March Marches On

March was cold. Despite the first day of Spring, we still had many snow days and lots of freezing temperatures. Last year we spent a lot of time outdoors in March. This year we mostly huddled in the house and shivered. 

Here are some fun things that happened in March.

We played marbles one night since it was freezing!

Mom met Grandpa Beck, which was so fun! He makes a lot of games that we love to play as a family.

We got invited to check out a new basketball training facility. The boys were in heaven.

It was a cool place!

We were so excited to see our marmot friend again. It's been a few years, but he picked the wrong year to come out of hibernation in March.

We went mini golfing.

Mom isn't very good, but she always has fun.

This is about as fancy as we get for St. Patrick's Day.

Mom met Melisa Osmand--an Instagram friend.

Brittany and Grandma came down to go to a special women's conference with Mom.

Seth did Chess Club at Highland and he was a rook on the chess night.

Dax came to watch and ended up being a black pawn. He never moved.

Our cute back neighbor was in a play at school, so we went to watch. He did so well!

We went to the Springville Museum of Art.

We think this painting looks very similar to what we saw when we visited Natural Bridge.

Part of Seth's schooling at Highland is shoveling the walk.

Mark and Dax went to the Family History Center for Young Men. Dax sent me a lot of pictures.

This one, too!

Here's the whole group.

Mark and some of his buddies hanging out for Boys Night.

Seth played very well at his piano recital. We are so proud of him!

We got to check out a new pizza place. Seth was starving and wanted all the pizza!

Hattie's Baptism

Hattie is the cutest.

For the first weekend of March, we drove to Vegas for Hattie's baptism. We left on Friday after school. With the time change into Nevada, it was pretty late when we got there. Still the kids played for a few minutes before climbing into bed on the air mattresses.

On Saturday morning, everyone started to gather. The Ferlans, the Ockeys, and both sets of grandparents joined the Poole's for the baptism. It was really nice, and Mom got to serve as a witness for the first time. Hattie was adorable in her special dress from Grandma. It was made from the bottom of Mom's wedding dress. 

Afterward, we took some family photos and then headed back for lunch. Jonny made several homemade pasta sauces, and the boys were really excited! He always cooks us up something delicious when we visit! Mom had made mint brownies at Hattie's request, so they were extra excited to eat those.

The Ferlans stayed at our house on the way down and we loved seeing James again.

Grandma and Randy have the best smiles!

We love spending time with family!

It was fun to see my beautiful wedding dress put to good use.

Mark and Ben are buds.

Most of the boy cousins, plus a few uncles.

We are loving spending so much time with James!

James definitely gets lots of attention!

The kids played and hung around. They lifted weights and went on a walk with the dog. Mom and Dad stayed up late playing games with Tiff and Jonny, of course! 

We played Werewolf and Ben was a werewolf twice. H even won one game! It was awesome!

The next day we had planned to head right home, but we found out two important things: 

1. Jonny was speaking in church.

2. Jonny was cooking his pork roast that he'd made last time we visited.

So obviously we had to stay. We loved Jonny's talk. He did a fantastic job speaking about grace. And we loved his pork, too! Everyone ate well, and then we headed home. We didn't get home until 11:00 pm, but it was a fun trip and worth it!

It's always hard to say goodbye to the cousins!

February Festivities

February was snowy and chilly, but we still had a lot of fun things happening! We were busy with basketball season, but found time for adventures, too.

We were invited to check out Dipped Haus--a new strawberry dipping business. It turned out to be super fun. We all tried a bunch of flavors and toppings, and the boys did great. It was definitely a success!

Decorating strawberries was super fun!

We loved this activity.

Dad always has parent teacher conferences in February, so on those late nights Mom lets the boys pick their favorite restaurant and we go pick up food. Then we come home and we all enjoy the food we wanted to eat. It works great because Dad would never do all those drive-thrus!

Of course!

Mom gave half her pizza to Dad!

Mark's favorite!

Dax changes it up, but this year he wanted Cafe Rio.

The Super Bowl happened in February and it was a fun family get together. Although the Bills didn't make it, we still supported our team. Mom had to leave early for a church meeting near the Saratoga Springs temple, and it was so beautiful she had to take a pic.

Go Bills!

Our new temple opens in August!

The boys hit during the winter with Taylor Snyder who is a great hitting coach. We took lessons from him last year and he is so kind and patient. We had a lot of fun and wish him the best of luck with the White Sox organization this year.

One day Taylor will be famous and we know him!

Basketball Seasons:

Mark played Junior Jazz with a bunch of his friends and they had a great time. They played well and only lost two games (to the same team). Most importantly they had fun playing together. Mark's team, the Drop Shot, ended up being the number one seed heading into the tournament, but the bad news was they had to play the team they lost to twice in the semi-final. Unfortunately, they lost again, but they all had a great season. Toward the middle of the second half, Mark went down with an injury. Someone's knee slammed into his thigh and it hurt a ton. He came out for a bit, but went back in to try and pull his team to victory. We could tell he was hurt since he wasn't running as well down the court. By the time we got home, it was hurting and swollen. Then, as you can see from the picture below, it was swollen to twice the size of his other leg the next morning. Now, about a month later, he is still struggling with it. It just gets tight after he moves around a lot. We are doing all we can to get it better before baseball season. 

Drop Shot

This leg injury has not been good.

Dax is in the years of basketball where they draft instead of let you request friends, so we created a Bantam team with his friends. Some of these friends had never played basketball before, but they are a great group of boys. Dax was the clear leader of the team leading them to a 6-4 season, which was amazing since they played some really tough teams. It was awesome to watch them learn and grow together. They all said they wanted to play together next year, so we are excited for another Bantam Season.

Lehi Bantam Team

Seth played in the 4th grade Junior Jazz league and was a super star. He was a great shooter, but we were really proud when he was able to get everyone to score during the season. Seth worked hard to help everyone get shots. He was a good sport and leader for his team. 

Seth's Team

Mark and Dax have also been playing church ball, and Seth got to fill in one week. He did amazing, but I loved how big the jersey was on him!

Dad coached all three of these teams! And he survived!

Here are a few other fun things that happened this February:

Mom heading out to shovel some snow. There were a few weeks that were FREEZING!!!

We stayed inside and played a lot of games.

There was a snow day! Look at those drifts. 

We had about 8 inches, but some places had up to 30 inches.

It was really an online day, so we all got to be home.

We bought a new coffee table, and the box became a little store for a week.

Dax performed in Federation and earned a Superior (the highest rating).

We made potato patties in honor of Grandma Ockey's birthday.

The final February adventure was after Mark's leg was not healing well. He stayed home from school because he had a cold, and could barely walk. So Mom took him for a long drive to Farmington Bay to get enough miles on the blue van to pass emissions, and to get him out of the house. We saw a lot of great birds and Mark took half of the pictures. He did doing really well with the long lens.

Mark still loves bird watching!

Kestrel

We loved watching the coots slip on the ice. It was hilarious.

We saw a lot of tundra swans.

Mark decided he loves pintails.

Great Blue Heron