April Activities

-Cara lost another tooth...thanks to Pierce for slapping a play sword into her face haha. It was kind of funny because this tooth was SO loose, but we just couldn't get it out. This was the week we had our dentist checkups and I was nervous how they handle a kid with a loose tooth that was THIS loose. I thought for sure they'd end up pulling it out whether on purpose or accident, either way that's when it was coming out. Then the night before her checkup Pierce was swinging a sword with Larry and she walked past him and as he swung it back he hit her face. Next thing we know she's grabbing at her shirt because her tooth popped out. So that solved that issue for us haha.

-Gwen had another field trip to Curiosity Farms on the 15th. I was so excited I got a chance to chaperone this one. Since we had just gone as a family the weekend prior we already know the cool things to do, so I think we made it even more fun. I think the kids' favorite part was seeing the cat near the lunch area haha.

-We finally got our new dining chairs delivered and built. As mentioned, they are kind of boring, but I feel they match SO well and will be so much easier to clean. Lesson learned, don't own anything with fabric when you have kids unless you want to be cleaning them EVERY day.

-Cara got to do an animal habitat presentation thing and she chose Tigers for her. I got to go and see how much she learned and the habitat she built for it. It was one of those "push a button for a fact" thing that I've seen other kids do. So fun to see her printable she created all by herself with a bunch of tiger pictures.

-Ever since Bed, Bath, and Beyond closed I've been on the hunt to find a new home supply store (for things you just need to feel like towels and sheets) and it's been hard. However, when we went to Mom's for Easter, she reminded me about the At Home Store. We headed over that weekend to just look around and we ended up finding a LOT we needed for our home. Shopping sprees can be so much fun!

New bathroom stuff for the kids' bathroom

New drapes for our slider door
Since our old ones were DIRTY

New cute throw pillows for our couch

-The kids got some Spring pics done at school. I don't remember doing these as a kid and I don't remember them being done for the kids at previous years, but they turned out super cute:

-Speaking of pictures, Lucy got to do her ballet ones and we got to do some practice for her recitals:

-Also, I REALLY love a good blazer (it's been a look I've been wanting to add to my closet and I found a REALLY cute one at Maurices and HAD to get it:

-Workout updates: I decided to add in Wednesday workouts with Larry's walking pad and simple strength training at end of work. It feels GREAT adding this to my week as I still don't want to wake up early for other weekday workouts haha). My only issue is his walking pad doesn't go very fast (3.8 seems to be the fastest and that's barely jogging) so I may have to see if I can find a faster one.

Ignore the belly button shaper I'm
Still wearing

-Swim lessons update: We are LOVING them so far! Having them on Sundays and all at the same time is so nice! We usually fit it in between grocery shopping and when I usually workout or start cleaning. They are short lessons, but I feel it's been much better than what we did at the Rec Center.

-My final post surgery appointment: Update things are feeling/looking good. I'm like 99.5% back to normal, only a few things I still can't do. Finally feel like it was worth it!

Some Silly Kiddos this month:

Easter Weekend

So aside from our Easter Bunny Breakfast yesterday, we had a very fun, full Easter Weekend. 

After the breakfast, we went home and colored eggs. I always love doing this, but our eggs were a little cracked up so we knew we'd probably be throwing these away rather than eating them (which is a bummer since I LOVE eating hard boiled eggs and I hate throwing food away). We also attempted to make some pastel colored rice krispy eggs, but they did NOT turn out like I planned (of course!)

What we wanted to make

How ours turned out *facepalm*

For dinner, we went over to Mom's. She had some rocks picked out she wanted the kids' help painting so they were excited to do that (unfortunately, her garage doesn't have the best air flow so we had to step out pretty quickly to get out of the spray paint fumes that collected in there), they grilled some yummy food, and had an egg hunt in their front yard. The kids love going over there, but adding in getting candy and goodies is an extra extra plus!

