April activities

April had so many fun things, we're loving the weather warming up and finding reasons to be outside more. But we also did a few little things I want to document.

-This month I created a new self improvement plan. I feel there's so much I'm falling behind on so I picked 5 goals to work on each day. When I accomplish all 5 in a day, I earn a quarter. If I do 3 of the 5 then I don't earn anything, but I don't lose anything. If I do less than 3, I lose a quarter. So far, I've done good with doing all of them that I can. Originally, I figured I'd focus on them for however long I need to to feel I've got the hang of it, but I have more things I want to fix up so I figure once I got a handle of these 5, I'll switch them out for 5 new ones. After I've earned so much, I can buy an item off one of my wish lists. Having a physical tracker has helped SO much. What really kicked this off is I wanted to start focusing on my eating - again, the Super Bowl really threw me off. I wrote down the foods I can have, how often I can eat out or have treats, when I can snack and having it written down has been so so helpful! Honestly, I felt so great after just one week, but I've got to still track as long as I can until I feel I've got it down. Hopefully this continues to really help me.

-This month we're back to full on soccer and dance again, luckily, this time, it feel like we're better prepared. The games are better since it's a more low key time of year and it smells amazing. It definitely feels good to get out after being hermits for so much of winter. We're just working on finding our groove with practices and dance class but also fitting in bath time. I've decided to take off one day each week to feel I have some breathing room or a day to do anything I feel I can't get done with this new schedule. That has helped so much.

-We had our doctor day this month. Pierce had a checkup on the 6th (everything is all good with him, but I didn't know he could draw as well as he can so I told them he just scribbles, but Larry told me he can draw shapes and stuff. I didn't believe him until I saw him do it with chalk on our driveway and I'm amazed at what the kid can do! He does have some skin bumps on his back/side, but it turns out they aren't anything big, we just need to get cream to help them). I had my gyno checkup on the 7th (another all good, I decided to do some blood labs, which came out all clear. I also found out I have a lot of fun new medical stuff to look forward to in a couple years. Yay for turning 40!). We then had our dentist checkups on the 23rd and we all had clear mouths, no cavities. So that was good news!

-Our damn cats got into a fight and my hand got the worst of it!! I wasn't sure how to bandage it up at first, but we found some big band aids to put on my hands. I'm hoping it doesn't scar too much. Definitely feels worse than it looks!

-We did a Malad run on the 11th to turn in old tickets. Larry, of course, wanted to get new ones. Last time we went the playground was all roped off so I wasn't expecting a fun trip. We stopped at a Tremonton Grill place that ended up being SO good, had so many good choices, and was really cheap for a family of 6 (normally we spend close to $100 for dinner out, but this was only $60!). When we got to Malad, we went to see if the playground was opened and it turns out they must have been doing MAJOR upgrades last time, because this time it was SO much cooler (everything was all new and clean and shiny!). I decided to walk the path to get steps (Gwen came with me) and it looks like they added in new tennis courts, they had stuff for another possible playground, and a new workout playground area that is pretty cool. Now I actually look forward to Malad trips because it looks so cool and fun now!

-Lucy had her school birthday lunch on the 13th, so I had to do that (of course!). She said she wanted Wendy's so she could get a frosty and fries. I was not about to say no to that, haha. She was so excited for that day!

-Cara had her first field trip on the 15th. I was nervous because the teacher said their field trip would be to the Museum of Natural Curiosity, which I won't chaperone (because it's just TOO much with kids I don't know), but then they announced it was switched to the Museum of Ancient History, so I signed up for that one. The Museum was cool, but parts were blocked off, and then it was shorter than we planned (I guess someone wrote the time down wrong so communication was off) so then we went to a playground nearby for a picnic lunch. I was chilly (which is not anything new), but the kids all had so much fun. A boy teacher definitely does field trips differently (he just told kids to pick a chaperone, rather than having groups planned out), but I had a group of lots of Cara's friends so it's always nice to see who she's hanging out with.

-The girls got to do their Dance pics on the 16th and 18th. This time, they didn't request specific hair styles, so I had to figure out what we should do and it turned out really cute. We did have to have Gwen skip her soccer practice on Thursday, but luckily we didn't have to miss any games and she had her other practice on Tuesday so it worked out. I'm really excited to see how these turn out.

