We Love To Rodeo!

"I love to rodeo" is a famous quote in the Fuller family. We liked to say it all the time, for no real reason other than the fact that it was a fun saying that came from a story my dad told us about a guy that said that. We never really went to rodeos, and didn't really know anything about cowboy or horses.

(I guess one time each year...we'd head down to Clifton and Preston to visit cousins and go to the "famous" Preston rodeo. But I don't actually remember the rodeo, just the carnival rides before the rodeo. We might not have ever even went to the actual rodeo. I'm not sure.)

Anyway.....now me and my own little family can say "I LOVE TO RODEO," and say it cuz we mean it! There were two rodeos here in town, and we decided to hit them both up, the Katy Rodeo, and the Houston Rodeo.

KATY RODEO
All week long they have different events going on for the town, as well as the rodeo at nights. This particular day, I can't really remember what this was called, or why they have it, but they have a huge ol' horse parade with buggies and everything walk through town. It was super cool to see. We went and ate breakfast at one of our friend's houses, then walked out and set up chairs on her corner so we could watch all the horses coming through.

A couple days later, we went to the parade. Holy smokes! This parade sure beats little old Rexburg's 4th of July parade. Both kids came home with a full grocery sack of candy!

And Had came home with 30,000 mardi gras beads! For some reason, people kept throwing him more and more.







We went to the rodeo and livestock show at the end of the week. The kids and Had loved seeing the animals! (Me, not so much. I think they stink.) Jete and Jerz ate sausage on a stick while we all sat and watched the rodeo.

HOUSTON RODEO

A couple weeks later, Hadley got to take a day off, one of his 5 for the year, and we headed downtown to the Houston Rodeo. We had heard it was awesome, and huge, and fun for the whole family.

It was!

We all loved it. There were carnival rides, mutton bustin (Jeter was too chicken to ride the sheep, but he did tell us that if he dared to go down there, then he would beat everyone and stay on his sheep the longest), tractor pulls, livestock, vendors, and food! Oh and I'm just realizing as I'm typing this, we didn't really go to the actual Houston Rodeo, just all the fun stuff that comes along with the rodeo. We met Tyson and Lauren and their kids there (friends from podiatry school), and played till we were broke.

Loving the airplane ride, even daring to take a hand off the wheel to wave to us.


Jerzi started out so excited to ride on this little 4 wheeler ride. Then it started going up and down and spinning....it progressively got worse, and by the end she was freaking out. I was torn inside between laughing my head off, and wanting to go ask the guy to stop the ride.

Brave dudes for the stomach ride!

Racing down the slides....always a favorite!

Ford had this little dirt track set up to race cars. It was pretty fun. And it was the only thing there that didn't cost money. We just had to sign up with them by giving them our email, so we can get their junk mail for the rest of our lives. Well worth it. Jeter was in heaven, and didn't ever want to leave.

I'm not sure if this is a donkey or a pony, or if his name really is Licorce or Licorice, but while Jerzi was sleepin in the stroller, Jete saddled up.

What a cute little cowboy!

A carousel is always a must! Jerzi's favorite ride. She never stopped smiling!

My favorite part for the kids...the farm!

They give you seeds and you plant them and water them. Then you get to take your crop with you in your basket.

The kids got to get eggs from the chickens, wool from the sheep, milk from the cows and play in a sandpit made of corn kernels.

Takin a break from all their hard work for a pic.

They also got to go drive the tractor "out in the fields".

He's a natural!

Seriously, look how cool this is! You sit in the tractor to drive, and they have a screen of a tractor going through a field so it seems more real. So awesome!

After a hard days work, the little farmers got to take all their goods to the market and sell them. Then with the money they had earned, they got to buy a snack at the store. How cute is that? I was seriously dying. I loved it, and so did the kids.

(I have taken my kids to children's museums. And this is by far cooler than anything I've ever seen at any children's museum.)

For about the next month, Jerzi was asking us any time we got in the car if we were going to the rodeo. I'm glad rodeos left a good impression on her. And I'm glad that we went, even if we did blow some money on the yummy food, and those dang rides!

Easter

 Easter was relaxing, low key, and enjoyable this year.  We had a Easter egg hunt and picnic at the church.  The primary presidency talked to the kids about the real meaning of Easter, then we all sang some Easter songs, then went outside for the hunt.

 They split the kids up according to age, so I had to go with Jerzi, and let Jete fend for himself, on the other side of the church. I realized about 3/4 of the way through it, that I should quit "coaching" Jerz on picking up every egg.  I don't know why I do that.  I don't even want her to have the candy. I guess its just the competitive side coming out in me.  She was ignoring me anyway. She just wanted the pink eggs or the big ones.  After I realized that she was happy with just a few eggs, we booked it over to Jete's egg hunt.

 On the way to the church that day, Jeter told me how he was gonna get so many eggs that his basket would be overflowing, so I fully expected him to have way too many eggs (they were only supposed to find 12, then be done).  Instead, I found him off by himself, checking out what was inside the few eggs that he had.  He told me that the other kids were too big and too fast so he couldn't get very many eggs.  I felt so bad.  I should have just had him come over to Jerzi's hunt, like lots of the other mom did with kids his age.  I think I try and "follow the rules" a little too much.