That night I QUICKLY filled up eggs and their baskets to get ready for our hunt this morning. I tried to make it a bit more tame this year, I know I tend to go a little extra so I wanted to tone it down. Each kid got some more hashtag toys (that's what I call them, they build into something and look like little plastic hashtags), a tonies character, swimming goggles, and an Easter themed book

The kids always love doing the egg hunt and I absolutely love watching them get excited to find them. We usually assign the kids a color and those are the ones they can find so that everyone has an equal amount. 

And we ended the night with our ham dinner. It wasn't as big as we normally do, but still so yummy. I love having big dinners for the holidays and enjoying our fun day as a family.

Memory Maker: Breakfast with the Easter Bunny

So some Memory Makers I knew I wanted to do this year was Gardner Village events. I had originally only had the Fairy Tea Party they do in mind, but when I was looking up info for that, I saw they do an Easter Bunny Breakfast and thought it would be SO much fun to take the kids to.

Today was the day for that and it was such a cute, fun event. I'm not sure I'd go again because it was a little pricey and the kids didn't eat much of the food. HOWEVER, I'll say if they did eat more, it would've been much more worth it. They do fun kids games and you get a picture with the bunny and the workers really make it silly and fun.

We even got to go pet some animals they had set up outside in pens. They reminded us that Tuesdays are $2 at the petting zoo so I decided I may have to add that to the list for one of my days off with the kiddos.

So I'm glad we did this, I absolutely loved the food and got a couple plates, myself. The bunny's fur (both Easter and petting zoo one) was SO soft. It was a fun way to start our morning!

Memory Makers: Egg Hunt and Curiosity Farms

This might have been one of our busiest weekends in a LOOONG time, busy can be fun, but it can also be overwhelming. This was a mixture of both.

We started with the city's Easter Egg Hunt, we got there early just in case it was busy and parking was hard, but it wasn't too bad. We let the kids play on the playground for a bit before it started. I assumed this would take a while, but I think the longest part was when we got to line up and wait for them to say go. They brought the Easter Bunny in via helicopter, which was cool, and then we were waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and waiting some more before they finally blew the horn that said the kids could go. I think we maybe hunted for about 5 minutes (Cara and Gwen were in their own area and parents couldn't help, so we stayed with Pierce and Lucy and I gave Cara my phone so we could call them to meet up afterwards) and then it got overwhelming so we went to the out of bounds area to check out what we got. It took a minute to find Gwen and Cara again, but we did, checked their loot out and then headed out. It was SO quick haha.

Look at all those eggs!!

Daddy pointing out the bunny
In the 'copter

After that we ran over to Lowe's to do the workshop, unfortunately it was a grab and go one because we just didn't have enough time to stay and build (even though the egg hunt went quicker, traffic to get out of Eagle Mountain and over to Lehi wasn't as time efficient). We also had to get some things at Costco so we decided to grab a pizza for lunch from there (because Costco pizza is amazing!).

After that we went over to the new Curiosity Farms at Thanksgiving Point to check that out. Fun Fact: Gwen has another field trip coming up this week here as well, so it was kind of fun to check it out before then. We got to see how they shear the sheep, they are SO quick at it! This place is MUCH cooler with the updates they've done. We had a lot of fun, especially with the playground, I think that was their favorite part. 

One thing I didn't realize when we had planned this weekend out was how closely I timed things. I got tickets for the Tulip festival for Me, Mom, and Will SUPER close to the Farms time and I didn't realize how much time we'd want to spend at the Farms. We got there at 1:30 and the Tulip Fest Tickets were at 3, you'd think 1 1/2 hours would be fine, but I wasn't fully ready to go (good thing, again, that we got that membership). For the Tulip Fest, I was going to include the kids, but I was worried that would be too much for them, so I had Larry drop me off at Ashton Gardens (Mom and Will said they'd take me back home afterwards) and assumed he'd head home afterwards.

