Outside

You guys.  I don't even know how many days of school have been cancelled at this point.  This winter has been harsh.  We have lots of make up days ahead of us and we're supposed to be getting winter weather again next week.  I wish I could tell my 5 month ago self to stop doing a snow dance and enjoy the warm weather already!

Since we've had fantastic weather the last few days, we took advantage of it like crazy.  So the answer to everything happy right now is this: OUTSIDE.

She's learned how to say "cheese."  It's the best.

They're 4 years apart.  I'm pretty sure they don't know it.

I remember at the end of last summer, sitting in these chairs, hugely pregnant with this baby.  I often had a paper and pen at this table, writing down times from my phone which were always a few minutes apart.  But now a few months later my baby gets to join us at the table for dinner.  When did this happen?

Today we all picked up Lily from the bus stop and walked straight up to our neighborhood park.

Every single day of winter:  "Moooooooooooooom?  Can we go to the pool today?"

Skyler looked so longingly at the pool today that I'm sure in his head he was thinking, "Just two more months..."

(That is, if we're not getting snow in May, of course)

Dear Southern Hemisphere,

It's your turn.  Please take the cold weather.  We don't want it anymore.  Just take one for the team.

Thanks,

Northern Hemisphere

Yes Mom

You may or may not have heard of the true story of "Yes Man" who decided he was missing out on too much in life by saying no to practically everything.  Well, long story short, he started saying yes to everything for a certain amount of time and it changed his life for the better.  He ended up with a way better job and met/fell in love with his wife this way.

Today I woke up and felt like I needed to become Yes Mom.  But only to Skyler.  You see, Skyler has severe Middle Child Syndrome because Lily gets to go off to Kindergarten to eat in a cool cafeteria, play on a playground, and make fun things like Leprechaun traps, all while he stays at home with boring me.  My attention is usually on my babies who both need it.  And when I'm not focused on the babies, I'm focused on actually getting something done around the house.

But not today.  I made a vow that I would say yes to anything (within reason) that Skyler wanted to do, eat, play, etc.  I thought I was insane for a second, mostly because I figured Skyler would say something like, "Let's go to the library, then go to Costco, then go to the movies, then come home and make some homemade cotton candy!"

(I was rather hoping he'd ask for the cotton candy.  But he didn't.  And when I asked if he wanted some, he said no.)

(Lame.)

Here's a rundown of our day:

He wanted part of my banana.  Done.

He wanted to play in the backyard.  In the 35 degree rain.  In our soggy, poorly drained, and practically grass-less backyard.  Check.

He wanted to cut down a tree.  I handed him a saw.  He sawed.  He decided that a sapling  tree was too difficult to saw through, so he decided to saw a twig  branch instead.  Success.

He wanted to play in the water from the gutter.  Soaked.

He wanted to play BINGO.  He won 4 out of 5 rounds.

He wanted to cuddle on the couch and watch A Dolphin Tale.  We cuddled.  And selfied.

When we got home from a trip to Target, Skyler asked if he could play in the driveway.  Yes Mom said yes and we were back out in the cold rain again.  Ella was thrilled to be awake this time around.

Skyler enjoyed levitating  jumping in puddles.

I'm not sure how many times Skyler and Ella rolled that ball down the driveway but they sure did get their workout.  Speaking of work outs, I didn't get mine today.  So my abs are a little flabbier, but my heart is a little stronger.

We did other fun things today like watch Frozen when it finally was delivered to our house and we ate the waffles for dinner that Skyler requested.  And the day wasn't perfect.  Skyler still had his usual meltdowns and I still had to say no to certain things.  Um, no you don't get to sit in the front seat.  Sorry, buddy.

But I learned something important from today.  I thought he was going to ask for something extravagant and totally out of the norm, but what he really wanted was quality time with me.  He didn't want me to focus on washing dishes or on ridding my muffin top.  He wanted me to love him more.

I don't think that there are going to be tons more Yes Days in our future, but I'm sure there will still be a few.  But one thing's for sure.  I got much more out of today than Skyler did -- a lesson I truly needed.

The Zoo with Friends

On Saturday we got together with our friends, the Roths, and went to the zoo.  Besides all the craziness that comes from having 7 kids together in a crowded place, it was so fun and all of the kids really were great.  I think the kids all loved spending time together and I think the adults all enjoyed spending time together, too.  Plus we saw some pretty fun animals.  It was a win for everyone.

Ben and Steve helping the kids see the frogs. 

Am I the only one who thinks this looks like Pride Rock? 

 "Cheese!"  Isn't she adorable?!  I'm 90% sure this is Merinn, but there's a possibility that this is Awen.  

Ben's favorite animal of the day. 

 Since we wanted to be able to see the African animals and the North American animals we had to take a shuttle to get to the other side of the zoo.  Twice.  I think all the adults would agree that the shuttle was the low part of the day.  Having to break down our double strollers and take everything out of them while still managing all the kids -- not fun.  Somehow Jen and Steve ended up with 5 of the 7 kids while Steve was also holding some of our stuff.  Sorry guys!

The miracle of the day was that this girl actually slept in the car on the way home.  Say what?!

It was a fun day filled with good friends and perfect weather.  It will be great to do it again.  But Steve and I agreed on one thing -- it would have been so much harder to take our families separately.  I'm glad we had such a great time together!

Preciousness and Perfection

WARNING: Cuteness overload.

This is Thad.  He's 5 months old and is trying out rice cereal for the first time.  How trusting he is to give me such a sweet smile for something... not so sweet in return.

Don't let his preciousness fool you.  He hated it.  

My view when he's in my lap.  This is why he never ceases to be kissed.

