Spring Break-Week 2

For the second week of Spring Break we embarked on an adventure. We drove up to Utah, then Idaho so we could see Lisa and Breck get married.

 We stopped more than I would have liked, which added some time onto our drive, but we survived. We stopped at the Glen Canyon Dam on the way up.

 The DVD players were what saved all our sanity. We tried to stick to the rule that they could only start a new movie when we stopped for a pit stop.

 Megan usually lasted all of 5 minutes after her movie ended before she started complaining about being hungry or sick or needing to get out of the car. Then it started snowing near Beaver. We pushed through the last several hours without stopping at all in the hopes we would get there before it started falling too heavily. We made sandwiches and let Megan (and the others) watch as much as she wanted and we made it.

Sunday was Ryan's birthday, so he got a 3rd birthday celebration, this time in Utah.

 The next day, Monday, we got in the car for more driving. We drove up to Salmon, Idaho so we could see my Grandpa Jolley who turned 92 the day before Ryan's birthday. They're almost birthday buddies.

Rachel's favorite thing to do at the ranch is climb hay bales (or straw bales).

 Ryan was excited that Nate was there and Nate was happy to take him out on the tractor with him. We also got to go feed the calves. There are tons of new babies at this time of year, and occasionally when there are twins or when the mom isn't producing enough milk, or something like that, they keep the calves in the stall instead of out in the fields and feed them formula. All the kids got to help feed them.

 Megan wasn't all too keen on the slobber, but she was happy to climb the fence and pet a calf's back while its head was busy sucking on the bottle.

My mom had flown up the Friday before (it was her Spring Break, too), so she brought Grandpa Jolley out to the ranch to drive around and to see us on Monday when we got there, then the next morning before we left for Rexburg we went into town to visit him at the nursing home where he lives.

 It was great to get to see him one more time.

On the way to Rexburg we stopped where there was snow on Gilmore pass to let the kids play in the snow.

 We had told them they'd get to see snow at some point on our trip, and this was the only place we had seen any in any quantity, so we took advantage.

 After 20 minutes or so we were all sufficiently cold and ready to call our bi-annual snow play done. We drove the rest of the way to Rexburg where we stayed with my cousin Mike and Julie. It was good to visit with them and so nice of them to let us stay there for the night.

By Tuesday evening everyone was mostly in town, and we got together with Breck's family to have a "meeting of the in-laws."

 With our loud children, and their almost-as-loud cousins, it was a good thing there was a separate area in the clubhouse where the kids could play. And good of Ashley to bring activities to try to corral them a little.
The food was a smashing success, and pretty much the only thing that kept the kids quiet for any length of time. :D

 It was good to meet Breck in person (we had only met him via video chat up until that point) and to meet his family.

 The next morning was the big shabang. It was great to be there for the wedding and we're happy to have a new uncle for the kids to beat up. :)

 Lisa had arranged for a couple sisters in her ward to watch all our kids while we were in the temple, then after we got back we managed a family photo with everyone there.

 Poor Joy was so tired. She fell asleep within about 2 minutes of finishing the photo shoot.

After the pictures we got everyone together, changed clothes, and headed over to a pizza place to enjoy a pizza buffet, unlimited fountain drinks (the kids' favorite) and good company.

 We shipped out after lunch and headed off to Provo while the newlyweds headed off on their honeymoon. We enjoyed another day and a half of cousin time, coloring eggs, an Easter egg hunt, playing in the back yard, and feeding horses and ducks, and lots of fun.

The Kansas Campbells had to head off on Friday late morning, so for the afternoon the kids enjoyed some aunt/uncle time and went to bed super sad that we were leaving in the morning. The drive home was uneventful, but still long. We were happy to return home, but happy to have been able to squeeze in so much adventure in just a week.

Spring Break-Week 1

We had a full Spring Break. Knowing that we would be leaving for our trip on Saturday, and that I had a big order of 40 pounds of chicken coming in on Friday that I had to process, I tried to keep the week unscheduled for the most part so I would have time to get things ready for our trip. But we still ended up doing a lot of fun things and had a pretty full week, while still leaving enough time to be ready for our trip.
Monday was Ryan's birthday party, then on Tuesday he had his doctor check up, and before we went to that we stopped at Barnes and Noble to use a gift card our neighbor had given the kids. They each got a new book to read on our trip. Ryan and Megan were both happy to discover the small stage at the store there and performed a song whose lyrics were "I love you Mom" over and over and over. It was great.

We came home from the doctor's appointment to have our weekly Spanish Club. We did a spring break version where we watched Coco to see some of the words we had been learning like tío/tía, etc.

Wednesday Grandma Knight invited us to go hike up Sabino Canyon with her. Before we left Grandpa gave the kids gummy worms.

The hike was beautiful and the kids had a good time.

The water at Sabino Dam was a nice place for our picnic.

We didn't bring swimsuits, but managed to play in the water spilling over the dam for a little while anyway.

Rachel didn't plan to get wet, but slipped, so gave in and embraced it. She wished she was a bit drier on the hike back to the car, and the rest of us wished we were a bit wet. It was pretty warm. Megan and Ryan had reached their limit, so they both got piggy back rides for a good portion of the walk back.

Up by the dam I saw this rock.

It looks like Moses was here, then someone put a faucet on the rock he made water come out of. :)

Our dryer had died spectacularly that morning before we left for the hike (big grinding sound, smell of smoke, and all), so I set up a makeshift clothes tree in the garage with PVC pipe I had, but since I was doing all the laundry in preparation for our trip that wasn't enough. We used our play set as a clothesline too, and we were able to dry everything Wednesday before we set to packing on Thursday.

