What is love?

I sure hope Rachel doesn't hate me for posting this picture.  Every time I see it I get a little emotional.  My sweet niece Rachel has crohns disease.  She's amazing!  She's been pretty sick and has had a picc line in for a while now to help get her antibiotics in her.  Her mom, husband and sisters are so good to help her out with things, but the other day while we were hanging out at my mom's, she said, "I just wish I could wash my hair before the game tonight!"  (She can't get her arm wet with the picc line in).
And my mom said, "I'll wash your hair."
And she did. 
Right there in the kitchen sink.
And I think that's pretty cool. 
I love my family.

Bad to the bone

Today us girls went to the library.  Maddie was ready to start reading the battle of the books ...books.  The first one she wanted was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. 
It was not on the shelf.
Bummer.
She went in search of other books and I sat down with Lexi to read.  When suddenly, a cute girl about Maddie's age walked by holding Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  When Maddie came and sat down by me I said, "Maddie, there's a girl that just went down that aisle with brown hair and glasses.  You need to go tackle her."
Maddie said, "K" and started to stand up. 
Then stopped.
"Um...why?"
"Because she has Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with her!  Go take it!"
"Moooom."  Rolls her eyes at me. 
We giggle. 
Then we see her and I whisper, "Just take it, Maddie!"
We giggle some more. 
Then we see the girl in the parking lot on our way out and I say, "Last chance, just grab it and run, I'll go start the car."
And Maddie says, "Yeah, and we'll even turn it in late so they have to pay the fine!"
That's my girl. 
Bad to the bone.

And that poor girl was probably wondering why we were following her around giggling the whole  time.

Lagoon!

We always look forward to our yearly trip to Lagoon.  This year it was super early, which was nice.  It wasn't too hot yet.  I think we are pretty much Lagoon professionals by now and have our routine down. 
Get there right when they open.
Divide and conquer. 
Jeramy, Lindsay and Maddie hit the big roller coasters.
Heidi, Lexi and Macie hit the carousel and train. 
Over and over again. 

Macie really hates rides.  She's totally content with the kiddie stuff.  In fact, her only request for the whole day was the baby boats. 
Yes, she's almost 6. 
I don't get it.
Lexi did really good!  I found that tiny magnetic writing thing right before we left and she played with it for hours.  She took a good nap, too!
We were not impressed with the new "tea cups."  Once you've been to Disneyland, it's hard to go to Lagoon.  Why does Lagoon seat belt you into everything, but Disneyland does not?  I don't get it.  It takes forever!

Highlight of the day for me...
Lindsay got stuck on Puff.
Alone.
No one would go on it with her, so she stood in line on her own, then got in and it started to go, then stopped.
Many mechanics were called in and it took forever.  They couldn't get the seat belts to release and finally had to just send the people on the ride to get the seat belts to unlock!  I kind of panicked for a minute watching her face, but she survived and now I'm sure none of my kids will ever want to ride it again!
We got our free ice cream at 3, let everyone choose one last ride, and we left at 4. 
Perfect day. 
And the only thing I rode was the train and the Terror ride. 

Ward Camp out

 Every year we look forward to the ward camp out.  For the past 3 years, I have been heavily involved in the planning and it wasn't all that much fun.  When I got released from the Primary Presidency a few months back, I actually said, "I'm so excited to go to the ward camp out and just be there with my family with no responsibilities."

And then I got put in charge of the whole thing. 

It really wasn't that bad.  Like I said, I had been really involved for the previous few years, so I knew what they wanted, and it all fell into place pretty easily. 
We did a balloon game, tug of war and a nature scavenger hunt.  Gave out glow sticks in the evening, had a fireside and treats around the fire. 

We hadn't taken Lexi camping yet, but had high hopes that she'd do all right.  Around 11, I realized that it wasn't going to go well.  She just couldn't fall asleep.  (And I should mention that it was freezing cold!)  By 12:30, Jeramy finally took her to the van to keep her from waking up the entire camp.  At 1:30, I decided to go relieve him and I went to check on them.  She was still crying. 
Good times.  I let Jeramy go back to the freezing cold tent and stayed with her all night.  I held her.  She tossed and turned and cried. 
All night. 
I remember looking at my clock at 5 and hearing the birds starting up.  Then I was woke up by my alarm at 6:30 to start breakfast prep.  Pretty sure that was all the sleep I got all night. 