I've had four kids now.  I'm not pretending to be a kid expert or anything, but this ain't my first rodeo.  Every single one of my kids has absolutely despised rice cereal in the beginning.  But I've known quite a few people who say that their babies absolutely gobble the stuff up on their first go.  Why is this?  Because every time I start feeding my baby real food, it seems more like I'm trying to stuff lava back into an erupting volcano than I am happily pretending to be an airplane.

Hmm.

In other news, we had a pretty huge thing happen to us today:  we had a perfect Sunday.  I didn't even know those existed.  We got to church at the perfect time, sat through all of Sacrament Meeting with only one trip out to go to the bathroom/water fountain, Ella actually enjoyed being in nursery and didn't want to leave the crayons behind, none of the kids felt nap-deprived from having 1:00 church, the weather was perfect and so the kids played on the deck while Ben and I made some pretty scrumptious hamburgers on the grill, we ate outside, and then the kids helped Ben make cookies.  And now I'm eating a cookie.  I could get used to this.

Lily's First Crush

Last night I was getting ready to do some crafting.  Whenever I craft I have a movie on in the background.  Last night I chose Thor.  I didn't even have the chance to get my craft on when Lily and Skyler came downstairs from playtime (they get an hour of playtime before bedtime every night) and asked if they could watch Thor with me.  The only other non-kid movie they've ever seen is the first Harry Potter movie.  Since Thor's completely clean and doesn't have that much violence compared to a lot of other grownup movies, I said okay.

Skyler was freaked out through the whole thing although he told me that "When I'm as big as Thor, I'm going to have a hammer just like him."  Lily on the other hand pretty much just had drool falling out of her mouth.  This is what said when he got his strength back at the end of the movie, "Oh Mom!  Look!  He got his muscles -- I mean, his strength back!"  When they showed him without a shirt earlier in the movie, her exact quote was, "Whoa."

Today Lily talked more about Thor.  She told me she wants to watch that movie a lot.  

And can I just say how tempting it is to calm Lily during the next thunder storm by telling her that it's actually Thor?

Iced In

We were hit with some frozen rain and were sure that we'd just have a school delay.  Sure enough, there was a 2 hour delay but then as people started actually driving around there were so many wrecks that they cancelled school altogether.  I know I only have one child in school but it was a curve ball I wasn't expecting.  I'm supposed to keep all four kids cooped up in the house without the option of going anywhere and no snow to play in?  So I pulled up my Pinterest board for kids and started stealing ideas from it.

Thad pretty much slept through all the excitement.

(Oh, and P.S. if you're ever lonely when you're in the bathroom, give Ella a call.  She'd love to come talk to you under the door while you're doing your business.)

Again, Thad likes to sleep.

I gave Lily and Skyler bowls with just a little bit of water in the bottom.  I put a few squirts of dish soap in each bowl.  They blew bubbles with a straw to their hearts' content.  I was amazed that this produced a solid hour of entertainment.

We scooped the bubbles out with our hands and had a bubble fight around the table.  Ella was in ecstasy and my table ended up squeaky clean.

To get the few bubbles off the kids we had bath, er, swim time in my tub.  I thought they'd enjoy the jets.  No.  Instead, I think I scarred them for life.  

Once the jets were quickly turned off Ella kept trying to climb in.

Thad collapsed his play mat because he's all over the place when he rolls.  Just call him the Hulk.

Then I went into the garage and scoped out Ben's wood supply.  I brought in a few pieces and the kids had a temporary balance beam.  Another solid hour of entertainment.

Ella loved the balance beam and would go around and around (so long as she could hold my hands the whole time).  Then she collapsed into a huge tantrum in which I tried everything in my power to make her happy.  I have come to learn that there are only two ways to calm an Ella tantrum.  1) Food.  2) Something girly.  Usually I end up putting on her silver sparkly shoes and say, "Ella's so pretty!" and she calms down.  But Lily could only find one of Ella's sparkly shoes and so her peace didn't last too long.  Then I plopped her on the table and started painting her nails.  Ella loves getting her nails done.  It did the trick.  Wouldn't it be nice if it was that easy to soothe anyone?

Family Fun

This past week we've been able to have a lot of fun (excluding the time when I folded everyone's laundry for a few hours).

Last Friday Ben and I decided it was time for Thai.  To put my love for Thai food into words would be nearly impossible.  Maybe replace the words "Romeo" and "Juliet" in Romeo and Juliet with "Thai Food," and you'd get a pretty accurate description of my undying devotion.  I've learned how to make some pretty awesome Thai and Indian (both pretty similar) dishes, but nothing compares to an actual Thai restaurant.  And we hadn't been to one since we lived in Rexburg.  I was in tongue burning paradise.  I think I'm still craving my papaya salad.

Then we went bowling.  Let me just say that Ben and I both took bowling classes in college and went bowling quite a bit when we were first married.  We were both pretty awesome, although Ben was always better.  But it's been years since we've bowled.  Let's just say the 4 and 5 year-old girls who were using bumpers on their lane ended up with the same scores as we did.  I can't remember if we even broke 100.  I'm pretty sure we didn't.

We have some friends down the street who opened up a soda and candy shop called Rocket Fizz.  We went to their grand opening and had a blast!  Skyler got a balloon animal and Lily got her face painted.  Plus a friend from our old ward came by in his Iron Man suit that he made himself.  Every Halloween he makes himself a new costume and this is his most recent one.  The kids thought it was so cool that Iron Man knew their names.

Is this not the best face painting you've ever seen?  I'm still completely impressed.

There were approximately 3,498,734,987 flavors of soda at Rocket Fizz and Ben chose these 6.  I'm not much of a soda person, but I am excited to take a sip of each to see what they taste like and then I'll hand them off to Ben to finish them off.  Bacon soda, anyone?