Spring Break, Easter,and birthday

The worst thing about laundry (besides actually finishing it by folding it and putting it away) is the interesting surprises that can be found in the dirty mess. Today was my lucky day because the item I found was not too nasty to tell. Today I found in Kelsey's pocket a glob of dried out pink stuff. Not sure what it was exactly but I am guessing it was the silly putty from Easter. The pink was a similar shade and it was stuck to all the fibers in the pocket. If it was silly putty, it is definitely easier to clean off of fabric when dry. On Easter Sunday Macy managed to ground in silly putty into the sleeve of her new Easter sweater in the middle of Sacrament meeting.

But todays post is not about laundry so I will bring back my focus. This post goes out to my sister who is tired of seeing Larry the Lobster on my blog and wants to know about Macy's birthday and Easter.

Easter week also means Spring Break to those with young children. Tired of the miserable cold in Northern Utah (which still won't leave for good), we decided to trek on down to sunny St. George. We sure did pick it right. The weather couldn't have been better and we lived it up only to cry huge sobs when we got home and had to put away the flip flops.

While in St. George we met up with some good friends and spent the day in Snow Canyon. We played in the sand dunes and then took a hike. The sand dunes were nice because it had rained recently so you only had to dig down a little to find cool, moist, sand castle sand. After we took our little fam on the Hidden Pinyon trail. This was the best idea. It was about 1.5 miles round trip and included a nature guide. There was a pamphlet with 19 different plants to find. This kept the girls interested as they ran ahead to find the next numbered marker. Maybe only once did we hear "Are we almost done? My legs are tired." The trail itself took you through some very scenic areas. It had a little bit of climbing, some flat areas and some hills. Braden the trooper didn't want to be carried. He was big and tough. If his sisters could do, so could he. He did most of the trail himself and you should have seen some rocks his little legs had to maneuver over.



Took a small detour on the way down and stopped at Cove Fort. Well worth it.



One day we took a "short, little, easy drive" to see Toquerville Falls aka La Verkin Falls. One website recommended four wheel drive vehicles. They were wrong. It should have said "four wheel drive required". I would have loved to have seen a car try to get there. The kids laughed and bumped their way there.



Why did Braden cross the road? Because he thought this tube would keep him safe. He loved walking in this tube any chance he got.

 Another day we went up to Gunlock Reservoir because we heard they were letting water out of the spill way. This was the prettiest spill way I have ever seen. If you ever get the chance to see this, do it.

During this trip we decided to give Macy one of her birthday presents, a new bike. The weather down there was a little more conducive for this item. She was so excited and Kelsey was excited to get Macy's old bike. You should have seen how cramped Kelsey's legs were on her old bike. Kelsey has tried riding without training wheels a couple of times but she still needs more work and a lot more courage.

We drove home in time for Easter. The Easter bunny came and dad didn't take very many still shots of the egg hunt and the movies are not worth posting. A "grandma bonnie" thing happened. One egg was never found. Our Easter bunny thought she was smart and left a count of how many eggs were hidden. Well it didn't help and as far as I know one is still missing. Luckily it was a plastic egg. I think one of the kids must have found it afterwards because I have cleaned and still haven't seen it.

After the egg hunt we ran over for pull-aparts and breakfast at my mom's house. Then we ran home for 1 PM church. After church we ran over to dinner at Brian's mom's house. It was relaxing. Oh yea, I had to substitute in Primary too.

I am impressed if you have stayed with me this far. You may be wondering what else we did for Macy's birthday. Well it spread out over a two week period. For presents she received money and clothes from Grandma Carol and Grandpa Alan , a shopping trip with Grandma Wendy and Grandpa DeVon (she brought home a Barbie corvette that Braden enjoys along with 2 Barbies and something else), a new MP3 player (because she lost her other one), the new Taylor Swift CD and a squinkies gumball machine (it dispenses squinkies not gumballs). She took doughnuts to school for her treat. For her night out she chose Incredible Pizza (and no no one took pictures, I had the camera and was playing with Kelsey).

Happy Birthday to you

Just in case you are not into reading to relax yourself, now you can play ball to get things to flow. At least that was Braden's thought process, I think.

Actually this was one of Braden's birthday presents from his grandparents. He loves this toy and thought basketball should be played every second of the day. So he brought it in for me to have a turn. With the help of suggestion from grandma and grandpa, the basketball hoop is what he chose. They were daring enough to take Braden out for dinner and a birthday shopping trip to the toy store. He really enjoyed himself.

