Spring Break

Keeping up on a blog has been difficult lately. In my defense our computer was dying and would shut off in the middle of running some programs like Picasa, and that was so frustrating that I gave up for a while. Then, right during the middle of our spring break the computer died for good, so thanks to a tax return, and a computer whiz who saved the old hard drive, we have a new computer (complete with all our pictures) that loves to run and so maybe I can keep up a little better!

Spring break this year was a blast! We had an entire week off of school; what to do, what to do? Since Kevin had school work he couldn't completely neglect, and we are on a budget we decided to do a "staycation" and be creative.

 On Monday we took the kiddos to a park and played baseball. The weather was nice and it was fun to get outside and play. We had a good time breaking out the bats, we've kind-of missed our crazy b-ball life. Later that night I heard the kids talking about our outing, they had already decided it was the best spring break ever, it doesn't take much to make them happy :)

On Tuesday afternoon we headed for Wichita. There is a big zoo there we had wanted to visit and an arcade that we found our first time there that the kids had been dying to go to. We spent the night at a hotel complete with a putting green and a sports court so we had plenty of entertainment that evening. The next morning it was off to the zoo....

The Sedgwick County Zoo is the biggest zoo our family has ever visited. There were so many animals and so much to see. I tried to put in a good variety of what we saw. Some of the favorites were a baby chimpanzee, the hippos, and a jaguar named Nick ("Nick Jagger"...get it?) We also got to see penguins, otters and the hippos swimming which made the kids super happy.  After being there only about 30 minutes the kids were all raving and telling us that we have to go back, which we probably will, because it is a great zoo!

After the zoo, and before it was time to go home we went to the arcade that the kids have wanted to visit since last August. I didn't take many pictures, no one wants to bother with saying cheese when there are games to play, tickets to earn, and prizes to win!

I did manage to get a good picture of this. I totally want one! This is the first kid-sized air-hockey table I've ever seen, and they loved it!

The arcade was a blast, another place we'll have to go again. Arcade games, bowling, rock climbing wall, and laser tag inside, and bumper boats, mini golf, and go carts outside. We could spend a few hours there trying it all out :)

To round out the week we took the kids to the driving range on Friday. The weather was cold, but we still had fun. The highlight of this was Kaydie giving me a surprise and making me laugh. She got done hitting her balls before anyone else and she was cold so I sent her to Kevin to get the keys to the car so she could get out of the wind while she waited. When I got to the car I found that it was running!? I asked her if dad had started the car and she said that she had! She wanted to watch a movie while she  waited. It totally took me off guard, and gave us a good laugh. Luckily no one else has decided to try that out too.

Later that day we took the kids out to eat at Golden Corral. It's not my favorite place, but the kids love it, and I love watching the funny ways they fill up their plates. Where else can you eat a piece of pizza, a chicken leg, an egg, a pickle, and jello? Also, as our boys are starting to eat like horses it's starting to be more economical to take them to a buffet :)

Our spring break was so much fun. One of the best parts was being together as a family. As a parent I sometimes find myself wanting to do big things, thinking that's how we make the fun memories. But weeks like this show me how wrong that is. It doesn't matter what we do, as long as we're doing it together, the memories make themselves.

FINALLY!

It was a day very impatiently awaited.

It's sometimes hard to be the youngest and have to wait your turn.

But eventually your turn will come...

                                   Just in case you can't tell...                                     

Nick FINALLY lost his first tooth!

 He has watched as everyone else has lost tooth after tooth after tooth, and he's been a little envious.

He did great, he was so brave! He just walked in the bathroom and let me pull it out with some pliers.

Now he is proud to show off the hole in his mouth, and his money from the tooth fairy!

...and he's so happy to not be the only kid in the family who hasn't lost any teeth :)

Winter

January is a good month. It starts with a holiday that comes right after another holiday.

Then we get another day to celebrate. Kevin and I celebrate our anniversary on January 8th.

This year was our 12th anniversary. We went on a movie date, and had a take-out dinner date.

Those have become a tradition :)

Then January got weird. When we moved to Topeka we were told by several people that it doesn't snow much here....Really?!?

The kids went back to school on Jan 4 and 5. They were in school that week.

Then we had snow days. Jan 10th, 11th, and 20th. 

