I'm Going Slightly Mad

It's Spring Break, here. Two weeks. Yep, 2 weeks. We are on day 3. I might loose it. Those two days a week in pre-school help me keep my sanity. It doesn't help that during the previous five weeks, Maryn was only in school 1 day. We were either
1. on vacation,
2. sick,
3. on a field trip, or
4. having a snow day.
I even thought ahead. I made up a little chart with cute lady bug magnets for Maryn. I told her that if she could go 4 days in a row without crying, we would go out for ice cream. She did GREAT yesterday! Today is a different story. Is it ok that I bribe my child to not cry? It gets out of control. She cries over things such as: She can't snap her jeans, or we all went downstairs and left her alone upstairs, or she can't put her socks on, or she doesn't want to go to the bathroom, even though her bladder is about to explode. We did establish for our little deal that she could cry if she fell down and got hurt. I may be setting my standards too high with four days in a row.

Spring in AZ = Nice; Spring in CO = Brrrr

A while back, Kade and I got the itch to go someplace warm. We called up my brother, who lives in Arizona, and invited ourselves over for a visit. Packing was interesting--I didn't really have much time to prepare, because I'd been at my sister's house until the week before we left. Luckily, Maryn had exactly 7 short sleeve shirts (from clearance racks last summer) and Ailee had a few clothes left over from Maryn's baby years. Most things were either too big or too small, but we made it work. Maryn was especially excited to wear summer clothes. Wow, the things 4 year olds look forward to.
We flew down after Kade got off work on Wednesday, and made it in just in time to put two tired kids to bed. On Thursday, for our first order of business, we went to a Spring Training Game: Mariners vs. Giants. The kids spent most of the time fighting over who got so sit where, spilling water bottles, and eating cotton candy.

I think I caught a few moments of the baseball game.

Mostly, though, I was basking in the warmth of the sun, and took pictures of everyone. Maryn was good enough to give me wink as she tried out Kade's sunglasses.



Ailee, just being Ailee.


My handsome brother, Ryan. [snicker]

My sister in law, April.

Carson, my nephew.

My other nephew, Ayden.

The next day, after realizing that my skin was so not used to being in the sun, we went out for a little light hiking. I was sure to use sun screen this time. We drove out to Papagos Park, had a picnic, then hiked (and by "hiked" I mean went for a leisurely walk) up a hill.

Checking out the shade from the overhang...or cave, depending how old you are.

The kids were even brave enough to continue the climb up a rather unsteady mountain side. Luckily we all made it down safely.

Kade and Ailee, not really the risk-takers when it comes to super slidy rocks.

A veiw of Phoenix

Saturday, Kade and I took some time to visit old friends that happened to live in the area. First on our agenda was the Wilkes Family, who we met at the park. It was so fun to see them all again. I was glad baby Wilkes was good enough to wait to make her grand entrance into the world until after we got to visit.

Avery, Maryn and Carter

That afternoon, we packed up the fishing poles and headed out to the Lake by Ryan's house for some "fishing." I call it "fishing" because nobody really caught anything, and mostly the kids just whined because they couldn't figure out how to cast the line. But, I got some cute pictures, anyhow.

Maryn, showing off her stuff.

Ryan and Ayden working on their casting.

Who knows what's going on in this picture.

That evening, we went out to dinner with some friends from our Clarksville days, the Hardys. It was so fun to see them again, and see how much their kids have grown. It's amazing what 5 and 1/2 years does.

On Sunday, after church, we went out to the temple to walk around the grounds. There was a big field where the Easter Pageant stage was set up, that was full of nice soft grass. The kids all took off their shoes and ran around for a bit.

After a stroll around the grounds, and finding out that cactus needles often fall into the rocks around the cactus, we stopped for some family pictures.

The next morning, with Kade having flown home, and Ryan back at work, it was just us girls vs. the kids. So, we packed up some lunches and headed out to the zoo. Our favorite part was the Monkey exhibit, where they roamed free. They were pretty cute.

More little monkeys in front of the rhinos.

My final day in Arizona was spent shopping. I found a cute coat (and lucky I did....it's snowing here, now) and a 40 lb box of oranges to bring home with us. And yes, 40 lbs of oranges is a lot of oranges. At least we all have gotten plenty of vitamin C in our diets. That night, April and I pampered ourselves with facials, while Ryan was so good to watch all 4 kids. He's a trooper.

What a great trip. We went on a perfect week, and now I yearn for the nice weather. I think it might be a while before we get that here. Spring will come.....Spring will come.....Spring will come....

