Golden

My favorite little sister's golden birthday is today, and that totes deserves a blog post. I know she reads on the reg so it'll be a little birthday surprise too. Although this smitcher and I are 6 years apart, I often don't feel that there is much of an age difference at all. She's the cat's meow.

Since it's her day-of-birth, I figure I should get to brag about her. Right? Okay well, I'm going for it. She just rocked her first year at BYU, on a full-scholarship I might add (a little different than my freshman year when I came pretty close to failing American Heritage - that class sucks). She's sups musically talented - she sings, plays the piano, and always has an iPod full of awesome music that she lets me steal. She's a Diet Dr. Pepper drinking, House watching, cribbage playing, fashionista who also happens to be Jack's favorite babysitter ("Nan-nah!"). Plus, starting on July 3rd this chica will be best thing that's ever happened to the Philippines; she will be towering over everyone as she serves a mission in Laoag for 18 months. I'll miss her so. But for today-

Happy Golden Birthday Hannah!

She's bossy and
fab-u-lous.

love ya.

Spring Break

Provo's spring break was last week and to celebrate we did nothing. I know, we're partiers. Well we did try to keep our normal schedule, but all those darn kids without school were all up in our biz-nazz. For example, we normally hit up the tumbling gym at least once a week. However, last week it was packed, like all the time. Super annoying. Go back to school kids.

Okay well there is more to this post than me complaining. About a month ago McKinney, Texas had their spring break, which meant my Mother, Ms. Bossy Jennifer Hagee ("bossy" is a term of endearment in our fam) had the week off. She had the option to either visit Lauren in Virginia or me, Garrett, Jack, Billy and Hannah in Utah. Welp, majority won. Sors Lauren.

We had no problem keeping her busy.

Her first weekend here both Billy and Garrett were out of town. So girls weekend (plus Jack) it was, holla! We decided to spend this "girls weekend" with one of our favorite couples, the Fossum's, at their home in Fairview, Utah. Seriously though, they're amazing. Basically, our weekend consisted of snow, farm animals, good food, and lots of laughs - especially when a certain someone fell off the swing. (She requested I don't name names, but if you look closely you'll notice that one person had to change clothes after they landed in the mud...)

 

Visiting the Fossum's horse.

Hannah has a thing for goats, and goats have a thing for Gracie. 

That swing is seriously harder than it looks.

Checking out the neighbor's chicken collection.

Out for a walk.

Once we were all back in Provo, Jennifer pulled out her to-do list: visit every cupcakery in town, shop at her favorite boutiques, visit the BYU Bookstore, take Jack to his first Easter Egg Hunt, and eat at J Dawgs as many times as possible. Of course, I didn't object to any of these activities. She also spent an evening taking Hannah shopping for her mission, a night watching Billy's dress rehearsal, and an afternoon/evening in the SLC with me and Jack. Our Salt Lake trip included the new Natural History Museum, finding a delicious bakery, eating subs at Moochies and exploring/watching the fountains at City Creek Mall. It was fantastic.

The museum was pretty cool, but not nearly as awesome as the Perot in Dallas.


Moochin' it up. 

Sadly, after a glorious week Jennifer's trip had to come to an end. We all loved having our dearest Mother here in town with us - even though she wouldn't take Hannie to get gel nails. I am totes excited for June when we will all be in Texas together again. 

Also I feel like this post is the perfect time to brag about how in two weeks I will be relaxing on the beach in the Spring Break Capital of the World - Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Woot woot! Okay and when I say "relaxing on the beach" I really mean chasing Jack down the beach, cleaning sand out of everything, and wishing I knew any Spanish at all. But regardless, I am so excited!

P.S. If you regularly read my blog do me a solid and "follow" me. Spanks.

Bunny Time

So our Easter this year was da bomb. I mean it wasn't as cool as my Aunt Annis's Easter - don't worry she was just invited to the White House Easter Egg Roll and met President and Mrs. Obama. No big deal.

Okay well back to our Easter. Jack is old enough to mostly understand what was happening/going to happen so it was way more fun for all of us. Thanks to our friends Max and Ruby, and Duck and Goose Jack knew all about the Easter Bunny, how to hunt for eggs, and he was well prepared for the strange practice of dying eggs (I mean, he's only ever seen me cook/bake with them). We had a couple Easter Egg Hunts to attend and of course, the traditional Easter activities at home. Don't even worry, I also made sure we were always in cute Easter-colored clothes the whole time (well, at least Jack was). My fave.

Easter 2013

Once a month Jack's Speech Therapy Clinic hosts an activity - Halloween party, Christmas party, Valentine's party, etc. Well you guessed it, this month was an Easter party/egg hunt. The activity happened to be planned during the week my Mom was visiting (post about that is in the works) so she and Hannah came with us. Jack loved it - he made a paper plate bunny, filled his Elmo basket with eggs and candy, and got to hang out with his favorite peeps.