-My biggest thing, was I officially put in my notice at work!!! I'm quitting work and I'll post on the details about this later, but this is a day I was so excited for and now that it's passed I'm looking forward to my next chapter.

-And, of course, my favorite pics of the kids:

Another Play at Hale Center Theater

I have become obsessed with going to see plays. When I found out Hale Center was putting on one called Hallmarked that makes fun of Hallmark stories, I knew mom and I had to go. We checked with Rachel to see if she'd have a day off that we could all go together and today was the day. I had been looking forward to it for so long. The only down side is after we got the tickets we found out the kids would have soccer games at the same time and it was more games I'd have to miss (I absolutely hate missing their games!). Not to mention leaving Larry to figure it all out with ALL the kids. They did good, too! I just need to make sure not to miss anymore.

This time we were in a new theater section, so that was cool to see the new stuff. Our seats were really good, too. The play itself was a little weird. It had some really funny parts and parts that were entertaining, but the story itself was...odd. Not one of my top favorites, but I'm still glad I got to go. The actors did a really good job, so I'll give them that (I know I couldn't do what they do!).

I kind of wish I had taken the girls to see Frozen back in January and February, I think they would've liked that show. Hopefully there will be more shows I can take them to. Rachel mentioned this new theater section will give them the opportunity to add some more weekend kid matinee shows so we will try to make that work for really good shows. And even though this show wasn't one of my top ones, I still love seeing plays and am in awe of the actors doing their roles live!

Using Our New Lagoon Season Passes

We have officially done our first day using our Lagoon season passes. I am already so excited we have these and can go as many times as we want this year! The kids loved so many things from last year and this year there's the new Nutcracker ride (although the line was WAY too long to even think of trying that one this time, I promise I'll ride it before the end of the season!).

The great thing was, we only stayed for 5 hours (which isn't really much when it's open for like 10 hours) and we didn't do very many rides, but it's nice to know whatever we missed this time, we can do next time. I have a plan that we'll do one Sunday as a family and then I'll pick a couple Tuesdays or Wednesdays throughout the month to go with just me and the kids, we'll see if we only do it that much or if we end up going like once a week, haha. We even have the perfect backpack that holds so many snacks, water, and sunscreen (so we have a big breakfast and then load the bag up with as much as we can) so we can just snack all day in between rides and leave before dinner time, it's really the best set up!

This time we stuck to the end of the park that has Wicked and Spider, and just did most rides on that end. We did go to Pioneer Village to do those rides as well. Pierce and Lucy decided they don't like Rattlesnake Rapids though, and since it wasn't very warm, I just let Larry take Cara and Gwen on that one while we waited for them. 

I did find out, however, that I have complete and absolute panic attacks when taking the older girls on the bigger rides. We started with Wicked and Gwen was just a tad too short so they put a little booster in her seat. I was so excited to ride it with them, but the second it started going I suddenly imagined them both falling out of the ride, especially Gwen with the booster (it just looked like she wasn't all the way in and I literally imagined her falling out and me trying to reach out to grab her and the utter terror I felt completely overshadowed anything else that we experienced on the ride...seriously, I have NO idea what the ride was like because I just was sick to my stomach with that image). It didn't help that Cara started screaming something like "HELP ME!" in such a voice that I couldn't tell if she was being silly or if she genuinely was freaking out. Once the ride stopped, she had this HUGE smile and I realized she was just being silly. I told her she can't scream things out like that or I'll freak out haha.

Can you tell I'm coming off the biggest panic attack
I've EVER had here?

There was a bit of a funny part when we first got to the park, we were walking to the bathrooms when this grown man starts yelling out "Gwen! Gwen!" and walking straight to our Gwen. I was rushing with her to the bathrooms, so Larry was a ways away, but I was giving him a look like "who is this random man trying to talk to my little girl??" when Larry smiles and says, "look Gwen! It's your soccer coach!" and I realized that's what was going on. We had JUST seen him yesterday at the game, but I totally didn't recognize him at all. It was so funny. He even ended up in the Wicked line next to us and was commenting how brave she was for going on that ride.

