Tag: Allison

Girl Scout Campout!

At the end of the year Alli’s Girl Scout Troop uses any of the leftover funds they have from selling cookies to do a bigger activity together. They had the girls vote between spending the night at the zoo, or spending the night at a horse ranch and then going on a horse ride the next day. The majority of the vote was for horseback riding. That is what Alli voted for much to her delight.

I asked Alli if she wanted me to go with her or let her do it alone. It could go either way with her. She said she wanted me to come so I signed up with her. It has been about a year since either of us has camped. We went camping as a family last summer. This is our first just her and I camping together though. We picked up her bestie Carlee and her mom and carpooled together to the ranch. The girls have actually rode horses at the ranch we stayed at before but this is the first time they spent the night.

We set up camp when we got there. I brought our little three person tent so that only her and I could fit in it. (Cranky lady-yes. Happier camper-yes.) I started setting it up a bit away from the other tents (for noise purposes) and went to get some stuff from the car. When I got back one of the leaders had moved my tarp and started staking it next to the other tents with barely enough space to walk between the tents. She smiled at me and said something like she wants us to all be cozy and in the action together. Later that evening the same leader announced she would be sleeping in her car instead of the tents-not very cozy of her if you ask me.

The leaders brought all the food so it was nice to not have to worry about packing all that stuff. They said to being a water bottle which we did, but they neglected to mention that meant and water to refill it the whole time. Luckily my kids annoying habit of opening a water bottle taking two sips then getting another one the next time they need a drink came in handy. I found enough partially filled water bottles in the back of the van to last for the time we were there. Which wasn’t very long but it was HOT!! It was in the 90’s with a 100+ heat index.

Friday night we went on a short hike to the lake, ate dinner, played games, played soccer, walked around the horse pens, played with the local dogs and cats, roasted smores and had a fun time together.

Allison doesn’t like eating smores but she is a very good marshmallow roaster so she kept the smores coming for me and then anyone else that would take them.

About 11 o’clock the leader called it for the night and sent everyone to their tents. Then one leader left and went home to return in the morning and the other one went to her car and closed herself in a quiet private sleeping area. The other three moms and myself were left with 8 hyped up on sugar girl scouts. Our tents were so close we might as well have all been in the same one. It was a long night and I was quickly reminded how much I don’t like camping in the summer in Kansas, but also in general. I am becoming less and less a fan everytime I do it. Everyone finally fell asleep sometime after midnight and we were able to sweat and try and get comfortable in silence until 5 am when some dog started barking and woke everyone up. At which point I discovered that at some point between 1-5 am I actually had slept deep enough to let a spider that was hiding somewhere in our tent-my sleeping bag specifically- had bitten me 7-8 times and I had huge welts starting all over my legs and torso. Reason number eleventy billion I don’t like sleeping in a tent. Since everyone was up we packed everything up and ate breakfast and got ready for the horse ride…and waited almost two hours to go. Did I mention the girls woke up at 5 am. We were supposed to ride at 10, but because of the heat and our early rising, they started getting the horses ready sooner and we started at 8:30 am.

It was quite a group of us, between the girls, moms, and guides there was about twenty of us. Alli road a horse named Luna which one of the guides told me was sometimes short for Lunatic because she was a little onery and sassy. The guide told Alli that she would have to be stern with her and give her a little kick if she didn’t want to listen or she would do whatever she wanted (eat, go a different direction, just stop). Alli thought that was great. She loves a free spirit take charge kind of attitude. Her horse did stop and hold the line up a few times too. One time it started running to catch up, the guide was worried Alli was scared until she heard her squeels of delight. I rode on Nelly. She was a little wobbly sometimes, I kept thinking we were going to fall on our faces, but she was a good horse and nice and calm. It was an enjoyable ride.

Once we got back from the ride, the girls helped put the saddles away, brushed and groomed the horses, lead them back to their pens and mucked out the stalls to earn their equestrian badge. I went on a short walk around the barn to loosen up my knees from the ride because I am getting old and could barely walk when we got back. When I returned from my walk the girls were just finishing cleaning the stalls. Allison was talking to the lady in charge about coming to clean up the stalls for her whenever she wants for just $5… the lady said, “sure you can pay me $5 to come clean them out.” Obviously it wasn’t her first offer from a girl scout. Ha!