I seriously cannot get enough of the Gardens there, they are so pretty and calming and the flowers are so fun to look at all the combinations they have. We took about another 1 1/2 hours walking those grounds and then I texted Larry to let him know we were finishing up, at which point he told me they were still at the Farms (3 hours and still going? I was shocked!) so I had Mom and Will just drop me off there and we stayed for another 30 minutes and headed home for dinner.

I was SO tired, but after we did dinner we decided to head over to Home Depot to get some flowers, seeds, and, impulsively, a tree to add to our gardens. We were tired, but it was also so much fun picking everything out. As for the tree, we were trying to decide between and apple, cherry, or pear. I didn't think the apple would be a good one (we're kind of picky with our apples, they only had green apples and we lean more towards red ones that we like), so I wanted it to be between the cherry and pear. Larry and I both had cherry trees growing up, so I was hoping that's what we'd get, but Larry let the kids vote, and they all voted, unanimously, on pear, so we got a couple of those. We'll see how they do. 

We got home and Larry had to plant the trees and the flowers so I let the kids do their screen time while I made the grocery list. And now that I'm at 20K steps and the kids are in bed, we're stopping and relaxing for our movie night. Man, it sounds even more tiring as I typed it all out, I can't believe we were able to pack so much into this one day!

Pierce is THREE!

I cannot believe my last baby is already three! I swear I remember being sad about each milestone the girls passed (when they'd grow out of clothes or learn to do things on their own), but with Pierce it's always been exciting. Now, though, I'm seeing his growth in pictures and I'm a little sad, not going to lie.

We've had such a fun time celebrating our stubborn silly guy this week. On Tuesday (his actual birthday) I set up his table with some fun toys, a couple gifts, and some rainbow twist suckers (because he's always asking for suckers). He LOVED seeing all this plus his streamers. 

All hand drawn, I was pretty proud!

We went out to dinner at Leatherby's (of course) so we could get some yummy food and ice cream. I was surprised he actually ate most of his dinner (normally once we mention ice cream, or any sweets, he'll stop until he gets that first). He was SO happy when his ice cream showed up. Normally, I don't get myself ice cream, but I'll eat from everyone else's, but this time I really wanted some so we all got our own. Other than Lucy accidentally knocking hers off the table and breaking the glass (which they cleaned up and gave us a to-go cup with new ice cream) it all went pretty good. Everyone was happy.

We did his party today. We invited Cindy and her family to our fun at Jurassic Jungle (at Thanksgiving Point) and we had a BLAST playing in that maze for almost 2 hours. Then we came home for pizza, presents, and cake with the grandparents. 

Andy and Rachel also came over, but not until 7:30 ish (and I think we stayed up talking until 9:30, it was such a late night, but so fun). I love celebrating my kiddos and I love when others want to celebrate with us!

To Pierce: 

I cannot believe how much fun it is to have a son. I always thought I'd be okay with whatever kids I had, but you have proven that there is just something so special about the mother-son bond. You are so silly and playful, but man you are so very rambunctious and love to do battles ALL the time. Even though it can be exhausting, listening to you laugh when you pretend to kill me and I fall down and knowing it seems to be your favorite game is so worth playing. 

We decided not to put you in preschool the next school year and it will be very interesting to see how you do having the house all on your own during the day. I look forward to having that time as 1:1 time with you. Even though you act like you don't like lovey stuff or sentimental stuff you do have a sweet side. You love to just come cuddle on my lap all the time or give your sisters random hugs.

You are already so smart so I know you'll go far in life! Now that the two's are over with, we'll see how three's treat us, but I know we'll have lots of fun moments, especially with the year we have planned. I absolutely love you bubbas, to the moon and beyond!

Memory Makers: Spring Break

I'd been looking forward to the kids' Spring Break from school for a while now. I took most of the week off (I worked one full day on the 1st and then just 1 hour the other days) so I could take the girls out for some fun. I wanted to take Pierce too, but he's in a "it's fun to run away and not listen" stage AND we've found if he skips naps and we have a busy day then he gets VERY grumpy! So I figured this will just be me and the girls this time.

