It's Madness in March!!!

Every year, Jake manages to talk me into hanging this giant size March Madness bracket in my livingroom and as tacky as it may be, it makes Jake very happy. So I let basketball take over my livingroom for a few weeks. This is the one time of year that I actually become a sports fan, so Jake takes full advantage of it! He makes one of these lifesize brackets every year and he keeps all of them. So I store these huge posterboards from all the way back to 2003. Why is he keeping these? I have no idea. He's a guy; there's no explaining it!

It's been fun so far hanging out with Jake, watching the games, ordering pizza and having friends over. I love watching it with Lydia because every time a new game comes on she says, "Go Utes" not knowing that Utah sports isn't the only thing around; there actually are other teams in this country. She's been brainwashed at a very young age and there was no stopping it with Jake as the father :)

Well, to show my roots I thought I'd post some pics of Lyd's that I took last October. It also shows who we're rooting for!

ROCK CHALK JAYHAWK!

MWC tournament in Las Vegas!

Jake and I decided that we both needed a vacation and since the Mountain West Conference Tournament was coming up, we decided to go there. It's in Las Vegas so we thought it would be fun to drive down and stay at the South Point Hotel for a few days. We met Bones and Darcie down there and while the boys were at the games, Darcie and I went shopping and went to one of the Vegas shows.

The first couple hours of our trip (the drive to St. George) were great and this was Lydia's face for those two hours...

Well, we never saw that face again. The rest of the trip, she was pretty much the naughtiest she's ever been. I know that's hard for some of you to believe but it's true. She threw some of the biggest fits I've ever seen from her. At first she was so happy and proud of herself that she made up the game "Where's Bunny?" which consisted of her hiding her bunny behind her head every time and saying "Where's Bunny?" while laughing and thinking that she's tricked us once again (hence the pic above). I mean, Lydia had her good moments, don't get me wrong, but man she tried my patience this trip.

Lydia's favorite part of the trip was the swimming. The second she woke up in the morning she'd go the window and say, "Go swimming Daddy!" So we went swimming every full day we were there.

I just love that the round belly is still there...adorable in a two piece!

Here's Bones and Darcie with Lyd's (Jake's bro and sis-in-law).

Well, the whole point of going to Las Vegas was to see the Utes become the MWC champs and that's what we saw! Needless to say, Jake and Bones were very happy campers. Here we all are at the game.

Lydia sat on my lap the WHOLE time and laid her head on my chest. Oh, didn't I mention that aside from her being naughty, she also never left my side and wanted me to hold her ALL the time. Good times! Although, I have to say, I do love those big blue eyes! What a doll.

Of course Jake and Bones had to rush down on the court as soon as the Utes won. Many people called Jake to let him know they saw him and Bones on tv! I'm so glad they won. My husband is ecstatic that the Utes are a 5 seed in the NCAA tourney because of it! GO UTES!

The night before we left, Darcie and I had a girls' night out and went to the 10:30pm showing of

"O" by Cirque de Soleil.

It was pretty good. I was a tad disappointed because it was basically just like their other show "Mystere" except you just add water to this one. They had some pretty cool water scenes and diving but overall I felt like I had already seen it. We had pretty good seats though, so that was nice.

Overall, it was a pretty good trip. We were supposed to be home Sunday evening around 5pm but due to another one fo Lydia's major meltdowns we decided to hang out in St. George for a while to let her run around (Jake's parents have a condo down there). The reason for her crankiness...lack of sleep. She didn't take one nap the whole trip and she also went to bed late and woke up early every day. Hopefully now that we're home, she'll get back to her usual, sweet self.

It was fun to get away but honestly, it's good to be home!

Dinosaur Museum!

For Joy school this week, we went on our very first field trip as a class. Last Wednesday (3/11), the letter of the week was "D" so we thought we'd take the kids to the "D"inosaur museum after a short lesson by Aimee. Let me tell you, I loved that place. It was amazing. I think I enjoyed it more than the kids did.

Here they are standing by a dino leg.

They got to play in the water and build dams.

They had these huge, life size dinosaurs all over the place. It was actually quite intimidating. I couldn't believe how big they were. This pic just doesn't do justice.
Here's Lyd's standing next to one (you can't see her that well). She was about as tall as the foot of this dino.