But seriously, who needs toys when you can have a box. The basketball hoop box was used as a sled, a bed, and even a slide. The slide function was a little defective but Braden didn't mind. He would lay on it and try to slide. When that didn't work he scooted himself to the bottom saying "weeeee". Sadly the box went out to recycling today because I was tired of looking at it. That is what happens to toys sometimes. They just disappear.

Braden wanted to help with his own cake. He did a good job dumping ingredients in and he didn't have to fight with his sisters for a turn. They were somewhere else at the time. Braden and I didn't even have to share the beaters. It is so much easier to cook with one than with 2 or 3. There were no hurt feelings and no one crying "that's not fair".

Here is the finished product. It combines his two favorites: "Basetball and Sooby Doo". The kid is fanatical about basketball. Earlier in the month before March Madness began Braden went to Brian with the remote and asked "Watch basetball on TV". He asked that over and over.

Braden was so excited to blow the candles out. He was huffing and puffing as I was lighting them. We had to tell him to wait. I was afraid he would hyperventilate he was blowing so hard. He was so patient as we sang, but when the song ended Kelsey beat him to it. She blew right as we said the last "you" and got one candle. Luckily there was still one but we had to tell her to stop otherwise she would have gone after it too. Oh and Braden got a big spit ball on the cake because he blows so hard. Not sure who got that piece.

Here is the birthday boy sporting some of his new duds. He was excited for the hat and glasses. If you can't tell he put them on himself. Grandpa helped with the tie.

We helped him out a bit with this shot. He received some other clothes that he was excited for too but they are harder to put on. His other gifts were monster trucks, a hot wheel, a Toy Story semi, Lightening McQueen, and guns that shoot foam discs. All have been hits. He has carried all the vehicles everywhere and dad is tired of reloading the discs. In fact, these birthday gifts have been the most successful. Usually there have been one or two gifts that the girls have asked for that see only a minute of play time. That bugs me so bad. It seems so wasteful to have purchased the gift. And I also know that the toy will eventually add to the mess when the tornado comes blowing through the play room. It may not be played with, but you can bet it will be dumped out any time those sirens go off.

Happy Birthday big boy! Your stats from your yearly check up were 27 lbs. and 35.5 inches tall. Oh and you ride in a "booster seat" wink, wink, nod, nod. It just looks a little different than your sisters'.

Larry the Lobster

Last week Kelsey's preschool went on a field trip to Red Lobster. They have been learning about oceans and seas and so this was the grand finale. Some parents were snickering because you teach the kids all about the animal life in oceans and then you tell them how to eat the animal life.

That is Larry. The manager said he was seven years old. She didn't mention that Larry would never get any older and that tomorrow she would fish out a new Larry from the tank.

One of the other girls really wanted to take Larry home. Thank goodness Kelsey didn't ask.

Touring the kitchen. No hair from us made it in anyone's food.

Enjoying a light refreshment of fries and "chicken nuggets" shaped like shrimp. Not many liked the nuggets. Wonder why?

Classic Skating

Last Friday was the end of the quarter for the girls which meant parent teacher conferences and the day off of school. The kids slept over Thursday night at grandma's so that Brian and I could clean the temple from 10 PM to 12 AM (it really wasn't terrible and it takes an army to clean that building every night). Friday I was the coolest mom ever and took the kids to Classic skating. Macy has been begging ever since she received an award at school that included a pass to Classic.

All of the kids loved the bouncy things. I couldn't get them off. Braden and Kelsey just laughed and laughed. They took their scooters but I didn't bring a bike for Braden (didn't know I could) so we didn't spend much time on the rink. They played some arcade games with the tokens they had. Of course the girls were instantly drawn to the "claw" that grabbed stuffed animals. I tried to convince them that those things are not made to make it easy to win. But they had to try it anyways. Macy lost the first time. Then Kelsey was up and got a bear the first time out of the shoot. This upset Macy and she was determined to win. She tried 3 more times and was in tears by the end (one of those times was Kelsey using her own tokens to win Macy a toy because she was so good at it). She wasted all of her tokens and could only play one game of ski ball.. Luckily Braden donated some of his coins to her and some tickets so she could buy a prize. Kelsey racked up the tickets too with all her leftover tokens. So smiles were on every face when we left with 2 sticky hands, 1 stuffed bear and 1 ticket. By the way that bear already has a hole in it and every day I am reminded that I need to sew it up.

