Mom/Daughter Activity

This week has been yet another crazy week in May. Baseball season has started, we've had end of the school year functions right and left AND we had our mother/daughter activity last night. I took a few pictures from last night. We had a Hawaiian night with the moms and girls. We had Hawaiian haystacks for dinner, made Hawaiian frames (and took pictures for them to put in the frames) and played a couple of games. It was a lot of fun but my BACK was KILLING me later on that evening. I guess setting up all of the chairs wasn't really a great idea.

 We played the game where the girls and moms had to put their feet in the pool with the pennies. Whoever picks up the most pennies with their feet wins! A Starnes family favorite!

Super fun and easy activity! Looking forward to heading over to Boise tomorrow. Time once again for a friends and family re-charge!

Went to the Dr. yesterday and everything looks great with baby. I'm measuring right on my due date, her head is down, 3 more weeks until next appointment and then we start the WEEKLY appointment. It is crazy how fast time is flying by. This baby is going to be here so soon. 7 weeks to go!

Mother's Day

It has been such a wonderful weekend. Nate had a bike race down at Bear Lake on Saturday morning so I packed up the boys and we went down to Pocatello to the zoo for the morning. We had a nice lunch together, everyone got a long, we enjoyed being out in the sunshine and we just enjoyed spending time together. It makes me SO excited for summer vacation....only 10 more days of school to go! I've realized lately we sure go to Zoos alot. We're weird zoo people or something......But anyway.........

Sunday morning was awesome! The boys were quiet all morning so I could sleep in. I didn't get up until about 10:00! It was heaven. I realize my days of uninterrupted sleep are coming to a close so I am soaking them up as I can! Then I was treated to breakfast in bed...pancakes with FRESH Bear Lake Raspberry Jam on top. Delicious! Nate also brought me some AMAZING chocolate covered fresh raspberries. They are absolutely divine!I was showered in all sorts of lovely notes and homemade gifts.

After church we packed into the car and headed over to Cress Creek Trail head. The boys went on a hike over there with the outdoors club a few weeks ago and I wanted to check the place out. It is about 20 miles away up by Heise Hot Springs. We brought our neighbor Payson along for the fun.

The views were absolutely amazing. The Snake River is so majestic flowing through all of the fields. The boys loved playing the stream that came down the mountain. Payson took a slip and fall into the goopy mud though...he was an absolute mess. Later, Parker hit his head on the corner of a sign and cut his head open.....always an adventure with these boys. Still, we all had fun....injuries, mud, and all.

There was a lot of steep incline on the hike but this 8 month pregnant mama made it to the top....with her husband pushing and pulling her along the way.

I cherish and love the role I have as a mom. I am not perfect, and neither are my children. We try though. We are all in this life journey together and I am so SO thankful that I have the sweet boys and amazing man with me along for the ride. I am so incredibly blessed and thankful for this life I have been given. I can't wait to meet this little girl who will be shaking things up in 7 more weeks. I'm so blessed with an amazing mom, grandma, mother in law and good women in my life. It makes it all easier when you have good examples everywhere you turn.

Our week in pictures

We celebrated our anniversary by going to Dixie's Diner for breakfast:

Aunt Sierra came to watch the boys so we could head out for dinner and a movie that night. We went to Texas Roadhouse and The Avengers. I surprisingly really liked the movie. I was really regretting drinking so much lemonade at dinner though. Yikes. After getting up for the 3rd time during the movie I just decided to sit down in the front rows as not to BOTHER the people I had to walk in front anymore. EMBARRASSING.

 The boys had a blast with Sierra as you can see from the pictures she took:

Nate bought me some beautiful roses and we finished the evening writing in our Anniversary Book. I LOVE that book. Each year we record the highlights of the year and what we did to celebrate our anniversary and put a picture in from that year. It is amazing how easy it is to forget the specifics of each anniversary. It is even more amazing to see how much WEIGHT my husband has lost since year 7 of our marriage. It is mind boggling.

And tonight Dallin did an EXCELLENT job at his piano recital. I'm so proud of my sweet boy. He works so hard at everything he puts his mind to and continues to grow so much musically.

11 years!

Happy 11th Anniversary to my favorite partner and best friend in everything! We're a little older, a little wiser, and even more in love. Best part is....it keeps getting better!

May Madness

May is always Cray-zay! As soon as the month hits it like BAM...we have 1,000 things going on.

Last week was my very last week teaching preschool with these cute kids. Hard to believe we've been doing this now for over a year and a half. We talked about kites (having insane wind over here helped with that) on the first day:

And we decided to go to the zoo (Landon's choice) for the last day. These kids have grown up SO much since we started doing this mom's preschool. I'm so glad we decided to do it. I have also loved having the time to spend working with Landon and watching him learn. He is SO ready for kindergarten.....I'll miss him though!

Saturday we ventured down to Pocatello to watch Uncle Barry's quarter horse race at Pocatello Downs. We had SO MUCH FUN! I'd never been to a horse race before. We loved seeing Barry and Beth, Casey and Kindra and all of the kids. Such a fun afternoon.

Later that day, Parker had his very last basketball game. He has played 3 seasons now and continues to LOVE this sport. I am so glad that he has found a sport that he not only loves but is really talented at.

32 points, 10 blocks, tons of rebounds, and he got a bloody nose too! He is one tough kid!

And, lastly...another belly shot. It's been awhile. 31 weeks, 9 more to go. I'm feeling really anxious, unprepared and a little scared about this baby coming. It has been 5 years since we've done this and I feel like I've never had a baby before. Hopefully it will all come back to me. ☺

Camas National Wildlife Refuge

Since Grandma EE came up for the birthday party we decided that we needed to go on yet another "Staci and EE" adventure! Yesterday we got the older boys off to school, and jumped in the car heading north. Last year when we ventured up to Bannock Ghost town in Montana we passed a sign that said, "Camas National Wildlife Refuge." Of course, we had to check it out.

It is only about 35 miles north of Idaho Falls near the town of Hamer. We had a wonderful morning enjoying the wildlife. Other then the fact that there were 40 mph wind gusts, we had such a fantastic time. It is neat to live so close to such amazing places.

We joined in with an elementary school class trip for the first 45 minutes or so and learned all about the refuge and how it came to be. Poor Landon was bored out of his mind. We parted ways with the school group and started doing some birding on our own.

 As we walked up towards some big trees we heard a loud noise, looked up and about 15 feet above our heads a HUGE BALD EAGLE took off. It was pretty much incredible. I was so shocked I tried to grab my camera. Unfortunately all I got was the eagle as it was flying away.

My outdoors adventure boy thought it was pretty much awesome!

(Gotta love the walking stick, binoculars and bug net in tow)

After that we got into the car and started driving on the dirt roads over to the marshlands. We saw all sorts of ducks, birds, stilt birds and we even saw a beautiful trumpeter swan!

 We watched an osprey circle above us as we were leaving.

On our way home we cut over to Rexburg to enjoy some lunch at Gator Jacks. YUM.

I am such a lucky girl to have my Grandma in my life. We are so spontaneous and random and I absolutely love the adventures go on together and all of these crazy memories we make. I love her so much it makes tears flood my eyes as I type those words. There aren't many people in the world who have such special and tight knit relationships with their Grandmas. She is my angel on earth.