We ended the day with ice cream, of course, and it was a really good trip. We got there later-ish (around 11) and decided to call it quits after the 5 hours, but it was definitely enough for one day. I really can't shake the freak out I had on the one ride so I'm trying to decide if I should just let Larry ride any upside down ones with the girls or if I should have them wait until they are a bit taller and I feel better or if I should just have them try and wiggle next time we are in the seats so I can confirm they aren't going anywhere. I'm not sure, but I know I cannot continue doing those rides with them right now with how bad I freaked out.

I'm glad we get to do these trips and I just hope the kids don't get sick of going so often, because if this works out like I think, we may just get these every year. The drive is long, but it's totally worth it!

Spring Break Fun

Our spring break wasn't as filled as last year, but we still had so much fun! I worked only 4 hours each day so that I could still get a bit of work done, but then did fun stuff or a cleaning project the rest of the day. 

To kick it off, we went and saw the new Mario Movie. It was our 2nd movie as a full family and it was so much fun. I honestly don't remember how the movie was because I was enjoying seeing how the kids liked the movie so much. Pierce actually paid attention to a good portion of the movie, which is a big win!

We were supposed to have soccer practices, but they got cancelled so we spent those times at some playgrounds nearby. Even though there were some ouchies, we still had so much fun! The kids worked a lot on their skating skills and I'm pretty proud of how quickly they picked up on that.

I also decided I should see if I could find hiking sandals for the kids, but it turns out it's a bit too early to find those in the stores just yet, but then Gwen and Lucy chose hobby shopping coupons this month so I took them to Hobby Lobby to pick out some fun projects (Gwen chose a snake you can paint and Lucy picked out a unicorn you could color with markers and then wipe clean and re-color).

One of the days I decided to take the kids to Jurassic Jungle at Thanksgiving Point. We spent a good hour there and then the kids said they wanted to go to the Curiosity Farms place, so I had Larry get tickets for that and we headed there. It was so fun to do 2 in one day and that it's all covered with our membership.

Friday the kids requested a chillax day so we just stayed home. I did end up doing our Costco list so we could hit that up this weekend. 

Overall, it was more low key, but busy and a lot of fun. I love having these weeks off and have an excuse to have fun with the kids that's not our usual fun.

Easter Excitement

We've had a fun Easter this year. It got moved up and ended up squished in between Pierce's birthday and Spring Break so we did a lot last minute, but I still think we did a good job making it work.

We colored our eggs on Saturday, which is fun. Mom wanted to do a dinner and mentioned doing it early so we still had time to color eggs and I was so confused and then we realized she planned to do the dinner on Saturday, but I told her I figured we'd do it Sunday because that's Easter (and we usually don't have anything to do that night). Sundays are easier to do with Andy and Rachel too, since they are usually so busy on Saturdays.

Sunday morning the kids did their egg hunt, but Pierce slept in (and did NOT want to wake up early, haha) so we let the girls look for eggs and then re-hid some for Pierce to find. He didn't fully want to at first, but then spotted some while eating breakfast and then got excited to start. They got outfits, some fun toys to play with, and lots of yummy candy for their baskets. 

We hung out for a bit and then headed over for dinner. We brought deviled eggs and then they made some pork loin, fruit, and a yummy corn casserole, which I demanded the recipe for because it was surprisingly so delicious. I loved every bite of the food!

Normally we'd do a treat, but we still have Valentine's Day candy and maybe even stuff from Christmas so we really didn't need more treats to just have around. The kids had a ton of fun and that's what matters.

Pierce is Four

I cannot believe my last baby is 4 years old already! I love having my sleep and a bit more freedom, but I miss holding a baby every once in a while, haha. (but now it's ONLY if it's other babies...seriously, I'd cry if I found out we had another one on the way at this point!)

For his birthday, this year, we started on the 27th. Marie was in town so we met up with her to have dinner at Cracker Barrel and then back to her hotel to go swimming (which all the kids were so excited for). The girls slept over at the hotel so we just had Pierce with us after that. The next morning (the 28th) we let him decide how we'd spend the first part of the day. We played some games, Larry had a silly pillow fight with him while I picked up some lunch (he wanted McDonald's chicken nuggets, the only nuggets he'll eat, apparently). After lunch, we went to the big playground across the street and played until it was time to get ready for the party. He loved having it just us and him, especially when we were both holding one of his hands and we'd count "1, 2, 3" and then lift him up into the air.

