Sydney turned 8 last month.  She requested a red dragon party.  I managed to find a pinata from Oriental Trading and I made this cake.  The picture actually makes it look better than it turned out, but Sydney and her friends thought it was awesome so it was a success.

We had a family party Sunday night, the 22nd, because Ben was working a long-shift the next day on Sydney's actual birthday.  The family cake was a LOT simpler.  However, Sydney was impressed with the sprinkles.  I was buttercream-making master by the time I finished frosting both of those cakes and the cupcakes we took to her classroom on her birthday.

Tyler did not bother waiting for a fork.

The following weekend, my parents and Ben's mom were able to come for Sydney's baptism.  I was busy making dinner one night so I asked Zack to take the carrots out of the fridge and put them on the table.  He left with the carrots then returned them to the fridge a couple of minutes later.  I told him again that I needed him to put the carrots on the table.  He gave me an exasperated look and said, "I did!" and left the room.  When I walked into the dining room later, I found that he did, in fact, put the carrots on the table.

Sydney was baptized on April 29, just in time to attend the temple dedication the following Sunday.

She shared her baptism with two other girls in our ward.  It was a good service, and I'm really glad our parents were there, even though I apparently didn't take and pictures of them.

Sydney adopted a pet a couple of weeks ago.  This is Turty the Turtle.  She really wanted to keep him, but we did some research and decided it wouldn't be a good idea.  When I told Sydney that we were going to release him, she was really sad.  I told her that keeping him would be like if she had to stay inside all the time alone and not get to eat any of her favorite foods again.  She understood so we had a goodbye party at the lake behind our house.

Tansy and Zack and both playing tee ball.  Tansy is on a 5&6-year-old team, and Zack is in Start Smart, which is a parent participation, skills-building program.  They are both really enjoying it.

This past Friday, we promised the kids a backyard campout.  We bought a 10-man tent from our neighbors a few weeks ago.  Sydney is the only one of our kids who has been camping.  Tansy turned 5 in March, so that tells you how long it's been.  We decided this would be a good trial run.  The kids loved helping Ben set up the tent.

Meanwhile, I built a fire.  This was my first fire ever.  Sure, I used 8 matches, but this girl made fire!

We roasted hot dogs and had watermelon.  Of course, there were s'mores!

We stayed up until 9:00, so these little people were exhausted!

Ty woke up nearly two hours after Zack and Tansy.  It might have something to do with the fact that he stole my spot on the air mattress.

Round one of playing catch up.

March 13 was Tansy's 5th birthday party.  We had a few friends over during the day, but I wasn't able to get many pictures since Ben was in Vegas.  They decorated cupcakes, had a pinata, and colored their own gift bags.  All in all, a success.

March 14 was Tansy's actual birthday.  Between the toys donated to us my neighbors, the clearance rack at Walmart, and the bike I won in a raffle, there was a pretty spectacular haul.  You can see Ben in background on Skype.

From March 20-28, I got to go to Vegas to see Ben.  My mom stayed with the kids.  We were planning a 10th anniversary trip to Oregon this summer, but since Ben had to work a grand total of six hours while we were there, we took advantage of the free hotel room and rental car.  We bought tickets through the base and got great deals.  These pics are Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum (fun, yet creepy) and the gondola ride at the Venetian (short, but we had an awesome gondolier named Cosmo pictured below).

Ben wanted to take pictures of cool cars we saw.  Here are two.  Yes, the gray one is a Delorean.  Even I thought that was awesome.

Hoover Dam was cool.  This is a view from the bridge facing the dam.  We also went on the tour inside the dam.

We walked across the dam and took pictures of Ben in Arizona and Nevada.  Too bad we were already on daylight savings time, so both clocks were the same.

We also went to the Las Vegas Temple.  We showed up for the only session of the week in Spanish so we had to wear headphones.  We went to Blue Man Group (super fun!), the Louie Anderson show (good thing these tickets were free to military members; it was awful), Ka by Cirque du Soleil (absolutely stunning!), the Mac King Comedy Magic Show (hilarious and totally kid friendly), The Phantom of the Opera (disappointingly shortened but still a great show), the Ethel M Chocolate Factory (go early since they stop production about 2:00), the Bodies exhibition (honestly, weirdly cool), and the Titanic exhibition (amazing and beautiful).  We visited the aquarium at Mandalay Bay and saw some incredible animals.

In the gift shop, this guy was hand-painting whatever name you wanted for $5 a letter.  We couldn't resist picking up one with our last name.

We ate ridiculous amounts of food, slept whenever we wanted to, and generally had the most relaxing vacation of my life.  I left a few days before Ben did, so I didn't get to enjoy the Red Rock Canyon with him.

Ben got home March 31, so that weekend we colored our Easter eggs.  Tyler didn't quite understand the procedure and tried to eat his yellow egg, shell and all, shortly after it came out of the dye.

For Easter break, we had a visitor.  Her name is Midnight.  She is a guinea pig that lives in Sydney's classroom.  We might get to have her again later this month since Sydney's teacher is going out of town for a week.  They kids loved her and went into hysterics every time she left "poo poo pellets."

Easter morning involved the standard Easter baskets.

Followed by an Easter egg hunt.

Sydney might have had a little trouble finding hers.