On Monday I booked us time to go to the Museum of Natural Curiosity at Thanksgiving Point. I hadn't been to this since Gwen was about a year old so it had been a long time. I was determined to stay and go through the whole thing (something I had never done before). We ended up staying for about 2.5 hours and boy did we do a lot. It was a pretty busy day, but once we got to the last few areas the crowd dimmed down a bit. It was a bit of a chilly day so when we got to the outside/playground area that was the spot we probably spent the least amount of time in. Lucy was having a few meltdowns around that time too, but by bedtime she said she liked it. We also had Pierce's checkup (which he did NOT like at all. He handled it mostly okay with the promise of 2 suckers afterwards, haha. Luckily he didn't need any shots) and my, Lucy's, and Gwen's dentist appointments. All of us got clean bills of health - yay! 

Tuesday was the day I worked. I knew we'd be going out for Pierce's birthday dinner so I figured that was enough fun for a day. See his birthday post for those details.

Wednesday I surprised the girls with an open lab at Little Beakers in Orem. If you haven't been to this place, you should totally go! We did a one hour open lab where they give you a book with about 30 experiments and you just get to do as many as you can in that hour. They have about 6 different areas with all the supplies you need for the experiments, they do all the clean up for you, and if you make something in the experiment, you get to take it home. I wish we had time to do more things there, but we got to do about 6 in the time we were there. I've been trying to convince Cara to do her birthday party there (she's just SO determined to do it at home). I think this was my favorite part of the whole week. Bonus: we didn't a lot of meltdowns this day haha. We also had Pierce, Cara, and Larry do their dentist checkups this day and, somewhat luckily, Larry was the only one with cavities (shocking since he hasn't had one in decades!). Pierce really didn't like it, of course, but he did better than last time, so that's a win!

Thursday was a struggle. I had originally planned to take the girls to the zoo. I was even thinking Pierce might be able to come with (he'd probably sleep in the car, which solves the napping issue). However, as I was watching the weather throughout the week it was just getting colder and colder and I knew it would be miserable. The trick was finding a replacement that wasn't expensive (I got the Connect Pass so the zoo was supposed to be free and I didn't want to spend even more than I had already spent for the week). I looked at so many indoor play places, but just wasn't too excited about any of them. Then I remembered when we went to the Treehouse Museum a while back and how we had to drag Cara out screaming because she liked it so much. It's up in Ogden so it's QUITE the drive, but I figured why not? I had nothing better to do and getting us all in was only about $40 (the cheapest option so far) so I got us tickets to that. That place is SO big and the kids had a lot of fun. They definitely were the appropriate ages, so that worked, although Cara was probably getting a tad too old for it (luckily they had free craft things, she'll do anything if she gets something to take home from it). We spent probably 2 hours there and did pretty much everything, but Lucy (once again) was having a few meltdowns so we were ready to get home. There was a bit of traffic coming home so I was a got a little testy (I absolutely HATE being stuck in traffic), but once we finally got home I just passed out on the couch haha.

Today (Friday) was a nice, relaxing day. I tidied the house in the morning and then took the girls to go see A Minecraft Movie after lunch. We got our popcorn, some waters, and had our candy and I got us the luxury seats so we were all comfortable. I love being able to take them to the movies now! This one was okay, not what I was expecting. The girls really liked it though, so that's all that matters.

Overall, it was a really fun Spring Break week off. I spent WAY too much money, there were quite a few tantrums, I ended each day more exhausted than I've felt in a while. BUT we all had fun, made lots of memories and I heard "best day ever" a ton of times, so that's all that matters, right? Now to get through the very busy weekend to get back into our normal week :)

March Activities

I cannot believe how quickly this month went by, it's been such a BUSY one (which is odd for us for March, usually, but I guess now that I'm feeling better I'm making up for missed time the last couple months haha).

