Macy's Turn

This was the year of birthday parties.  Macy wanted to go some where besides our house.  I was worn out from Braden's party planning, Easter, and off-track time so I agreed to have some other place play party host.  Of course the cost of it killed me so Brian and I came up with another solution to get out of throwing a party.  We told her we would give her an ipad mini for her present if she would agree to no friend party and that would be her only present from the family.  This is something she really wants and keeps saying she is saving up for one.  Surprisingly she turned us down so we went to Airborne, a trampoline place.  I hope she had a good time.

Again my attempt at cake decorating.  I think I am going to have to stop trying to use fondant and just write "Happy Birthday" on it.

It was too heavy, 3 layers and fondant, and not perfectly level so on the ride home it started to topple.  It tasted good which is what matters.

 Zip lining in the little kids area.

 Braden shooting hoops.

 Two of Macy's friends from school, Felicity and Aubree.

Macy asked for mustard so her friend, Anna, gave her mustard.  I didn't realize how much she liked mustard. Her sandwiches and hot dogs are now drenched in mustard.  I don't know how she doesn't gag.  She squirted straight mustard into her mouth at her party. Gross!

From her family, she received a new bike.  We also gave her a towel head wrap because she can't stand it when her hair gets her clothes wet after a shower.  Hopefully that will stop her from walking around without a shirt on.  Kelsey also gave her a CD/itune songs: Camp Rock, Demi Lovato, Despicable Me and Frozen.
Grandma Carol gave her clothes and a rainbow loom.  When she went shopping with my parents she chose Teriyaki Boy for dinner. Then picked out a watch ring and something else that slipped my mind.  What a special, loved girl!.

We love you!'

Easter time

This year we had our Easter egg hunt on Saturday.  We did it for a couple of reasons.  The first was I hate that the focus of Easter is on egg hunts and Christ generally gets forgotten with all the candy.  I know that can happen at Christmas but Easter seems worse.  Maybe it happens because Easter is on a Sunday every year or there are not any Christ centered activities the month leading up to the holiday.  Who knows?  The second reason was because we have early church and there was no way we could have an egg hunt before (which the kids would expect) and still make it on time.  The kids were bugged that the egg hunt was on Saturday but they quickly forgot their frustrations.  The sad part was we were still late on Sunday, just not as late.

After the Easter egg hunt, we went to brunch at the Egg & I.  This was so much fun and something we never do.  Finding our eggs on Saturday followed by brunch might become a tradition.

On Sunday, Brian and I took some time to talk about Christ and his atonement.  The kids missed some of the festivities that day but I think over time it could become normal.

 Here we are in our Easter attire.  Out of 10 shots of the whole family we didn't have a perfect one.  Instead of a self timer we should have a neighbor come over and shoot a couple for us.  We also did some photos of all the girls then all the boys but we are not professional photographers and those shouldn't be posted.

A mess up with the timer so Brian put it to good use.

 Tanner has had enough, but we forced him to stay for a few more shots.

One Year Older and Wiser too

Braden was finally given a friend birthday party this year.  He had been dreaming of that day for a long time.  The anticipation almost killed him.  Luckily he lived to enjoy the special day.

The theme to the party was Super Mario Brothers.  I had some great themed games planned but the weather didn't cooperate.  I got flustered and forgot that the coolest game could be done inside so we skipped it.  I never really got back on track and I had a lot of time to spare when we had done everything.  Good thing it was five year old boys and they didn't care or notice.

The first game that didn't get played had the most prep work.  It was an obstacle course avoiding king boos (white helium balloons with faces), climbing through a pipe (our tent tunnels), hopping over piranha plants, stomping goombas (balloons with faces) and reaching the flag.  Of course I didn't take a picture either.

Some of the piranha plants.  The big one was for the obstacle course.

Then we had some Bowser dodgeball downstairs.  Brian was Bowser but we never got his costume on him.  The boys didn't care.

We did a scavenger hunt around the yard.  They were looking for yoshi eggs, bricks, mystery blocks, and coins.

This was one of the bricks they had to find. It contained 2 mushrooms.  The yoshi eggs were plastic easter eggs that we put white dots on.