And more on Feb 1st and 2nd.

5 snow days!!!

So, if you look at a calendar, you can see how crazy our weeks have been,

 and why the kiddos think it's odd when they actually have to go to school 5 days in a row! 

Some of our snow fun

 One of the worst parts of the weather was the cold temperatures.

It's so hard to look out at snow that you can't play in because it feels like -15!

But we were able to have some outside fun when it warmed up.

This was after some melting had started to be sure we could make a snowman

 Another bad part of being trapped indoors is that your house gets destroyed!

Kevin had snow days along with the rest of us in Feb. and he made lots of yummy food :)

And you have to entertain four completely bored kiddos.

They spent a lot of time in pjs....why get dressed?

And they spent a lot of time playing every electronic device in our house.

Netflix on the Wii was a favorite.

We are all excited for spring. I am hoping for no more snow. I never thought I would ever say that!

But after 5 snow days, I'm done!

I was in high school before I experienced my first snow day, my kids have now had 8!?

Christmas 2010

The Christmas of 2010 will be one we remember with fond memories.

 I may or may not be speaking in sarcasm!

It started off on Friday Dec. 17th. We were getting the house cleaned, car packed; preparing to get up at 5:00 the next morning and make an 18 hour drive from Topeka to Salt Lake the following day.  All was going according to plan until at 11:30 that night when Kaydie got sick. Then she got sick again at 1:00am. Blah! why does this always happen?!?  We left a little later than we had planned, but by 6:40am (central time) Dec. 18th we were on our way to Utah. Kaydie felt awful, and I knew it was going to be a long day. I wasn't wrong! It took about 18 hours, too many stops, one car sick episode, and a few weather issues, but by 10:30pm (mountain time) we had made it the 1,000 miles!

Everyone was excited to be at Grandma's house for Christmas; and it was a good thing too, because we didn't leave much once we got there! Whatever it was that Kaydie was sick with, it made the rounds through all the kids, with Nick and Preston coming down with it on Christmas eve.

 Nick liked to steal Grandpa's chair and get his germs all over it.

 See how excited for Christmas Preston is :)



Needless to say, we had a very relaxed holiday. We did have our Christmas eve pizzas and we read the Nativity before writing letters to Santa, but the mood was subdued.

Christmas morning

Kaydie was feeling so much better, and she was very excited to get a Littlest Pet Shop.

Love the Christmas morning hair! 

 Palmer got the camera he had been asking for.

Nick got his Lego castle.

Then he watched his mom and dad build it because he wasn't feeling that good.

This is about the extent of the pictures I took during our holidays. I am not good at being the family photographer! But in my defense there wasn't a lot to take pictures of. We spent most of our time indoors because every day of the trip someone was sick. I'm not complaining too much, we did have some fun times.

We got to see all our family, including our new baby cousins (and we all love babies!) it was so fun to visit with everyone that we've missed so much. We had a fun game of Phase 10 on New Years Eve, it was also the first year all of the kids stayed up to watch the ball drop. I have that on video and it was pretty funny. We saw a couple of movies, and the kids all got hair cuts from their favorite stylist!

We did miss being able to see friends at church, visiting Temple Square, and a few holiday parties, but that's life in the winter! It was a Christmas to remember, maybe not the way you hope for before the holidays start, but any Christmas with family is a good Christmas.

best Santa letter ever!

I saw this hanging on the wall at Nick's school.

Just in case you can't read it...

I guess when you want a jolly old man to bring you a Legos Kingdoms Castle, honesty is the best policy!

Goodbye Jerry......

This is our little buddy Nick.

 Jerry is the name he gave the mole on his cheek.



 As fond as we are of Jerry, it was time to say good bye.



So off to the doctors we went.

While waiting to go into surgery he got to hang out with dad and color. I was getting everyone else to school.

Nick said he was nervous, but Kevin said he was cool like a rock star. When the nurse came in to walk him back to the operating room he got right up. When she asked him to push the "magic" button to open the door to the hallway he told her "I'll push the button, but I am NOT handicapped!"

Mom and Dad had a short wait, when they called our name to go back to the recovery room,

this is who we saw:

 He came out of the anesthesia as goofy as he went in!

He had his nurse and his parents laughing a lot.