We headed home shortly after that. The boys were at the Royals game for Matthew’s Christmas present, so the girls helped me air out and clean up all the camping stuff and we went to the pool. We had it all to ourselves so I laid in the zero entry part and dozed a little while they played. It was wonderfully relaxing. I’m a beach girl not a camper.

By that night I had about a dozen chigger bites pop up all over me to go along with my spider bites. Apparently the bug spray expired between the time I sprayed Alli and then myself. Luckily she didn’t get any bites. I was an itching miserable mess for the next few days.

I asked Alli if she had a fun time and wanted to do it again. She said she loved the horses part but didn’t really like camping. I am cool with that. We can do other fun activities together that don’t involve bugs, dirt, sweat, and port-a-potties all night long. Emilee who is usually inseparable from me is not an outdoorsy person either. She does not even like picking strawberries or blueberries with us because its to ‘melty and bugsy’ (hot, humid, and to muchnature). When I gave her a kiss goodbye before the campout she asked where I was going. When I told her she said, “See you tomorrow!” without a second thought. I guess we will all be softies together and save camping for ‘only when necessary’. At least in Kansas.

Alli Leading a horse

 

 

Girls Camp 2018

Allison had to be convinced to go to Girls Scout Camp at first. She was a little perterbed that it wasn’t actually camping. It would be more accurately described as a day camp I guess. She wanted to spend the night. She said she would still go once she found out that her bestie Carlee was going to be there though. She ended up being very happy that she went.

We made all her ‘swaps’ to trade. I have a picture of some of those in an earlier post. She ended up with over 50 when she was all done making them. She put about half on her hat for the first day, it was so heavy it kept falling off of her head. Ironically she traded some the first day then decided that she liked hers the best so she stopped trading so she could keep her own.

She was up and ready to go everyday without any proding. She laid everything out the night before then wrote a list to check off in the morning to make sure she had everything, even though she had already checked everything off on the list she made to pack everything the night before. Hehehe! That is a little bit of myself coming out in her-makes a momma proud. We share the love of making lists. Hahaha! Actually, I have seen Ryan do that too when he has a fun golf trip the next day or he is leaving on his annual Vegas Guys Trip.

She had a blast. The bus ride to and from the camp was about 40 minutes and that was one of the best parts. There were lots of crafts to do, they went fishing, hiking, zip lining, had a cook out, archery, and a little free time to make sure there was plenty of time to swap their swaps.

Camp was Tuesday thru Friday. When I was picking her up on Thursday I heard someone yell, “Bye Taylor, see you tomorrow.” To which Alli said, “Bye see you tomorrow.”  I looked at her with a questioning look and she said, “Oh, I told everyone that my name is Taylor this week.” I don’t know where she comes up with her ideas sometimes.

Overall, ‘Taylor’ had a fun time and was glad she went. She is getting older and able to do more activities and be a little busier with her own stuff. It is helping her a lot to be happier and more satisfied. Sometimes she struggles with not getting to do everything that Matthew does, and has a hard time accepting that he is four years older than her. Someday that won’t be that big of a difference but right now it is pretty signifigant. She is very independent and motivated so she thinks that qualifies her to do anything an 11 year old can do. It is not just the age difference though. Matthew and her have very different personalities and their responsibility and realiability play a roll in it too which she doesn’t understand. I don’t expect her to grasp that either, it can just make for some frusterating repetative conversations for both of us.

She is still loving gymnastics, she decided to sign up to do Girl Scouts again next year, and is looking forward to resuming piano in the Fall as well. Top that off with being in 3rd grade and she should feel pretty busy with her own things going on.

Sarah returns!

A few weeks ago Ryan and Matthew had something going on and it was a gorgeous night so we went to a park to play. I was pushing the girls in the swings and realized that I knew the person standing next to us. Her name was Nikki and her younger sister Sarah was my kids first babysitter. She used to watch them when I worked in the summer and then through out the school year for dates and stuff. The kids LOVE her. She was their main babysitter for about 4 years until she moved to California. They still talk about her and remember all the amazing times they had with Sarah.  She is graduated now and actually just got back from a mission about a month ago. Her parents are still in California but she came to visit her sister for a few days and happened to be on her way to meet Nikki at the park. My kids were over the moon excited when she showed up. They were running and playing tag with her within 5 minutes and so excited to see her.

When the girls told Matthew about it later that night he was pretty disappointed he didn’t get to see her. She ended up stopping by later that week for a few minutes to see Matthew too. I thought he might be ‘to cool’ but he was just as happy as the girls and had perma grin the whole time she was there. Emilee couldn’t get close enough to her and Allison was trying to tell and show her everything about her life in ten minutes. It was pretty cute. I love that they have those fun memories of her babysitting them. I think Matthew was 6 the last time she watched them. Emilee was only 1-2 so she doesn’t even have any actual memories of her but the older two have built her up so much she loves her by association. I am glad we ran into her. She was only here for a week then headed home for a bit before going to school, so it was good timing.

Summer begins!

Well yesterday was Matthew and Allison’s last day of school, and today was Emilee’s so we are officially in summer mode!

Emilee and I went to the elementary school for the last hour or so to watch the 5th grade slide show with Matthew and eat treats with him while they signed t-shirts and year books. Then we went to Alli’s class and ate popsicles and danced and took silly pictures with her. Then the whole school lined up in the halls and all the 5th graders walked through the school for their ‘final walk’ while everyone cheered and gave them a high five. It was a fun time.

Emi had a fun time today for her last day and got her little preschool diploma and gave Ms. Cristi a big hug. She will see her a few times over the summer when I work, but once kindergarten starts next year we probably won’t see Ms. Cristi to often anymore. She is an awesome teacher. Allison and Emilee love her to death. They love her so much that Matthew holds a grudge against me for not having him go to her for preschool. (It was her first year and I already had him enrolled in another one when I found out she was going to do it). Apparently his preschool experience was hardly bearable.

Switching topics a little, a few years ago we started working with a therapist with Allison to help her deal with her emotions a little better. One of the things he wanted us to start implementing right away was a ticket system that basically for doing things we want her to do she earns tickets and then can use those tickets to do things she wants to do. It is supposed to help her learn cause/effect, choice/consequence, need/wants, etc. We started out all gung-ho and did good and then have been off and on after the first little while with it. I won’t bore you with all the details as to why but it has become a pain in my butt. Everytime we go see him I know he is going to ask me if we are doing it, and I always go in with the intentions of telling him where he can stick his stupid ticket system, and then I always leave telling him we will rally and try again. He is a good therapist…or at least good at getting you to agree with him to do something. So we go home try it again and start the cycle over again. Again, I won’t bore you with details as to why it falls apart and all the different things we have tried, but two years later we haven’t figured out how to make it maintainable…until now…I think…I hope.

I found an app the other day called Chore Monster. Basically it is the same thing her therapist has been wanting us to do. The app tells them their chores for the day and when they do it they get points and they can use the points for rewards. Same thing. Being electronic for some reason makes a huge difference for me. There is a parent app that goes with it called Mothershp. So I had to basically plug in the ‘master chore chart’ and the rewards and then the kids can get on any of our phones or ipads and find their chart. I can totally cater it to each kid and make it more specific for one and general for another. It is easy to change if something isn’t working (without certain kids even realizing it and throwing a fit), I don’t have to redo a whole chart or carry stupid tickets everywhere with me, or remember to get or give tickets because I didn’t have them on me. They don’t get lost, they can’t be torn up, scribbled on, or leave me mean notes. The parents are the only one with access to changing things. All the kids have to do it click ‘done’ or ‘claim’. I can even set it up for Matthew that he can just basically use it as a reference so he knows what his jobs are because he doesn’t need to be monitored as much, except for his electronic usage which this will do too. For the girls I get a notification when they complete a chore so I can approve it or not, which is awesome because I can check it right then to make sure it was done right or not. Which leads into another thing we are working on this summer.

Each summer we make a bucket list of fun activities we want to do. Each summer I also have to adjust and let go of my house being as clean as I like it all the time, which is something I like and want but I don’t want it to be more important than other things to me. I do feel like the kids should help contribute to keeping the house clean though since we all live in it and they should learn to care for their surroundings. So, last night Ryan and I told the kids that along with our regular bucket list we were going to have a summer theme too. We had a mini family meeting to tell them that the theme we picked for this summer is ‘Work hard and play hard’. We even made a poster to hang up to remind everyone of the theme everyday. Then we talked about using our time wisely and doing our jobs we are supposed to do, to the best of our ability and try our hardest the first time. We talked about how learning to work is good thing and helps them become responsible capable people. All things that Ryan and I have been wanting to improve and work on lately. Then we showed them the app and how it works.

Of course there was some skeptisism and baching but today was our first day and it went pretty good. They like that it is an app too so they get to use the phone or ipad to see their jobs and use an electronic.  The app also gives them a ticket everytime they complete or cash in their points. Just a fun little side thing the app does is there is a little wheel they can spin with each ticket and win a ‘prize’. It is totally silly, the prizes are another spin if they get a smiley face, if they get a sad face it is a bag of hammers, or a dirty sock, or Matthew got a bag of farts last night. The wheel is just a little bonus. They don’t actually get anything from spinning but they think it is hilarious to see what is in the bag.

Today was our first day of implementing it. The kids got up and got their jobs done and then started using their points to play. It worked pretty good, they all did their jobs, they all have plenty of points, they all had fun doing things. It was a good day. Crossing my fingers that it keeps working.

We also started crossing a few things off our Summer Bucket List too.  We went to lunch with dad. We got new books to ready at the library (first of many times this summer). We went swimming (also first of many times). AND we always have a night or two that we go fire fly hunting. A friend of ours told us about a really cool place she found that has tons of fire flies so the girls and I went to check it out tonight. It was amazing, there were thousands of them, we will have to take dad and Matthew with us another time (they were at a baseball thing). I took some pictures and videos but they don’t do it justice.

 

Sweet Baby James

Ryan is a big James Taylor fan. He has been since high school.  When we were dating I was ‘tested’ to see if I was cool enough to appreciate a little JT music. I knew a few of his songs and liked them but wouldn’t call myself an avid fan or anything. Later on when our kids were born Ryan and I both sang them several different lullaby’s. I stuck with mostly a variety of primary songs. Ryan’s favorites to sing them were the Spanish ‘Aye, Aye, Aye, Aye’ song (which is actually a Spanish drinking song but the way he sings it sounds like a sweet lullaby and none of us understand what he is saying) and ‘Sweet Baby James’ by James Taylor. He is still one of our family favorites to sing to on our spontaneous road trip karaoke break outs.

A couple years ago, James Taylor did a one night concert at the Star Light Theater… we totally missed it, and didn’t even know about it until about a week after it happened. Ryan was more than a little disappointed. Chances of another opportunity seem pretty slim. Well, a few weeks ago when the girls and I went to the Sprint Center for Disney on Ice, I was looking at their upcoming events and noticed there was a one night concert for James Taylor in May! Yeah!! We got tickets and are going next week. Ryan is pretty excited. James Taylor probably won’t be doing concerts to much longer so he is glad we got another chance to see him. He is even missing Matthew’s baseball game to go, which is a very rare occurrence (Matthew isn’t missing it 🙂 ).

Sticking with the James Taylor theme I am going to post a video I have had on my phone for years. A little blast from the past. It is pretty stinking cute. We had to drop one of our cars off to get something fixed so the kids and I took Ryan to work. We were about halfway home and ‘Sweet Baby James’ came on and Matthew and Alli were singing it pretty good, so I pulled over in a parking lot and started it over to get a video of them.  Matthew is about 7, Allison is 3, and Emilee who unfortunately is never shown in this video (I was focused on my singers and she wasn’t singing) is sitting next to Matthew is 1.u

After the concert…

We saw James Taylor last night. We had a great time, it was a good concert. I recorded him when he talked and then sang ‘Sweet Baby James’

Allison’s Talent Show Performance

Allison decided that she wanted to be in the 2nd grade talent show this year. Allison and her bestie Carlee and their friend Hailey put it all together by themselves at recess and signed up. I had seen Allison practice her part a little but I had not seen all of them do it until they performed it today. They did a great job. They wanted it to have gymnastics and cheerleading stuff in it, and have a good beat. They had a lot of fun doing it. I am proud of her for taking the initiative and planning and preparing something. She woke up at 6:30 this morning to do her hair and had me help her do her nails too.

Later that month she had her award ceremony for 2nd grade. I had to work but Ryan went and watched her get her ‘Amazing Author’ award. I think that is very fitting award for her. She is a creative thinker for sure. Ryan took a picture, I almost just think I should skip it but since I have it I will include it. I reviewed his picture taking responsibilities after he sent this and I found out it was the only one he took. :-/ Alli is just to the right or center with a white shirt and orange sleeves getting her award…kind of hard to see.

Moments of the week.

This has been a good week. I have tried to focus on ‘the little things’ more and enjoy the moments. There have been lots of good moments.

Allison has day camp coming up for Girl Scouts. They are supposed to make little trinkets called ‘swaps’ to pin to their hats and trade with each other all week. They suggested that each girl bring 15-20 of them to have ready to trade. Alli and I did some research together and found some cute ones she wanted to make and then we went to Hobby Lobby and got all the supplies for them. We have worked on them a little bit for the past few nights. She has at least 35 now. She is pretty excited. She is counting down the days until camp. The one on the left is a cotton candy swap, the middle one is a ‘squishum’, and the right side is a slime stress ball of course. It wouldn’t be right if slime weren’t involved somehow.

Emilee and I went to the Zoo together. She has wanted to go for a while but the weather or our schedule hasn’t cooperated. Usually we go with a group but it was just the two of us so she got to sit on any statue she saw, choose where we sat on the train, tram, and skyfari, and pick all the animals she wanted to see. Today we made cookies together too. I let her measure everything herself even though I had almost the same amount of flour on the floor as the cookies did when we were done.

With Matthew I have cornered him a few times and made him talk with his mom. He tries to act like it is an inconvenience but he loves it. Once he starts talking he just keeps going and going. He is good at including all the details he can recall. He had a double header tonight. He has been working hard on hitting lately and he has decided he wants to start working on pitching too. He had some great hits tonight but his play of the game was when he was playing 2nd and the hitter hit a line drive a little to Matthew’s left. Matthew ran at it then leaped and caught it in mid air and closed the inning. It was pretty awesome. He got a standing cheering ovation from me and the rest of the parents of course but he even had parents from the other team coming over and telling him what an amazing catch it was. He was pretty happy.

 

Alli our artist

These are a few of Alli’s most recent art projects she has brought home from school. Allison is our little artist. She is very creative and when she does a craft for the first time it is usually at a level it took me several tries to get to. She is good at drawing, painting, chalks, making things from clay, or anything else. The other day she raided my craft drawer and is working on making a bird house out of popsicle sticks. She has a sweet little heart and can be very thoughtful. She often makes cards for everyone in her class at school and puts them in everyone’s cubbies at school.

I was talking with my mom today and was telling her that Alli started out good but took a quick turn and had a rough morning. Allison is so passionate, there is no middle ground for her feelings, whatever they are. She has always been like that. She has a very strong personality. She is very much like my sister Sherri. In fact it is almost eerie how similar they are. It is amazing how genetics can come through from different family members. My mom made the comment that she hopes Alli will realize how special she is. I couldn’t agree more. I worry for her that she is so harsh and defensive sometimes because she is unsure of herself.  I pray everyday that I can help her develop a strong sense of self worth. She is very smart, she has a very quick wit and funny sense of humor. She can be the sweetest, most helpful little girl. She loves it when there is a little baby or toddler around so she can follow them around and help take care of them. She doesn’t have a shy bone in her, and is a natural leader. She loves trying new things. She likes knowing whats going on and being in on whatever people are talking about or doing. She tells me all the latest news from school for 2nd grade and 5th. She likes to walk home with a bunch of the girls in 5th grade with Matthew. I signed her up for a singing/acting/stunt show camp this summer. I think she will totally love it. Drama, drama, drama is what she loves. She likes to know everyone and their stories but she tends to have a few closer friends instead of a big group of friends. And when Allison decides you are her friend and she feels like she trusts you, you have her loyalty forever. She has a great memory. She is a strong determined beautiful little girl. I hope and pray she realizes and knows that. I am excited to see her grow into her potential.

Days can be long but the years are short.

I think this time of year with Spring finally coming and things blooming and changing and getting to be outside more and summer getting close and the school year starting to wrap up I start to feel naustalgic.  We have a few months left before we officially finish up the toddler phase of our family and enter the everyone is in school all day phase of our family. It is a bitter sweet feeling. On the obvious side of the perks of having the kids at school and the time that opens up to get stuff done faster and get to things that have been put off for a long time that will be nice. It will be nice to be able to get stuff done so once they get home I can focus on just them and not have other distractions. On the other hand though I will really miss having some company during the day. For the last 12 years of my life I have had at least one of my kids with me for the majority if not all of the day. This is going to be a big change. Things just aren’t the same once they start school, everything speeds up.

