This -n- That

Let's see...what have we been up to?  I'll go through some pics from the last little while to bring us up to speed....

Grandma and Grandpa Israelsen came down for a visit the end of January.  We LOVE having Grandparents come!  Grandpa had meetings down in St. George for a few days and Grandma decided to be the ultimate trooper and stay with us.  That is true love, really.  An opportunity to escape from the underworld (aka Cache Valley in January) to 60 degrees and sunny in St. George, and she decides to stay with us?  Sainthood right there!  We certainly didn't complain.  The kiddos loved the extra attention and I was in heaven with some adult conversation.  Of course I just enjoyed the company and let my camera collect dust, but I did manage to snag just two pictures.  This one is blurry, but it was so darn funny!  Grandma brought down a game called "Don't Wake Daddy."  The main piece of the game is a "daddy" who you can lay down into a bed to "sleep."  Basically throughout the game each player takes turns pushing a little button on the bed that eventually makes the daddy pop up and sit right up in the bed.  It's kind of like a jack-in-the-box, and you never know how many pushes it will take to make the daddy pop up.  Well, before Ty had really had a chance to see how the game worked, he got hold of the daddy in the bed and managed to make him pop up.  It scared to poor kid half to death and he screamed and threw a fit as though someone cut off one of his fingers!  He was absolutely terrified of it!  After watching the girls play it for a while, he became really intrigued with watching it, but still wouldn't get very close to it.  So he would have Grandma sit on the couch with the bed, then he would go over to the other side of the room and sit in the rocking chair.  Grandma would push the button, and Ty would wait anxiously for the daddy to pop up.  Every time it popped it scared him, but then he would smile and holler, "Daddy wake up!"  Pretty soon he decided he would brave enough to carefully slide out of the rocking chair, walk over to Grandma's lap and push the daddy back down in the bed.  Then he would hurry and run back to the rocking chair so Grandma could push the button until daddy woke up again.  He did this over and over and over.  Every single time the daddy popped up, he cheered and smiled and hollered.  It was hilarious.  And well, you probably had to be there to really enjoy it like we did, but it's a fun memory.  Here is a picture of Ty just after he pushed the daddy back down in the bed and he's hurrying to get back to his chair before it pops up again.  And thank heavens he has on his snow boots.  Extra protection, you know.

 

While Grandma and Grandpa were down, we decided last minute that they would stay with the kids Friday night while Jacob and I had a little getaway down to St. George for the Young Farmer and Rancher Conference.  It was SO fun to have a little overnighter!  Jacob and I haven't done that in a loooooongg time.  We were so incredibly grateful to Mom and Dad for doing that for us.  It meant so much.  The conference was excellent, and we had a great time.  While we were sitting waiting for the conference to start Jacob leaned over to me with a smile and said, "Brittney Otte: voted most likely to attend a Young Farmer and Rancher Conference in high school."  I just smiled and leaned over to him and said, "Jacob Israelsen:  voted most likely to attend the Utah Shakespeare Festival in high school."  He he he.  Yep, I had him there.  But, I thoroughly enjoyed the conference and he thoroughly enjoys seeing a good musical with me at the Shakespeare Festival every year.  I also learned that I wasn't the only lady there who didn't grow up on a farm and ended up marrying a farm boy.  I'm sure Jacob isn't the only farm boy who has had a bit of marital refinement, either.

Here are the kiddos enjoying a little "sleepover" on the bedroom floor.  Ty loves being right in the middle of everything his sisters are doing.  Quite literally, as this picture shows:

It's been a fairly interesting project having him share a room with the girls, but he's slowly doing better.  We finally got him his own "big boy bed" and he loves it.

Ty also loves Lexi.  Quite often he loves her a little too much and she's not especially appreciative of his love.  He always asks for his picture to be taken with her.

And here we have the romantic Israelsen Valentine dinner.  Complete with a heart pizza, as per the girls' request.  The ladies really look forward to this and it's fun to spend together as a family.  Having small kids requires redefining romance.



Here is Kenna with her cute little Valentine box she made at school.  Oh the things you can do with a cereal box.
 


What do you do on a sunny Saturday in February?  Well, first you have to feed the farm help:

Then you have to entertain the farm help:

You need to introduce your baby to the fine equine:

You have to just smile and endure while mom takes a bazillion pictures (and get creative in the process, thank you Kenna):

And lastly, it's important to take time to just stop and discuss the finer things in life:

 And then go home and do a giant load of muddy, stinky, horse-smelling laundry.

Yep, the finer things in life I suppose.