yay! Hikes again!

For our family, Spring means the start of hiking and mountain season. We didn't do many hikes last year because Miles was so young and we were just plain too tired. We only had one backpack and I did not want to deal with Kamri walking that young. But we love to go into the mountains and find a nice, easy hike the kids can do.

This Saturday was the first this year. We just stayed close to home. We found this one in a book Koy and Cassie gave us all about different hikes within 60 miles. (Thanks Koy and Cassie) We didn't go up the mountain much at all. The parking lot for the trailhead was actually in a neighborhood. So it wasn't high at all. But it was still beautiful and fun.

I took up the rear with Kamri. She was a little scared of the parts we walked through loose rocks, but she was a trooper. 10 minutes into it she said, "I think I'm tired. This is a long hike." I just laughed.

Lately I have been constantly amazed at what Kamri knows and can do. Regrettably, I have not been as good at sitting down with her and teaching her her letters, colors, numbers and such. I try to I don't do as much as I did with the older kids. I'll find things I can do with her while we're in the car or at the store, but writing letters is different than being able to recognize them. Sometimes I'll sit down to "teach" her something I don't think she knows quite yet and she just gets right to it. The other day I was determined to teach her to write her name. Guess what? She already knew how.

We sat down with a whiteboard and I asked her, "What's the first letter of your name?" She said, "Mmmmm...."K". Then she proceeded to write a "k". Same thing with the "a". She knew the "m" was next but was having a hard time picturing it so I drew one in the corner and she said, "OK" and just drew it. She knew the "r" and "i" and drew them.

I really had no idea she knew how to write her name. She loves when she sees letters that are in her name and is quick to point them out to us. She's grown up a lot in the last few months. She constantly makes me laugh and amazes me with what she knows and can recall. I'm having a lot of fun with her.

I only do this when I really, really want to win something. You might all think what I want to win this time is silly, but oh how I would love it!! I'm making him a shirt with the number 1 for his first birthday (in 3 weeks - can you believe it!) and he would look oh so cute in one of these. So, if you're interested or want to take gander check out Blue Cricket Design . This is her very first pattern she's selling. If I don't win I might just have to look into buying one anyway.

11 months!!

He's 11 months!! And into everything!! He's a very curious boy and loves to get into everything. His favorite room to trash is the kitchen. There's so much fun stuff in there. Way more fun than his toys. He walked along the furniture and still makes us all smile and laugh. Sometimes he's the only one who can get each of us out of our grumpy moods. Like I've said before, you have to smile with those big blue eyes and a huge grin looking back at ya.

(I was going to actually be on top of things and have this post done yesterday on the day he turned 11 months, but look at the next post to find out whiy I didn't)

It finally happened!!

What do you get when you cross an energetic 5-year-old jumping around with a

wet, slippery shower?

5 stitches!!!

That's right! Last night Evan was taking a shower and for everyone that knows him it won't come as a surprise to find out he was jumping around while in there. We've been waiting for this day to come. He has so much energy. He never walks or even runs. He sprints everywhere. He bounces off walls (literally) and jumps over eveything and everyone. I love his spirit, but sometimes I get tired just watching him. And I literally am scared to death some times. I know this is not going to be our last time taking him to get stitches (or a cast or something else).

Anyway, he was jumping around and slipped, fell, and hit his chin on the edge of the bathtub. I opened the curtain and I can still see his face. He looked really scared. I figured he had bumped his lip or something but couldn't see any blood. I had him hold the towel up to his mouth thinking he lips or something would start bleeding sometime. When we took the towel away there was blood on the towel but I still couldn't see any around his mouth. I had him tilt his head up and sure enough, there was the gash. And since the towel was gone it starts dripping down his chest and stomach and that FREAKED him out. That's when he started getting hysterical. I had to yell just so he could hear me so I could get him to relax a little bit. At this exact time Miles decided he had had enough of his crib and wanted to get out so he started crying. Let's just say I was a little frazzled. Evan held up a washcloth to his chin while I rinsed him off. I was really glad he was in the bathtub. I didn't have to worry about washing any extra clothes. I put a towel around him and brought him to the couch so I could go get Miles out of his crib. Thank goodness Ben came home a couple minutes later. I had been trying not to say anything to Evan about needing stitches because I knew he would freak out even more. I forgot to mention this to Ben. When he looked at it he said, "Yep, that's definitely going to need stitches." Evan didn't like that very much.

I called my brother who's an ER doctor. He met me at my parents' house and he stitched him up right there. It's nice to have a doctor in the family when things like this happen. Evan's not the first family member he's had to stitch up.

He didn't like that he had to get stitches. When I went to get a lamp for more light, Koy started to pick something up and Evan started yelling, "No! Don't do it now. I want my mommy sitting by me!" It was kind of funny at the time, but I'm glad he felt better with me there. He was a bit stressed but so brave during the procedure!! He sat still and and just held my hand. He was even asking Koy questions.

We had to wait for little bit at home before Koy could meet me. He was just a sad little boy.

The operating table - a.k.a my mom and dad's kitchen counter

YIKES!!

The worst part of it all - the numbing shots

stitching him up

5 stitches

to get him relaxed afterward, my mom made him a strawberry smoothie. He picked this over some ice cream.

And we did some Fun Fusion beads while we drank our smoothies.

Working together

Last Monday the kids were out on Spring Break. The pretty much entertained themselves the whole day. It was great. The WHOLE morning was spent downstairs making up and practicing a play. They didn't even come up to ask for a snack. After naps they practiced some more and then the rest of the time was spent making props and scenery and picking out costumes.

