Easter eggs and dresses

Spring break is finally over and I'm kinda relieved. I don't know what it was about last week but I felt like I was a beat off the whole week. Hopefully I can get back into the groove this week and get some things done.
Since next week is Conference I decided to put the girls in their Easter dresses a week early. My mom found these cute hats for them and we found a cute dress to match Brynlee's. Poor Kylee has to wear the hand-me-down dress from Bryn, but it's still cute and went perfectly with her hat.
This is of course the pre-church picture. Jeremy kept thwarting my efforts to have a cute baby. He kept pushing her hat back and eventually just took it off of her. The kicker was when he brought her to me in Primary 20 minutes early (he keeps her during Sunday School then I get her the last hour of church) because she was being fussy! "Well how about I bring the kids to you at work when they are bugging me?" He wouldn't make it one day in my shoes. Luckily my friend Indhi watched her while I did music time (not my regular calling, just filling in. And boy do I sound like a wounded duck when I sing).

Brynlee looked so adorable, but the hat didn't hold up to all the fun in nursery. She was a wild haired girl when I came to pick her up. But at least I got a cute picture before. The post church picture would have been pretty pathetic.

We decorated some eggs this week too. We did them with markers. Messy yet not as bad as dipping them in the dye. The kids hands did get messy, but I didn't have to clean spilled dye up off the floor and table. Plus we had a great time doing it. One egg looked like Jeremy, but it doesn't really show in the picture.

One high point of the week was getting to play 'Apples to Apples' on Saturday night with some friends. I love that game, but Jeremy hates it since it's "too subjective". But he was tied for first, so hopefully he'll play it a little more often now.

Spring is in the air

Spring must be on its way. My allergies are kicking in today. I'm sure it doesn't help that I've been scouring the house kicking up and getting rid of dust.

This week we've been trying to enjoy the weather and time together. On Monday we went for a walk. We walked down to the Casey's to get doughnuts and a slush (wahoo, big fun!). It reminded me of when I was little and the big thrill was to go to the 7-11 and get Slurpees. Ahh the memories.
On our way back we went by and saw where they are tearing down all the flooded houses. They are planning on tearing down 30 a week. It'll be weird to see it in a few months when they are all gone. Hopefully they'll do something fun with all that green space.

On Tuesday we had some friends over to play. The kids played great and it was nice to have a moment to myself. But from there the day just went downhill. Neither of the girls would take a nap so of course at about 5 they were both tired and I was frazzled. Jeremy was off somewhere, hometeaching I think. So I was on my own with the wild ones. Luckily they went to sleep without too much trouble, but I need them to take naps otherwise I go a little crazy.

On Wednesday things went a little better. We went to the YMCA and then to the library. And of course I am still dealing with the whole lost book debacle. I haved scoured the house and it is nowhere to be found. Which just confirms my suspicions that I in fact did return it in the first place.

This morning the kids are playing hide and seek. Brynlee is counting and it goes something like "eleven, twenty-five, fourteen". She gets one thru 10 right, but after that it's a random mess of numbers. Too cute. She actually counts better than Price.

I think this week has been so rough because we've been out of our routine. Which can be nice, but then I don't get up and get things done like I should. So I guess it's spring break for me too. So much for my push to get spring cleaning done this week. It'll just have to wait until April.

St. Patty's day and another week

Another weekend has come and gone. I haven't been good about keeping up on blogging this week. Partly due to spring cleaning, watching the season finale of Psych and just plain laziness.
For St. Patrick's Day we had a festive green dinner. We had cilantro lime chicken in green tortillas. If you could see inside the taco you would see green chicken, lettuce and green salsa. Then we had green jell-o and green punch. Quite the festive meal.

When my mom was in the hospital when I was born they dyed the food green because of St. Patrick's Day. She's not one to enjoy things that are artificially green or green jell-o so she wasn't too thrilled. But the kids loved our meal and it's fun to celebrate this way.
We didn't make it to the SoPaDaPaSo (I think that's what it's called) parade, maybe next year. Right now naps are more important. I'm sure there will come the day when we will be able to function without them, but that time is not right now.