All the kids sat around after and filled themselves up on candy, then we had our picnic.  The kids were fine with all the candy they got (or didn't get).  I was the one that felt bad that they didn't get very many eggs.  HAHA  

Our annual unspoken Easter Egg-Dyeing Contest!

Every year we dye eggs and without ever saying we're having a contest, we always try to outdo everybody else's egg.  What else would you expect?  :)

So I was taking kind of a long time trying to dye a cool one for Jerzi, and Had sneakily came and wrote 2nd on it with a white crayon so I wouldn't see it until after it was all dyed, thinking that it was gonna be my best one.  When I saw the 2nd place, I laughed like crazy.  For one, he did something like that last year too, for two, he was worried that it was gonna be #1, for three, he wrote that without me seeing it, and four, I had one more egg left that he didn't know about.  Wahaha! 

Here's the real winner!

 The funny part of the whole thing was that me and Had were each saying how our own egg was the best.  So after it was all said and done, we asked Jerz which egg was the best out of all of them.  She pointed to one, and it was....

Dun dun dun

Jete's! 

He was so excited!  We all had a good laugh.

Our cute little munchkins Easter morning



That Dang Leprechaun!

We had been talking about St. Patrick's Day, and leprechauns before St. Patrick's Day got here. We talked about how you have to wear green or you'll get pinched. We talked about leprechauns and how they are just little tiny guys. And they're tricky and sneaky. We talked about how they love gold, and if you catch them, they have to tell you where they keep their gold. That's when we decided we should try and catch a leprechaun!

We made a trap for a leprechaun, in case one decided to come to our house.
We made a giant fake leprechaun hat, and went out for a walk and gathered up sticks to make the ladder. Then we put some gold up on top of the hat so the leprechaun was sure to climb to the top, even though we made a sign that says not to climb the ladder. (They love to break rules too.)

Here's how the trap works:

Once the leprechaun climbs the ladder, he'll step on the top of the hat (which is a fake top) to grab the gold, and he'll fall into the giant hat and be stuck until we let him out. Then he'll have to tell us where his gold is.

So we went to bed that night, and woke up on St. Patrick's Day to this...
little leprechaun footprints all over the house!

In Jete's words, "Mom, that dang leprechaun! He stood on our toilet, and made our toilet water GREEN!!!"


He wreaked havoc all through the house! Our furniture was turned upside down, our milk was green and he left little notes that said things like Can't Catch Me, and I hope You're Wearing Green.
He hid clues all over the house that took them on a hunt for gold. Jeter and Jerzi each found a bag of "gold" at the end.
Again, from Jete, "That dang leprechaun thinks that these gold wrappers (Twix and Rolos) are real gold. But it's ok, cuz I like his kind of gold."





Turns out our trap didn't work. There was a note inside the hat along with some
Honey Mustard Rold Gold Pretzels for everyone. The note said, "You'll have to try harder than that to catch me!"
Dang it!
Well after they found their gold and the excitement from the leprechaun had died down a little bit, I started making breakfast, and what do ya know?
That dang leprechuan had turned our eggs and pancakes green too! So i decided to make a clover pancake for each of us, since it was already green. The kids weren't too thrilled with the idea of eating green pancakes and eggs, and both of them thought about eating cereal instead. But after I convinced them that it was still good, and I showed them that I would eat them too, they finally ate them.

After breakfast, we made fruit loop rainbows.

(It's a little ironic that Jerzi happened to have a green football jersey so she could still wear green. I'm tellin ya, she's a little out of control with them.)

Their final project.

Hadley had to work so he missed all the excitement the leprechaun had caused, so we had to have a little St. Patty's Day food when he got home.

With all the messes the leprechaun had made, I wasn't very happy to clean all of it up. So I put Jeter and Jerzi to work. A little neighbor boy came over while they were scrubbing floors and was intrigued by the lelprechaun's mischief, so all three of them talked of leprechauns as they scrubbed my floors. Ahhh, I love holidays!

And I love PINTEREST!!!

Mirror Mirror

I just saw the previews for this movie, and I want to go see it.

Snow White definitely wasn't one of my favorites growing up, in fact I didn't really like it. But this looks like it will be a cute show.

Plus, I love Julia Roberts.

With that said, we have our own competition going on in our house.

Mirror Mirror on the wall, who's the coolest kid of all?

They both try equally hard.

I can't decide who wins.

(I nearly died when they started dancing up against the wall.)

These two make me laugh. I love them to pieces!

And I love to kiss their squishy cheeks off.

Campin in January....Wahaha

We got a tent for Christmas this year! We were dying to try it out. So when I got back from Idaho, we decided to have a campout in our own backyard.

These guys were so excited!
(Don't ya love Jerzi's football jersey over the top of her pajamas? This is a regular occurrence at our house. She has to wear a jersey, everywhere, even to bed. Although it gets really annoying..... like when we have to fight her to take it off for church or to go places and have her look semi-little girlish, me and Had both secretly love it. haha )

What's a campout without hot dogs, chips, phones, smiles, and...