 This is how Nick looks now. He calls the bandages Jerry's grave.

I'm not sure where he comes up with this stuff!

 Part of the fun of surgery is getting your very own mug!

The hospital shirt was a hit too! Unfortunately that had to stay.

To top off the experience he got to ride out of the building in his "very own wheelchair"!

He didn't mention anything about being handicapped during his ride.

Everything went well, Nick did great. Now we just get to wait to see what Jerry's scar looks like!

Fall Fun

These are some of the fun things we did in Old Cow Town

Cowboy bowling. The lane was set up in between two buildings. The ball return is a slotted rail on the right, you can see it in the picture of Kevin setting up the pins. If you don't mind playing some serious curves in the wood and setting up your own pins it's a pretty good time. Grandma even got a strike!

A wagon ride. Palmer got to ride shotgun as we mosied around town in a covered wagon pulled by some big horses. It was slow and steady, I'm glad I didn't have to travel across the plains that way!

Sarsaparilla. It's not my favorite, I liked the cold Pepsi. But the atmosphere in the saloon is to fun to pass up.

falling leaves

 Yes, it's December, we should have already done this. But it took until Dec. 2nd for all the leaves to come out of the big trees behind our house.

 When you don't have to rake leaves a lot it's a fun chore, almost worth fighting about.

(My kids can have some pretty strange arguments!)

 Because we're not in charge of mowing, we can rake the leaves out of our little yard and leave them out for maintenance guys to mow. Somehow the leaves got raked into a huge pile.

And it would be a shame not to play in a huge pile of leaves!

 Time to fix the pile and make it bigger.

This pile looks just about right!

Fall is definitely fun!

A Historical Thanksgiving

When we moved to Topeka last year we started a new mini tradition of having my mom and dad come for Thanksgiving. Last year we did a small church history tour. This year we took them on a history tour. First we went to the National World War I Museum and Union Station in Kansas City. Both are excellent places to visit where you can experience the past.

Thanksgiving day was spent playing games, watching movies, and eating finger foods. My kind of relaxing, easy going kind of day.

On Friday we headed to Wichita to see Old Cow Town. Since my dad LOVES Lonesome Dove we thought it would be fun to take him to the old west. We had fun looking around at all the buildings, watching a gun fight and enjoyed more sarsparilla in the saloon. We finished off the afternoon with a little photo session. The boys were all about the weapons, Kaydie was all about the dress. We all posed for a "serious" looking photo, but let's face it, this picture is who we are! Look closely to see where all the guns are pointed :)

Another fabulous Thanksgiving down, now on to Christmas!!

Halloween Time

It's Halloween again!

Time to decide what to be...

A ref.?

A PGA Tour player?

A Death-Eater?

Dorothy?

and the Witch of the.... Mid-West?


It's always fun as we try to decide who we're going to be. Maybe one of these years I'll be able to convince Kev and the kids to all go along with a "theme"! Maybe...I can dream :)I have to post this one twice, only because this was a first for me. This Dorothy costume was the first thing I've ever made, all by myself!!

Kaydie has wanted to be Dorothy ever since we went to the Oz Museum and she got the idea that red shoes would be an excellent thing to have. Making her a costume that would go with the shoes was definitely an experience, but I'm proud it came together as well as it did. At least I learned something new :)

As for the boys, we decided last year that we were going to simplify and cheapen Halloween so they had to be more creative. Preston was a nerd for his school party (I didn't get a picture of that). Then, he wanted to be something different for our Ward Halloween party. Palmer liked the idea of being a golfer which was great for me since that's a super easy costume, and Nick is now the third person to use our Death-Eater costume.

Halloween has been really different this year because it's on Sunday. We can't go trick-or-treating on Sunday, and out here people would think we were crazy if we showed up Saturday night, so Halloween was Friday night at the church. We had an excellent party with yummy food (Kevin won the Chili Cook-Off!), fun games and activities for the kiddos, a trunk-or-treat, and full candy buckets!

Now that all the Halloween festivities are over, we again get to look forward to another Thanksgiving visit from Grandma and Grandpa! Are the holidays really coming that soon ?!

fun stuff

Here is a look at some of the fun stuff we've been doing...

