Fresh air

It is almost summer!  To be honest, I actually love school time more, because I like having a schedule.  And, let's face it, a couple of hours to myself every once in a while.  But I LOVE that it is finally warm outside and that everything is turning green again.

We took advantage of that while my mom was in town, but I took absolutely no pictures!  We had an actual list before she came of things we wanted to do while she was here, and we got through almost all of it.  We ate at Chubby's and rode our bikes on the new canal trail, we shopped for an entire day at the new outlet malls, and we got pedicures together as a Mother's Day treat.  Our only regret was not getting her up to the cabin, but she needed to spend some time up in SLC cleaning out her dad's house to be sold.

While she was there, we went to the grand opening of the trail we've been using for months, and then a BYU baseball game.  They have a tailgating event for "young alumni", which we just realized we won't even qualify for soon.  Weird.  But we'll enjoy it while we can.  I never turn down J-Dawgs!  Or a chance to break out the tiny BYU cheerleading outfits.

It was a bit cold and rainy, but not too bad.

And the kids love the little prizes from the games, like dorky sunglasses and pom-poms.

But Tyler's favorite was the pedometer from the trail opening.  He called it his "minutes" and spent a lot of time jumping up and down and then clearing the count again.

And Tyler's class had a little dance for their school party the other day.  Tyler wasn't too into it, to be honest.  I think if he had been in a classroom with no distractions, he would have been all over that, but he didn't want to look at the bright sun and was too interested in all the other students.  So mostly he just watched his teacher or stood around.  

But his class was really cute!  I'll have to find that "Tony Chestnut" song and see if he will do the dance for me sometime.

And then we spent this weekend at the cabin.  We had friends up Friday night, and of course I didn't even think to take pictures.  And then yesterday was the day to power wash . . . so we can paint!  I am SO excited to paint the cabin!  It will be a lot of work, but we have kinda hated the color since we got it four years ago.

And Kaitlyn was excited to ride on the dirt bike for the first time to go to our next door neighbor's.

I think her little sister wanted to go too!

And I always love trying to take pictures of these guys.  They make us laugh.  They are always clambering over each other for the food, and we get up to a dozen at a time at the feeder.

They are so intent that they don't care if my camera and I are two feet away from them.

Our favorite is when one gets possessive.  He'll over to the side of it and attack any other bird that comes near the feeder.  He doesn't take any food himself, though!  Silly birds.

And silly Tyler.  He took my can of pop and decided to drink from it while he slid down the slide.

I loved watching him pull his sister in the swing.  So intense!

This week I need to get things planted at home, and then once school lets out we will test the new paint colors and start working on it.  I can't wait!

Mother's Day trip

When my mom first told me that she was going to fly out and see us for Mother's Day again, I started plotting.  I have three brothers in Las Vegas, but Mom wasn't planning on driving down to see them this trip. So I talked to them about meeting up in St. George and having a fun weekend there as a surprise for her.  But then Christopher mentioned that he was signed up for another tech conference down in Vegas . . . the same week.  So we ditched the idea of meeting in the middle and just told my mom to plan on the full trip.

One of the funniest moments of the trip is one that I (thankfully) have no pictures of.  Sorry, this story is long, but we couldn't stop laughing for days!  Jasmine was being pretty fussy on the way down, and when I noticed that it smelled like time to change her diaper we pulled over at a rest stop a mile down the road.  But when I carried her into the restroom and took off her dress, I found out that the problem was much bigger than I thought.

It was coming up the front and back, out the sides- you get the picture.

So I stripped the icky outfit off and wiped her down as best I could, but this was beyond wet wipes.  So when my mom decided to wander in the ladies room, she found me with a naked baby in the sink, bathing a screaming girl with the cold water that trickled out of the faucet.

I was pretty glad to see her.

So my mom headed back to get a new outfit, and once I had the baby clean, I realized I had another problem: there were no paper towels.  Just air dryers.  So . . . I stuck my angry baby's bum under the air dryer to get her at least moderately dry before I put the diaper back on her.

With a sigh of relief, I went back to the changing area to put back together my clean baby.  But then I found out that the diaper I brought out with me had been in the same hand as the baby while I carried her inside, so it was covered as well.

