May Activities

Like April, May was full of other activities. We had Cara's birthday, more soccer games, Mother's Day weekend, and our Bear World trip. 

Bear World was our bigger activity (and was TOTALLY worth it) and we did a hike on Mother's Day Weekend as our smaller activity. Aside from that, we also had the last week of school, which means all kids are home all day long now that it's summer. Luckily, our neighborhood pool opened early so when it's been nice weather we've gotten out to go swimming (it's been raining a bit so we don't get to go nearly as much as I planned, hopefully that's semi short lived).

One of my favorite days this month was Vintage Market Days. I left all the kids at home with Larry and I took off for a really fun, girly day with Mom, Grandma, and Cindy. I spent quite a bit, but it was all such good stuff and didn't technically add any clutter to our home (my biggest goal when buying things lately).

Because it is now Summer Break, I've been using my lunch break as a time to do activities with Cara and Gwen (instead of using it to take Cara to school). So I've been planning some fun STEM acttivities, Crafts, reading time, and outdoor time. 

I've just barely started this process and I'm fine tuning how it's going to work, but our craft this week was a Flag craft for Memorial Day. I also attempted to do a firework craft I had seen on Instagram with some straws and paint (that one didn't turn out as well as I had hoped). 

Leaving Idaho

So while this was a short trip, I knew I wanted to take advantage of all our time in Idaho and not just make it a "drive up, do Bear World, drive home" sort of thing so I knew I wanted to hit up the zoo (because the Idaho Falls zoo is pretty small and there's always a Groupon deal for it so I figured it would be a good thing to do before we head home) and then Stace told me about this awesome Memorial Day Flag tribute at a local park that would be good to take the kids to that (I'm BIG on teaching the kids why we celebrate certain "holidays", especially ones to do with veterans/soldiers) so I knew that was going to happen.

We cleaned out our AirBNB, packed up, and checked out to head to the zoo. It was a nice, quick visit to let the kids walk around and see some cute animals. 

Sorry babe, but this was the only shot with all the kids looking

Then we headed over to the park for the flag tribute and it was really cool to really see that. It had 1,000 flags and some of them were dedicated to certain soldiers so we could teach the kids about the symbolism of the flag, the meaning of Memorial Day, and how important soldiers are to us. It was a great stop.

We then drove around looking for lunch (which was NOT an easy feat....most places were closed, Denny's was open but their kitchen was broken so it had like a 2 hour wait...we ended up at Chili's) and then hit the road. We got home just in time to relax and unpack at home and get things set for the week.

Overall it was an amazing trip, especially for how short it was, but it was so nice as a mini getaway. I am very happy we got this chance to go. My kids love bears and flags now haha.

Bear World as a Family of 6

Oh man I'm SO not used to not having drapes over the windows! It's SO bright so early in this house haha.

Luckily, our morning went pretty smoothly. The girls were up early, of course. It's hard because their room is RIGHT next to Pierce's, and there's only hard wood floor so the noise level is higher than normal. 

Luckily, we were able to get everyone fed and ready for the day and get to Bear World early. I was able to get some pictures in front of the sign and let the kids wiggle for a bit while we waited. We got lucky with the experiences we wanted (I tried to reserve a time for the bottle feeding the baby bears, but online it said it was booked and when I called they said they don't take reservations for this weekend, so you just had to go up to the ticket booth and hope they had an opening). 

We started with our drive through the park and we got some good views of all the animals. Once we got through the park, we fed the ducks for a bit and then had to get lined up for the bus excursion. Now when we went last time I only remember doing the drive through and the petting zoo, I don't remember the bus, the bottle feeding, or the rides, so this time was so much more exciting. The bus was SO cool. We got to see the bigger bears so close and they are just SO cute! The guide was really informative and entertaining. After we were done, Cara and I did the bottle feeding (we tried to sneak Gwen in on it, but she decided when we got there she didn't want to do it after all. She changed her mind right before we went, of course, but we told her it was too late). This was just as cool as I thought it would. The bears are so cuddly and sweet. They, also, highly encouraged us to pet them while taking pictures and feeding them. 