Church History Tour

First off a HUGE THANK YOU to Brent and Roseann for driving our truck back to us! It has been a total life saver. Because grandma and grandpa came for a visit we had to take them to see the sights. One of our favorites are the church history sights. We drove to Adam-Ondi-Ahman, you can see it in the pic with Preston in it. It's a cool place to visit when you know what it is, but to be honest, it's a little anti-climactic after a long drive. The area is beautiful though, the butterflies liked it, and knowing more about it's history and future makes it special. We also went to the Far West Temple sight. It is very pretty and neat to see the preserved cornerstones. On our last stop we went to Liberty Jail. Our tour last year was better than the one we had this time, but it is still an amazing place to visit. The bricks and lumber show how thick the walls were. It is amazing to think of the men who spent a freezing winter in that small jail/prison/cave. It is more amazing to read about Joseph Smith's perseverance in D&C 121. You should read it if you're ever feeling discouraged. I love going on the church tours, they are long, but fun days.

Air Combat Museum
While our grandparents were visiting we also decided to try out some new places. The weather was SO hot (115 degrees) so we had to find inside things. This museum was a lot of fun to walk through, it was only sort of air conditioned so we were still pretty hot.

Of coarse one of the favorites was a little toy plane, my favorite is the yellow plane that was named Jenny (shouldn't it be a boat?!). It was fun to get up close and personal with jets and helicopters, I want to go back again now that it's not as hot outside.



Oz Museum
This was a request of grandma's and Kaydie's. If you're ever in Wamego, Kansas you should give it a look. The kids had fun posing in front of all the displays. The museum is a large collection of everything and anything Wizard of Oz, movie facts, and movie scene displays.

We had so much fun with Grandpa Brent and Grandma Roseann. It was so fun to have them come out and see where we live, and enjoy spending time with them. We are so lucky to have parents that do so much for us!


Exploration Place, Wichita

The weekend before school started we decided to drive down to Wichita and check it out. We headed for Exploration Place which is another science type museum. We had a bunch of fun there. The yellow thing is a tube you can stand in that simulates standing in an F1 tornado. The kids thought they were tough taking on the wind! There was also the traveling exhibit "Grossology" where all the human body pictures come from. It is totally hilarious! You can learn about snot, burps, toots, and lots of other bodily functions. I like the nose at the top. We had a good time laughing at all the displays and interactive things, like making a guy burp, and pressing on tubes to hear why "toots" make the sounds they do. Exploration Place also has a medieval castle play house that kids can run around in and play knights and ladies, a huge exhibit of the history of flight which is really cool, live animals to see, and a killer view of the Arkansas River from the observation deck. It was a blast and we are excited for another trip there.

Old Cow Town Museum

This is a "living" museum, and we totally lucked out by going there on a special "Age of the Gunfighter" Day. It is an old town where you can experience what life was like in the 1870's. There are actors dressed up to make it all the more fun. We got to visit the saloon and try out sasaparilla, visit the bank, school, train station, general store, dentist/doctor's office, watch a real blacksmith at work, and see several gun fights, including a fast-draw contest. It was SO much fun. My kids have always been good at playing pretend, and the boys love being cowboys, so they were in heaven. The worst part was that it was another crazy hot day, but we are planning another trip at Thanksgiving, we're excited to see it all again.



Back to school

It happens every year, summer has to come to an end. This year we were ready for school to start again. Something new for this year is having the kids in different schools. It's a long story, but Preston needed something new; when we moved him, Palmer wanted to go too. So Preston and Palmer go to one elementary and Kaydie and Nick go to the same one as last year. It's hasn't been as crazy as you would think, and better than expected. Everyone is doing really well so far, so we're happy with the changes.

Another fun thing is Preston is going to be in a high school production of The Music Man. He brought home a note from school about auditions for kids to be in the children's band, and since he plays the trombone he thought it would be fun. He is really excited and just started play practice today. I'm excited for him to be able to try something new. It will be a crazy month or so, but I can't wait to see the play.

I feel like I'm always behind on this blogging thing, hopefully I'll catch up soon! I didn't realize how much stuff there was to talk about until I started looking at the pictures :) Life is as busy as it ever was, I can't believe we're getting so close to the holidays!?! But life is good, and we're having fun!