And while I stared at the diaper, wondering what to do next, the baby peed all over herself.

Thank heavens my mom brought the whole suitcase in with her, so we pulled out a new diaper, re-wiped down the baby, and my mom focused on getting the worst of it off the outfit while I dressed the baby.

And then, in walked two entire tour buses of Asian women.  I don't even know what language they were speaking, but wrinkling your nose while you try to fan the smell away from you is pretty universal.  Seriously, it was funny up until that point, but when we were suddenly surrounded by hordes of women speaking a different language I felt like I was in a comedy sketch.

Anyway, we finally made it to Vegas, no thanks to the baby!  And prepare for a picture overload, because we had a really great time!

Jasmine only yesterday started to sign back at us.  Until then, she had her own personal "sign" - a pair of upside-down fists.  She would make an intense face and say "ah-ju-JU-JU-JU" and laugh hysterically if we did it back to her.  I guess it meant she liked the Philippino food we went out for one night?

And then Friday night was the family party.  I love this shot - the older three cousins are a couple of months apart, and then the younger two girls are a few months apart as well.  They taught the little ones how to play four square.

Jasmine wanted to play too, so they gave her a ball.  Of course, she mostly wanted whichever ball they were using, so I had to take her inside fairly quickly.

And then, as always, Kaitlyn tried to arrange a "show". The only difference was that this time it actually happened!  She made the table into a stage, and announced the program to her audience.

And then she and Megan would argue over whose turn was next.

And then there was dancing!

Tyler came up to dance too!  (Someday I will get pants that stay on that kid, I swear.)

Kaitlyn really liked having an audience.

And then they told the audience to join in.  Dance party!

And somehow, somebody mentioned the Harlem Shake.  I have no idea how, but my brother Gary (seen above) managed to convince everyone to make the video, and set himself up as the videographer.

I was really, truly amazed at the sheer number of costumes they pulled out of nowhere in that house!  And here is it, the masterpiece.  (I'm number 16 if you can't find me.  And Christopher has a blue plaid shirt entering from the right side.)

My mom is up to 14 grandchildren, and we got a picture with as many as we could.  Too bad Jasmine had already gone to sleep for the night!

 It really was a fun night.

The next day we woke up early to go see a soccer game.  Well, we were late because Tyler slept in, but I'm glad we got to see as much as we did.

Seriously, my nieces and nephews are getting huge.  As in, almost six feet tall for many of them.  With driver's permits and everything.  It just astounds me.

My mom got to go to the high school concert that night for one of them, but the tickets were expensive and my kids are little.  Thankfully, we weren't the only ones not going, so we went over to Gary's house to play in their pool.  We were sad that we won't visit their house again though, since they are moving to Denver.  Not too much further away, but still sad to us.

We brought a little float for Jasmine to hang out in, and she did love that for a while.  But her favorite was hanging out on a large "shelf" with a few inches of water and her cousin Maya to play with.  I actually have a quite a few pictures of them together because it was just so adorable.  And then when she was done swimming, Jasmine just climbed out and wandered over to the shady couch.  Where Uncle Mike gave her an oreo.

So, needless to say, Jasmine had a great day.

And Tyler was a pretty happy guy too.  Last time we went swimming, Daddy tried to get him to test out the hot tub, but he was quite firm that "I do not want the hot water.  I like the cold water!" and wouldn't set more than one toe in.  But Gary had both set to the same temperature.  Since Tyler went in the "hot" tub first, and it was alright, he figured that made the other one the evil hot tub.  We spent a few minutes trying to convince him to come to the big pool, but eventually Daddy had to throw him in!  And even then, he panicked and told us he wanted to go to the "uh-ger" pool.

But we eventually gave him enough noodles that he decided to stay.

Skeptically.

 Underwater camera time!

Christopher and Maya spent a lot of time practicing and a few missed shots before we finally got "the Little Mermaid trick".  So funny.

And, of course, the rest of the time was spent goofing off!

Hmm, what else did we do?

Jasmine loved hanging out outside, chasing the doggies, and just exploring some new territory.

Oh, and brushing her sister's hair.