-The kids had fun with one of their Christmas gifts, a gum making STEM kit. This was as messy as it sounds and I wish I had known that. BUT I do like to have them doing STEM related things as much as possible. No pics, because I was busy trying to contain the mess haha

-Gwen got to go on her first field trip on the 5th to the Curiosity Museum and had such a fun time. I was hoping to go on her first field trip, but I wasn't feeling 100% confident I could handle 5 kids on my own so close to the surgery (especially at this museum...it's quite large). She was so excited though, she was counting down days for a week before. Then the week of she'd start screaming in the car when she'd remember it was coming up. The morning of she was dressed and ready to go so early (I was just getting up for the day when she was all ready), she even made her own breakfast. I had to tell her school didn't open until a certain time so she can't go to school any earlier. I'm glad she had such a good experience for her first one. Luckily, the teacher mentioned there was another field trip coming up in April, so I told her I want to be first in line for that one, I think I should be able to handle things better at that point.

-We finally upgraded our kitchen appliances! We didn't necessarily NEED new ones, but I've been wanting an oven with an air fry feature on it for a while and Larry has been bugged about our dishwasher (some prongs inside were falling out), and our fridge was fine, but the ice maker never worked on it. So, one day we were looking around the stores and I had enough saved up for new ones and so it was decided we should just get those now. I checked some out at Home Depot during their workshop on the 1st, but then went to price at Lowe's and they seemed to be a better deal. It was so exciting when they got delivered, we paid for them to install them and take away our old ones so we didn't have to worry about that. The kids were even excited for them to be there (Cara says she wants her birthday party at home so she can show her friends the new appliances haha). And we are all enjoying the new ice too!

-We did the kids workshops this month IN store. It was our first time being there (at least for me) since my surgery. It felt good to actually build THERE. Pierce even hammered all on his own! I love that these are available for us and I hope our kids like going to them for a while (even though it does add more stuff to our home, but it's fun to see them learn more skills and gain more confidence with actually building on their own).

-Gwen got to do 1:1s this month. Larry took her to DQ, where they ate in the upstairs dining at Ridley's, which might have been her favorite. I took her to Nothing Bundt Cakes, but it was unfortunately cold outside and they didn't have any seating so we had to eat in the car. And then we realized they didn't give us utensils so we had to eat with our hands. It got quite messy haha. I'm really trying to keep these small, but just enough make them feel a bit more of a connection to us.

-Surgery update: I am happy to say I feel I can do masks now, I can lay on my stomach (this took a while for me to feel comfortable to even try), and twist to pop my back. I've started getting back into working out, just on Sundays since I'm not ready to wake up early during the week to do it, but I'm lifting more and love being able to try new things out. I am sticking to 1200 calories each day, this has really helped me with my eating and changing my mentality (a little) with food. I wasn't planning on doing it forever, it was just for a little bit, but I think I'll stick with it for a while longer. I do like keeping Saturdays as my free for all day though (I don't track my eating that day and I just try and stick to only eating if I'm hungry). It's nice to feel more and more normal each day/week/month, but I do look forward to feeling 100% again.

So happy to do masks again!

-We have officially started swim lessons, again. Only this time, we're going to Goldfish Swim School in American Fork. We've gone back and forth on this a lot, mostly about how much it costs. However, the hours and days they offer lessons just seems to make sense so I talked Larry into trying it for just a few months. Initially I wanted to do it during the winter and have them be "done" by Summer so we could just use the Summer to practice the skills, but with my surgery and everything else going on, it just took until now to get it started. The plan is to keep them in for about 6 months, I feel that should be long enough to learn a good amount to practice. I'll update on how much we like it once we get into it.

-One thing I never took into account when becoming a parent is birthday parties - for friends! Cara and Gwen are apparently very friendly because we've had LOTS of birthday parties this month. I'm very excited they have these opportunities and love that they get to go have fun with friends, but I never built that into my budget so sometimes I'm like WHOA with how much I've spent on their gifts. But it's totally worth it, they always have so much fun (and I love when I've dropped them off and I've heard the other kids get excited that they showed up). 

-And finally, as usual, some silly kiddos this month: