Giraffe Report

 The biggest project in kindergarten this year was an animal report.  They had to do a written report with a picture and then present the report in front of their class.  Red Fish was so cute while working on her report.  She spent so much time writing the report that I finally had to cut her off.  She would have written ten pages about giraffes.  I absolutely adore how her picture turned out.  She is really starting to have some drawing skills. I was really impressed with the final product. I was lucky enough to be volunteering in her classroom when she presented so I got to hear her presentation.

Biker Babe

She has upgraded to the "big girl bike."  Nothing will stop her now. Next we will try to ditch the training wheels!

Springtime and Tulips

Springtime is getting us outside.  It has become a yearly tradition for us to go to the tulip festival and the kids think that Spring hasn't really started until we have seen the tulips. We took Thing 1 with us on our adventure. We roamed through the flowers and enjoyed the sunshine.

No this is not staged.  They really do this.

Easter

 Easter Sunday was a blur of church, family, dinner and Easter eggs.

Spring Babies

 We took a little daytrip to see some Spring babies and enjoy more sunshine with friends. 

While we were at the historical park we went in a small donut shop and a grease fire broke out.  It was aggravated but a bucket of water and the kids had a pretty exciting time being rushed out of the shop.  It left quite an impact.

The sunshine and animals were therapy for the kids but being with my friends is therapy for me.  There is something to be gained from talking to friends who know some of the same struggles. Friends who can empathize and act as a sounding board.  I need to take better advantage of the friendships I share with amazing women.

Picnic Season?

 Break out the picnic dishes and the chicken nuggets- it's picnic season... or not. We nearly froze to death.  We might need to wait for warmer weather.

Natural History Museum

It was a disaster of a day.  I forgot my wallet and the kids needed lunch so we drove to Two Fish's work and asked him to take us all to lunch.  We may have to repeat that because the kids loved getting to see him in the middle of the day.  Then when we got to the museum my groupon wasn't working but Two Fish had given me some cash.  Taking three kids to a new museum more than a little chaotic.  They all want to go a different direction. I was exhausted and we were running about an hour and a half behind but watching the kids race around looking at all of the exhibits made the exertion worthwhile. I think motherhood is like that a lot of the time. Things don't always run smoothly and half the time you have no idea what you are doing but then things just work.

 

Zions

 We went on a quick camping trip to Zions National Park with our friends the Buddies. It was our first camping trip of the season. Life has been crazy lately and it was good to take a few days off and enjoy our little family. We hiked up to the narrows and played in the water. We had only one little tantrum from our resident "lazy legs" (New Fish) on the walk to the Narrows.  She did much better on the hikes that involved strenusou climbing.  She only like a challenge apparently.

Lazy Legs

 There was some water dancing.

 Red Fish is definitely our sensory seeking child and it was impossible to keep her out of the mud.  She wanted to dive right through it and rub it all over her body.  She does the same thing at the beach.

Four tired kids

 I was really surprised by how well the kids did hiking.  We hiked the Emerald Pools and the kids hiked over three miles.  They were climbing over rocks and and running down the trails. It made me appreciate having kids who are getting a little older.  There are going to be so many fun things that we can do with a small family.  We are going to be able to ski a lot next winter and camping, hiking and travel are so much easier now than they were a couple of years ago. We are moving into a fun stage.  I just need to let my grip on their infancy go a little and enjoy the great stage we are entering.

Emerald Pools

The camping food preparation went very badly this trip.  Nothing seemed to turn out quite right but the roasted marshmellows are the favorite anyway. Aside from a couple of freezing cold mornings the trip was fantastic.  I'm looking forward to summer.

Our friends introduced us to the junior ranger program and the girls collected their first badge.  The girls loved filling the booklet out and the ranger who swore them in made a big production. I had no idea New Fish would take it quite so seriously. We just got back from our second "ranger patrol" consisting of picking up trash around the neighborhood and explaining to neighbors why they should never deface petroglyphs. I am slightly less enthusiastic than New Fish about being on neighborhood trash duty.  New Fish is also planning a meeting of the rangers at our house in the near future. I have been assigned the task of baking the brownies. The plastic badge has gone straight to her head.

It's Great To Be A Kid

General Conference 2014

My girls were excited for LDS General Conference this year.  They had very specific ideas of how it should go and I really wasn't feeling up to it but I tried to power through because I was leaving on a business trip halfway through conference and I didn't want to ruin their excitement.  One of my visiting teachers gave us conference packets and games a couple of years ago and now my girls want them for every conference. There was also a primary lessons pumping the kids up to listen to conference this year.

I tried to keep it simple this year and just printed a bunch of things off the internet and sealed them in packets with pictures of general authorities on them.  Every time the girls could recognize the speaker they could open a packet.  They also built a fort to listen to conference in and were fully stocked on snacks and notebooks to write all of their thoughts on. They had coloring sheets, bingo games that required them to listen, special treats and a few activities to break things up a bit.

 One of their activities between sessions was to dye eggs.  We tried dying fake eggs this year because we don't enjoy eating boiled eggs.  They were a major pain to dye.

Girls Night Out

We had a girls night out (Minus Thing 2 who is still only a year old.) We went to see The Little Mermaid Ballet and out to dinner. I think we are going to need more girls nights out in the future. I like my girls knowing they are part of something special.

Dance Parties In The Kitchen

One of the things I love most about my husband is that he dances with our kids in the kitchen.  He knows all of the words to Ice Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice and he can bust a move.  These are the best parts of life.