Spring Break, Katy is 2, Cat Weekend, Hello Phoenix!

 

Spring Break had great weather, so we went looking for wide open parks and fun! This park has a huge grassy field where the boys could kick the soccer ball as hard and far as they wanted!

 

Around the field is a 1/4 mile of sidewalk and the kids love going all the way around. I love that I can see them the whole time.

 

There's a playground next to the field too.

 

Sweet Katy checking out every button, wheel and lever.

 

Panorama of our new favorite park!

 

The climbing toys are Diana's favorite.

 

Jim got a day off during Spring Break and we went out for lunch. Everyone is waving hello!

 

We continued our park trek through the week.

 

Everything is blossoming, this is our golden delicious dwarf apple tree. The "stick" looks great this year too, but just has leaves, no flowers. I guess we'll be waiting at least another year for that.

 

General Conference weekend is always a wonderful time. Sundays are tricky since the sessions don't start until noon, so this time we went to a nearby lake and had the kids sketch animals they saw.

 

It was so peaceful and despite being a little chilly, the kids loved spying animals. The heron and some turtles were favorites.

Some outdoor time always helps the kids settle before the sessions.

 

For family night, we listened to President Monson's talk and I told the kids to write down a quote they liked. Then after the talk, they made a picture with their oil pastels that made them think of the quote.

 

The kids put these quotes up in their room and felt so good about their work.

 

Flare is just so pretty. We tried for three months to see if Spike would show any interest in Flare, and nothing besides territorial behavior ever occurred. So frustrating!

 

 

Jake at soccer practice. It's so fun to see him aggressively try to defend or make a goal. He's had shots on goal each game he tries so hard!

 

During his practices, the kids love riding bikes or playing tag in the park. In the lovely weather it makes a great family fun time during the week.

 

The elementary school puts on a marathon each year. The kids do 25 miles over 3 months at home, and then everyone does the final 1.2 miles together. They start the kids with the oldest grade first. I was surprised to see Michael come in so soon, he really ran fast!

 

Then Nicole and Kiersten came a few minutes later, holding hands to help each other finish! Seeing them run together was so sweet.

 

Jacob went by so fast I could only get a picture of his back, he was thrilled to get to run this year!

 

We adopted a cat. A light brown mackeral tabby. He warmed up to the kids right away, prettymuch chose us at the shelter.

 

Beautiful and friendly though he was, Diana and Katy were just too close to hurting him all the time and I felt like I'd never be comfortable with the cat alone with either one. Add that to him marking his territory on Nicole's bed, and we realized it was a big mistake. So two days later, we returned Mack and hope someone adopts this amazing cat soon.

 

Besides, I have plenty of cuddly sweet cuties ready to sit on the cat furniture, crawl in my lap, beg for food, etc.

 

Katy is such an amazing little girl. She cleans up her own spills without being asked! One day I was getting dinner ready and I turn around and there is Katy, setting each place at the table with forks. She just intuitively figured out what I needed and was doing it.

 

Katy turned two this week!

 

The candles really scared her, which is totally understandable. We teach kids to stay away from fire and then stick some flames right in front of them.

 

After we blew them out for her, she got more excited and eventually was ready to stick her fork in the whole cake before I could get her a slice.

 

Yesterday at Jake's game the weather was gorgeous. The kids played at the park and Jake was running all over no matter his position. He figured out if you run for the ball as it goes out of bounds, you get to do the kick or throw in. So he was constantly going above and beyond to get the ball and it was fun to see all the action.

 

 

We took Spike to the breeder we bought our dragons from. Turns out there is a reason we couldn't get our dragons to breed. Spike is a girl!! We've named her Bella and she has loved the extra attention, it's almost as if she knows that we finally know. Poor thing!

 

The breeder had an red leatherback tiger that he wanted to keep. This dragon lost part of a limb when he was little and a cage mate thought it was a cricket. When we brought our lizards to show the breeder, he really liked how both Flare and -surprise I'm a girl-Bella looked. We told him about our plans to breed and he felt bad he'd made the mistake of Bella's gender (we bought her very young and it is very hard to tell on dragons especially that young). He sold us this leatherback as long as we promised to give him a male leatherback from a clutch. We need to beef this new guy up for a few months before breeding, but we can't wait to see the results! We've named him Phoenix.

 

 

Flare (and Bella) have both totally reacted to Phoenix already with lots of waving. Phoenix has done lots of head bobbing and beard darkening, so now we just wait it out.

 

The kids chilling in the dragon den this morning.

 

It seems fitting that we would own a dragon missing part of a leg since Jim works with amputees on a daily basis. He is eating and going around his new cage just fine. Welcome home little guy.

Work and Play

 

Last Sunday Katy "put away" the keys in the plastic spoon box. We searched and cleaned the house for 45 minutes before Mike, who had said a sweet prayer, found them! We were late to church, but the house got pretty clean in the meantime!

 

Costco just opened and I went this week. I'd let our food storage dwindle on purpose so I could buy in bulk. I had no idea it would take two trips to be able to shop the whole store! Thankfully I can still get several large things like diapers, tp, and paper towels in bulk cheaper through Amazon's subscription program! The kids know I've been excited and they were so cute getting excited about using "Costco cheese!" in their sandwiches or eating "Costco yogurt!"

 

For Activity Girls, Nicole made cute Easter cupcakes. She was delighted to be able to eat them all over the next few days. I understand the joy of having a dessert all to yourself with no siblings allowed to touch it!

