Monster Trucks!

On April 17, there was a Monster Truck Rally in Pocatello. Brian bought tickets for himself and the boys. They had a lot of fun and the boys LOVED the monster trucks. In fact, they have built Monster Trucks out of legos since then. Here are some pictures that Brian took.

Sasha and I had a girls night while the guys were out. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of that. We did paint fingernails/toenails, curl hair with the foam rollers, and eat popcorn while watching a little girly movie. We had a lot of fun.

Playing catch up

I know that blogging is NOT a hard thing to do, but for some reason I don't do it with any regularity. So this post I will be playing catch up. Here are pictures from the beginning of the year till now.

We celebrated Brian's birthday at the end of January. Jake, Angie and Kai came over to celebrate with us. We had some dinner and some ice cream cake.

For some reason, I told them I wanted red frosting. As you can tell, it didn't turn out that way. I was kicking myself, because of course there was the possibility it would turn out pink. Brian decided to don his pink shirt to match the cake.

In the middle of February, when the snow started melting, we decided to go out and build a snowman. Grant and Sasha were taking naps, so Ethan and I went out by ourselves. It was Ethan's idea to use frozen blueberries for the mouth and blackberries for the eyes. I thought that was a pretty good idea . . .

Until the next day when the berries started melting . . . maybe a halloween snowman?


The next morning Grant, Sasha and I went out to build our own snowman while Ethan was at school. The snow was so hard, there was no way that was going to happen. As you can see, Sasha is just enjoying eating the snow. That does get a little gross as the snow starts melting and they start eating snow from pretty much anywhere. We ended up sleding off a small hill instead. It was pretty fun!


In about the middle of March, we decided to get some baby chicks. We were going to raise them and then butcher them for meat (I know that sounds horrible, but what else do you do when you get chicks?). We don't really have room for egg layers, so anyway, that's what we did. They were really cute when they were small, but unfortunately they grew fast. They do grow fast and we knew that, it still surprised me though. At the beginning of this week, we decided to see if some friends of ours wanted the chicks (actually chickens at this point). They have about an acre of land, and just more room than we do. So, they are staying at our friends house for now.

Here is Ethan at an Easter egg hunt that we had at Jake and Angie's house, in their almost finished basement.

L to R: Ethan, Grant, Teagan, Melissa, Kai, Whitney, and Brian looking for treasures.

Diane (Brian's mom), Melissa, Whitney (Brian's sisters), and Teagan (Melissa's son), came down around Easter to visit. They visited with us on Saturday. Here are Teagan and Sasha enjoying the Connect Four game. For some reason, it was a big hit among the toddlers.

Jake, Angie, Kai, and Jax were also able to come visit. Here is a picture of all of the grandchildren. L to R: Baby Jax, Kai, Ethan, Sasha, Grant, Teagan

My apologies to the Durtschi family who have already seen the Easter pictures. I always forget my camera and if I do have it close, I forget to take pictures, so I "borrowed" the pictures from Melissa and Angie. Thanks Melissa and Angie! I also couldn't figure out how to center these pictures. The pictures on top were no problem. Oh well.

Happy Birthday Ethan . . . a little late

We celebrated Ethan's birthday the day after Christmas, which happened to be his cousin Teagan's birthday. Ethan's birthday was on Christmas day, but we just got so busy that we decided to celebrate his birthday with Teagan at his favorite pizza place called Leo's place. It was so much fun and the kids had a blast. We sang Happy Birthday to Ethan and Teagan, then here is Ethan blowing out his candles.

One of Ethan's gifts was a sheath that Brian made for him. It holds his sword that Brian made for him last Christmas.



Here is our handsome boy. I can't believe that he is already 6 years old. Where did that time go? He was so excited to be turning 6. He talked about it for quite a while before his birthday. I guess that's what birthdays are about when you're young.