I didn't want to do a pinata but it was a special request by Braden.  I am always worried someone will get whacked with the bat and that worried increased thinking about boys swinging the bat.  Watch out baseball teams!  Someone of these boys have a strong swing.  It is amazing the difference between the girls swinging at Macy's pinatas at 5 and 8 years of age compared to Braden's little friends.  The boys would have won.

Baseball here we come.

Then it was onto cake and ice cream.  Followed by presents.  To kill time they played with the little Mario characters they received in the favor bags.  Eventually they made their way outside to play with Braden's new stomp rocket.  Only one kid got it in the eye from impatient, not fully comprehending why to wait little boys.

Another attempt at cake decorating.

Some of his best buddies.  This one is with Trey. Dylan is also in the picture looking at a gift.

Braden and Zac

Cameron and Braden. Cameron is only 9 months older but a quite a bit taller.

I hope Braden had a good time.

From his family he received lots of legos, another wii remote and a baseball mitt.  He chose to go to dinner at Ihop when he went shopping with grandma and grandpa.  When he went shopping he chose a large r/c car and 2 small lego sets from the lego store.  Grandma Carol gave him clothes and another set of legos.

Happy Birthday little man!

The Funnies

Macy was going to a birthday party.  The gift to her friend was a bird house to build and paint.  She looks at the box before I wrapped it and became so excited.  She said "It's 3D.  I've never seen one like that before."  This is when I wanted to comment, "Well that is because you have seen them only in 4D".  I refrained.  Then she read some of the marketing on the box and exclaimed "and it's made of real wood".  She thought it was the coolest gift.

Leprechauns don't visit our house but they visit tons of friend's homes.  Kelsey keeps hoping that one day they will stop by on St Patrick's day.  Maybe those pesky leprechauns will come when she has kids.  Anyways, I found the following note she left out.

It says "Dear Lepercon can I have 100 dollars or less than 100 dollars but not 0 dollars."

Parenting: Brian's Style

I love Brian and he is the greatest dad.  The kids love him and they know he loves them.  He takes time to play tickle monster, tag, basketball, Super Mario Brothers and even Just Dance.  He has helped Macy on reports. He has helped all of them write talks for church.  But reading books to the kids is not his thing nor is listening to them read.

He has been known to skip pages and lines when the girls were little.  He wasn't thrilled when they had a book memorized or when they learned to read and they could catch him pulling this stunt.  I have also heard him tell the girls to go pick out another story because the one they chose was too long.

Each night I listen to Kelsey read for 20 minutes.  The other night this was not done before I had to leave to Young Womens so Brian was given the assignment.  Braden wanted to play Super Mario Brothers with his dad that night too.  So Brian multi-tasked.  He told me he listened to Kelsey read while he played Super Mario Brothers with Braden.  I can only imagine how well Kelsey was able to read, she gets easily locked on to the TV and video games, and how much of the story Brian heard, he too has a hard time focusing.  In the end the task was completed and Braden knows his dad loves him.

Southern Carribean

 To celebrate my birthday and Valentines Day we took a cruise with friends.  Okay we didn't go because of those reasons.  It just happened to be the dates we picked.  We had a great time hanging out with Tanya & Clyn Robinson (she was a cruise organizer), Julie & Roger Harrison, and Melissa & Chris Bremser.  Brian was our entertainment director and he planned some amazing things for us (like always).  We laughed and laughed some more.  I was so glad we went with these guys.

First stop was a day and a half in San Juan before boarding the ship.  We rented a car and drove around the island.  There are some neat forests in Puerto Rico.  At one point while driving through forest we rolled down our windows and it sounded like a relaxation CD.

Sunday we went to church and met the mission president's wife.  We told him a young man in our ward would soon be reporting to them.  Then we toured El Morro the ginormous fort.  We strolled a few of the streets of Old San Juan.  We didn't spend too much time doing that because Brian couldn't relax because he was afraid we would miss the ship.  Downtown in crazy on the weekends.

 

Next up surfing in Barbados.  I loved surfing.  I got up too.  Too bad I got burnt pretty bad from lying on my board for 2 hours.  I applied sunscreen and it was overcast.  I guess I was really white.  I had to cover up really well for the following 2 days.

 

What more could I want on my birthday?  An extremely delicious chocolate cake, surfing, dark chocolate dipped strawberries in my state room.  I had it all.

 Here was our water taxi driver and our land guide in St. Lucia.  He drove us through an arch on our way along the coast.  He said that should give us another 10 years of marriage.