SMORES!!!

Oh how we love us some SMORES!

Jete took a fabulous pic of us.

Jete and Jerz seriously were on cloud 9! They were having so much fun. We had to keep telling them to not be so loud cuz they were yelling and squealing and laughing so loud....and our neighbors house is a whole 10 feet away.

We made a little snack tray and ate and ate, and laughed, and talked.

(Our sad attempt at a family pic in the tent.)

And we all watched Incredibles.

This is definitely my idea of a perfect night with my family. And to think, we were camping in our backyard in January. And we all got too hot during the night.

I LOVE Texas!

I'm excited for tons more good times and memories that come along with our new tent!

Love Day

For Valentine's Day this year, we had a lovely little celebration of love as a family. Hadley had to work most of the day, (He is on call the whole month of February, not fun!) but he was able to come home in time to eat dinner with us. He brought home pizza with him, so I wouldn't have to cook. He splurged and bought Dominoes instead of a Hot 'n Ready from Little Ceasar's like we usually do, because he knows I love Dominoes.

Then after dinner I gave them all a little gift bag, with a new nerf gun in it. We had a big nerf gun war all over the house for the rest of the night. Good times.

When the war ended, we took a little break to enjoy our valentine desserts (thanks to pinterest).

I love Valentine's Day...

and getting to celebrate the love I have for the loves in my life.

Our Other Home

We weren't planning on going to Idaho for the holidays. We wished we were, but Hadley didn't get any time off, and had to be on call for New Year's weekend, so we knew it wasn't going to happen. Then we got a phone call. His mom and John "needed me" to watch Maycee for them while they went to California for 5 days. So we went there for about 2 1/2 weeks.
I feel so lucky and blessed to have the families that I do!

Everyone is so nice and awesome to me and my kids when we go home. They all provided me with a car to drive, fed us, let us sleep at their house, and changed their own plans so that they could spend time with us. I didn't take much pictures while we were there, but we had a lot of fun!

Some of the things that I want to remember:

-my sister Linds, staying in Rexburg longer than she planned so she could chill with me

-late night talks (Bird, Kenz, Les)

-Had's siblings all changing their New Year's Eve plans to come hang out with me so I wouldn't have to be by myself

-talking to my sister in-laws as nerf gun bullets are whizzing past our faces

-Bird texting me at 12:30 a.m. to see if I'm awake, so I can come out and eat a Cocoa Bean cupcake with her and watch Mobbed, and then me actually doing it

-My dad taking Jete out to eat

-hearing my mom tell me she loves me

-building a fort with Jete, Maycee, and Jerz

-getting my hair done

-watching Chipwrecked with Jete, Jerzi, Bird, Broc, Sam, Lexie, and Deegan. We all loved it!

-going bowling

-Ducks bowl game party

-trying tons of different flavors of Cocoa Bean cupcakes

-random people coming up to me and saying, "How are you Jamie?" (meaning Bird)

-Jerzi saying to me, "Mom, are you Bird?"

-Ashton playing a song for me as loud as he could, every time I would go over to his house, so that I would start dancing.

-there was no snow in Rexburg the whole time I was there! (Dec 29- Jan 15)

I'm sure there is more, but I can't think of them right now.

Here's the only things that I got pictures of, which I'm so glad I got these.
John and his crew built this whole thing so his trucks could transload, right outside the truck shop! We all went and out and watched.

They basically pushed/slid the bridge up to the top.

They got the bridge all the way up there, then took the excavator up the other side to try to pull the bridge across the gap, without knocking the cement wall down. It was lookin a little sketchy. We were all worried. Or maybe just us peeps that were standing on the ground watching were worried. John's givin us the thumbs up sign. I guess he wasn't too worried.

Of course, it worked and they got the bridge on. Here's the crew that worked so hard on it (minus Jake). I loved watchin them. They all looked so proud. And they had every right to be. They did awesome!

Here's the three amigos, being crazy and doin tricks off the chair.

Sing it Ash!






Broc and Sam invited us come out and let the kids ride four wheelers and dirt bikes, and get in the hot tub. Jeter and Jerzi were in heaven! Jete told me this was the whole reason why he wanted to come to Idaho. He loved the little jumps, the little track that he could cruise around on, and of course... racing!

He was really nervous to get on the dirt bike, but after a lot of persuasion and convincing by me and Broc, he finally did, and loved it. He only let Broc ride with him for about 10 feet then said he wanted to do it himself. He says he wants to race motorcycles when he gets big now.


For some reason Jete kept winning the races.


"Jete, you totally cheated!"
"No sir Mom, I just drive faster than you."

Little Miss Jerzi girl was lovin it just as much as Jete.

So when we got back to Texas, I was talking to Jete one day when we were in the car. I can't remember what our exact conversation was, but I was telling him that he would be able to do something when we got home. He asked me, "What home?"
I told him our house here in Texas.
He said, "Oh, I thought you meant our other home."
"What are you talkin about? What other home Jete?"
"You know....Idaho."

Yep, Idaho is our "other" home.