Vacation-On the Farm

 Everyone was so happy to be out of the car, it was just a bonus that we were on a huge farm full of greenness that they could run around free.

The kids liked the rope swing. Jared's favorite rope swing technique was noose-style. I have several pictures that it looks like he's being hung.

While the kids were enjoying the great outdoors I started to notice how perfect the setting was for portraits. And the happiness of being out of the car made for a few cute pics.

We were able to wrangle the kids inside for some food.

After a pancake and egg dinner, they were right back outside.

The kids started to get a taste of the freedom of roaming on the farm. I looked up after 2 seconds and Ryan had disappeared. He had decided to go exploring on his own all the way by the truck.

Ryan was also very happy to get to drive the car instead of ride in his carseat from Grandpa Jolley's house over to Aunt Barbara's (just a couple hundred yards away).

We stayed at Barbara and Boyd's house (THANK YOU!!), as did Todd and Savannah, while Justin and Marie stayed at Grandpa's house. But before everyone retired to bed we had a little cousin chaos/fun.

Vacation-The Drive

We just returned home yesterday from our vacation that was a little over two weeks long. We have over a thousand pictures of our fun, so it may take a few blog posts to wade through all the fun.

Getting ready for our trip, the drive was the thing that worried me the most. Annie is not a great car rider, often yelling "Get me out of here!" while pulling on her buckles in her car seat when we are on the 20 minute drive between our house and my parents' house. And Ryan likes to walk around and climb way too much to be cooped up in a car seat for too long. Some people suggested driving overnight, but my kids aren't great car sleepers, and our experience driving overnight when Rachel was 13 months old was horrible--she screamed for most of the trip, having a really hard time falling asleep, then when she did fall asleep it would be just in time for us to need to fill up on gas, then it would all start over again. Not so fun. Since Jacob didn't have two weeks of time off built up, he got a plane ticket to join us up in Idaho half-way through our trip. Which would have left me the lone driver with three kids for a 3 day trip. Thankfully, my mom was willing to skip the ease of the airplane and join in our driving adventure. A total lifesaver. And the drive went way better than I had anticipated.

We decided to set off on a Friday about mid-day so we would be on the road an hour or two before Annie and Ryan got tired and took their afternoon nap, then drive until bedtime, and if, by some miracle the kids fell asleep we could keep driving until we were too tired to drive. All went well enough that first day. We stopped and ran around every couple hours and the girls were completely entertained by their dollar store surprises they got every few hours, and the DVD player. We got to Las Vegas around bedtime and our plan was to get through Las Vegas and find a motel on the far side as we were leaving Las Vegas. Ryan screamed for about a half hour while we drove through the city, and finally we discovered the only thing that calmed him was Rachel singing to him song after song after song. Rachel got tired and asked me to sing, but he immediately started crying, so Rachel went back to it. She was an awesome helper. We got most of the way through Vegas and came to some major traffic. Apparently there was some major event going on that night and all the event traffic was blocking the right two lanes completely, so we stuck to the faster left lane. Unfortunately it turned out that the event was at the last Las Vegas exit that had lodging. So we had an hour more to drive before we got to Mesquite, NV. Ryan sat there with his wide open eyes an hour after bedtime, just to fall asleep about 15 minutes before we got in to Mesquite. The first hotel we tried at had no rooms, so we drove a while more and got to another hotel and they had just one room left: the presidential suite. I was desperate. We took it.

Grandma and Rachel slept in the fold out bed in the front room (with light filtering shades that let all the parking lot lights right in).

Ryan, Annie, and I slept in the king sized bed in the bedroom. For all my efforts to get Ryan to sleep in the Pack 'n Play, he was having none of it. Every time I set him down he would either wake up and start crying as soon as I let go of him, or wake up a minute or two later. He was just too tired to sleep. And in that unfamiliar room he was either scared out of his mind or wanting to explore, or both.

I finally decided to try giving him a bath, since that's part of his normal bedtime routine. He got a real fancy bath.

After the bath he still wouldn't stay asleep in his Pack 'n Play, so I ended up with him in the bed with me which I don't think I've ever done with him. I do NOT sleep well with anyone touching me, and kids move around way too much to let me have a good night's sleep, so I avoid it at all costs. But that night I slept between Ryan and Annie and at least they slept okay once they got to sleep.