Christmas Post

Yep, I've obviously been a slacker. Here are some of our pictures from Christmas. We opened our Christmas presents in the morning before breakfast. The desks in the background, Brian made for the boys. They LOVE them and use them all the time. Sometimes Sasha even uses them. Hmmmm, maybe a present for next year . . .

Here's Sasha holding the stocking stuffer that Ethan got for her.

After we opened presents at our house, we went and spent the day at Brian's dad's house. Here's Sasha with the present that they got for her. They got her a stroller and playpen combination with the bear/doll that she is holding.

For some reason, I didn't get a picture of the boys with their present which was a K'NEX roller coaster set with a video attached to on of the cars. We had a lot of fun and really enjoyed our Christmas. There are more posts to come . . . I promise.

Our 4th

I don't think that we have told everyone yet, so I thought I'd post about it here. Brian and I are expecting our 4th child June 9th. I thought it was going to be early to mid July, but I was wrong. We had a doctors appointment yesterday and actually found out a lot more than we were expecting. They did an ultrasound to see how far along I was, and they were able to tell the sex of the baby. It's a girl!!!! We are so excited. We were really hoping for a little sister for Sasha, and it looks like she will have a little sister. The lady said she was 90% sure, but it definitely looks like a girl to me. Anyway, we just wanted to let everyone know. We hope you all are doing well!

Love,

Brian, Elise and family

Sasha turns 2!!!

I don't know where the time went, but yesterday Sasha turned two! I can't believe it. We wanted to have a very little celebration, so on Thursday night, Jake, Angie and Kai came over to celebrate with us. Here is our sweet little girl.

Sasha even blew out the candles herself. I was quite impressed. I think because of the examples of her older brothers, she understood what she needed to do and did it.

Here are Kai, Ethan and Grant enjoying the birthday pie. (We're not huge cake fans . . . )

Sasha loves her doll that she got from Uncle Jake and Aunt Angie. She did get other gifts also, but this is one that I took a picture of. And obviously, I forgot to wash her face off. Oops!

Happy Birthday Sasha! We love you!

Las Vegas!!!

So, I asked Brian to take me out for a night for my birthday. I wanted a whole night away. I hadn't slept a night away from the kids, except for when I had another baby and was in the hospital. Many of you know, when Brian does something, he either does it the very economical way, or he goes all out. Well, this time, he went all out. He surprised me, somewhat. He planned everything, and a week or two out, he told me we were going to Las Vegas. He still kept some secrets though. We left on the evening of Friday, September 18th, and came back on Monday, the 21st. It was so much fun and a much needed break.

One place that we went to was the M&M store. There was a fun factory like thing to walk through, and then the store.

The main surprise was that he took me to "The Phantom of the Opera". He also got us front row tickets. It was amazing! I'm still singing the songs, and we went on Saturday night.

He also splurged and reserved us a room in a very nice hotel. It was the Encore, and it was beautiful! There was an indoor garden, with flowers and trees. You can see behind us, they also had balls of flowers hanging from the trees.

This was where we checked in and out, in the hotel lobby. Butterfly images were everywhere. Here is a link to our hotel if you're interested. http://www.encorelasvegas.com/#/homepage/ We had the resort suite, king size bed.




When we were waiting for our shuttle to the airport, we saw several Rolls Royce cars that were owned by the hotel.

We realized that we weren't that interested in taking too many pictures, because it's just us. We're kind of boring. When you have kids, I think you realize that. The kids are just so much more interesting.

Another thing that we saw was the water fountains at the Bellagio. Here is a link to what we saw, if you are interested. This may be a bit silly, but I did choke up a little bit when we watched it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-R5KAmLNHdw

We spent a lot of time walking down the strip and through all of the hotels on the strip. Some of those hotels are pretty amazing!

Brian is also amazing! I will never forget what he did. We had an amazing time. Thank you Brian!!! Also, thank you so much Jake and Angie, for watching our kids! We owe you big time!