, climbed around hurdles, and then practiced the starting line. We have some work to do in regards to "on your mark get set go"