Happy Fool's Easter!

April Fools = Easter = General Conference!

This was an unusual convergence this year.  Kaitlyn in particular thought it was a terrible one, since she had been hoping to prank all of her friends at school.  I was also disappointede that there would be no Easter dresses, since we would just watch conference in our pajamas at home.

Oh well. We found ways to make it fun.

We had the annual cousin egg hunt the day before.

And then we headed up to the cabin to dye some eggs for the bunny to hide. 

I just noticed there is a Christmas stocking in the background. Yikes.

The next morning we found eggs, and listened to Conference, since we forgot the TV box at home.  It was actually a really eventful Conference- lots of changes!

And then I made "grilled cheese" and "cake" for dinner.  It was actually angel food cake with "cheese" frosting in sandwich form, and the cake was meatloaf with colored mashed potatoes.  I thought it was amazing that the kids were in the small house while I was making it all, but they were still quite surprised!  I fooled them!

The kids each got a little stuffed peep from the Easter bunny, and Tyler made all sorts of little spots for them.  They got a couch made out of dominoes . . .

And when we got home, he made them an entire house, complete with a couch and bed inside.

That week was spring break.  So of course, on our week off from ice skating lessons, we went ice skating with cousins.

And our other project for the week was creating more computer stations.  We had one computer for the kids ever since Tyler was about 4.  But lately there had been more and more squabbles over whose turn it was, so we got a second one.  We built the desk to have room for two, after all.  What I didn't think through was that two was worse than one.  Instead of one "chosen" child on a computer and two left out, two got the happy spots and only one was left out.  So we needed to take out the center cabinet and make some leg room.  The IKEA desk I got fit perfectly under there, though that chair had to go.  Once Dad came back from his work trip, he got the third one set up, and it has been great.  Each kid has their own space, and their computers have their own time schedule as well.

We were sad that we didn't get to go anywhere, since Chris was out of town, but at least we were productive!

Bits of Winter Things

Time for all of the bits of pictures and stories that aren't big enough for their own post!

The girls got to wear "crazy ties" one day.  Good thing Daddy had two Christmas ties that sing!

I think I'm getting better at crazy hair day? A bit?

We picked up Tyler from his first campout with the Deacons and went sledding in our neighborhood one day.  Even tiny hills get exhausting quickly!

We rearranged the girls' room recently.  We didn't need the train table anymore, but the "dollhouse" bookcase has been put to good use.

Kaitlyn had an assignment for school to report on an assigned county in Utah.  Lucky for her, we were driving through there for our trip to Bryce Canyon, so she got to see it first hand!

Chris took Tyler and Chewy up to hike the G one warm day.  He said they did a great job!

And I took the girls to an Olympics kick-off at the rink.  We really enjoyed watching the Olympics this year, and the rink had a great party to celebrate it.

We went to a hockey game, and Jasmine asked me to take this picture to send to Uncle Dan.  She thought he should be there, since he took us to our hockey game in Ohio. :)

We haven't had a TV in our room for years.  Most of the time, I didn't miss it, but then we got one, and . . . it is kinda awesome.

We also got a new little vehicle for the cabin.  This one has 6 seat belts!  We might get snow treds for it sometime, but that will cost half again as much as the vehicle did.

It was a great day for a snow-shoe wander!  We hadn't done that in years.

I asked Mrs. Orton if I could come in and teach the kids about Pi day, which was fun.  They got to color their own hats to wear.  And Tyler decided to make our family matching hats to go with them.  Mine said "I luve you Mom" and Kaitlyn got one that said "Katlin si awesome!"

One of the perks from Christopher's traveling job is that he gets a free companion ticket every year.  It might not seem to exciting for me to join him in LA for a week, but we had a great time!

We hiked around Griffith Park, which was right near his job that week.

I got to check out a three story Target with no children to bother me. :)

We tried out the VOID virtual reality, and we even saw a show down in Laguna Beach.

I don't often "use" Tyler's diagnosis to get us into stuff, but there were free Jazz game tickets for the opening of their "sensory room", and it was awesome.  My neurotypical girls were just as into that room as my Autistic son, for the record.  Tyler found this weighted doggie friend and wanted to snuggle with him the entire night.

It was a really great winter!

Jasmine's 6th birthday

Jasmine's birthday comes last, each year, but hers was planned the earliest this time.  I took the girls to a Disney on Ice show last fall, and we all really loved it.  So when Christopher got an email that he could by tickets for the next show, which was a week after Jasmine's birthday, for $10, he bought a dozen of them.  There were moments where Jasmine wasn't entirely certain about the birthday party she didn't pick out, but we knew she would have a great time (and she did!).

On her actual birthday, we mainly opened presents.  She got a gift card to Bath and Body Works from Grandma and Grandpa Jones, since Grandma got to see over Christmas how much she loves that store.  Jasmine was totally in heaven picking out her big stash.

And then, a week later, it was time for the party!  I'm so grateful that her Aunt and Uncle said we could have the party at their house downtown.

She told me she didn't want a cake this year.  Just ice cream.  When I asked her if she maybe wanted an ice cream cake, her eyes went wide.  "What's that?!?"  Dairy Queen had a lot of cool flavors of cake, but the Minion won her over right away.

It was actually a LOT of ice cream for us all.  But totally worth it!

Then we walked over to the arena for the show.

We had quite the crew!  Our family of five, her Aunt, Uncle and two cousins, and then three friends from her preschool class last year.

I bought a 24 pack of foam light sticks for party favors.  Light up toys are all the rage at these shows, we found.

Goofy kiddos!

A birthday snapshot of Jasmine:

*We generally call Tyler by his name, and Kaitlyn by hers, but Jasmine has many nicknames.  Jas-Jas, Jas-ah-mah, and sometimes she likes to go by her middle name, Marie.  She's just too spunky for a boring name!

*She has ended up with many hobbies that match her sister, which I sometimes feel bad about.  I want her to be her own person, too.  But she really does love to do things that Kaitlyn does.  She was thrilled to bits when the thrift store had Heelys in her size so that she could learn to skate around all day like Kaitlyn does.  She loves to have an American Girl doll just like Kaitlyn.  I put her in ice skating lessons just because we were already driving there, and the first session was a bit rough for her.  But now, she loves to zip around the rink almost as much as Kaitlyn does.  And she felt left out of violin lesson, so we arranged for our half an hour lesson to be 25 minutes of Kaitlyn, and a 5 minute session for Jasmine.

*She is such a bright little girl!  She started on easy readers last summer a bit, and then for the first half of the school year, I would read to her for her homework.  And then one day, I handed her the book, and it turns out she could just  . . . read!  I love seeing that whole new world open up for her.  She loves to be included in that secret code, and wants to read everything she can.  And she is nearly the top of her class in math!

*She loves Singer's Club!  She loves to sing and dance around, and being on stage is a lot of fun for her, too.

*She absolutely LOVED school this year with Mrs. Orton!  Every day when I picked her up, she would ramble on about what she had for snack that day, and what all of her friends got up to.  But she has a truly special place in her heart for her beloved Mrs. Orton.  She runs her classroom with exactness and kindness, and is just amazing.  The day before her year-end test, Jasmine asked me if she did badly enough, could she stay with Mrs. Orton again next year?  I assured her that Mrs. Orton knew how smart she is, and "throwing" the test wouldn't actually change anything, but I had to just laugh.

*She is almost done with mispronouncing words, but I refuse to correct her on the last few because they are just too cute.  A primary song sings about how a father "protects me", and she sings "por-tec me", for example.

*Jasmine also really, really loved going to Grandma and Grandpa's house.  She has asked many times since when she can go back.  I hope we can make that happen again soon.

*She has recently become enamored with babies.  Tyler has barely outgrown that stage, I think.  But Jasmine sees a little toddler or baby and dashes over to say hi and try to help it with  . . . something.  Which is quite adorable, even if sometimes a bit intrusive.

*Jasmine told me recently that when she grows up, she either wants a job giving  "maj-jah-jes" (and she really is good at massages), or else she wants to work at McDonalds.  Which is I guess high on her list because I generally refuse to take her there.  She told me that it is very busy there, so it would be a lot of work, but lots of people means she would get more money, so that sounded good to her.

*And most of all, I love her sweet snuggles!

Valentine's Day

Tyler has basically aged out of Valentine's Day at school, but the girls still had some fun.  Kaitlyn needed to make a box, and decided she would like a Stranger Things box. With cute Harry Potter Valentines to give away.

One character really likes Eggo waffles, I guess, which for us meant that we had enough frozen waffles to last months and months.

I signed up to do a "center" in her class for many of the holidays this year.  When I searched Pinterest for a Valentine's activity, I found an awesome idea to create Binary code from pony beads on pipe cleaners.  It took a bit of work to make sheets for everyone, but her teacher absolutely loved it!  My favorite part was switching it from putting all the beads on a bracelet, like the Pinterest person had, to forming the pipe cleaner into the letter of the code they just made.  I had trouble figuring out how to keep the letters on there- I tried staples - but poking a hole though and folding the pipe cleaner back worked perfectly.  And I think the kids had fun, too.  I told them they were learning a special "robot language".

Kaitlyn was sad that "you never help in MY class!" so I volunteered in her room, too.  I manned the cookie decorating station.

Bryce Canyon

We found the cheap deal for a hotel at Bryce in the winter again, and decided to go for it.  We really love that park!

Our first order of business in the morning was to check out the ice skating rink.  It hadn't been open the other times we had traveled there, and since the girls had been in lessons since last summer, they were really excited to check it out.  I think it might have been the last day it was open in our unusually warm winter, but at least it was open!

And we had the entire rink to ourselves.  For the $2 to rent Jasmine's skates, since Kaitlyn and I brought ours.

We were in heaven.  The workers even played Disney music for us to skate around to.

The only reason I was eventually able to convince them to leave was because Kaitlyn had a minor fall and finally decided she was ready to meet up with Daddy and Tyler.

Previously, we had only walked along the ridge, or visited overlook trails.  But this time we decided that the kids were good enough hikers to hike down an into the valley.  Kaitlyn was worried about her hurt knee from ice skating, but afterward, she agreed that it wasn't nearly as bad as she thought it might be.  And we all loved the scenery!  It was a great hike.

I'm terrible at selfies.  So Chris decided to take a picture of me trying to take a picture.

One of my husband's favorite parts of the visitors center is geeking out at their solar panel station. 

And of course, we had to spend a lot of time at the pool!

I told the kids they could each get one small item in the shop, and Kaitlyn picked this non-descript geode to break with her class.  In fact, her teacher had bought some geodes to break together that very next week.  The ones her teacher bought were pretty boring looking inside, but Kaitlyn's was amazingly sparkly! 

As a side note, Kaitlyn's class reward system involved tickets.  You got tickets for doing good things, and could turn them in for rewards.  But the kids started their own black market with tickets pretty quickly.  They would sell each other bits of their lunch for tickets.  And in this case, Kaitlyn made a killing selling off the bits of her geode that broke off to everyone in her class.  She said that by the end, no one else had any tickets left but her!