Things to look for in Millard county

Dinosaurs made out of wood. (Called Wood Art in Fillmore)
Rock Man/Gargoyle on front steps of a house near the "Wood Art"

Lots of space and dirt for boys to play in. (love the belly hanging out of his shirt)
Decorative lava rock on houses. (this one is for you mom).
Horse and Horseman at Wood Art. (the pictures really doesn't do it justice, it is actually pretty cool looking.)

Pretty rocks. (these are actually Sun rocks)

This is the Place

So this last month i got to go with Ethan and all the 4th graders to "This is the Place" Monument. I have to admit this was a first time for me up there and it was a lot of fun. I will however suggest that you go in your car and not on a school bus full of 4th graders. I couldn't hear when i got off the bus because of the ringing that was still in my head. I will also give the 4th graders a little break since it wasn't complete chaos noise on the bus. They had just given a school program the night before with about 7 or 8 different Utah songs (since they are studying Utah history). So the students would break into song for periods of time on the hour up and back bus ride. I am one of those crazy mom's that likes to go on the field trips. I figure i have to take advantage of the time that my boys really really want me to come. At this point in Ethan's schooling (including 2 years of pre-school) i have only missed one field trip. It was shortly after Ryan was born. He was going to Thanksgiving point and i didn't know if i could work something out with Ryan so i felt like i should not volunteer. I dropped Ethan off at school that morning and he asked me if i was coming on the field trip and i said no, and he seemed sad but ok about it. I sat and cried in my car in the parking lot across the street from the school trying to decided if i should just follow the bus up and walk around with him anyway, that way i could still take ryan in the stroller. I called blake and he talked me down from my sad sad state and told me ethan would be fine and that if i didn't want to go i should just go home, but if i wanted to go, then i should go. I went home, who was i to go to the field trip in such a mess of emotion. So anyway it was fun and it was nice to spend the time with Ethan. One little boost to my ego was i was only one of two parents going from ethan's class and then of course his teacher. The kids were left to decided who was in who's group and then had to document it on their name tags. (E for ethan's mom's group). I had 9 of 22 kids in my group. And i noticed that a bunch of them had E's and then had them scratched out because they were trying to make the groups a little more even. I know the kids like me because i am in their class once a week helping when i can. That makes me happy. One other boost to my ego was that one of the girls in ethan's class that isn't always the nicest person told me two different times how pretty i was. I thought it was nice of her the first time but when she said it again later i have to admit i might of blushed. So after those 2 different ego boosts and really having fun with Ethan, i'd do it again. Field trips aren't so bad. Just might need to bring some ear plugs for the bus ride.

So much to blog, so little time!

I swear every time i turn around it's been a few more days and then another few more days and i still haven't gotten to blog what's going on. And i know i am always telling blake, oh that's somthing we ought to put on the blog (whether it's something funny said or what's going on). Well since blake is out of town and i have access to the computer that has our pictures i shall blog like there is no tomorrow, since i probably won't get a chance to do it tomorrow anyway.

For April 1st (april fools day), i helped the boys comb their hair in silly ways. After alot of coaxing of hair and using some major product to get their hair to stay the way they wanted it to this was the finished products. Ethan always (seriously!) is asking to have spikey hair the way sam some times does. Ethan's hair however does not stay up, it's cowlicked to stay down. So this was quite a feat! Sam wanted it slicked back (which his hair sometimes, well most of the time doesn't want to stay down). It makes me laugh, cause even boys want what they don't or can't have, just like girls (and i'm purely speaking of hair and hair styles).

what do you put on your biscuits?

Today for a later snack/dessert Blake made some cinnamon raisin biscuits (with extra fiber for healthy people like us). When we've made them in the past we've made a glaze of sorts to top them off (to take away all that extra healthy quality that the fiber adds). Today was no different except the glaze was a little runnier than normal and the biscuits seemed more muffin-y. (Blake never makes the same recipe twice, he always is altering this and that to see if this makes it better or changes it to do that.) Anyway, as we were sitting around the table with the boys eating our yummy biscuits and glaze, Ryan pipes up and says "hey it's like frosting the snowman." I couldn't help but smile. And in true Young fashion all the boys (especially, and including Blake) started singing "frosting the snowman" with all new and original words.

I love my boys (all 4 of them)!

(for those that are interested i can email you the recipe-just leave me a comment)

Easter Sunday pictures

Future Missionary

In primary they had a lesson on missionaries and this picture was too cute to not post. He has a future missionary tag on. Thought it would make mom and dad proud anyway.

Easter is normally in April anyway.

So here are a few pictures from easter. Last year the boys hadn't cleaned up their toys the night before easter saturday so we told them the easter bunny couldn't do any eggs in fear that they would be completely lost. So in order for the easter bunny to come the house has to be cleaned. (Just so you know this works like a charm and really gets my boys moving to get their jobs done.) So again this year saturday jobs had to be done before easter fun could be had. Since we were going to be doing eggs and a hunt later with Darin and Kali we dicided just to hide the basket and let them go looking for the basket. Blake being the cleaver guy that he is, even made up poems to help give them clues to find their baskets. The boys of course loved it and were very excited to get their baskets of goodies. As mentioned before we went to Darin and Kali's to do a bbq and egg hunt. Darin and Kali were good enough to get the eggs, fill them and then hide them at their house. And they also provided a bbq that was awesome. It was a fun day for sure. Thanks guys. and Happy easter/spring to everyone!

BRAG ALERT!!!!

Ok, so i've basically been lazy about getting to this but it's not because i'm not proud. It's been something that i've just had a hard time getting to because of computer things.

Anyway, so last month ethan had a piano festival and had 2 pieces to play the first one he did perfect, with out any mistakes. the second one he had a small little flub at the beginning that only a few even recognized because he flowed right through with out drawing attention to it. He had a few spots in the second piece that kept him from getting a perfect score. But he still did awesome. He got 36 out of 40 and lots of great comments. Ethan has has a natural gift for the piano and add in his complete desire to do well and his ability to focus. Anne Cox, his piano teacher, has commented several times to me and to Ethan what an amazing talent he already is. He learns pieces quickly, memorizes them with ease, and just has an ear for it. Good thing those Priday genes are coming in for at least one person in the line. For those that know my aunt kaye, i think he has some potential to be like her. He likes to compose his own songs and music all the time (not just by making it up as he goes, but writes it out and works on it for a few weeks to perfect it). So what i'm saying is Ethan is pretty dang good at the piano, and pretty cute too. (the judges even made comments on how handsome he is--i just simply agreed).

At the schools around here they do a story telling festival. First the kids in their classes tell a story (most of the time they have a theme). Then after, the class all votes one kid from each grade level to tell a story for the rest of the school. From there the judges decide who tells their story for a district level representing the school. Ethan did this in first grade, second grade, and now forth grade. He was picked all 3 times for his class, then his grade, and was able to tell his story to the rest of the school at an assembly. He has no problem getting up there and doing his story (something i think he gets from his dad, cause i was petrified to do things like that at his age). Ethan's teacher this year has been teaching for many years and is getting close to retirement. He has been involved with some advanced learning programs and helped judge these story festivals before and he said that ethan just did great. He was pretty impressed with ethan's own original story and coached him a little on how to stand and present his story to impress the judges. Ethan just soaked in the information and did just what his teacher had told him, and did great. So the following monday when i got a call from the school (which i totally admit, i hate seeing the school on the caller id, cause i've had a few calls that were not because of how awesome my children are), i was a little surprised. Ethan's teacher said "ethan has something he needs to tell you," to this i started thinking oh great, what happened. To my great relief, Ethan got on the phone and squealed with excitement that he had been picked for the school to go to the district. I told him how proud i was and he was pretty happy as you can imagine. His teacher said that if his story was picked he'd give the class and ice cream party, so that of course added to ethan's excitement. About 10 minutes later i got a call from the school again, only this time ethan was in tears. Come to find out there was a mistake and a boy named Teegan Young had been picked for the school but both ethan and his teacher thought they said Ethan Young. Ethan was truly disappointed but almost more disappointed about the ice cream. So i quickly told him i'd bring ice cream anyway, since he had done such a great job anyway. I know my opportunities to be cool mom are starting to fleet as the years pass, and that ice cream won't always fix the sadness that will come from time to time, but for today I truly am grateful that ice cream is enough to fix the problem. Someday if you're lucky enough you can ask ethan to tell his stories, he's pretty good and i know this ordeal has not changed his mind about doing it again next year. A friend of mine was telling me that she was able to get small scholarships by doing thing like this and she got a number of them so she didn't have to pay for much of her schooling. This could really be a great thing for ethan since he still says he wants to be a doctor and he will have lots of schooling to do and pay for. He is that smart you know.

See i told you it was a brag alert.