To get an idea of how big this guy was below, you can see Jules and Izzy in between the two back legs of this monster. HUMONGOUS!

They also got to dig in the sand for dinosaur bones. It was hilarious because Lydia has never put her feet in sand before so when she got in, she didn't move from this spot for about 10 minutes, literally. It was so funny to watch her spread her toes and feel the sand going between them. And she would not take her hand off of the rock. It was like she thought she'd fall if she let go because of the uneven ground beneath her. After a while she got used to it though. It sure was cute to watch.

We had a good time so that makes field trip #1 a success!!!

Surprise Sprinkle! Lydia Sings!

For the past few weeks Margo, Kristin and I have been planning a surprise "Sprinkle" for Lynette. What's a sprinkle you ask? Well, the invite read,

"A baby shower for the first,

a sprinkling for the second.

Come join us to sprinkle Lynette and Izabel...

A sprinkling-not as large as a shower

but just as much fun."

And fun we had. Lynette was totally surprised. She had no idea what was going on. I was sure that the secret would slip out but it didn't. Luckily it never came up in conversation because some of you how I can't lie to people's faces. I definitely do not have that poker face. If any of you watch "The Office", you should understand the sign I made for Lynette. That Dwight; what a character.

Anyway, we talked, ate, played a really fun game and opened presents. We invited Lynette's adorable mom Bonnie and can I just say she is one of the sweetest people I have ever met. Love her. I guess that's where Lynette gets it. Some of us chipped in together and got her a double stroller. She loved it!
Lynette is such a great person. I am so happy that we're friends and I'm glad she had a good time at the shower. The best part...she called me a few days before the party and asked if I wanted to go and get pedi's with her on Saturday (the day of the party). Does that work out any more perfectly? Nope! So I didn't have to make up a lie to get her to my house that morning.
Then a bit after the party we still went and got pedicure's together. And that night we went out to dinner with the husbands and kids. It was a fun day of the Watts family! Love you guys! On another note, I've been trying to get Lydia singing songs on camera FOREVER! For three reasons: 1) I LOVE her little girl voice and want to remember it always. 2) Everyone always asks me, "So, does Lydia talk much?" Uh, YES, that's all she does. She won't shut up actually. She's just so shy, she doesn't say much. And 3) My mom (and entire family) live in Kansas so my mom doesn't get the perks most other G-ma's get of hearing the voice of their sweet grandchildren every day. So I knew my mom would love to see these videos. So mom, these are for you. These are 3 of her favorite songs to sing (if you watch these, be sure to pause the music on the right).
1st song: I love to see the Temple.
I thought she'd be shy so I hid the camera from her at first (that's why the lighting stinks). But this time she was willing!

2nd song: I am a child of God


3rd song: ABC's


Ahh, I love this girl.

C is for Circus...

Today was my first day teaching Joy School and I can't believe how much I loved preparing for this day. Our curriculum is the alphabet so this week I had the letter C. So what better way to learn about the letter C than have a big Circus in my living room! Here is the Circus tent.We had a lesson about the letter C, sang songs, had dance time with songs that start with C, made 2 "C" crafts, baked Chocolate Chip Cookies shaped as C's, had Cotton candy and played musical instruments (Cymbals, Clapping toy and a Colorful maraca...hey, I know it's a stretch but it works ok)!

They each got to Choose the Character they wanted to be, so here is the little

Cowboy, Clown and Cheerleader. Adorable!
The last 10 minutes we played Circus games. The most popular was throwing the balls through the clowns mouth. It was so cute because every time the girls' threw their balls through, Brock would run after them to bring back to the girls' and the girls' would say, "Thank you Brock". It was adorable. They played so well together and that makes me so happy.

We tried to see how many kids we could fit in our Clown Car...Lydia didn't fit, hence the facial expression you see below!

I found this cute craft online and I just had to do it. We made little Caterpillars and taped them to our leaves. This has nothing to do with the Circus but I just had to make them.

What surprised me was that the kids were happiest when they were doing craft time. They loved it. They also got to tape Circles on the letter C. That was Brock's absolute fav. I think Lydia and I are going to have to start doing a daily craft. They were a hit. Yeah for Joy School!