After that, we went to meet up with Marie and the girls and grab them to head over to Kidstopia. We let everyone play there for 2 hours, but they sure didn't want to leave at that point. Cindy and Olivia met up with us there so the girls were excited to see them (Pierce just wanted to play, he didn't care who was there haha).

We then headed home for pizza, cake, and presents. For the cake, we did a Coldstone ice cream cake. It was...okay. There were lots of different flavors, and the frozen gummies were not my favorite. He seemed to like it, so I guess that's all the matters (sorry family that we gave that cake to though! Lesson learned, don't let the 3 year old pick his own cake flavors). For weeks before his birthday he'd point to EVERYTHING he saw in any store and say "I want that for my birthday" (seriously, sometimes it was toys, sometimes it was a fan or a set of Tupperware or a tent, haha. I think he just liked knowing he could ask for stuff and say it's for his birthday). He had a lot of fun and sure loved opening up all his presents.

For today, his actual birthday day, we did up his table, which he was so excited about. He got more dum dums, Paw Patrol fruit snacks, and the last 2 presents from us (we got him a flex track for his cars, a new swim suit, a couple new outfits, and some more hot dot books). For his breakfast, he chose these zebra cake bars and cheese puffs (he'd been wanting those for so long and was so happy when we got them at the store). It's a weird combo, but it was kind of good together.

He didn't have school today so we had fun and played with him throughout the day, when we could, between work. We did let him have a bit more screen time than we usually allow (which I can see was a bad idea, he has been having a few fits throughout the day, so I do feel guilty about that).

For dinner he wanted pizza and froyo so we ordered pizza to be delivered and then after Gwen's dance and Lucy's soccer we went out for Froyo, which is when we did our "what we love about Pierce" stuff. We also did his measurements, he's almost as tall as the girls were at 5!

Now that he's 4, we get to focus on potty training this summer. He's VERY hesitant about it, though, so I'm dreading it a bit. But we've told him it has to be done, they don't make diapers for 4 year olds, haha.

Happy Birthday Bubbas!

________________________________________

To Pierce,

I can't believe you are 4. You will always be my baby, but now you're so big and getting so much more independent. Having a boy has been such a learning process for me. In some ways you are a lot like your sisters, but in a lot of ways you are so different. You are VERY head strong and have been since the beginning. You are a big mama's boy, which I love, but you also love to test your boundaries pretty much every day. It still surprises me how picky you are. I think I had an idea that boys are just garbage trucks and will eat anything and everything, but not you. I do love when we find something you like though.

I find it funny you are so against potty training, I'm not sure why it is, but hopefully once we start it you'll take to it quickly. I feel like you might, especially when you are in a room and if we come in you'll tell us to get out because you're pooping (I've read when you want to go to the bathroom in private that's an indicator that you're ready for training). Or when you have a full diaper you'll let us know, then immediately take it off and do your "naked" dance you love to do where you wiggle yourself and smack your own bum, hahahaha!

I love how much you love kitties. You love to smash your face into our cats and rub against them while saying "Oh Charlie cutey kitty" or "oh cute cutey kitty" depending on who you have found. Or how you look through the kitty book and say you want the tiniest ones all the time. Or when you see pictures of kitties at the store (on the pet aisle signs) and talk about wanting one for your birthday.

I love how much you love playing with your sisters, but you also love to play on your own. But once your sisters are at school you are begging me to play with you. It's hard when I work and have to tell you to do it on your own, but I look forward to when I'm done and can play with you more. I also love how much you love playgrounds. You'll pretty much do anything if it means going to a playground. You love to play lava monster at the playgrounds, but you say I'm the good one (dad is always the bad one). 

I can't believe how big you are getting. You were so small when you were born, but got big so quickly. I'll always remember holding you for your naps in the beginning and after a month my arms would be dead. You always want to be held still, so I have to resort to piggy backs. 

You are also doing so good in school. I knew you'd hate it in the beginning, it seems you'd much rather just stay home then go places. But I know you like it now, even though you act like you don't. You always go in so willingly and talk about how good it is afterwards (though you tell Daddy it's not a good day unless I come to pick you up, haha).

I hope you have the best 4th year of life and I look forward to many more birthdays, but please don't grow too fast. You are my last baby and I really don't want you guys getting too big too fast and then I don't have any babies. I love you so much, my bubbas!

Love,

Mom

March Activities

I realized over the last couple months that we hadn't gone to Thanksgiving Point. And with how low key things have been, I realized we should start making use of our membership again

-The 14th was a really busy (but fun) day for us. Cara had date with dad (they went to the arcade and Zupas, naturally). Gwen had a friend's birthday party. And I decided to take Lucy and Pierce to the curiosity farms at Thanksgiving Point. Which was fun except it was colder than I expected and we could only stay an hour before we had to go get Gwen again. It was nice that everyone got to have their own fun though.

-Gwen got to have her 1:1s. I took her to Barnes & Noble to get some books (which she ended up choosing some that she just recently got from Library and then a Kpop Handbook) and cake pops. Larry took her to get some Froyo after dance one night. Unfortuantely, we had to squish them a bit (normally they get a night just them and the parent, no rushing) since soccer was starting up and we knew we didn't have enough time to do these separately like we usually do.

-Cara participated in her school's Battle of the Books this year and the battle happened this month. Cara got 16th place on the first battle, but because she read 10 or more of the 20 books (she actually read all 20) she was an "All Star" participant. This means that whe got a necklace with "brag tags" that were all the books she read on a chain AND she got to battle the teachers on the 2nd day. Larry and I actually got to go to an assembly the 2nd day to see her do the battle. It was every one on the All Stars VS the 3rd and 4th grade teachers and the All Stars won so they got an award ribbon and pictures (and bragging rights, of course). It was cool to see (but did take longer than I expected). She's so excited she got to do this.

-We had the Silver Lake Art Night on the 12th. We had to rush over after soccer practice, but Cara had SO many cool art projects to show off. She also just HAD to stop at any friend's pictures or siblings of friend's, haha.

-I got to try out a lymphatic massage on the 24th. I think I'm coming around to massages. The couples one we did last month was better, but this was relaxing too. Only problem was the room smelled a little like B.O., but it wasn't too horrible. I think I want to try a normal massage next time just to see if I will like that one.

-Soccer AND Dance is going again. We'll probably lose our minds haha. We have lots of early games this time and lots of big spaces of time between games. I did decide to take Tuesdays off of work (or only working 1 hour) so I have those days to not feel so rushed or crazy, which has helped. I will say being at the fields on Saturdays during the Spring has been so nice (I think being cooped up all winter made me appreciate being outside again). And we do have fun taking the kids to the playgrounds during practices. It's crazy, but I think it'll be a bit easier than Fall soccer.

-Favorite pics of the kids:

St. Patrick's Day

St. Patrick's Day this year was a lot of fun! I tried to do it a little more low key than I have the last few years (really trying to find my rhythm with the "smaller" holidays), and I think I did pretty good this year.

Normally, I would have gotten supplies (or a kit) to make a leprechaun trap, but when the Home Depot workshop this month was one, I figured that would be good enough. We have our gold coin decorations that we put around them to lure the little fella towards them and Cara made a silly "Free Gold" sign to put next to them.

Larry and I got things put together and then hid the scavenger hunt cards. I had a few sets from previous years I figured I'd mix and match, but then that ended up being more trouble (one of them was numbered so I had to use all or none of those and my other set was missing some so I just had to do the best with what we had. Definitely going to have to order/make some more for the next few years).

For the end, I just got them each one fun thing and some chocolate/gold coins and nerds rope (a rainbow item, I figured). So it wasn't as much, but it was fun still!

For the morning, I decided it would be fun to make rainbow pancakes. I even made sure to get food coloring early so we wouldn't be getting anything last minute and the stores would be out. Unfortunately, I got some pretty weak coloring, because while the pancakes looked colorful, once they were cooked, they were looked like normal pancakes. So that was a fail, but the kids still enjoyed eating them.