After that, we went out to our car to eat our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with chips and juice. We decided it would be better to bring food than eat the overpriced food they have or have to leave to get food. We knew we were going to be outside for a while so we put some sunscreen on and hit the petting zoo. This time around it wasn't nearly as cool, that was a bummer, but then we headed over to the rides. 

Okay, the rides? SO MUCH FUN!! I absolutely loved this part and was so excited to share it with the girls. They had a mini roller coaster so we could take Gwen and Lucy on their first one. I was SO excited. They had some fun spinning bears that the girls loved, some bouncy cars, a train that Pierce really liked, and a bouncy bug ride. We rode everything at least twice and smiled and laughed so hard! 

Once we were done, we headed over to a playground to meet up with Stace and her kids. Unfortunately, we only visited for about 30 minutes before they had to go, but we let the kids play for as long as we could handle. Unfortunately, we didn't re-apply our sunscreen so I could tell we were in the sun too long by this point. So after about an hour we headed back to our AirBNB for dinner (chicken meal from the grocery store). I tried to take a shower, but the water was SO cold. This meant bath night was nixed, but the kids got more outdoor time with the neighbor kids. They are so friendly and I love that our place faces the other homes so it's a nice little play alleyway for all the kids. 

Now that we've got the kids down for bed, we're going to watch some Modern Family while I pack us up to head out tomorrow. Such a quick trip, but it's been so much fun!!

Bear World Trip: Driving to Rexburg

Okay, talk about a trip I've been looking forward to since...well, since, the last time we went to Bear World and, then when we had kids I thought it would be so much fun to take them to it. So when we went to Idaho almost 2 months ago and I kept seeing signs for Bear World, I thought "ooh! We should do this soon!" Then, after we got back, I got a surprise bonus at work and I could use it for an AirBNB gift card so I decided that now was the best time to do this. So I got on AirBNB and checked for this Memorial Day weekend and found a great place and bam! We're going to Bear World!

To start, I got all the packing done last night (and I did SUCH a great job with packing and keeping it to the last minute so I didn't let it derail my whole week). Then, this morning I did a quick Savers run with our donation items. I got our car packed up with all our packed items (and I didn't overpack). Afte rlunch we grabbed some road movies and headed out.

Our drive to Rexburg was really smooth. A couple of our movies didn't work in the DVD player (which was unfortunate), but after a couple different tries, I finally got a movie to work. We didn't need to make any stops and we got right to our AirBNB right in time to unpack and do a quick grocery run and head out to dinner. I love how this place is SUPER cute and there are lots of kids and play areas right out our front door, which is super convenient. We quickly unloaded the car and then headed out for gas, groceries, and dinner.

While we were at the grocery store this older man was obsessed with our kids. He kept saying how adorable they are and how much trouble we'll be in the future and then told us how he married out of his zone and showed us pictures of his wife and kids. It was pretty sweet, and I never get sick of getting compliments on our kids.

We went to a BBQ place nearby for dinner. The food was okay, mine was extremely greasy, but Larry loved his ribs. And luckily, also nearby, was the gas station so we could feel up right then as well.

After all that, we came back to our "home" and let the kids play outside with the kids. We had some bubbles left over (for if we had to make a pit stop) and so we let them all play with those and they had so much fun! Pierce became obsessed with the boys (it was his first time seeing boys closer to his age so I think he was really excited) and the balls they had to play with haha.

After playing for a while, we got the kids ready for bed (which went partially okay), and then headed downstairs to watch our movie for our date night. We ended up going with The Jungle Cruise, which was pretty cute. Now that we've finished that, we're pretty exhausted and we're just going straight to bed. It was a good first day and I'm so glad our kids can handle this long of a drive (a nice preview for our Legoland trip, maybe??).

Mother's Day 2023

Mother's Day is definitely something different, I'm not one to believe gifts are the most important part of this occasion. Rather, I believe it's more about acknowledging all a mom does for the family and household and showing your appreciation for them.

This year I have had death on my mind a lot. I'm not sure if it's because I've been watching a lot of true crime, or maybe it's because I know I should have a lot of things checked off some to-do's by the end of the year, or maybe I've just been living more in the moment and so afraid of not soaking in enough. With that I told Larry I wanted a sort of eulogy type of "card" and that I wanted him to write things he'd miss about me if I were to just not be here tomorrow. I also told him I wanted a "what I love about mom" sheet from the girls (since Pierce is too young to do one), and then some edible arrangements with the bananas, apples, and strawberries. 

