Tons of Trucks

Columbia has an activity every year called "Tons of Trucks."  They just have a whole bunch of, you guessed it, trucks all parked in a big parking lot and the kids can go around and sit in them and honk the horns.  Basically every little boy's dream come true!  They have fire trucks, police cars, garbage trucks, plows, tractors, buses, ambulances, mail trucks, and a helicopter this year.  Pretty much anything you could imagine.  Brady was in heaven...until the cement truck honked its horn while we were standing right in front of it.  I'd be lying if I said it didn't startle me, but it scared Brady half to death.

Grandma Hendrickson's 80th Birthday

One of the main reasons we went on our trip was to attend Grandma Hendrickson's 80th birthday party!  We are so glad we got to go celebrate this special day with almost the entire Hendrickson side of the family.  We sure do miss her and I'm glad that Brady could see her and that she could see how cute Brady is in person.  Although he is pretty cute in his pictures, they don't even come close to doing him justice :)  Also it's cute to hear Brady say "Grandma Hendrickson."  It's a long name, but boy does he try his best!

 We also got to see my cousin, Malea's, baby.  She is close to Caleb's age and she sure is a cutie!  Brady obviously agrees and was not shy about giving her loves.  I'm not sure she shared his enthusiasm.

Brady was also a big fan of the party hats.

 As you can see, he also enjoyed his time with Caleb.  And Caleb was a pretty good sport.  Actually, he was a good sport the whole week and hardly fussed at all, which is pretty amazing considering we just carted him around everywhere and he was cutting two teeth! What a trooper!

 And what birthday party would be complete without some cake?  Brady is a sugar addict and enjoyed every last bite of his.  Too bad he missed all the frosting that ended up on his face :)

We are so glad we were able to go on this trip and are grateful to my parents for making it happen.  It was a much needed vacation for us all and it's always nice to see the family.  Happy Birthday, Grandma Hendrickson!

Happy Easter!

Since we were traveling most of Easter day, we had a few different celebration days on our vacation.  We dyed eggs at Megan's, and we all had a lot of fun with that.

 When we got to St. George, we got to join in with Aunt Karen's annual easter egg hunt!  I had heard about this from Megan since she has had the pleasure of joining in several times before, and Brady absolutely loved it!  He wanted to open each egg as soon as he picked it up, but I tried to teach him to just grab them and then look later.  Mostly, I think he wanted to eat all the candy right away.  Not sure where he gets that sweet tooth...

 

 The Easter bunny came and left Brady's basket at the condo for him to find Saturday morning.  Brady mostly cared about the candy (imagine that), but also like this little puppet.  He got a little Elmo and Count too that he loves and some other fun things as well.  Happy Easter!

Viva Las Vegas

For Quentin's last spring break..ever...we were blessed with the chance to go on vacation!  We got to go visit Megan and her family in Vegas, and that gave us the chance to finally meet baby Caleb!  Brady was so excited about going on the plane and told Lori and his friends at daycare "I gonna ride plane with mommy and grampa."  Much to his surprise Grandma, Daddy, Kirsten and Kirk came along too.  Brady tried to get Kirk to sit by him on the plane, but Kirsten won that battle.  Brady did so good on the plane, especially considering it went right through nap time and he did not fall asleep on the way there. On the way home he eventually fell asleep on Grandma's lap though.

 The weather was gorgeous there (especially when you consider the fact that there around 8 inches of snow on the ground when we left Missouri!), so Brady got to play outside a lot, and that boy loooooves to play outside!  He also enjoyed wearing shorts and no shoes, although he was a little unsure of the bare feet at first.  He was also unsure of the trampoline at first, but he warmed up to that and ended up loving it.  It was nice that Megan had a fenced in yard so they could go out and play by themselves.  We all enjoyed taking turns riding the plasma car.  And I loved it so much I decided to buy one for Brady. It's pretty awesome.

 We went to visit the Ethel M Chocolate Factory one morning.  They weren't actually making it when we went through on the tour, so that was a little disappointing, but we still got our free sample at the end, and thanks to Brady's major wipe out in which he somehow hit his forehead on the floor, the sample lady felt sorry for him and he got TWO chocolate samples.  It stopped the tears very quickly.  They also have a nice little cactus garden there so we walked around and looked at/sniffed the plants.

 We braved the strip one afternoon.  There is a ton to do there, but it's not easy with so many kids and it's hard to work around nap times, but we got plenty of people watching in and we watched the fountains at the Belagio twice, despite the fact that Brady did not appreciate it.  It actually scared him when they went super high and made the big noise.  We also walked over to the Flamingo and looked at the little nature area.  The boys loved to see the big fish, ducks, and of course the flamingos.  Poor little Luke had the flu the night before and morning of, but insisted on going with us so he rode in the stroller.

We also enjoyed a girl's day of shopping, the boys went shooting, lots of eating (including Cafe Rio and In N Out, much to my delight), and one day Dad and Megan watched the boys while the rest of the adults went to the temple.  I had never been in any temple besides the St. Louis, so it was pretty fun and nice to go with family.  We had a blast, and it was so great to see the Marshalls, but I hate that they live so far away so our visits are few and far between.  I miss them all already, and I know Brady had a blast playing with his cousins.