 And we ended the trip with a Mother's Day breakfast.  I wish I had gotten a good picture of the event, because everyone went all out!  Sydney woke up at the crack of dawn to decorate a table for all of the mothers with ribbons and balloons and flowers.  My brother Scot made us a gourmet meal with overnight french toast and coffee cake, and Maya doubled the batch of my kids' favorite banana pancakes.  It was just wonderful.

I think this pictures was about a minute before Jasmine flung that coffee cake into my mom's glass of milk.

We really did love our trip down there!  The only downside is that Jasmine screamed pretty much the entire way back.  She was just entirely sick of her car seat, and she couldn't get a true nap with all of us right there, so we all had to pay the price.  It is making us re-think any future trips with that girl for the time being.  That part wasn't the highlight of my Mother's Day.  I think the main highlight was spending it with my mom in the first place!

A month of nothin'

I was really surprised when I went to write this post and saw that I haven't posted in a month.  And yet, there really isn't a huge backlog of pictures to post on here.  Huh.  I guess we haven't done much in the last month, though it has felt busy to me.

The main thing that has made me busy is the chore charts.

We started this system with the kids, and so far it is going . . . pretty well.  Basically, they are both happy to do the tasks if one of us reminds them to do them.  Tyler is especially excited to get his check marks.  In fact, one night I went to check off his "pick up toys" spot and realized that while he hadn't picked up any toys, he hadn't been home enough to make a mess that day and it was late so I figured we would just call it good.  But he jumped up and started searching his room and the hallway for toys to put away so he could earn his check mark.  On the other hand, today was so busy that no one reminded them to do their chores and not many of them got done.

Kaitlyn, in contrast, is all about the money at the end.  We give them a dollar if their whole sheet is checked off and ten more pennies if they do any extra tasks like weeding or something.  Mostly I want them to get more practice with the coins and how much they are worth, and have Kaitlyn earning her money instead of searching the house for lost quarters to buy candy with.

And of course, I quickly realized that I shouldn't be asking the kids to do something I'm not, so now I have a chore chart too.  Since my cleaning habits lately have been really bad, the first week of that amounted to spring cleaning.  And boy, that wiped me out.  I think my goals are reasonable, I just have to keep up with them better than I have in the past.

So, the house is looking better than ever, but that task has consumed the last couple of weeks.

Huh, what else have we done?

We went to the Tulip Festival with Grandma.

It was FREEZING cold.  And windy.

Jasmine discovered the tunnel.  I am always amazed at how much those silly tunnels are loved.

She's running around the house now.  And climbing up stairs, but not down.  Still no words, but I think she is understanding us a bit now.  And of course, still imitates everything.  Like pointing at people and telling them what to do. (The jammies are too big, but the saggy bum made me laugh every time I saw it!)

Or grabbing a shovel to help Daddy dig holes for our new fence.

I got a new bike, so we've used that on the canal road a couple of times.  Jasmine loves it so much that anytime we set her down in the garage she heads right for it.  Oh, and if I have my hands on the handlebars when we are stopped, she picks my hand up and tosses it off so she can hold on.

Last time we took our dinner with us in a backpack and ate at a little picnic bench pavilion along the way.  It is so much fun to have kids that can ride now - even if they are really slow sometimes!

Kaitlyn learned her first piano song! She was just pushing random keys one day and told me that she was playing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat", and I thought I would try and teach it to her.  I never would have guessed she could learn the whole song, but it only took her about 20 minutes to pick up the whole thing.  She's pretty proud of herself.

Oh, and Kaitlyn broke a board at a Karate class, too.  Her friend is in the class, so she got to come try it out for a day.  She thinks she wants to take that instead of gymnastics next year so she can "learn to fight the monsters that come at night."  I would prefer ballet or gymnastics again, but we'll see what she picks.  It was a cute class though.

And Tyler is in love with playing the sword game on the Wii.  Watching him is hilarious!  And he really is good at it, somehow.  Which means that we have finally found something he is better at than Kaitlyn.  She wasn't so happy about that.

He beats her every time!  And he is really vocal about it, which is great for him. "I did win the game!  And Kay-yen did go in the water!"

Other than that, this month was pretty quiet, I guess.  But my mom flies into town on Tuesday, so life will be more crazy until school lets out!