Mother's Day Eve Hike

Saturday we hit up Costco (AND got our oil changed at the same time...genius way to spend that tiem if you ask me), had a soccer game in the afternoon, and then  I also wanted to do a hike, our first for the year and VERY hopefully, not our last. I found this Jungle Trail in Draper that sounded like a good one to get us started and, honestly, it was awesome! I don't know if I liked the hike more or driving through the neighborhood of fancy homes we could ooh and ahh to, to get to the trailhead more. I can tell you even though this hike is supposedly a mile, it was so easy. When we got to the end of it and had to turn around the girls were like "wait, that's it? We should go further!" haha.

Sunday morning, Larry let me sleep in while he got the kids up and ready and out grocery shopping. Waking up to a quiet house was so weird and nice and peaceful. I ate a bowl of cereal and watched an episode of "Home Economics" (one of my new favorite shows). After that, I wasn't sure what to do with myself so I just started cleaning up haha. I decided next year I may have Larry take the kids out for a whole Saturday while I clean the house (it's just easier with no one around). 

Once the kids came back I helped put groceries away and told Larry I don't want to do any of the bad mother things (changing dirty diapers, cleaning boogers, punishing the bad behavior) so that's on him haha. He got me my edible arrangements, but it came with pineapple instead of apple (kind of annoying, but it's fine, there's plenty of others to love). 

Larry gave me his "eulogy", which was sweet and very literal, but really triggered my death thoughts more so that kind of backfired haha. I got my "what I love about mom" sheets from the kids, which made me laugh so hard. And he got me a new picture film keychain thing (I needed an updated one with pictures of Pierce in it). I absolutely loved it all.

After lunch, I got ready to watch a movie. I decided on Dante's Peak and, just like at my birthday celebration day, I did it with all the proper movie snacks, in our darkened room, in our comfy bed. It is so perfect. I absolutely love watching movies this way.

After nap time, we drove to mom's and visited with them. We brought her gift and some flowers and Will bbq'd us some burgers and hot dogs. I was so happy to not have to cook anything and just sit back and relax. The best part is she got us some Snider's chicken for us to grill up and the bag smelled SO amazing. I can't wait to cook those up with some corn on the cob and pasta salad. We then went home, did bath time with the kids, and now I'm on my way to finish laundry while watching a movie. Normally, I thought, I'd hate to do laundry on Mother's Day, but I actually liked getting it done and I look forward to folding it and watching a new movie (my favorite Sunday tradition).

Overall, my day was amazing and I was very happy with how it turned out. Larry did so good and the kids actually behaved pretty well.

So to all the other mom's out there, please know without you your house would suffer. Sure, someone would do their best to pick up the slack and enough would get done, but it definitely wouldn't be done as well and there would be a long transition period haha.

Sleep Theories Revisited

If you've forgotten, back in November I posted about some sleep theories I had. I wondered if I woke up an hour earlier and took that as some extra me time, would I be able to function still? Would I like sacrificing the sleep I had wanted for so long when going through our newborn days with Pierce? Would it be nice in the beginning, but get old after a while?

Well, folks, I'm 6 months in to this experiment and so happy to report that so far I am LOVING it! I only wake up an hour early Monday through Thursday, Friday I get up at my (old) normal time, and then I get to sleep in a little on Saturday and Sundays (a little extra on Sundays since that's my sleep in morning!)

I  have been able to function just fine doing what I'm doing. Yes, I do get less sleep, but man I feel like I sleep SO well when I do sleep. I feel I have such a good balance of family time with me time. I play with my kids at night and really make sure my phone is put away so I can concentrate on them. After they go to bed I either do a puzzle, laundry, work out, or watch a movie. I do my face masks, I do a craft every once in a while, I have a nice bath night once a month, and I work on this blog. I wake up early and do a little task to wake me up and then I work on my coding learning. Yes, by Friday I'm SO happy to sleep in a little, but it's never so much that I hate waking up early the rest of the time. I also absolutely love that hour of quiet time when everyone else is still sleeping. I had heard about other mom's doing this and loving that as well, but didn't realize how nice it really is until I experienced it.