These were supposed to be yellow, green, and purple pancakes

After school we decided dinner should be beef stew with potatoes and carrots with potato rolls (a favorite of mine, for sure!) And then for dessert we made banana pudding and put skittles in it to be like the rainbow with gold at the end. I wasn't sure about mixing the skittles in the pudding, but it was honestly pretty good!

So overall, there were things that could've gone better, but it was still a fun day. It's a little harder when it's a school day, but the kids had a lot of fun. We made sure to have everyone wear their green (but I missed getting a picture, of course) and we talked a lot about why the day is a big day in our world, which I love making sure we cover so the kids understand the celebrations. 

Anyways, Happy St. Patrick's Day out there! Hope you had a bit of luck o' the Irish on your side!

Kpop Demon Hunter Laser Show

Okay, this KPop Demon Hunters craze is a fun one in our home. The girls have been OBSESSED with the movie, and I really love the music in it, so when I saw our local space center was doing a themed laser show for it, I knew we HAD to go!

I had heard a lot about this place, seen a lot of flyers for things they have, but we hadn't been so I was also excited to check it out and see if it's a place we'd like to go more often. The place itself is MUCH smaller than I expected. It's attached to an elementary school and they call it a planetarium, but I think space center is a much more fitting name. I'm not sure if there was more on a different level, but all we saw it was, was a theater area with the big dome screen and then while you wait in line, there's a wall of screens with space facts that you can watch.

The show itself was really fun. I hadn't ever been to a laser show so I wasn't sure what to expect with that either. They said you could take pictures and videos, but we were having so much fun watching it, I didn't get too much. There was a birthday party going on the same day so there were LOTS of kids in the theater with us. It was really fun (and funny) when you could hear everyone sing along to the songs, especially when the parents got into it (yes, I was one of those parents, haha)!

I know this place does have a lot more events so I may have to check some out this summer and see if those are as fun. It may be small, but they know how to entertain!

February Activities

This month didn't have a lot going on. Almost everything we did was bigger so they got their own posts. The rest of it was just kind of smaller stuff:

-Gwen got to have a 2nd field trip to Bean Museum (on the 2nd, funnily enough). She liked it and had fun and remembered her Grandma took her before. She asked why I didn't chaperone that one, but I told her I only plan to do one each year so I'd let a different parent do it this time.

-We had Parent-Teacher Conferences with our favorite, the book fair on the 5th. We didn't have to do one for Gwen since she her teacher sent home a report saying she's doing great and a mid year conference wasn't needed. Cara we did so I could ask the teacher a couple questions. We found out she is still testing off the charts for her class (super high in math even though she says that's her least favorite haha). Lucy is doing good, but needs help with some minor things (mostly just staying focused). We went to the book fair at both schools and I ended up spending the same amount at both haha. It's just too hard to limit how many books we get (I also always get teacher books or donations). I love conferences with book fairs!

-I scheduled my scar revision for the 10th so it's nice to have that done. However, I realized I didn't think this through (with how close it was to our trip). The "surgery" itself was done fairly quickly, but I didn't realize how much it would hurt to have things touch it or when I needed to stretch a little. I was worried about the flight (which the surgeon told me wouldn't be an issue, so that was nice), but then realized the rides at Universal Studios might cause issues if the safety bar went across the torso area (luckily they didn't, but it still wasn't comfortable). It took a while to be able to stretch and couldn't do my running or core workouts for a while.

The swelling after the revision was INSANE!

-Larry and I had our first couple's massage on the 21st. I gave him a gift card to the salon as a Christmas present, so after January he started asking me when I was going to schedule it. I checked with my mom for what weekend would work (since she'd be watching the kids) and she said she was pretty open. I figured the weekend after our vacation would be nice for him as a relaxer. I am hesitant on massages as I prefer facials to them, but this one wasn't bad. Figuring out the whole robe changing thing was new for me. I also accidentally wore my jewelry and socks to it so the lady had to keep helping me remove things (while trying to keep it peaceful). It ended up being a really good massage and I might be open to doing more now. 

-Favorite pics of the kids (there are lots this month):