 

Today we had an all day family project of mulching/laying pine straw in the backyard. This is when we were finished with the mulch in the front half and getting started on the pine straw. All of the kids worked their hardest, even Katy got in on the action by picking up mulch and taking it to the wheelbarrow. Jim couldn't keep up with their calls for "I need another bag of mulch" and they enjoyed "beating Dad" and working fast.

 

Diana taking off on the swing!

 

Laying pine straw. We have an area for a future fire pit in the middle of the pine straw.

 

Diana riding the zipline towards her unsuspecting siblings.

 

Her shrieks of glee gave her away as they got out of her way. Diana keeps ALL of us on our toes!

 

Katy swinging on the balance plank.

 

Some of our new plants are blooming. We hope they survive a summer with our children :)

 

We planted the squash and zucchini by the apple trees and they are already raring to go!

 

Final view of the finished backyard, plus the eggs all ready for the Easter egg hunt!

 

 

Katy off to find more eggs after putting one in the bag.

 

Behind trees and on swings

 

Up in the eagle nest

 

And on fence rails

 

On the bike ramp and every place in between!

 

After collecting the eggs, they open them to find a few jellybeans and a puzzle piece in each egg.

 

They put the puzzle together to earn their Easter prize.

 

This year the kids got oil pastels and sketchbooks. I made them shower since we were all filthy from all of the pine straw and mulch- and layers of pine pollen! Fun for them to experience a new art medium before we all watch some more March madness basketball :)

Spring is here!

Diana was the only other kid brave enough to touch the iguana last week. She was good and just used one finger to "pet" it.

 

Last year this tree died thanks to me spraying weeds at the base with weed killer. Apparently that can kill the tree too. We waited until spring to be sure it was dead and then Jim took it out while the boys helped. They would pull a rope (from a very safe distance) to make sure each limb would fall on our grass, not over the fence into the neighbor's pool.

 

Then they would drag the limb and use shears to cut it into smaller pieces. I love watching them working hard and learning new skills.

 

The neighbor, who I'm sure had been eyeing the process with trepidation the entire time, offered to help when it was finally time to cut the top of the tree off. Jim made the appropriate notches and then the boys helped the neighbor pull and the tree fell perfectly onto our yard. Jim used a hack saw the entire time and said it was as good a workout as surfing :)

 

We went to an Irish restaurant where they had a St Patrick's day celebration going on with a band, dancers, bagpipes, etc. The kids played their own version of corn hole with several other kids while we waited to be seated. They gave us a half hour wait time, then extended it another half hour when we checked then. So after watching the band and dancers and playing around, we just went home and had some good old spaghetti. We felt good about the money we saved :)

 

The kids all piled up to watch a movie on a Saturday night.

 

Diana ready for church. It was one of those days (which seem to frequently occur on Sundays)!

 

Jacob's Kindergarten class made leprechaun traps, and Jake was so excited to share how his glittery box full of gold coins and "pom poms for a nap" would lure a leprechaun in, then the wood stick propping open the box had a shiny gold bell attached to the top. When the leprechaun pulled the bell, the stick would fall and the box would close.

 

We had primary voting this week and it was great to be able to participate.

 

I watched the Truehafts this week and it was great to see their imaginations and ideas as they ran all over the house and yard.

 

I've been taking the lizards out a bunch. Flare roams her cage restlessly when she wants to get out and play. The other day after being on the back porch for a long time, she tried squeezing behind a big rock and almost got stuck, silly girl.

 

Jake has volunteered to feed Boo at nights and Nicole is more than happy to let him have one of her jobs. Jacob loves it when Boo eats from his hand.

 

All ready for St Patrick's Day! We had Lucky Charms for breakfast as opposed to our normal oatmeal and their behavior really reflected the sugar highs and lows. I think next time we will make the sugar cereal the desert after dinner!

 

Diana was exhausted after a big day at preschool and playing. I would add the caption: "Peace on earth goodwill to men." The calm after her awake hours of energy and motion is appreciated very much by my pregnant self!

 

 

My back isn't what it used to be so Jim took some time off Friday to catch up on all the stuff I've had to stop doing. One of the things was getting the garden finished planting with some more strawberries. We are doing tomatoes, peppers and onions in the garden along with a ton of strawberries. We have other spots in the yard for squash, zucchini, cantaloupe and watermelon because they would each gladly take over an entire garden bed with their enormous leaves or vines. I mulched around the strawberries and look forward to the different varieties.

 

While at Lowes getting the strawberries, we looked around. Jim has wanted to do something about the eroding topsoil of the back. Last year we put down pine straw, but when fall came we had to rake all that straw, plus leaves, plus straw from our pine trees! We didn't want the weeds and thorny vines back though. So Jim, who has a master plan for how the yard will look in a few years, decided to add a bunch of evergreen shade friendly bushes of different sizes.

 

We strategically placed the plants in the yard and we look forward to how they will help the yard. We still need to do more to stop the erosion, but this will help as the plants grow and their mulch and roots help. We figure in 10 years it will look great haha

 

Nicole and Michael took an art class on Saturday to make owls with acrylic paint. They LOVED it!

 

Michael kept forgetting to tap water from his paintbrush after getting it wet so there were water lines, but it was fun watching his ideas. The model paintings they had hung up were cute, friendly owls, but he definitely had his own ideas about how owls are night predators and painted accordingly :)

 

Nicole made a cupcake owl. She listened to the instructor and learned so much.

 

Finished artwork!

Despite the full covering of the smock, Michael was covered in paint from head to toe when we left. In his defense, it wasn't his fault that while they were taking a group picture a girl standing behind him tripped and planted her slightly damp painting on his head as he sat in the front row. Just his luck I guess :)