I remember before Matthew started kindergarten I thought the parents that said they cried when they took their kids to school for the first time were kind of weird. I envisioned myself doing a cartwheel. Then I took Matthew to kindergarten and I wasn’t crying (ok, I cried when I got home) but it pulled at my heart strings a lot more than I expected. He had been my buddy. He is such a good kid too. He is so kind and pleasant to be around. His cute little giggle and adorable smile. He loved to play and run and do whatever I was doing. He is a thinker and is good at making people around him feel good. One of my favorite memories of Matthew is when he was about 18 months pushing his little bubble lawn mower next to his dad and wearing one of Ryan’s hats while Ryan mowed the lawn. I remember watching them and wishing I could push pause on time for a while. Contrast that to yesterday while Ryan and I were working in the yard and Matthew was riding MY bike in circles in the driveway while he talked with us. He is still an amazing kid but he is starting to get a little teenager in him and doesn’t want to hang out as much as he used to or has a lot of things going on with friends and baseball that keep him busy.

Allison was my saving grace when Matthew started kindergarten. She was still home with me to keep me company. With her little determined independent self accompanied by her cute little bouncing blond pony tails she has always been a force to be wreckened with. She has always been ready to go out and explore the world around her. I could put Matthew and Emilee on a blanket on the grass and they wouldn’t leave because they didn’t like the poky grass. Allison never paused for a second, she would immediatley take off to explore through whatever terrain surrounded her. Her being the middle child Emilee was on her way so she didn’t get as much one on one as everyone else. But we still had many fun times together at the park, or on walks, or story time at the library, playgroup, and anything else we did. She was very good to Emilee and liked to take care of her and help with what she needed. Allison was only going to be five by a couple weeks when she started kindergarten so she only did one year of preschool. She really is an independent person and wants to do everything her older brother does so she had no problem starting school and never looked back. I am more of a home body and she is the exact opposite so sometimes it is exhausting for me to keep her satified with getting out and doing things but I am glad she is that way. She is already great at making things happen instead of waiting for things to happen.

Matthew and Alli were only half day kindergarten, which I thought was perfect for them. Last year was the last year Kansas did half day kindergarten so when Emilee starts next Fall she will be gone all day. I think she will do fine with it. She will be almost six when she starts and has reached the stage where she wants more social interaction and activities going on during the day. I am the one that is going to struggle with it. Emilee is a joyful easy companion. She is fun to take pretty much wherever I go. She has done preschool a few days a week the past two years but it will be very different to have her gone all day. She is my little buddy. I will miss having her joyful little self skipping around the house. I have been feeling a little glum lately wanting to push a pause button on time again. When I got her preschool pictures back it got me thinking about it all again.

I love watching my kids and discovering the traits they were born with from day one and the things they learn and develop along the way. I know I am not done with that either, like I said it is just changing. When we left the baby phase for good, I was a little sad about that too. Our new phase has its perks too. It is pretty easy to hop in the car and go places now. Our Florida trip really was pretty nice, everyone can entertain themselves and can handle being in the car all day. The girls still need a little help but everyone can get themselves ready for things for the most part. I also like them being able to explain and talk things through more, and have a few more reasoning skills.

To sum up, I am happy and gratful I get to be a mom, and I get to be a mom that gets to stay home with her kids. The sleepless nights, blow-outs, being thrown up on, crying, tantrums, fits, sickness, messes, diaper changes, days without a shower, no adult interaction, reading the same book 50 times in a row, singing the ABC’s ‘one more time’, and all the other exhausting sometimes mind numbing activities that aren’t the easiest part of being a mom are completely worth every hug, smile, kiss, giggle, snuggle, laugh, joyful discovery, dried tear, fixed ouchie, silly, funny, happy, once in a lifetime moments that come along with it.

Here is some of my favorite moments from the past few years.

 

 

Easter Weekend

The last few weeks have been flying by! I’ll start with Easter and work backwards. This past weekend was Easter and also General Conference for church. It was also April Fool’s day much to Alli’s delight, and we got to have Grandma and Grandpa Jones come visit us for the weekend.

Friday night started with the girls and I going to Disney on Ice with Aliya, Cambrie and Lori McDonald. They had a special offer through the girl scouts and Lori’s daughters are in girl scouts too so we all went together. It was really good! Disney always does a good job. Everyone had a fun time and got to sing along to fun songs. Emilee was over the moon excited that Moana was part of it. Allison sang her little heart out for the Frozen songs.  After the show they had a special behind the scenes for the girl scouts. We went down and sat right by the ice rink and they showed us different things that make the show work and told us fun stuff about the show, and we watched some skating of course. We were so close we got sprayed with the ice when they went by. We were all hungry afterwards so we went to Freddy’s for some hamburgers and ice cream.  It was a really fun girls night.

