building a new sand box

One of our spring projects in our new house was to build a sandbox in the backyard for the kids to play in.
First you dig out the hole

Then you dig the holes for the posts, Katy and Abby got in to show how deep they are.


Then Collin builds the sides


The big truck came and dumped 6 tons of sand on our driveway



One wheel-barrel at a time we hauled the sand to the back yard and poured it in.

One finished sandbox ready to play in.

Now I need to go and take some Advil and collapse on my bed.

Arches, Canyonlands, and Dead Horse Point

It is National Parks week from the 17-25th so today we took advantage of that and went to see the parks here in eastern Utah that we haven't seen before. With no entrance fee it was a great deal. We started out about 6am and made it to Arches and out to hike before 8am. We first went to the windows arches, they were cool, probably some of the largest ones we saw. Then we hiked out to Delicate Arch lookout. We didn't to the hike to the actual arch because it was a little much for Thomas though he didn't seem to mind and of the hiking. He walked all by himself most of the time and followed Katy, Abby, and Madelyn where ever they went. The girls had a great time we climbed lots of rocks until we were tired. Then we drove out to the Dead Horse Point lookout. It was very impressive with it's view of the canyon and the river but the crazy 1000 foot drop to certain death had this momma worried about her kids so we drove on down the road to Canyonlands where there were rocks to climb that had only a moderate fall. We did great, no one was hurt but we did loose a pair of pants and undies do to sliding down the rock on butts. Luckly I did bring an extra pair of pants for just such an emergency. So that is why Abby is wearing different pants in the pictures.

Happy Easter!

We finally made it out to the Easter pasture this year. It has been to cold and too wet the last couple years to make it out there but this year Grandma Anderson was determined to make it. It was wet and cold but we bundled up and went anyway. The kids had fun. Thomas slept through lunch and the easter egg hunt but he woke up in time to play games with the kids.




My brother Jake makes the coolest Easter Bunny there is. All the kids ran to mug him when he came walking down the Eater lane. He sure is a good sport to dress up as the bunny each year.


Sunday we went up to Layton to watch conference and have another easter egg hunt with Grandma and Grandpa Fawcett, and the boys.





We posed for family pictures and then Nathan, Libby and the boys posed though Jace was not really in the mood, so Nathan helped him out a little with his smile.