Thankfully my dad was willing to come out and meet the delivery people while we were in Idaho so when we returned from our trip we had a working dryer to deal with all our clothing from our trip.

Thursday I decided to bite the bullet and get Ryan's bed that he got for his birthday put together. I made the kids pack everything they wanted for our trip to Utah and Idaho before we did it, because I thought my Friday would be pretty full, and they were happy to do it, knowing the beds were the reward. Before we could work on Ryan's new bed, we had to move everyone's beds around.

Rachel got Ryan's old bed, Megan got promoted from a toddler bed and got Rachel's old bed, which made it possible for Annie and Megan to have a bunk bed in their room. Luckily Grandma Knight showed up at just the right time to help me put the bed on top of the other one.

Ryan was super excited, not just to get a new bed, but to put it together. He loves tools and assembling things. (He also loves these reading glasses with the lenses popped out that he wears on a regular basis.)

The completed bed with a slide:

Super fun for everyone (except when Ryan exerts his rights of ownership and bans everyone from his slide or room).

Friday one of my visiting teachers offered to watch the kids while I did any preparations for our trip the next day. It worked out perfect because I had an order of 40 pounds of Zaycon chicken I had to process that morning (I realized how bad of timing it was after the order was already submitted). Without kids around I was able to cut the chicken breasts into manageable size and even bottle 3 batches of chicken for canning. I went to pick up the kids and Kim had made Rachel and Annie's day with a make over and pretty hair. And she made pancakes for lunch to top it all off. She's amazing.

Some of my canned chicken:

Kid activities

We squeezed in a few things at the beginning of March before Spring Break started.

 

Annie got to participate in the Spring Spectacular gymnastics showcase again this year. She had fun and did a great job.

The kids love when Jacob pulls out his puppetry skills/jokes.

 Megan had bug day at preschool and came home as a butterfly. Not sure what this face was--a tough butterfly?

 I got to go to the temple with some of the priests and laurels in our ward. It was so cool to see the priests doing the baptisms.

 And we went out for chicken after we were done for some more socializing since the boys and girls wouldn't even mix in the cars--there was the boys' car and the girls' car. But of course food got the socializing going.

 Annie went on a field trip to a play at the high school and afterwards we joined her at the park for a picnic lunch. Ryan and Megan were happy to join in on part of the field trip.

Then a couple days later Megan was super happy to spend most of the morning at the kids' school during field day. We wandered back and forth between Rachel's class and Ryan's class.

 Megan preferred Ryan's class because she was closer to their size and basically decided she was a part of the class and joined in where she could.

 We went back to Ryan's class when they were done outside and shared some otter pops as a birthday treat, since Ryan's birthday would take place over spring break. It was a big hit.

Before we pulled out of the parking lot my mom (who had been volunteering at field day) came out to tell us that Ryan had hit his head pretty hard on the playground and had a goose egg. Since school was ending in 15 minutes for him anyway, we just brought him with us and went out to eat with my mom to cheer him up.

Later that day we went back to the afternoon session of the field day to see Annie and bring her class some otter pops since it was pretty hot.

Megan was in heaven again being able to sit in Annie's classroom and eat otter pops with the other kids. Her greatest aspiration is to be able to go to the same school as all the rest of the kids, and that day her dream was realized. :)

Ryan's birthday celebrations

Since we were going to be out of town on Ryan's actual birthday, we celebrated Ryan's birthday a week early. We had the family get together Sunday, and of course Ryan was happy to be the center of attention. When it was time to open presents he did Eeney Meeney Miney Moe for every single one.

One of his favorite presents was a Stomp Rocket.

There are super lightweight rockets you put on the launch pad, then squeeze or stomp on the launcher and it shoots off. It was a hit.

The next day some of Ryan's friends came to celebrate with him. They built marshmallow buildings, then ate the marshmallow buildings (and popcorn and Red Vines) while they watched a movie.

Ryan wanted to do an emoji birthday party, so they watched The Emoji Movie, and had emoji cupcakes, much like Rachel did.

We also pulled out the bouncy castle that the kids had a good time on.

End of February

Ryan lost two teeth!

 Both Annie and Rachel lost their first tooth shortly before they turned 5. Ryan waited until he was almost 6. We thought it might help there be less crowding since his mouth would be slightly larger, but so far it doesn't seem to be the case. Oh well. :)

A friend called one day to tell me that she had just witnessed a hawk catch a bird in the middle of the street. We walked down and noticed there were two hawks in the tree. One flew away when we got close, but the other stayed, guarding it's meal, keeping a sharp eye on us.

 For our family home evening activity one week we practiced relaxation. Megan and Ryan had a hard time staying still, but Rachel, Annie, and Jacob floated away into neverland just fine.

 We're hoping this will help them develop skills to help themselves relax all on their own, especially when they're worked up or can't fall asleep.

The youth in our stake got to participate in a Trek this year.

 I got to drop them off and pick them up. Most had a great experience. A few were glad they went, but wouldn't do it again...

 Megan riding her horsey ball in the pantry.

 We had a lip sync battle with the youth at church. The Young Women leaders had the song Lean On Me, so we all dressed up 80s style. It was super fun.

 The kiddos dressed up as cowboys for Rodeo Day. They make cute cow pokes.