I think at Price's school they've been talking about houses and the different kinds there are. We were talking about what things we would like in our next house (my own bathroom is a must) and Price's response is that he would like a doorbell and a chimney. I think it's funny that he's noticed that we don't have those and that he thinks that we really need them.

This week is Price's Spring Break, I hope we survive. We have some fun playdates planned and Jeremy surprisingly took today off. If only he had told me we could have planned something fun. I guess he'll just have to babysit while I go run some errands later.

Quote of the day goes to Price. He said to Jeremy this morning "Dad, you smell like Steph". Steph is Jeremy's sister. I'm not sure if it was a compliment or not. I take it as a way to tell Jer he needed to brush his teeth. But who knows with Price.

Birthday

Yesterday was my birthday, number 29. Since I have only 1 more year of youth left I have been thinking lately about how sometimes I do things that normally only old people do. For example, I like going to bed by 9 or 9:30 at night. Anything past 10 and it's "late". I have now acquired a taste for oatmeal for breakfast. I like that it sticks with me and I don't get the mid-morning munchies. And I actually like getting up early in the morning to get stuff done, I just seem to be more productive that way. And I am definitely NOT a morning person, but with 3 kids I guess I have to learn how to be one.

Yesterday was a great day. Jeremy took the day off of work and made pancakes for breakfast for all of us. I let Price pick out his outfit as usual. He sometimes comes up with some wacky combinations, but I chalk it up to letting him make choices and that's just not a battle worth fighting. Jeremy dropped him off so I didn't get to see what was on the agenda for the day, but I did pick him up. Everyday they list some of the highlights of the day. Well, this particular day turned out to be picture day. Oh great, I thought. Price had on a brown shirt, I would consider it more of a "play" shirt rather than a "school" shirt, blue track pants and his church belt. Don't ask me why he had on the belt since his pants didn't have belt loops, but he did anyway. Then he was telling his teacher that he wanted his belt to show in his picture. I guess the picture will just have to show how Price really dressed and when he questions me about it one day I'll just blame it all on him.

We dropped the girls off at a friend's house and went out to lunch. It's nice to go out to lunch, there are no crowds and we don't have to hurry home to put the kids to bed. In the rush to leave I forgot to feed Brynlee her lunch. Luckily she had a snack while there. Apparently I thought I had the whole day off fron such responsibilities.

In the afternoon I went and got a massage and Jeremy made us a yummy surf and turf dinner. Then after the kids went to bed we watched "The time traveller's wife". It was even worse than I thought, I guess I should have listened to the reviews. Overall, a great day. Thank you for all the presents, calls, etc. it means a lot!

Library Fiasco

I have always been a big lover of the library. I have fond memories of riding my bike to the library and can remember how excited I was to get my first library card (I know I'm a huge nerd). There's just something about all those books and you can read them all for FREE! It was sad when the downtown library flooded (all those books wasted!) That being said, the West side library is on my list of things that irk me.
In the last 6 months I have been accused of not returning books 3 times. The other 2 times I found the book on the shelf and chalked it up to worker error. But this latest time just drives me nuts. So before we left for Utah I returned all our books to the outdoor return (there's my 1st mistake). So when we got back I went to check out books and the lady said I had a $6.50 late fee (a lot considering it's like 15 cents a day). She went to make sure the book wasn't on the shelf and said she couldn't find it. I called later and talked to another worker and they couldn't find it on the shelf either. So I scoured our house, but couldn't find it anyway. Besides I already knew it wasn't here. So today I went to the library to look for it myself. I found it on the shelf (big shocker) and took it up to the desk. Well now the worker is claiming they have multiple copies and this wasn't the one I checked out (seriously, how many copies of Diego's Wolf Pup Rescue do you need?). She filled out some paperwork and they are going to keep looking for it, but now my record shows a "claims it was returned" that will stay there so they can track it. So now my otherwise impeccible library record is forever tarnished, by something I didn't do. I sure hope this doesn't put my library card in jeopardy..