One thing I noticed about Classic is that nothing has changed in the main rink. It has the exact same carpet from 25 years ago and I think they still use the same music videos from 25 years ago.

Another note: Parent teacher conferences went really well. The teachers love the girls and love having them in their classes. Kelsey's teacher commented about how good Kelsey is. The teacher said she never has to remind her how to listen and behave during rug time and other parts of the day. She participates really well and appropriately. I think Brian almost fell out of his chair. I think he even said "really!?" to the teacher. You see Kelsey really struggles at home to sit still during FHE, scripture time, and dinner. She is usually giggling the whole time, not paying attention, rolling her eyes and teaching her brother the wrong way to act during these times. We constantly have to remind her to focus. She has been this way at home her whole life. It is nice to have these meetings to know that either are kids have figured it out or that we really have taught them something.

Meet...

I would like to introduce to you some people that live at our house.

Fido:

Darla:

He screams "Hi fish. Hi fish." He will pull up a stool to get to the fish and will scream at them and tap the sides. I have even caught him a couple of times with his hand in the water. When the fish hear or see him they swim to the farthest side of the talk. It sometimes looks as if they are pushing against the plastic hoping to break free and get away.

Bradelina:

Not to be confused with Angelina's husband. This same day he found a skirt of Macy's and made me put it on him. If I hadn't he was determined to get it on himself so I helped. That and I wanted a good laugh. I so wish I had a picture because it was stinkin' funny.

Cinderella:

Waiting for Keley's ride to school.

The other night Kelsey said she liked having him around so he could do things for her. Right after she said that she told Braden to put her clothes in the dirty clothes. He said "Okay" picked them up and hasn't stopped since. Every time he sees the girls clothes laying around he throws them in the closet. Kelsey makes him throw away her trash too. At least she has found one reason to be happy to have him around. Many times she is very annoyed with him. In fact no one will sit next to him at meals. It is a fight to see who can get the seat farthest from him. Poor guy.

Swimsuit

I was thinking about buying a swimsuit from Hapri this year. I hadn't done it yet (for several reasons) when I read on my friend's blog that her sister is giving away a gift card to Hapri. Who wouldn't want to get a free swimsuit. So thanks Ashley for letting me in on this and for anyone else that wants a chance to win you can check out Brooke's blog for details (it ends March 29).

I can't tell you which one is my favorite because I have to try on every single style before I can make that decision. I am a very picky swimsuit gal. I don't like tankinis that float up when I am in the pool. I want my swimsuits to enhance areas I like and camouflage the hideous ones and that takes special swimsuits. I haven't tried on the swimsuits because I have not scheduled the day to drive down to American Fork because I am waiting to pull myself out of the red for my own personal spending budget. Man I am full of excuses.

Sorry there are no pictures but I don't have time to figure out how to add pictures from other websites without saving them to my computer. You will just have to visit the Hapri website to see the suits for yourself. I like almost all of them so it will be rough choosing.

Things I love...

• Climbing into bed with fresh, clean sheets. The first night after changing sheets is heavenly to me. The down side changing and washing those sheets.
• Slipping into bed with silky, smooth legs because I actually shaved them that day. It is worth shaving for this benefit alone.
• Having the sun shine and going outside to enjoy it. I really miss seeing the sun everyday like I did in Phoenix. Even if it is a warm day, if the sun ain't shinin' it ain't that great. Sunday we walked to church. It was so lovely because the sun was out the whole time. It was the best way to prepare for church. I had a tear in my eye as I recalled how often we could walk to church in Phoenix. I think the last year we were there we walked 9 months out of the year. By the way, this walk was no small feat. Our house is the furthest I have ever lived from a church building. We have to cross a busy road to get there too. Don't worry we did the "do as we say, not as we do" with our kids. We taught them to jay-walk and then said don't ever do this. It is against the law.
• that Brian has not won the last four games of Settlers. I don't think he will play the game again. It is back to Ticket to Ride and Carcassone for him.
• when Braden teases Kelsey by grabbing her blanket and running. Or when he is the monster and chases his sisters around the house. I hate that he dumps every cup or water bottle on the ground.
• that Braden stuck is lawn mower and wagon in time out yesterday. He pushed each one into a corner and yelled "in the corner" and "go to time out". I hate to hear what I sound like when my kids are playing me.
• that Macy wants two gift cards and money for her birthday. Her reason "so she doesn't have to spend her own money to buy things". What am I supposed to do for her birthday? Obviously the royal wedding is not an option.