Saturday we got up and ate breakfast, then headed off for the next leg of our journey to Provo. The trip was pretty uneventful and the kids did pretty well, except for Ryan's naps. Apparently he can only sleep for a half hour in the car. Out of our whole trip where we were on the road for 10 of his nap times, I don't think he ever slept for more than 30 or 40 minutes, whereas his normal naps last 90+ minutes usually. And in the car he would wake up inconsolably crying for a good half hour, or until we stopped the car and let him run around.
Anyway, we made it to Provo in the early afternoon and stopped at Jacob's family's house where we would be spending the night. We just missed Grandma and Grandpa Campbell by about 10 minutes as they had to go work at the temple. We failed at getting Ryan to nap in their crib, so we headed outside to visit the ducks.

That evening we headed up to my Uncle Von's and Aunt Patty's house in Orem to see some of the Jolleys. Some of the Stokes were around for a missionary farewell, too, so we got a double bonus. Unfortunately I got no pictures. :( The girls loved the backyard play set and toys. Ryan did NOT like the ride in the car, which was thankfully only 10 minutes long.
Afterwards we headed back to the Campbells' house to sleep for the night, then in the morning we woke up, went to a sacrament meeting, then started off on our last leg. We caravanned from Provo with Justin and Marie, who had driven up to Provo separately, since Justin couldn't get off work early enough to drive with us. When we got to Idaho Falls, Todd and Savannah were driving up from Logan, so we met up with them at the IF temple to let the kids run around a little.

After a little break we all climbed back in our cars for the last stretch to Salmon. Ryan had a diaper explosion around Leadore, but other than that we had a decent drive that Sunday and were VERY happy to finally make it to Salmon to start the real vacation.

Kid update

Ryan has hit that stage: The climbing on tables stage. I lose track of how many times I have to get him off the table every day. 

 

The little stinker.

He had his 15 month visit yesterday and has gained almost a pound in the last 3 months. He's up to 19 lbs. 4 oz. At least he's growing some. But he's still well under the curve for weight, slowly slipping downward in his height percentiles, too, down to 19th percentile this time. But as long as he keeps growing and doesn't lose weight, we're good. He's generally a very happy kid and is learning lots of words. He loves repeating whatever Rachel says and she is very proud to be teaching him new words. His FAVORITE thing to do is vacuum. "Gackoo!" When he's throwing a tantrum sometimes the only thing that can get him to calm down is to go get the vacuum out. He absolutely loves that thing. When you switch it on he runs around from one end of the room to the other, as if the vacuum is chasing him, then he'll sometimes come lay down right next to it and is happy as can be as you vacuum all around him. He also loves when people go bye bye. I think mostly because he loves the garage and going out the front door. But when I bring him back inside we often have to pull out the vacuum because he has a total meltdown. He loves to run away from me. Especially if he's naked or in a store. So pretty much, he's your typical 15-month-old. And we love the little guy.

Now for some happy news on the sleep front: Annie falls asleep on her own most nights, and even at naptime most of the time. Hallelujah! Up until about last week she would get out of bed over and over and over. Some days the only way to get her to stay in bed long enough to fall asleep was to sit next to her for 20 minutes or so. Her new trick for falling asleep? Covering her head with her favorite blanky:

Whatever works. :)

I caught the girls loving each other yesterday while watching a movie.

 

They've been getting along a lot more often lately, playing together very well for the most part. I love it. They still fight and bug each other like siblings do, but it's not constant, like it seems like it had been for weeks on end. I was getting a bit tired of the screaming and hitting and breaking up fights. Now most of the time I hear music blasting from the girls room while they're having a dance party, or listen to their squeals (with Ryan joining in) as they run the "track" downstairs, chasing each other in a circle through the living room, family room and kitchen.

For Father's Day Rachel's primary teacher had the kids fill in the blanks. Here are Rachel's responses:

My daddy's name is Jacob. He is 55 years old, 30 tall and weighs 37 pounds. His favorite food is spaghetti. My daddy is really good at playing games with me. He loves to sing. My favorite thing to do with my dad is playing games. I'm just like my dad because I get up at the same time in the morning. What I love most about my daddy is when he lays next to me when I go to sleep. It makes Dad happy when I give him presents. 