If you look closely at the picture below, you can see some things hanging from the ceiling. Sara wanted stars and hearts hanging down so we cut some out, stapled them to twine, and hung them with tape. She then made a sign that read "The Royal Ball" to indicate where the dancing was. She wanted Evan (the king) and Kamri (the queen) and her (the princess) to have crowns so we made some of those. There was a sign on the door leading to the basement with the name of the play and she made two tickets for Ben and I so we could come and watch it. They worked so hard and were so proud of it. It was fun to hear them from upstairs working together. They were all so happy and I couldn't have been happier.

And they lived Happily Ever After.

After the play, Sara gave us some paper to write down feedback - something we liked or something they could have done better. all of them, even Kamri, were taking this so seriously. I only helped with the stars and the crowns, everything else was totally them. It really was one of the best days we've ever had. And not just because they were out of my hair all day, but because I got to see them work together at something they did all on their own. It made them so happy.

latest obsession...

I'm kind of in a crafty-do-it-yourself obsession kick at the moment. I've been finding and looking at so many fun blogs I've been inspired to make so many things. Almost everything I made in this post was taken from another blog - I copy really well. (If I used another blog's ideas, just click on the word to get there. )

Here's one I made this week...

I started with these...

(2 women sized skirts found at the DownEast clearance center)

And ended up with these...

a skirt for Sara and a dress for Kamri (plus some extras)

Of course I couldn't stop there. I used almost every scrap of fabric to make some accessories to go with the dresses.

I got some gray and white zebra print fabric to add some "pop". I used it to make these cute flower pins.

Then made some headbands...

...and a ring for Sara using fabric instead of ribbon.

Then we had to do a photo shoot with the girls. I thought they looked too cute to not take more pictures just for fun.

And a picture with Uncle Pace just for good measure

I also made this necklace for me using washers and ribbon

Ouch!!

5-year-old swinging Swiffer Sweeper around

+

10-month-old crawling around

=

sad Miles

The other day Evan was helping out around the house and sweeping the kitchen floor with our Swiffer Sweeper. I guess he decided it wasn't fun enough and he wanted to swing it around the room. (Who can guess how many times I have had to tell my kids to not swing things around. Our home is not big enough for that.) There was one problem with that. Miles was crawling around the kitchen. He likes the sweeper and follows us around as we're sweeping. You can guess what happened next. Head and sweeper collided. I wasn't home, but Ben said he has never heard Miles scream like that before and he wouldn't be comforted for a long time. You can see in the first picture Evan felt really bad. Miles is just fine and you can't really see the line anymore so no harm done. But like I always say, if he would have just listened to me in the first place this wouldn't have happened.

Easter

For Easter, we did things a little differently this year. We celebrated Easter Sunday with an early Easter egg hunt. We have some Easter scripture eggs we read each year with the kids. There are 12 eggs and each one has a scripture with some sort of symbol to represent something about the atonement. So Sunday morning they went on an egg hunt for those 12 eggs. After that we went through the first 6 scriptures. This year we added some pictures that corresponded with some of the scriptures.

Then we watched both sessions of General Conference. The kids did great and actually sat for most of it and listened. They had some activities to do, but I was so happy with their efforts to sit and listen.

We invited my grandpa for Easter dinner. My kids love having Great-Grandpa over and totally talk his ear off. Most of which he can't hear, but they don't notice and just keep talking. After dinner we finished the last 6 scripture eggs which ended with an empty egg (with just a piece of paper with the scripture on it) to represent Jesus' empty tomb. My grandpa has traveled all over the world. He's been to Jerusalem so we asked him tell us a little bit about his experience visiting the tomb Jesus Christ was buried in. It's fun to hear the stories he has to tell. He didn't really have much to say about that but on the way to my parents' he told us all about his time as a telegraph delivery boy and the many miles he had to ride on his bike and missing out on the dancing his friends got to do while he was out delivering them.

Then we went to my parents' house for the Easter egg hunt. My parents filled 135 eggs with candy and a some with money for the grandkids. We almost didn't do it because they're at conference all day (they're serving a mission at the Conference Center) but we decided to. It's a good thing, because the kids would have missed it. They all huddled at the door waiting for their turn to get out the door to the eggs. We let the littlest kids go out first to get a head start.

What a stash!! I don't know how long we've been doing this, but since I was little my mom has made this bunny cake for Easter. It's so fun and the kids think the candy on the face is the best part. It usually causes some discussion on who gets what part, which then causes a headache. But I love having the bunny cake.

I don't have any good pictures, but we decided to have Bunny Monday. We did the whole Easter basket thing on Monday morning. The kids woke up Monday and got to find their Easter basket which was hidden somewhere in the living room. We decided to do this on Monday instead of Sunday so we could concentrate on the Resurrection on actual Easter and Monday would be the "fun" stuff. I think it went okay. We keep Easter really simple with just a few small things in their baskets. I used to do get a new Easter outfit, but that didn't last very long. I think Evan's first Easter was the last time I did that. I loved it growing up so maybe someday we'll reinstate that. But for now, we're happy with keeping it super simple.

My holiday decor is sparse to say the least. I decided I wanted to put something up for Easter, but I didn't have anything and I couldn't really find anything I wanted. Then my sister-in-law introduced me to Blue Cricket Design and it quickly became one of my favorite arts & crafts blogs. She had a great idea for tissue papered eggs and fabric bunting. I figured this was as good as anything and I could easily do it myself. It was a fun project.

(I used this tutorial for the eggs and this one for the bunting.)