 We saw the Pitons (hopefully someone in our group has a better picture of them than us).  We sat in a waterfall that was a warm as bath water.  The water came from near the island's volcano.

Sugar Beach on St Lucia.  The white sand was imported.  The island is volcanic so most of the beaches are a darker sand.

 Check out the blue water in Antigua.  Actually all the islands had beautiful water.  Here we chartered a small yacht for the day.  They took us snorkeling, fed us lunch and showed us the island from the water.

"I'm sailing Dr. Leo Marvin.  I'm sailing."

 St. Maarten.  Here we rented a car, did some sea kayaking, watched the huge jets land as we sat on a beach and found a secluded beach.  We also saw a lot of topless women. 

Very few people were on this beach.  It is a stark contrast from the beach we just came from.  That beach was were the airplanes fly in just feet above your head.  That beach had tons of people and lots of partying.

St Croix was one of my favorites along with everyone in the group.  We found a company that offered guided hikes.  The owner happened to be a farm boy from Idaho who decided laid back island life was for him.  His brother liked the idea and joined him in St Croix.  They even had a brother that served an LDS mission but they were not participating Mormons themselves.  Not sure about the rest of the family.  They were cool guys and shared lots of information.  They started off the hike with fresh coconut water for everyone.  We tried 2 different varieties of coconuts and they each had their own flavor.  Roger ate a termite.  I saw a huge ugly spider.  We tried a princess pea.  It tasted like lemon and numbed our tongues and gums a bit.  One of the guides uses it for his one year old son when the son is teething.  We were told not to touch the millipedes there because they would burn you.  All sorts of interesting things.

 

 

Our end goal was the Cambola Tide pools.  The 2 guys with dread locks were the guides.

Our one picture of a formal night.

By coincidence most of the group ended up on the same flights home.  Here we are eating Philly cheesesteak sandwiches in the Philadelphia airport. 

 

Great vacation! Hard to be home. Can't wait for the next trip to paradise.

Quick review

 This is Sniffles.  She is the newest member of the family.  Santa brought her for Kelsey.  I guess he forgot that he can't talk animals in his sleigh.  Sniffles has turned out to be a great pet and Kelsey and Braden still have not tired of her.  Kelsey wants to get her a lease to talk her on "hops" around the neighborhood.  I think everyone enjoyed their Christmas presents this year.  Macy was given Saige, an American Girl Doll (that doesn't get played with just like I thought it wouldn't).  Braden opened jumbo legos.  He wants more for his birthday but I don't wear we will store them.  Brian got a TV and blue ray player to help motivate him to use the treadmill (this was something he wanted).  The kids wrapped up odds and ends from around the house for Tanner.  Kelsey is so generous.  She gave $30+ of her own money for charities we as a family participated in this Christmas.  Then she spent $35 of her own money and bought Tanner a blanket that has become his favorite.  He has to sleep with it each night.  I got was given a new ipad.  I was so happy and surprised by the new toy it has been a lot of fun and useful.  Then for my birthday I bought myself a new iPhone.  I am so connected and hip now.

 Christmas can be so crazy.  In December the kids asked when we would gingerbread houses.  I didn't want to squeezed another thing in so I said we could do them in January when they were off-track.  I kept my promise when they asked.  It is hard not to take over and add my ideas.  Maybe one year I will make a house of my own.

 They lasted an hour before they started eating the houses.  That was all the longer I could hold them off.  Then they thought it would be fun to try eating them without hands.

 January Tanner started to eat solids.  He wasn't sure at first but now he loves to sit at the table with the family and have some of his own food.

 Kelsey dressing Tanner up.

Macy got a hold of my phone and snapped this lovely photo of herself.  I have quite a few lovely pictures on the ipad too.  I have not shared my passcode to the phone with them so my memory is not filled with photos.  That and because I don't want them to use my phone for games.  They are always wanting to get "bapples" for me on the ipad.  I have yet to play Minion Rush so why they think I want "bapples" is beyond me. 

This was Kelsey's valentine box.  We had to make this a couple weeks before Valentine's Day because I was celebrating that holiday on a cruise.  I forgot to take a picture of Macy's box.  Hers was an ipad.

And here are my cute boys sharing a cart at Costco.  I think Braden is a little big for this ride.