According to Rachel I married a guy almost as old as my parents, who weighs less than Rachel does. :) I think she interposed her favorites on him: spaghetti and singing. But he is really good at playing games with the girls and they love it when he does. Especially monster chasing. He's a good dad. We're lucky to have him around! 

Grandma and Grandpa's visit

Jacob's cousin got married last Friday up in Mesa, so Jacob's parents came down for the wedding. Since they were going to be in Arizona anyway, they came a little early to come spend a couple days at our house. It was fun to have them visit. 

I was expecting them Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning, so Tuesday around lunchtime I got a call saying they were getting off the freeway and needed directions to our new house. Unfortunately I wasn't even home. Oops. Grandma Knight had taken Rachel and Annie to a movie that morning, so I went to pick them up and Annie was super cranky so I put her down for a nap right then. When G&G Campbell called Annie was just waking up, but Ryan had only been asleep for a half hour. Talk about bad timing. Luckily they were willing to go hang out at the air conditioned store down the street until Ryan woke up. 

Once we finally got home and let them in, the kids had fun hanging out and showing off for Grandma and Grandpa.

 

 

They thought Grandpa's phone was pretty cool, since it played music and movies. (Our family is apparently stuck in the dark ages where we just use cell phones for calling people, so my kids don't know that phones can even do that.)

 

 

Bedtime story reading with Grandma:

 

On Thursday we went on an outing to the great outdoors. In June on a 100+ degree day. We went to Colossal Caves out in Vail. Caving happens to be the perfect Tucson activity in the summer since it's 70 degrees in the cave year-round. Besides swimming there's not much else you'd want to do outside in June.

 

Waiting for our tour:

 

 

 

This is just about the only picture I got on the inside. I took our baby backpack, which Ryan tolerates really well. But only when we're in constant motion. At our first stop for the tour guide to talk a little Ryan started getting a bit impatient. At our second stop I snapped a picture, then ended up switching Ryan for the camera, putting the camera in the backpack and carrying Ryan the rest of the way.

Though technically I didn't carry him much. I chased him with my big, bulky backpack (that I apparently should have left in the car) through the narrow passageways as he had a blast going up and down the stairs.  We dropped to the back of our little tour so whenever the tour guide stopped to talk about some formation or bit of history, Ryan would turn around and go back to the last stairs we'd been on and go up and down them until the group moved on to the next stopping point. The rest of the gang enjoyed themselves. Coming back out to the oven surface was less refreshing.

We're glad you got to come down! We're looking forward to a fun week up in Provo soon! 

I am not, however, looking forward to the drive. We're actually going up to Salmon, Idaho first, driving all the way without Jacob, who will join us towards the end of our week there (pesky work) before heading down to Provo for the following week. Thankfully my mom has agreed to drive up with me, even knowing that my kids are not great travellers. Yesterday while driving both to and from Grandma and Grandpa Knight's house, which is only 20 minutes away, Annie spent about 5 minutes on each trip yelling "Get me out of here!" ("Here" being her carseat.) We're planning on doing part of the drive while they sleep, which will hopefully go better than our attempt at night driving when Rachel was 1 where she spent half the time screaming because she couldn't fall asleep. We'll see how it goes… The fun we have when we get there had better be worth the drive. ;)

Fun with friends

A week ago Saturday I got a call from a friend of mine asking if I had plans that day. We didn't. She replied, "Oh, so you're just hoping to have 4 kids come over all day?" Sure. She went to the hospital and had a baby. And we had fun with friends all day until their aunt got off work and came to pick them up. 

The kids got into the dress ups first thing, then had some fun in the huge box amazon had sent just the day before with some of our subscribe and save products.

 

We filled up the water table several times and had some fun out in the hot hot sun (mostly in the shade).
 

 

 

By mid-day Rachel was feeling a little overwhelmed with her house being taken over (in her view) by her friends. So we threw a DVD in for some mind-numbing entertainment. After that break from interacting with each other everyone was happy again. And since there were just a couple hours left before their aunt got off work I pulled out the crafts to make paper bag puppets and clothespin dolls to keep the older girls occupied the rest of the time. The boys kept themselves entertained with a remote control car most of the time, and another visit out to the water table. 

It was a fun day and a new baby was born to top it off. :)