Saturday we watched conference and played games with Grandma and Grandpa.  I have been teaching Allison a few card games, so she wanted everyone to play Wacky Six together. All of us can play except Emilee but she just sat at the table with us and colored and got to tell us when to start the round.  My parents and I also went to Spring Hill and looked around at some houses there. Hopefully they will be moving by one of their kids soon so I wanted to tempt them with some possibilities here if they end up in Kansas.

Sunday was a relaxed morning, the kids went through their baskets and found all the eggs. Aaron’s Easter basket has a little Easter lesson in it that we do every year. We usually do it for FHE the week before but we hadn’t done it yet so we did that too. We watched the rest of Conference Sunday. It was a really nice Conference, they changed several programs and ways that things are organized. They talked a  lot about ministering to those around us and taking care of others. We set out snacks like we usually do with a word that is said often in conference by each snack. When the kids hear the word they can pick a snack out of the bowl. It helps them pay attention a little better and they look forward to having fun snacks. We like to have ham and cheesy potatoes for Easter so we did that for dinner. My parents didn’t have to leave until Monday so we finished up the evening with more games.  It is always fun to have grandparents come to visit.

Allison has been counting the days down to April Fool’s day for almost a month. She was giddy about it. She doesn’t quite get what you are supposed to do though, so she used it as a day to be ridiculously silly more than pranks-which is fine with me. At one point she was wearing her clothes inside out, my bra on top of that, her hair in a pony under her chin so it looked hairy, and every body part she could reach labeled with a sticky note. I helped her do a few things like hide a few extra eggs with peas and carrots in them, and putting food coloring in the bottom of everyone’s cup so the milk changed colors. She has some pre-April Fool’s jokes throughout the month while she anticipated the actual day. All of us had our turn of going to get dressed one morning and finding instead of our own underwear, someone elses.

Emilee had a momentous occasion this past week. She lost her first tooth. It has been wiggly forever. She is going to be one of those kids that hangs onto her teeth until they fall out completely on their own. She could have wiggled it out days before it finally fell out. It was exciting for her though. Before we know it our youngest isn’t going to be so young anymore.

The weekend before Easter Grandma and Grandpa Terry came down for the weekend. They stayed at Ross and Lauren’s so we spent most of the weekend over at their house. Roger is getting ready to retire this summer so we talked with them about moving down here by us sooner rather than later. It was a pretty busy weekend with baseball, soccer, cleaning the church, a baptism, and other things so we didn’t get to see them as much as we would like but we are always glad when they come for a visit.

Earlier this month I was working on a Monday and left for work about 7am. When I work Ryan drops the kids off at school and then heads to work around 7:45. Earlier that weekend I had driven Ryan’s car for some reason. His car has a key you don’t have to put in the ignition. It just has to be on your person somewhere, and we only have one of them. I usually try to just not drive his car because I always forget to take the key out of my purse afterwards and there have been far to many times where I leave with his key and have to bring it back to him. It is very frustrating for all involved. So as you can probably guess, I forgot again and was 35 minutes away working in a dental office when Ryan called to see if I had his key. Grrrr. It gets better though. I found someone to pick Emilee up and take her to preschool and Ryan said he would walk the other two to school, and actually he had been planning on working from home so he was set. Now it gets worse. When it was time to walk to school it is not just sprinkling or drizzling rain. It is a solid steady down pour of rain. Allison was not swayed at and she grabbed her stuff and was out the door. Matthew was not so cooperative. Stubborn little stinker. If he gets hit with a 50 mph baseball he shakes it off like nothing happened, but if you tell him he has to get wet or cold against his will and he will have none of it. He refused to walk in the rain. Refused. Ryan asked, told, demanded, threatened loss of electronics (this usually works 99% of the time for Matthew), actually took away electronics,  bribed , begged, and demanded again, Matthew would not go. So he started doing the list of chores that would take him all day long to do instead of going to school. About this time Emilee’s ride came to pick her up and Matthew asked her to drop him off at school on the way. Like I said- Stinker.

Baseball season has started…but no one told the weather. Our first few scrimmages, outdoor practices and game or two have been canceled because of cold, rain, and snow. We have a game tonight that was rescheduled from a week ago. Matthew has been checking the weather every five minutes hoping it will cooperate. So far so good. He will be excited to have the first game under his belt and really get into baseball season.