Breakfast went really well.  We did breakfast burritos and cold cereal and fruit.  I kept the eggs and stuff warm in crock pots.  (We had electricity).  My count was that we had about 75 there in the morning.  We had around 115 there in the evening. 

It took us quite a while to get our stuff cleaned up, plus the camp site from those 75 campers.  Lexi finally fell asleep and I was able to pass her off to the bishop's wife and she held her while I cleaned up, but Macie was another story.  She was a wreck.  Crying and screaming.  We finally had to just put her in the car and let her cry it out. 
All the time we packed.
And the whole way home. 

Once we got home, I bathed Macie and then went down to clean up.  I realized after a while that I hadn't seen Macie come down.  I went up and found her in her towel, asleep on the floor. 

 And this one, asleep on my bed. 

I took a 4 hour nap, as did Lexi. 
But hey, think of the memories!

Lexi 15 months

After months and months of being a "pusher" of things, we now finally have a full-time walker!  Around 14 and a half months it all finally clicked and there was no turning back.  I'm so glad that she's finally walking around, even if it means she's into even more things!

Lexi is also finally sleeping through the night pretty consistently.  It's wonderful to get 8 hours of sleep again!  She goes to bed at 9 with her sisters and usually gets up at 8 with them. 

Bottles are also gone now.  It was harder for me than it was for her.  I finally just threw them away and she didn't even notice.  I did hang onto one.  I couldn't bring myself to admit we were really done with this phase.

She adores her sisters!  She loves getting all of their attention, but she's getting tired of them wanting to hold her, hold her hand and hug her all the time.  She's a walking girl now and doesn't have time for baby things like that. 

Her speech hasn't taken off like I thought it would.  Still about the same as it was when she was one.  We have a lot of sounds, but no full words other than "Dad."  She knows what the cow, horse,  puppy, pig, elephant, giraffe and dinosaur say though.  What does a giraffe say?  You'll just have to ask her to find out.  Every day it's different. 

4 wheeling

We went out west of Utah lake on Memorial Day for a quick afternoon of 4 wheeling with the family.  The past few times we've gone, Jeramy has been at work, so it was nice to have him along this time to take the kids for rides.  I drive too slow, according to them. 
Lexi hated that I put her in jeans.  First pair.  And shoes with hard soles.  She couldn't walk very well in her stiff pants, stiff shoes and uneven ground.  She was not happy with me.  She loved Grandpa's red "ball" as she kept calling it.  She didn't like it so much when we put it on her head though - too heavy!
Jeramy and I took Macie out for a ride and Jeramy let her drive.  She was pretty proud of herself.  For the record, she drives even slower than I do! 
We are so grateful for my dad and that he is always willing to drop everything and take us out camping!  We had such a great day. 

The adventures of Macie and Rylan

For April and May, we babysat Macie's best friend Rylan every day after school.  Can I just say what a blessing this was for all of us?  Macie LOVED having someone to play with every day.  Lexi loved having him around, too.  I enjoyed having some extra cash to buy family passes to all of our favorite places to hang out for the upcoming year.  I'm pretty sure Rylan had a good time with us, too!  He's the baby in his family with much older siblings, so hanging with Lexi was very new to him.  He was so cute with her and I loved when I'd catch him giving her a hug or a kiss.  I also tried super hard to keep all of us entertained.  They both love to color, so we made lots of crafts.  We went to Thanksgiving Point at least once - sometimes twice- each week.  We hit Neptune Park every Friday, and for our last big trip, we went to the zoo.  It was so fun to watch him experience it.  I just loved when he saw the giraffe and said, "Holy crap, that thing's huge!"  We're super sad that now that school is out, his older siblings get to watch him, but I'm sure we'll still see him tons!

The zoo

 On Friday before Memorial Day we went to the zoo.  The weather was perfect and it wasn't that crowded yet.  We've gone on Memorial Day before and it was crazy busy!  To say that Lexi loved it would be an understatement.  She was fascinated by it all and probably enjoyed it more than all of us. 
The gorilla had a staring contest with us right up against the glass.  I'll admit that it made me nervous and I had to walk away.  I found myself thinking, "How strong is that glass?  Could he whack it really hard and eat us?"  We survived.  Whew! 
We loved the new Rocky Shores exhibit.  The polar bear kept us entertained with his routine.  We've heard he always swims the same way. 
Macie had her usual melt down about an hour into it.  After that, she was sooo much fun to have around.  You'll notice how charming she is in all the pictures. 

