Aunt Sharon's visit

Sharon graduated from BYU-I in April (congrats!) so we flew her down to babysit celebrate for a week. It was great hanging out with her. The kids soaked up all the aunt time and were really bummed to see her go. There was lots of "Sharon, come play cars with me!" and "Let's build marshmallow buildings!" and "Let's color!" and "Sharon, come play a game with me!"

 And honestly, it was an added bonus that Sharon was willing to be our babysitter whenever we needed her all week. She got into town and a half hour later we left her to put the kids to bed while we went out to a fancy dinner Jacob's company president was treating some of Jacob's team to for a job well done. The week happened to be Teacher Appreciation Week as well, and since I volunteered to head up the Teacher Appreciation Committee at Rachel's school I had errands to run at her school most days, so it was nice to just leave the kids at home with Sharon and run over for a 20 minutes (or an hour) without having to find shoes for everyone and getting everyone buckled, then unloaded from the car, into the stroller, into the school, back out to the car, etc. She saved me so much time and hassle by just being our resident babysitter all week. And the kids loved it.

We were going to go swimming while she was here, but for May it has been a little too cool and windy for my taste, so we went to the library and dollar store instead. We also squeezed in a trip to the frozen yogurt shop and a movie night on our big screen.

To top off our week we headed to Trail Dust Town. We had never been before, but I'd heard it's like a mini version of Old Tucson Studios, and it's true. There weren't any of the movie sets, but it still had the Old West feel, and a few fun rides that the kids were happy to ride over and over and over again and it was cheaper.

 They even had a stunt show with guns and explosions and such. The kids enjoyed their treat from the candy shop while we watched the funny show.

 It was a fun night and we definitely recommend it and will do it again sometime with visiting cousins, maybe. :)

Sharon's flight left from Mesa at 6 am Sunday morning, so instead of leaving Tucson at 3am we arranged for her to stay with a cousin in Mesa overnight, then they could just leave at 5am from her house. Since they were heading up to Phoenix we decided to tag along part of the way and visit the Ostrich Farm again to feed all the animals.

Donkeys:

 Deer:

 Goats in the sky:

 And goats in the wall:

 Ostiches:

 Baby goats:

 And best of all, the lorikeets. We had several head landings this time.

 And we remembered to get a group shot with all 7 of us in it before Sharon left us.

We sure are glad she could come visit. Congratulations on graduating, Sharon! And we hope you move to Arizona!! But if not, at least come visit again soon.

Camping Trip

We went camping last weekend down at Patagonia Lake. We got there early enough Friday evening, and it was hot enough, so we all went down to the swimming area to play by the water and cool off a bit once we had the tent set up.

 Playing in the sand was a big hit with everyone.

 Rachel made a band of dirt instruments.

 She is playing the drums. In front of the drums are maracas. To the left of the drums is a guitar and a tambourine, I think.

Jacob headed back to start a fire, then we followed to roast hot dogs for dinner. Unfortunately in all my preparations, the packed cooler with our hot dogs remained in our fridge at home. Luckily the little store there had hot dogs that happened to be gluten-free, so we were covered. Also luckily, I over packed on food like I always do, so we had plenty for breakfast even though the boiled eggs and yogurt were also at home in the cooler. :)

 Megan, especially, was a fan of the hot dogs. That girl must have downed close to two full hot dogs. Every time we were sure she must be done, one of us would go to eat our own hot dog and she would reach out for it wanting more.

The sleeping part was a lot less painful than I thought it would be. Megan was so tired because it was almost an hour after her bedtime when we finally got in the tent, so she was asleep really fast and slept better that night than she had the night before at home in her crib. Unfortunately that isn't saying much. She still woke up twice, but after nursing for 5-10 minutes she was asleep in her pack 'n play again for another 3-4 hours. The other kids slept pretty well. I was up several times to check that the kids weren't going to wake up from being too cold after they kicked their covers off. So everyone woke up relatively well rested (as much as you can be when camping) well before 6 am, thanks to the sun.

We got the fire going again and warmed up some water to make hot chocolate.

 Megan thought playing peek-a-boo with my hat was the best game ever.

 While we were packing up after breakfast the kids found a Roly Poly. We all had to stop and pick it up and take turns holding it, since we never see those around our house.

 After we all got dressed we headed off on a hike, figuring that the tent was already getting stuffy with heat, so on my back was probably the best bet for Megan's morning nap. She quickly agreed.

 We got a family picture, though all you can see of Megan is her orange arm, and maybe an ear if you zoom in close.

 On our hike we crossed over this bridge that is pretty darn high over a little inlet of the lake. Ryan and Rachel loved it. Annie is a girl after my own heart and did NOT like how high it was.

 The rickety wood under my feet didn't inspire much confidence either. I happily volunteered to walk the long way back to the tent when Annie didn't want to cross the bridge on the way back.