Okay so there is one Easter tradition I cannot live without - making Jennifer Hagee's Easter nests.  It is seriously amazing how stinkin' good these nests taste (I'm starting to drool just writing about them). Most people would probably be horrified if they saw how quickly my Mom, Hannah, and I can inhale these things. Anywee, I made sure Jack and I whipped a batch up. Best/worst decision ever. At first I was in heaven - a few "tester" spoonfuls and helping Jack lick the bowl... but then two (well it was probably three) nests later I was in diet guilt hell. Luckily, people are always willing to take delicious treats and we were able to share the wealth.

Now I wish I had just one more...

Of course it wouldn't really feel like a complete Easter season if we didn't dye some eggs. We had a joint egg dying "party" with our besties Katie and Jackson. Katie and I really had no idea how it would go over with the boys, let alone if they would even be interested at all. Although we had a few tears and a few cracked eggs I'd say overall it was a success - no eggs were thrown, no dye was spilled (or drank), and we left with all our eggs dyed. I mean, our eggs weren't as fancy as Lauren's, but I still think they looked pretty awesome.

This year I made the mistake of taking Jack to the annual Provo Egg Hunt. It was insane! Actually, it was worse than insane, but I don't know what the word for that is. This year BYU sponsored the event, which basically means they helped with the funds, hosted it on BYU grounds, and increased the attendance by a few thousand people. (Okay I don't know that information for sure, but I feel like it's a good guess) This picture kind of shows you how crazy it was-

Just imagine this many obnoxious, screaming kids in front of you, to the left and right of you, and behind you.

Let me start by saying that this event had major potential. There were bounce houses, large blow-up slides, free pictures with the Easter Bunny, free pictures with Cosmo the BYU Cougar, a craft pavilion, a local firetruck and ambulance to explore and of course, the egg hunts. With that being said, there were just too many people. There were three egg hunts which were separated by age, but it was really just a free-for-all. As you walked around you would see kids with baskets over-flowing and then other kids with empty baskets and tearing rolling down their faces. Luckily, Jack was able to grab about five eggs and get them in his basket before they were snatched up by the older kids and I broke the rules and helped him out by grabbing about five more. When I felt like he had his fair share of eggs, we got off that field as fast as possible. Seriously, you would have thought those eggs were filled with gold.

Since we didn't want to wait in line for an hour to go down the slides we walked over to the craft pavilion. Well by the time we got there, about 45 minutes after the event started, they were already mostly out of supplies. I was able to find just enough scraps on the floor to make Jack's bunny ears - which he then refused to wear for a good 30 minutes (of course). After this Jack spotted the firetruck and ambulance and he was thrilled. We stayed by the firetruck for so long that by the time we were leaving there was no line for the blow-up slide. After two trips down the slide we were finally out of there and back at home for nap time.

I want to make holidays really special for Jack - I mean, the magic is the best part! Duh. Jack was so excited Christmas morning when he realized that Santa and the reindeer had eaten the snacks we left out for them. So when Jack and I were at the grocery store the week before Easter I made sure to grab a fresh bag of baby carrots. I explained to Jack (a few times) that Mr. Easter Bunny gets really hungry while delivering Easter presents and that he looooves carrots. I figured it made sense that the Easter Bunny would be hungry - I mean Santa isn't the only one that has to travel the globe in one night. Jack was happy to make him a bowl of carrots Saturday night and he left them right next to our empty Easter baskets.

A few hours later...


Mr. E. Bunny was kind enough to snap a picture of our baskets before he ate all the carrots.

Sunday Easter outfits are serious business. How I wish I had access to all my family's old photos right now! I had some fab-u-lous (that word needs to be read while doing a Z-snap) Easter Sunday outfits as a child. Don't even worry, Lauren and I always matched and our fancy outfits usually included socks with lace, freshly polished shoes, gloves, hats and the occasional purse.

Among other things, Jennifer's passion for fashion (particularly on Easter Sunday) has been passed down to me. I always put way more effort into planning Jack's outfit than mine or Garrett's (although, Garrett's outfit really just really consists of picking out a tie). I love dressing up my little man, and Easter Sunday just gives me an excuse to take pictures of his outfits.

                        Easter 2011                                              Easter 2012

This year I picked out Jack's Easter outfit a few weeks in advance and I was pretty excited about it. (It's probably weird how excited I get about some of his outfits, but whatevs) I picked out my outfit in the usual frantic rush the hour before church and it just happened to match Jack's. Twinners! After church I took a few more photos of Jack, who refused to let go of his new motorcycles from the Easter Bunny.

Our Easter ended with fabulous guests over for a delicious dinner, a walk down to the park, trying out Jack's new Easter egg shaped chalk, devouring Easter cake and cupcakes, and then cheering for our Texas Rangers in the MLB season opener (we don't have to talk about how bad they lost). Overall, we had a wonderful Easter and we are ready for spring to begin!