Macie LOVED seeing a real snake slithering around.  She pointed and made her snake sound of "sssss" over and over.  She tried her hardest to climb in with it and cried when we finally pulled her away.  She still loves to look at these pictures and she'll "ssss" at them!  She remembers what she was looking at. 

We had a good trip to the zoo, and we're looking forward to many more this year with our pass!

Horses, piano and trees, oh my!

One Friday in May Thanksgiving Point was having their farm's grand re-opening.  We decided we had to attend.  I even pulled the girls out of school a bit early (yet another trip to the school).  We got to make ice cream, play games, meet Miss Utah (the girls still talk about meeting real royalty) and last but not least, face painting.  We waited forever in line.  For...ever.... Maddie and Lindsay had their piano recital right after, so I discouraged the face painting, but didn't say no.  Macie went up first and asked for a horse.  It took for...ever...and then she turned and showed me and I was speechless.  I giggled.  She had no clue what amazing work of art was on her face.  We were all quite surprised.  It was a lot to take in, but pretty cool.  After seeing Macie, Maddie and Lindsay agreed they wouldn't get their done for the piano recital. 
We headed off to the recital.  I should also add this now so that we can always remember this.  Lindsay HATED piano.  Hated it with a passion.  She would not practice.  We would fight.  She would cry.  She would go to time out.  And so on.  Huge waste of my money and Niki's time.  She seriously only got through like 15 songs all year.  We told her she just had to make it until the recital and then she could be done.  (Until fall,  but she didn't need to know all the details).  Recital day came.  Maddie was a bit nervous.  Lindsay was fine.  Calm as can be.  Maddie chose to take her music with her (she had that thing memorized forward and backward).  Lindsay had just barely mastered her song earlier in the week.  She chose not to take her music.  I chose not to panic. 
That much. 
But, of course, she did fine.  She even said, "Mom, I think that's the best I've ever played it!"
And then, gasp, she asked if she could take lessons this summer. 
And then, gasp, she went home and practiced! 
Maddie is getting so good!  She's just about through level 2.  It's so fun to hear her try songs in the Hymnbook.  I really do love to have music in my home. 
And the tree...
after the recital we went home to plant our tree. 
We have lived in our home for almost 10 years.  When we moved in, there were 3 trees.  One died, one got knocked over by the neighbor kids and so we only have one sad, lonely, tiny tree that won't grow left.  Our awesome neighbor somehow scored a truck load of trees for dirt cheap and gave us a tree.  We were thrilled!  We started digging and soon realized why nothing will grow in our yard. 
Clay. 
Sweet Lindsay chipped away at it with her little hand shovel.  We finally ran the hose in it hoping to soften it up.  Nope.  The water just sat there all night without draining out.  Jeramy finally  got the hole deep enough.  Have I mentioned how excited we are to finally have a tree?  Let's hope it survives!

End of the year activities

I'm pretty sure that in the month of May, I made more trips to school than my kids.  You think I'm kidding? 

We had animal report day.  Macie was terrified that someone was going to ask her something about pigs that she couldn't answer.  There were tears involved.  She survived. 

I volunteered a lot in Macie's class room since I was "given" the job of room mom.  Multiple trips were made to pick things up and drop them off. 

Lindsay had a class concert one morning at 10:30.  Grandma drove down, went with me, then we went shopping and to lunch until Maddie's Rock Concert started at 1:30. 

We had the dance festival (Middle picture).  It was freezing and raining and windy and not fun at all.  BUT, the kindergarteners were adorable and I was so excited to send the video I took to every person I know.  Then I realized that I had my phone on camera, not video.  I almost cried.  Lindsay and Maddie's grades did a good job, too. 

And last but not least, we had kindergarten graduation.  So crazy that this year is over already!  It really went by so fast!  I wanted to make a special skirt for Macie to wear.  I bought the fabric and was showing the girls when Lindsay said, "Mom, you didn't make me anything special for graduation."  I told her that I was sure I did, so we came to the blog to check. 
Nope. 
She wore her easter dress. 
Worst. Mom. Ever. 
So glad I blog so that my children can look back at all the unfair, mean things I do to them.