Vindicated!!

Doug thinks that I'm bordering on OCD and I tell him that it's not unreasonable to want things to be clean and organized. He just laughs at me and then forgets to wipe down the counters with sanitizing spray after he makes a meal. (ARGH! Why do the dishes, sweep the floor, and sometimes even mop and leave a mess on the counters?? Am I asking too much? But again, this is a guy who leaves his underwear NEXT to the hamper, not IN it. I love him, I'm very lucky he puts up with me, but COME ON!)

So... Last night Doug and I were watching "John & Kate Plus 8" on TLC. (It makes me feel better about my life to watch someone who has a set of twins and a set of sextuplets and has lived to tell about it) In the episode we were watching, the family was organizing their playroom and bedrooms. Kate's reasoning for the organizing overhaul was that "a chaotic environment leads to a choatic mind...." I just told my hubby the other day that a cluttered environment leads to a cluttered mind. HA!! I am not the only one who thinks that way. Granted, this woman, Kate, is TOTALLY OCD. I'm not that bad. But, it's nice to know that someone other than my mother thinks the way I do!!

WHOO HOO!! VINDICATION!

Eve says Doug

When Garrett was learning how to talk, he would call his daddy "Doug." But he just didn't say it normally. His voice would get really low and he'd say it really fast. So....being the fun loving person I am, I thought it would be hilarious to teach Eve how to say it. Now, according to my sister, Eve says it all the time! I love it, I love it, I love it!! Have I mentioned that being an aunt is the best thing ever!! I adore my nieces and my nephew.

By the way, Eve's belly button sticks out and her Mommy taught her to push it in and say "ding dong." That's what she was doing until I picked up the camera.

Dinosaur Museum

Thanksgiving Point has an awesome dinosaur museum. We get a property pass every spring with our tax return. My kids love going up there. Last week, during Spring Break, we spent an afternoon up there with the Fronk family, Elma, Edil and Baby James, and Brayden. We had so much fun!!

One of the displays is a large scale. We had all the kids pile on to see if they weighed as much as a dinosaur.



I can't remember what kind of dinosaur skeleton this was. I told the kids to look scared and Brayden gave such a good performance that I just had to post this picture! Plus Mckenzie looks darling as always.

One of the favorite stops at the museum is the Erosion Table. It's a table filled with sand, water and plastic trees and dinosaurs to teach the kids about how many dinosaurs were preserved in mud and then later discovered due to erosion. It's really clever!
I can't remember what this next exhibit was about... but it's an awesome picture!! When my kids were tiny, they were so afraid of walking past this exhibit. Once, Doug pretended to feed Ethan to the shark and Garrett and Chase freaked out!! Oh the trauma we inflict on our kids.

The museum is beautifully put together, but it's really kid friendly. They have lots of exhibits that the kids can touch, so it's really interactive. The picture below is of a fossil guessing game where the kids look at a picture of three fossils, then reach under the black boxes to feel the texture of a fossil and then try to guess which one of the three fossils it is. It's one of my kids' favorites!



We had a really fun day. It ended kind of funny though. When we left, it was snowing and blowing like crazy! We could barely see the parking lot, so we all made a run for the car. The boys made it to the van, but me, Mckenzie and Carter sort of overshot our mark. We were running around like crazy people in our flip flops in the snow. By the time we figured out where the van was, we were soaked. It was hilarious and a little weird because the day before was gorgeous!! Good thing Aunt Elma had some cupcakes waiting for us at home. We needed the comfort of cake and frosting.

Perfect Day

Last week was Spring Break. We tried to plan a couple activities to keep the kids busy during the week. Monday was a GORGEOUS day! It got up to 80 degrees, so we thought it would be fun to go on a picnic at Discovery Park. The Hatchet's and the Cox kids joined us for the picnic and the Tanner family met us at the park to play. It was absolutely fabulous. We had Eve with us. She is my darling neice, we just love her too pieces. She's about 18 months old. We call her the Turbo Toddler. I do think that she's busier than the triplets were when they were her age! (we took a ton of pictures but for some reason I couldn't upload all of them to those post....)





