Making the Rounds

It seems like we’ve been battling illnesses for a couple of weeks in this house. I was lucky enough to start the ball rolling with my 3 days of stomach flu (food poisoning?). Abby took her turn on vacation – thankfully skipping the puking part. Elise decided she wanted in on the action at 4:00 this morning. Fabulous! Luckily for me, Nate had already planned a work-at-home day since I had an appointment this morning. It was nice to have him here to share the joy of taking care of a sick kid. We don’t really remember the last time that Elise was sick, but today has taught us that she is not good at it. She is quite possibly the whiniest, most demanding patient we have ever met. Fortunately for her, we love her loads and we know that she has had a miserable day. That helped us to be lots more patient with her grumpiness.

It looks like the fun might just keep on coming. Nate went to bed early because he was “not feeling so hot.” I guess it is my turn to take care of him.

Even sick and whiny kids look sweet when they are sleeping.

Zion National Park

We figured that since we were in the area, we should swing by Zion National Park. The thought of adding a couple of hours to our drive time almost made us chicken out, but we are glad we went. It was a good fun time.

Elise and Emily were really excited about riding the shuttle bus since they have never been on a bus before. It was nice to ride together and see all the amazing scenery. We saw a few rock climbers going up the face of the mountain. People are crazy! We got out part way up the canyon and had a picnic lunch. Then, we rode the rest of the way up and hiked the Riverside Walk up to The Narrows. Ben was a great hiker. The girls were less great. Luckily, Nate is tough. He pushed Emily and Elise most of the way in the stroller and I carried Abby. The kids were excited about the wildlife (Emily counted 11 squirrels and we found a cute little lizard), but their favorite part was throwing rocks in the river at the end of the trail.

On the trail.

Riding the shuttle.

Our scenic picnic area.

Emily being goofy at lunch.

Throwing rocks in the river.

Single-handedly getting four kids up a steep rock face is trickier than you might think, but they sure look cute.

Abby got a nice little nap on the tail end of our hike. She looked so comfy lying back with her feet up.

Can you find the amazing, camouflaged lizard?

Cedar City

We had a fabulous time on our spring vacation this last week. Nate had to go to a conference in Cedar City, so we decided to make it into a little family vacation. It might have been a mistake to tell the kids about it way ahead of time. We knew we were in trouble when Elise and Emily started including it in their prayers weeks before were supposed to go. They were so excited about it they almost drove us nuts. When we told them that we were staying at the Abbey Inn, they thought it was the coolest thing in the world. I think they told everyone we know . . . “we are going to the Abbey Inn, just like our baby is named Abby.”

Our kids are so easily impressed/entertained. They thought the elevator was the neatest thing ever. They all wanted to ride up by themselves every time, so it took three rides to move them all upstairs. They were also pretty impressed with the ice machine and the cool key card to open the door.

While Nate worked, we hung out around the hotel. There was a McDonald's right across the parking lot with a deluxe playland and an awesome park a couple of miles away. Between that, the swimming pool and a few DVDs, the time went by pretty fast. Nate’s coworker took his family along too. They have two boys that are the same age as Ben and Elise. The kids, especially Ben and Max, loved playing together.

Abby started with a bit of a fever on Tuesday night and was sick (or maybe just teething) pretty much the whole time. Obviously, we would prefer that our kids were always healthy, but the timing kind of worked out to our advantage. We were a little anxious about how naps and bedtime would work out with all six of us in the same room, but it turned out not to be a problem. She was pretty lethargic and slept really well.

Here we are in front of the Abbey Inn sign. This was actually taken on our last day and Elise had apparently had enough!

At the park:

The park was a big hit. It was huge and had lots of cool things to do. The kids had fun playing with their new friends Maxwell and Asher.

At the pool:

Nate and the kids ready to try out the pool.

The kids had lots of fun swimming with Nate. He amazed us all with his ability to hold his breath and swim under water for a really long time.

Max taught Ben how to dive down and get things off the bottom of the pool. Ben was so excited about his new trick that he spent LOTS of time underwater. We were glad that we had invested in some new swim goggles for the trip.

The girls having fun at the pool.

A rare moment when Abby was feeling good and looking happy.

Sick Abby:

This is how Abby looked for most of our trip . . . her clothes and location varied, but she spent a lot of time curled up in a ball sleeping or just looking miserable. It was pretty pathetic. It is out of character for her to fall asleep anywhere but her crib, let alone at the pool with 20 people around.

Miscellaneous:

Elise was the caboose of a slide train at McDonald's and put her tooth through her lip when she bumped into the kid in front of her. It was quite the trauma and left her with a huge fat lip.

Luckily the kids wore themselves out every day. They slept really well considering their close quarters.

We let the kids each pick their own entertainment to take along. Ben brought six Star Wars books. He is hilarious when he colors in his Star Wars coloring book. He always has a couple of “reference books” handy to make sure that he colors everything just right.

Old MacDonald Had a Farm

What a difference a song makes! After only a couple of weeks of piano lessons, practicing was already becoming a little bit of a battle. Ben would do it, but he would put it off as long as possible and whine about it when it was time to start. This week, one of his practice songs is “Old MacDonald Had a Song”. Ben is so excited that he can play a real song. He plays it over and over and has practiced twice as long as usual every day without a single complaint.

Ben practicing on his own at 6:45 this morning. Thank everything for headphones!