The Game Everyone Should Know

So, as I mentioned in my last post, I just spent a week at my sister's house, taking care of her kids, while she was on vacation. For Family Home Evening on Monday night, I decided to skip the fuddy-dud lessons (we did sing "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam," though....that's a little bit spiritual) and taught the kids a game I know well from my youth. It's called the flour game. I'm sure lots of you out there have played this before, but I had the joy of introducing it to my sister's kids, which put me high on their list of fun, favorite people. Yay!
How do you play, you ask? First, you get a penny (wash it, please) and put it in the bottom of a tall cup. Next, you pack the cup, tightly, with flour. Place a plate over the top and flip the whole thing over. Remove the cup. You should have a nice tower of flour with a penny on top. You each take turns cutting the flour tower with a knife, from the top all the way to the bottom--
--and whoever makes the penny fall, has to get it out of the pile of flour with their teeth. Mmmmm. Go play it, make a mess, it's fun!
Here's everyone in their moment of glory:

Hudson

Maddi
Cam

Savannah

Maryn chose not to go digging, so instead, she got a floury kiss

As the game came to a close, we all realized that two people hadn't had the wonderful opportunity to go digging for the penny: Austin and Marybeth (my little sister). They must have amazing knife skillz. Naturally, we had to have a death match. When I pulled the cup off, half of the flour fell, so the penny was hanging rather precariously off the edge:

[Dun Dun Dun] that's my menacing music

Austin, the final loser:

And in the winner, Mmmmmmaaaaaarybeth!

Ah, good times. I love that game. It sure does make a mess, and somehow we all ended up with the same cold, but boy it was worth it to see everyone gag on the globs of flour.

The little babies weren't allowed to play, due to their lack of fine motor skills, so they entertained themselves by playing the piano, stealing toys from each other, and once by falling off the piano bench.

Ailee showing off her musical talents Johnny (Marybeth's little boy--probably taking notes from his cousin on how to be a stinker)

Tales of a Road Warrior

So, I realize it's been quite a while since I've posted. My sister, Jill, had an opportunity to take a vacation to Miami with her husband, but she needed someone to watch her kids. I was the chosen one.
It turned out to be a good week. Admittedly, I was a little nervous at first. It was me against 7 kids--but it turned out to be just fine. They were all good, the older ones helped a lot, and my own two kids were the most trouble. And, if you think about it, it's like I'm racking up points for the future, when someday I want to take a nice quiet vacation.
I decided to drive, since it was just to Utah. It's actually a pretty drive between Denver and my sister's house. Lots of mountains and pretty landscape...but mountains mean snow and twisty roads. Let's see, the drive there: I-70 was snowy. Oh, and what should have taken me an hour through the mountains took 3, because there was an avalanche the night before, and the road was blocked. I hate traffic. At least the weather cleared when I reached Hwy 6. That's where I was most nervous about snow. I think the worst part of the drive, though, was just after Grand Junction. The girls had just finished watching a movie, and I decided not to stop for lunch. Instead, I gave the girls fruit and cheese and crackers that I had packed. About 20 minutes later, Ailee throws up curdled milk, grapes, cheese and crackers all over. She wasn't so sad about throwing up, but she was pretty upset that there was gross vomit all over her shirt. It doesn't get much better than cleaning up a vomitty child, and car seat in the the middle of a snow storm, on the side of the interstate.
Now the drive back: Thankfully, the weather was much better. I thought it would be ok to let Maryn watch a movie while we were on a straight stretch of road. She hadn't taken her Dramamine yet, because I usually wait until we go through the twisty part of the drive. In almost the exact spot as Ailee's incident, on the opposite side of the interstate, Maryn says, "Mom, I think I'm going to throw up." I had just enough time to pull over, climb out and open her door, and watch her throw up all down her shirt and car seat. Sigh.
This is my official declaration--

My children are forever banned from watching movies in a moving vehicle.

I blame Kade for this hereditary gene. I think I've only ever been car sick twice in my life. Will I ever have a kid that has my stomach of steel?

Night at the Roxborough

Ok, Ok, I'm a week behind of everything. At least I am consistant, right?
So, last weekend our excursion was out to Roxborough State Park. I was pretty surprised to find this little treasure hidden behind the foothills. We pulled up to the entrance, and as I looked at the barren hills, all I could think was, "This is it? Really? We drove 30 minutes for this?" Then we turned a corner, and I was pleased.
Once again, here are my three explorers all ready to go! The next few pictures contain no people. (I don't usually like pictures without people...how boring! It's only informational, like reading a book. Blech!) But, I included them, so that you could get a view of some of the cool rock formations there.

I thought this last one kind of looked like a painting. We just need it on canvas, and a guy with an afro dressed in 70's clothes standing next to it with a pallate and a paintbrush saying, "Now, we're going to add a few happy little trees here. Just swoop them down the mountain side like so..."

Maryn has loved to be photographed lately. I wonder if this is just a phase. I like this phase.

And, I don't normally post pictures of just myself. It's because most of my pictures look a little something like this:

Doooo--ork! Why can I not take life seriously?

We spend most of our time on the trails playing games like tag, or Maryn, Kade and Ailee hide behind a bush so they can jump out and "scare" me. Only about 2% of the time is actually spent looking at the sights. We got a late start on our hike this day. We only went for about an hour. The sun started to set, and it gets pretty cold when that happens.

After we were sufficiently cold, we packed up and headed home. Dinner and nice warm bubble baths were in order, during which, we fashioned the girls into bubbly old men. Good times.