Arizona trip I

So we went to Arizona.  Now is the perfect time to be there.  Get away from the cold  25 degree Utah weather and hang out in the 70-80 degree sunshine.  I loved it.  And ironically... we all got over the flu, are in the midst of a cold and (surprise!) picked up another flu while we were there.  At least we had fun.  The first night we stayed in Cedar City.  I love the Best Western Town and Country there... for $80 you couldn't ask for a better place to stay.  We've stayed there twice and both times has been great.  In the morning, I took the kids swimming in the pool while Jer tried to catch up on some sleep.  I wish I could have gotten a picture of it!  My three were sitting on the little ledge between the hot tub and the pool (Ada called them steam tubs, they were both steaming because the air was a little cold even though the water was nice.)... they just sat there and kicked back and forth.  Then we visited with Dottie for a minute before heading out.  Amy let us stay at their amazingly fun house.  It's nice and cozy and fits all their family's personality to a tee.  Jer ran the marathon... did amazing... got to see Jer's Grandparents (94 now) and his Aunt Anne and Uncle Sonny.  My favorite part of visiting with them at the finish line was my kids reactions.  My kids usually see GGma and Great-Grandpa once a year.  I have to reintroduce them almost every time we see them.  I told Ada and Sam to go give GGma a big hug.  They did, but they did it like they would a stranger.  Then Evelyn started yelling in the stroller, I asked what she wanted and she kept saying, "Down, down!"  I unbuckled her and let her down and she ran as fast as she could to GGma and hugged her around both her legs with a big grin on her face.  She's only met her as a little baby... but she was named for her.  Maybe there's a connection there?  The race had lots of fun free family things.  I took the kids on the bouncy houses and to get popcorn, cotton candy, and have their faces painted.  Unfortunately, we missed Jer coming in by just minutes.  Ada threw a tantrum over every other thing, and Evelyn was exhausted because she slept 6 hours less than normal so I took the kids back to the car while everyone was hanging out.  As soon as the door was closed, all three of them were asleep.  It was pretty funny.  Afterwards, Ada and Sam both tried out Amy's pool.  It was cold, but Ada insisted on playing in it for a while and Sam played around it and had a blast.  Sunday was literally our day of rest.  We didn't make it to their Stake conference so we had our own Sunday School Class with the kids and Jer took 4 naps throughout the day. 

Sam, Aubrey, Mariah, Jonathan, Ada, Henry and Wesley

Stretching our legs in Vegas

Ada and Sam both really loved cheering for all the runners at the 10 mile mark.

Cheering for Daddy

Ada told me after she hugged Daddy that, "Mom!  Daddy's wet!" Yes, he does that when he sweats...

Evelyn and Amelia playing Connect 4

 

Phoenix Marathon

Yeah, I have a pretty cool husband.  He likes to run marathons.  This year some of his brothers and sisters were running the Phoenix one so we drove down for that.  He got a PR 3:44... not too shabby if you ask me. 

Amy, Emily, Jay, Jim (did the half), Jer, James

There was an awesome kids 1k.  I tried to register mine but they were full.

Before

Picture

Picture of yesterday's mess... But it just doesn't capture the pure sticky mess of it... Maybe if I smeared Vaseline on everyone's keyboards... Then you could get a taste for it.

Prisoner exchange

Anyone want to exchange kids for a day?  Mine are locked in my bedroom while I try to clean up.  I'm waiting for the floor to dry so I can walk on it so I'll just write down what's happened so far... though I'm not sure I'll forget for a while.

First off... we spent the weekend helping get Jer's brother's floor in so I didn't do cleaning... then I got sick and didn't do chores... then last night we got home at 11pm from finishing the floor (which was fun...), put the kids in bed, sat down to do some computer catch up stuff, got to bed about 12:30am, got woken up at 1am by a Sammy that had diarrhea...which Jer got... then I was up every 15 or so minutes until about 3:30am (Jer took the 5am one too thank goodness)... Got up this morning, cancelled babysitting, got the kids breakfast, dressed, brushed teeth, started packing stuff for Jer's marathon, started the laundry, washed dishes, and just tried to catch up on the last weeks worth of cleaning.  I took a break to make the kids some lunch and found that Evelyn had dumped what was left of two boxes of cereal on the entry way floor and instead of telling me... my older two just sat in the middle of it and ate it (smashed it) until I found it and cleaned it up.  Got them up to eat lunch, ran to the bathroom for a minute and Evelyn got into the food I was packing for Jer's thing... and left mac and cheese hand prints through the kitchen and up the stairs where she came to visit me in the bathroom.  Got that cleaned up and the kids had broken the big box that we'd gotten to make a fort out of even though I told them not to... so that's going to be trashed as soon as I can... Sam started kicking Ada in the face so I told him to go to bed and he completely ignored me, so he got a spank and put to bed.  Evelyn got put to bed, and I went to go shower.  Ada started crying in the kitchen so I wrapped up in a robe and went to see... Ada had spilled a pitcher of apple juice on the floor.  Instead of helping me or apologizing she threw a tantrum that she didn't get apple juice anymore because it was gone, so she got put into bed.  I half cleaned up the apple juice when a friend came over to get help printing out a school paper that she had to turn in in just about a half an hour... finally got into the shower.  Clean!  When I got out of the shower I heard Evelyn's little voice in her room saying, "Help please, help please, help please."  Very quiet and calmly.  I went in and I found the diaper changing table tipped over, the lotion bottle broken and spread around, a very sticky Evelyn and a list of things that I had to clean bag balm finger painting off of.... the ENTIRE rocking chair, the toddler bed, the walls, the carpet, all her baby dolls and toys, her bedding, half the diapers, the baby monitors, etc... I was pretty mad but I lost it when she pooped in the tub while I was trying to wash her up.  Now I also had to finish cleaning the kitchen floor, the bathtub, the bath toys and Evelyn's whole sticky mess.  Good news?  I finally got a hug from Ada saying that she was sorry for making a mess.  That made it easier to clean up her mess...  It's 6:30pm, what are the chances that I get these messes cleaned up today?

Helping

This weekend we went to help put in laminate flooring at Jer's brothers house.  It was fun to do some construction stuff again.  It is easier when there are others that can help out with little kids... that's for sure. Ada was a pill while we were there though.  She broke Anya's doll fighting over it with Adam, got upset that Rachel didn't want her playing with her Merida doll because she'd broken Anya's doll, and jumped on the toddler bed and split the whole support piece.  When we were trying to put her to bed, I thought she'd have fun sleeping with Anya and Rachel but she threw a fit that the pillow case wasn't flowery like Rachel's.  Sheesh.  I ended up putting her to bed on the couch upstairs. (It was cute because Anya snuck out of her room one last time to play with Ada on the couch.)  Sam said, "I'm not going to go to sleep because I'm not in a bed."  But fell asleep as soon as the lights were off.  Evelyn went to sleep in John and Diane's room.  I put her to bed on the bed...  when we left she had pulled the pillows off the bed and put them on the floor next to the door and dragged a blanket off the bed for her use too.  Funny girl.  She was also my cutest helper.  She'd follow along by me with a mallet and bang on the cement of a block of wood.  Then she'd wander off and come back to ask, "Help you?"  How can you say no to that? 

Worst shopping trip

I enjoy shopping with my kids.  Not always, but mostly.  I've been shopping with 5 kids on my own before and it wasn't hard.  I take Pips shopping with me all the time and it works out fine.  It actually keeps Evelyn happier in the cart to have a buddy to play with.  The last time I took the 4 of them though it was hard.  I went to Macey's and got groceries, everything went well.  I needed to pick up one thing from BabiesRUs... to get one thing: I had two bathroom emergencies, a baby run off down the isles somewhere, two kids fall out of the cart (I've NEVER had a kid fall out of the cart... and I had 2 at 2 different times!), Sammy pull over a display shelf that I had to clean up... while cleaning it up the kids got down all the potty chairs and were standing in the potty part of them, Pips decided that she was starving and I didn't have her bottle with me, and the sandals that we bought for Sam kill his feet.  The best part of it?  The kids washing their hands at the kid sized sink.   

Partners in crime

Evelyn and Josh, partners in crime.  Should I get some business cards made for them to hand out to everyone as they go? 

Helping

Evelyn wanted to help us cut the wood to make the shelves in the closet.  And Michael wanted to help with Evelyn...  

Shelves

 We've been trying to get our projects list going before summer gets here and we do all the outdoor projects.  On our list was putting shelves in the broom closet... it worked out nicely didn't it?  Two not on our list was, the fan in our entryway died... so we replaced it with a small light.  I like it better than the fan too.  Another unplanned one is that we have two leaks in our roof.  Well, on to that project.

 

 

Horsie

Grandpas make the best horsies.... and the best part?  Those are some of my most fond memories of my dad.  He'd lay on the floor and let us climb on him, do his hair, "wash" his feet to our hearts content.  Now he lets my kids do it to him too.  Fun. 

 

Brushing

Orajel is great for brushing baby's teeth, but my favorite toothbrush for baby's is also an Orajel product.  You put the toothbrush on their (or your) finger and they can go to town.   Evelyn asks to brush her teeth two or three times a day... so cute!