We got back to camp and took down the tent and packed everything into the car before heading to the beach for a couple more hours. The water was cold, but the day was warming up and the sand was hot. The kids had a lot of fun playing on the waterfront. The girls spent the whole time looking for rocks and shells for their rock collection and Ryan spent the whole time filling his bucket with water, then pouring it on the sand. And occasionally burying his hands and feet in the sand and calling out for me to rescue him.

It was a fun camping trip. We returned home happy to have gone, and happy to know that when we go again next year it'll be even easier. While we were there I kept thinking how much easier camping will be in 2 or 3 years when the youngest is out of diapers and is a decent sleeper (that has to happen sometime, right?) and all the kids have at least some impulse control and can listen and obey about staying away from the fire. Maybe at that point we'll happily head out camping once a month. Or drive farther than an hour to go camping.
We had been contemplating going camping with some friends over Memorial Day Weekend who go to Mt. Graham, which is about 2 1/2 hours away, but then decided to stay a little closer to home for Megan's first camping experience. Megan was happy to confirm that this was a good choice on our drive home by screaming the last half of the drive. She was too tired to sleep, and doesn't sleep well in the car anyway. So she made sure to let us know that driving 2 1/2 hours would have been a bad idea. I'm glad we went where/when we did. It was fabulous!

April summary

I used to have individual blog posts that followed a theme or a specific activity. Now, more often than not, the title is something along the lines of "Fill-in-the-month activities." I guess that's what 4 kids and my preference to spend whatever free time I do have reading rather than blogging will do. But hey, at least I am still blogging. I count this as journal writing and family history, which makes me feel a little better when I remember how little I get around to doing either of those activities.

Anyway, April has passed us by, filled with sickness, silliness, and stuff.

Annie came home from preschool one day with a ladybug crown/hat thing she had made. It inspired her. She told me when she grows up she is going to be a fashion hat designer, then set to work putting together some prototypes with construction paper she tore into strips and stapled together.

We had probably close to 10 of these hats of various styles and color floating around the house for a while.

Megan has begun pulling up on everything and is cruising a little, but not much.

She loves climbing the stairs most of all and occasionally gets lucky when someone leaves the gate open and she rushes to get as high up the stairs as she can. Today I found her 4 stairs from the top. She's actually really good on the stairs. The problem comes when she decides to sit down and forgets that the floor isn't all there. So far we've been lucky that when she's on the stairs alone her main goal is to get to the top before someone catches her, so she doesn't pause to have a seat. We've had a talk about the gate at the bottom of the stairs, so hopefully we don't have any falling baby stories any time soon.

Megan looks so much like Ryan. Except with piggie tails.

Ryan at the same age:

Rachel and Annie got hit with the same bug within a day of each other a few weeks ago. It totally wiped them out and for one entire day they hardly moved from the couch, even when the TV was off. Ryan got a different bug the day before, so he was still recovering, so there were 3 kids with no appetites and no energy. That they were sick was a bummer, but it sure made for easy housework: no toys to pick up, food to cook, dishes to wash. The only downside was some extra laundry, but even that wasn't as bad as it could have been. Here's Annie on day 2--finally with an appetite, but still no energy to sit up at the table, so I made a makeshift TV tray for her to eat on.

The next day everyone was better, so we went to the park. Apparently 2 days of hardly eating drains the energy out of you. After 5 minutes playing on the playground we went to walk a little way to the swings and Annie and Rachel were dragging their feet from lack of energy. They didn't even argue when I suggested we head home after we had been at the park for less than a half hour. Another day or so and they were back to their normal energy levels again.

Here's the promised picture of Annie's bangs/hair to compare with Willy Wonka:

Megan loves her swing. Since we usually just take down one of the kids' swings to hang her baby swing on the swingset, and vice versa, her swing was sitting on the ground one day when she found it and was so excited to climb into it. I don't think she even minded that it didn't move. She played in it for a good 5-10 minutes.

Ryan still loves playing with the camera whenever he finds it. One day he got it all set up and told me to sit down and we'd "do cheese" with the camera. When the light didn't turn on I showed him how to turn on the timer so we could get this fabulous self portrait of the two of us on the kitchen floor.

We've been trying to invite the kids' cousins over for movie night for a while now, but something has always come up: sickness, March Madness, etc. But last week we finally made it work, even though Justin ditched us so he could stay home and watch the playoffs.

The kids all had fun together. Megan wouldn't leave Rachel alone. I think she wanted her popcorn. But when I offered her tiny baby-safe sized pieces she wasn't interested. She only wanted them out of Rachel's bag. Rachel put up with her for a little while before asking us to take Megan away.

Speaking of Megan and eating...

She will not eat baby food and hasn't for a couple of months. She loves real people food, and now has 4 teeth which help a bit with all but the real hard stuff that you really need molars to chew. She's not picky, but has definite preferences that she will make known if she sees someone eating something she wants.

April had beautiful weather. The highs were in the 70s and 80s most of the month. We spent a lot of time enjoying the weather. Looking for shapes in the clouds:

Now that May is here our outdoor time will slowly be cut back to only early mornings, or whenever there is water to play with. Welcome summer, I guess.