Ben playing his song before church on Sunday. He hadn’t mastered it yet, but he was getting there. He looks so handsome.

K-1 Lunch

I got together with some of my college friends in Cache Valley today. I was planning on partying with just Keri and Kaylynn, but Cyd and Hilary decided at the last minute to drive up from Salt Lake and join us. It was a fun surprise when they showed up at the front door. We had a quality time hanging out and catching up. We kicked it at Kaylynn’s house for a while, drove up to see the lot for Hil’s new house, and went to lunch at Firehouse Pizzeria. It was great fun to talk and laugh with good friends for three hours on a Tuesday.

Elise showed her sweet side at the restaurant. She got a Creamie for dessert with her kid’s meal. She ate about half of it and then said “I think Ben and Emily will really like this, so I’m going to save the rest of it to share with them.” A great idea if ice cream didn’t melt.

It is rare to have a K-1 gathering with such a high adult-to-child ratio. Since most of the kids were in school, we had 5 moms for only 6 kids. (Korinne was having too much fun playing downstairs to come up and be in the picture.)

Abby hanging out with her new friend Keri.

Lucy and Elise looking cute in their hoodie jackets. Snow on April 15th?!?!?

Korinne and Hil waiting for our table.

Hopefully Alexander got a better picture of me than I did of him. I certainly won’t be entering a reflections contest anytime soon.

Four seconds of Keri and Cyd doing the killer laugh. Priceless!

Family Date Night

We’ve been really lousy about taking the kids on their one-on-one dates for the last few weeks, so tonight we had one big, combined family date. We let the kids choose whatever they wanted to do. It was unanimous. Their big plan was to go to the pet store and then go to McDonald’s for dinner. They are certainly easy to please. We finished off the night by getting root beer ice cream at Kirt’s.

It was a great date. The kids were funny at the pet store. They sure got excited over all of the animals. Emily’s favorite was the bunnies, Elise the kitty cats, and Ben liked the lizards, snakes, and rats. The highlight for me was hearing Elise pronounce “tra-lanch-lula”.

It’s a rare occasion when we don’t have our camera on hand. Nate snapped this picture with his cell phone. The kids were laughing at the mice. One little brown mouse would hold on to the inside of the exercise wheel and flip upside down while his friend ran around in it. It was pretty funny to watch.

Baby Steps

Abby took her first two steps last night. Really, it was more of a little side shuffle. She made a bit of progress today. She took about 10 steps to get a bean bag off of Nate’s head (pausing midway to watch Star Wars). She doesn’t seem too excited or confident about this new skill. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for her to really take off.

The start of something new.

Making progress.

Piano, Soccer, and Conference

Ben started piano lessons on Thursday. We bought a cheap, second-hand keyboard for him to start practicing on while we are making our final decision about what one we want to buy. He doesn’t seem overly enthusiastic, but he did great at his first lesson and during his first practice session. Music lessons will be whole new adventure in this house.

Emily spent an hour or two playing. After testing out every “voice” on the keyboard, she learned the simple little songs from Ben’s first lesson and wanted me to teach her more from the book. Hopefully she will still love it when it is her turn to start lessons.

Nate is the designated piano practice helper/enforcer.

Elise taking her turn. Thank everything for headphones.

Emily’s turn. She has amazing morning hair.

Ben being Ben.

Ben giving Abby her own private concert.

The spring soccer season started yesterday. The kids were excited to get back out and play. It is fun to watch them. We’ve gotten kind of spoiled about having our Saturdays to do projects around the house. It might take a little adjustment period to get back into the swing of things with soccer practice two nights a week and two games every Saturday. It’s all good.

Emily’s kick-off.

Ben in the thick of the action.

Nate hooked up our HD tuner downstairs so we could watch general conference on the big screen. High definition is awesome! So was conference. For some reason it was lots easier to pay attention watching in the movie room. Fewer distractions, I guess.

The girls ready with their “conference bingo” cards. (We don’t comb hair on conference Sundays.)

Abby was feeling under-represented. Here she is in her new chair from Grandma Reatha.

Skinny Mini

Abby had her 12 month check up today. She is a petite thing. She weighed in at 16 pounds 14 ounces (1st percentile) and is 28 inches long (12th percentile). Just for fun, we looked at our other kids’ growth charts to see how they compared. Here’s what we found:

Elise – 17 pounds 14 ounces, 29 inches long

Emily – 19 pounds 5 ounces, 29 ¾ inches long

Ben – 24 pounds 4 ounces, 31 inches long

We have certainly moved from one extreme to the other. Ben weighed as much at 3 months old as Abby does at one year.

Abby's Birthday

Abby turned one year old today. It is amazing how fast that year has gone. She is such a sweet, fun girl. We feel very blessed to have her as part of our family. Today she was a little less sweet and fun since she is teething and has a cold. She didn’t seem to care too much about the whole birthday scene, but our other kids were sure excited about it. Her favorite part of the day was having everyone sing Happy Birthday to her . . . she especially loved Ben’s cha-cha-chas.

Ready for church in her new birthday dress. We’re hoping that she grows some hair soon since she won’t leave any of her cute headbands on her head.

Abby’s favorite present was the cool ball that Nate got for her.

Abby has fast hands. We tried taking a picture of her with her rainbow cake right in front of her. With a quick swipe, she got a hand full of frosting (hence the fingerprints on the top of the cake). If we were cool parents, we would have just let her have at it. We didn't. We washed her hand and tried again at a safer distance.