After the park, we were all pretty hot, so the kids decided they wanted to turn on the sprinkler under the trampoline at home. So we headed home, put on swimsuits, grabbed some Popsicles, slathered everyone with sunscreen and headed outside. Check out the video:



Soon, the kids got a little bored of the small sprinkler so they dispatched Brayden Hatchet on a mission to get a Turbo Sprinkler from his house. I was worried it would catapult them over the fence into the Lavine's yard....
Check it out:








When the kids discovered they were being video taped, they decided to give you all a glimpse of what I must endure on a daily basis. All I can say is that it's dang lucky they're all so fetchin cute!
View at your own risk. (Don't worry, I think this may be one of the rare moments when there is no mention of body parts or bodily functions.)




So that was our day! Despite applying sunscreen several times, we all got sunburned! It was great!!!

SPRING IS HERE

It's the most wonderful time of the year.....
(I know we say that at Christmas,
but it's true for Spring as well!!

We are so excited that Spring
seems to finally be here....
at the very least, it's not snowing and
we didn't have to wear coats today!

We spent the day at Windsor Park just monkeying
around with my sister-in-law, Elma
and my niece, Edil and my nephew, Baby James.
We had a ton of fun and we even got a little sunburned!

Crazy Hair Day!

This week was spirit week at the kids' school. Monday was crazy hair day and these are the hairstyles my punk rocker kids requested! Luckily we had some left over hair color from Halloween. They thought they were pretty cool.

The Greatest Easter!!

We had a fabulous Easter! We went to Mesquite to celebrate with my family. My brother and his wife were there with their kids, my sister and her husband with their daughter, and my grandma! We arrived in Mesquite on Friday evening and enjoyed a Spaghetti dinner, decorated Easter Eggs (and my nephew, Baby James) and watched the kids zoom all over the neighborhood on their scooters.







On Saturday we went to Johnson's Farm, which is a dinosaur museum. Apparently this farmer was digging sandstone slabs on some of his property to sell for landscaping. One of the slabs rolled off his tractor revealing what looked like a footprint. From there, it ended up being one of the largest places in the world where they have found actual dinosaur footprints. There are THOUSANDS of them. The discovery has led to many more groundbreaking discoveries. They built the museum right around the dig site so you can see the intensive process of cleaning and "restoring" these fossils. It's incredible. If you're ever in St. George, you have to check that place out! Also on Saturday we went to Zion's Ntl Park. We absolutely fell in love with that place. I think I've mentioned that only a few hundred times. We had a picnic at the visitor's center there and then took a shuttle up into the park. One of the stops was the trailhead to the Emerald Pools. It was breathtaking. If you've never been to Zion's, you've got to see it!!




On Sunday, the kids had an Easter Egg Hunt at my parent's house. We got some way cute pics. Then we attended my parent's ward where my mother sang in the choir. She also preformed a beautiful musical number called "His Hands." My mother is extremely talented and has a gorgeous voice. She doesn't just sing a song, she tells a story with it. Needless to say, I bawled like a baby thru her whole song. The Easter program was lovely. There were four speakers who gave accounts and testimonies of the different stages of Christ's life and ministry, his atonement and death, and his resurrection. When we returned to my parent's house, my cousin Brad was there with his wife Kenda and three of their five kids. We had an awesome BBQ and then sadly had to leave for home. It was 85 degrees when we left Nevada. I have to say that it was hard to come home!!











I have to add that I was so proud of my kids for remembering the reason we celebrate Easter. I'm sure it didn't hurt that the Savior was the focus of all our FHE's and our scripture study. Nonetheless, they knew that Easter isn't all about eggs and new clothes. The First Baptist Church in Lindon had this saying on their marquee : "After all, the Easter Bunny isn't the one who died for us." My kids repeated that over and over. One of the precious and rewarding moments for a mother is when her kids repeat something they've been taught.