A few more pics of St. George:
My sister Erin and her kids Sunny, Wolf and Brown. Erin is training to do an Ironman in May. Her arms are ridiculously muscley (is that a word?) and she has like 5 percent body fat. She may claim she's only trying to finish, but that's not fooling anyone. She's out for blood and wants/will qualify for Kona. I wish I was going to be there, but I'll just have to send her good vibes from Iowa.
The kids loved playing with their cousins. Brynlee surprised me by going with Erin to pick up the kids from school. Normally she is so shy, but she loved following Sunny around. Price would love being a Bennion. They have Scooby-Doo on DVD and their mom lets them wrestle in the living room (she even cheers them on).

Grandma let the kids help make bread. They even got their own mini loaves.

Who doesn't love to snuggle with Grandpa? He is nice and toasty. Just don't try to talk to him while he's watching TV.

Grandma is great about reading a ton of books to the kids. It was fun to see some of the same books that I loved to read when I was a kid.

6 months and more vacay

Here are some more photos from our vacay. They are more for me to remember our fun times and all the family that we got to see.
This is Jeremy's Grandma and Grandpa Gerber. They also live in St. George so we got to see them quite a bit. The kids had a great time at their house for many reasons including: 1-Grandpa let them ride his Jazzy around the back patio 2-They had a fun helicopter to play with 3-Grandma let them drink pop at every meal 3-Grandpa gave them lots of fun toys to play with.

They backyard is all rock and one day I looked out and saw Price back there with his pants down just peeing. Good thing he's a boy and they were no plants to kill. Hopefully the neighbors don't complain.

These are my sister's kids, Sadie and Carson (Kelmen is missing). They were up from Arizona so we got to see them a little bit. We wish they lived closer, Sadie would be a great babysitter. Good job Davenports on no cavities!

I just had to include this one. This is Hallie, my friend Tracy's daughter. On our drive out we stopped and saw them for a few hours. Hallie loved our minivan, but I don't think she was too sure about our wild kids. I love this face, this just sums up Hallie's personality. She is the spitten image of her mother, which I think drives Tracy nuts. But she is hilarious and such a cutie.


I can't believe this little cutie bug is finally 6 months old! A friend once said that the 1st 6 months are just a sleepless blur. I would have to agree. I am finally feeling like life is getting back into a routine that is tolerable. Kylee is a great baby. She is rolling over a little bit and scooting around on the floor. Although I don't think the scooting is on purpose, that's just what happens on wood floors. She loves to babble and blow raspberries too.

Vacation over

Back to reality and it has been a rough trip. Today we've been trying to get back into the swing of things. So after running around all day we go to the dr for Kylee's 6 month check up. She had a double ear infection so the dr checked the other kids' ears and Brynlee also had an ear infection. Then there was the shots...Kylee got 4 plus an oral one. I figured while we were there we might as well finish our H1N1 shots. So we did Brynlee 1st, I figured she'd scream the loudest, but after a hug and kiss she was fine. Price on the other had cried for 5 minutes in the office and all the way to the car and then all the way to Walmart. Poor kid has a rude awakening for when he gets his kindergarten shots, but we won't think about that right now.
Then we head to Walmart and what would a trip to Wally World be without a few of the kids screaming? So it has been one busy crazy day, but hopefully things will call down and we can get back into our lives.

Here are some pictures of happier times. We went hiking up in Zion National Park. We went on a few hikes and had a great time. The mountains were so beautiful and the kids had a great time running around.
We hiked up to Weeping Rock. The water is running out of the rock. This is below where all the water has frozen onto the trees.




We also drove up to the ghost town of Grafton where they filmed "Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid". They have a cememtary there and I loved what one of the headstones said. It said "Kind Mother, Dutiful and Affectionate Wife, Faithful Saint, Awaits a Resurrection with the just". I just loved that and hope that my family can say something as nice about me when I die (which hopefully will not happen for a long, long time).
It was a great day, we wish we could go more often though.

More pictures of our vacation to come in the coming days..