Birthday and Earth day

Turned 27 this April, which is really weird because last year I turned 19. Hmm. The older you get, the harder it is to party hard for your birthday. Luckily, I had friends and family who didn't just let me waste the weekend away.
That night before my birthday, I coached a lacrosse game (we won!). Then I went with my girl friends to stuff my face with dessert from Chili's. They all pitched in a got me a massive McDonalds gift card as a gift. Hilarious. I don't eat Mcdonald's food, but I get a Diet Coke there every day. Soo... best birthday gift ever!

The day of my birthday, me and Haley and our boys went to Fair park. I've been wanting to see the butterfly garden there! I loved it!

That night, I had another game to coach. Gavin surprised me and came to the game! Then we went up to Knaras's to say happy birthday to Kinley! We played at a park up there and enjoyed a beautiful sunset over Lake Lewisville. Unfortunately I don't have a picture that captures how pretty this night was.

I told Gavin that I would rather do something than get something for my birthday. So, instead of a gift, we planned a day trip to Dinosaur Valley State Park. It was a little less than a two hour drive to get here. I love going places that I've never been before!

The weather was chilly but that didn't stop Owen from wanting to splash in the water. There are fossilized dinosaur footprints in this river, and Texas-style hiking. It was fun to spend the day here. We will definitely be coming back when it's warmer!

Owen's into doing this thing where he will smile and say cheese for the camera, but he won't look at it. Stinker!

We ended the weekend with some good ole' shake shack and a relaxing Sunday. Here's to 27!

Easter 2017

It has been fun to celebrate Easter all month long! The Saturday that was a week before Easter, every city around here held a community Easter egg hunt. (I think they all purposely do it the same week so that everyone can only go to one). We headed up to Lewisville to meet Kali and Spencer for Easter festivities. Lewisville held their egg hunt at a ball park and as crazy as it was, I thought it was very well organized! Each baseball field was full of eggs for a different age group. They had all the kids line up against the fence and as soon as the siren sounded, it was a race to fill up your basket with eggs. It took Owen a few minutes to realize other kids were after the eggs too, so he needed to rush to get them in his basket. He had a blast!

The following week, we had another Easter egg hunt! Our ward here is awesome. There are so many kids Owens age and so many moms who love to get our kids together. Of course we needed to do an Easter egg hunt of our own. Owen understood the concept much better this time around!

Then on Easter day, we went to church and were reminded of the atonement and resurrection.

When we got home from church, we had Owen find his Easter basket that the Easter bunny had filled with prizes and hid for him. He loved opening his eggs and seeing what was in his basket! 

Spencer, Kali, and Kinley came to our apartment for a 'nice' Easter dinner. Although I miss my family a lot on holidays, birthdays, etc., it is fun to be on our own and create our own holiday traditions.

Side note: I tried teaching Owen about the resurrection and why we celebrate Easter. It's hard explaining things to a two year old, but I did my best. "Jesus is the nicest person ever. When he was on this earth, people were mean to him even though he was so nice. The mean people killed Jesus. Three days later, Jesus came back to life! This is called the resurrection. Now all of us can be resurrected after we die, because Jesus did it first! We all can come back to life!" Owen's response: "Ok, let's do it. Let's go die so we can be erected." haha! The good news is that now every time he sees a picture of Jesus in his church book, he says "That's Jesus. he was erected!" and I think that's pretty good for a two year old...

Cedar Ridge Preserve

Dallas obviously doesn't have mountains and hiking like Utah does. I really miss it! The closest thing we have to hiking are trails at nature preserves. I am learning to appreciate these.
Kali and I tried to come to Cedar Ridge Nature preserve a few months ago, but turns out these are all closed on Mondays! Weird. So this month when it wasn't a Monday, we drove down there again!
I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of dirt. There was even an incline and scenic lookout on a two mile "hike" we did. Owen did most of the two mile hike himself! I was impressed! I probably only carried him 1/3 of a mile on the way back.

When you find a peak in Dallas, you strike half a yoga pose because you can't do a full one.

March 2017

March has been madness...nothing to do with basketball. I've been coaching lacrosse, and Gavin has been busy doing people's taxes, so I have to remind myself that it's OK for my house and my hair to look like a total mess two months out of the year (and then some). I'm so glad that I have been busy while Gavin's been busy. I think otherwise, I'd be super bored and anxious for him to come home every day. 
All I've been doing this March is momming and coaching. It is crazy to think that last year at this time I was doing everything I am currently doing, plus young womens, plus working full-time! Go me, how'd I do that?!
Anyways, because of the madness, all my March pictures are just of my boys being goofs. Our adventures this month were limited to Turner Falls, which was cool, and trips to the park. Here's my photo dump:

Gavin and I don't always get a date night, but when we do, we go to Babe's.

I went to Beauty and the Beast with some girls from my ward, in bad movie-theater lighting. I loved the movie- LOVED!

We found a new, awesome park. If it wasn't so far away then we'd go more often. I think if Owen had a Facebook, this would be his cover photo:

Northpark mall has free toddler yoga on Fridays. I love taking Owen. Owen loves that mall because there are moving statues, and a turtle pond. Win-win.

I have been wanting to try this cupcake ATM since we moved here. It did not disappoint. In fact, it exceeded expectations!

Bluebonnet season is upon us, so of course we needed to seize the opportunity to frolic in the flowers!

If you don't take pictures with the bluebonnets, do you even live in Texas?