The great news is if I have a rough night or the kids wake me up, I can always turn off my alarm and get up when Larry does in the mornings, but so far I haven't needed to do that, even for a week I wasn't feeling too well I still loved getting up early. One thing that has helped is when my alarm goes off I ALWAYS snooze it so I have that 10 minutes to slowly wake myself up so that no matter what I wake up so peacefully.

So, to sum up, I think I'm going to keep going with this waking up early as long as it is beneficial. If I end up not having anything to do with that time I'll sleep in the extra hour. I will say we have some vacations coming up this year and I definitely intend to sleep in as much as I can on those days, but when at home, I love love LOVE starting my day so productive and I highly recommend it to others!

Cara is SIX!

Happy Birthday to our oldest "baby" (baby who most definitely isn't a baby anymore). Cara is now six years old and I couldn't be loving this stage more than I do.

For her actual birthday day I decided to adopt Stace's tradition of doing a fun table with goodies for her to wake up to, she seemed really excited about those things. Then we let her choose her breakfast, which ended up being donut holes and grapes. She also had her first field trip to Hee Haw Farms that day (that she was mostly excited over the fact that it would be her first time on school bus) that I was lucky enough to go on with her (I think it might be a new thing that I help chaperone each of the kids' first field trips because it's so much fun), so we got ready for that and then headed to her school. I got a group of 6 girls, most of which I already kind of knew, so it was a smooth trip and the farm was so much fun, and I think it was a pretty big hit with the girls haha.

We found out she didn't have school that day since AM didn't have technical class, so neither did PM, so I took her to McDonald's for lunch and then we had to figure out how to keep her occupied during nap time (some activity books worked wonders). 

After I was done with work we headed over to Leatherby's for dinner. We ordered a light dinner with LOTS of ice cream to treat on. We definitely all got filled up. 

For her "party", she wanted to do some sort of bouncing activity. I wanted to book this Funbox place, but it didn't end up having any openings on her party day so we switched to Airborne Trampoline Park that we planned for after nap time (which worked out since it ended up being pretty windy/rainy on the day of her party and that Funbox place was outdoors). In the morning, I took her out to Build-A-Bear (she loved that Lucy had one and really wanted to do the same thing AND I got her a gift card on her birthday day to spend). She built a unicorn named Sparkles and got her some fun clear, heeled shoes. 

After that, we headed back home for her soccer game (yep...unfortunately, she had to do that on her birthday celebration day) while I stayed home to clean a bit. After they got back from soccer, we headed to the trampoline park and then back home for cake, ice cream, a rainbow piñata (I was SO excited to surprise her with that), and presents. She got a lot of good things that she was so happy to start playing with.

Overall, it's been a great day and I've absolutely loved celebrating my first baby who is growing into an amazing, smart, and creative young lady.

To my not-so-little Cara, 

I absolutely love how silly and smart you've become. I can't believe at the beginning of the year we made a goal for you to read one book, all on your own, the whole way through, and now you can read almost any book you pick up! You are the most amazing big sister and love playing with your little siblings (especially Pierce, you LOVE to smush your face into his...I'm not sure he loves it so much haha). I love how brave you are, you sometimes get so nervous to try things at first, but you warm up to it and then get so excited about how you did it and want to do it over and over again. You also get proud of yourself every time you accomplish something (you are working on whistling right now haha).

You are obsessed with playing games on the switch, watching Teen Titans (right now, at least), and having a favorite stuffy each day (the one you like changes each day/week haha). You make friends so easily, it seems, but you also do your own thing so you don't care if you have friends to do it with or if you are doing it on your own haha. You love to be your own version of fashionable, which I love, most of the time it is actually a pretty cute outfit and I love how confident you always feel in whatever you've created. You love to strut your stuff when you walk around and it's so adorable. 

I love when you'll come cuddle up with me on the couch. It doesn't happen too often, but I love it still. I know you're getting old enough to do your own thing without me now and you're already so independent  (when we go to play places you can't wait to run off on your own), but I'm not ready for that at all! I'm starting to see the person you'll end up being and I love what I'm seeing. You are the absolute best 6-year-old in the entire world and I just love you to the moon and back!!

Love you, Mom!