The Month of March

     I am having a hard time believing that it is already April. We could have a baby at our house by the end of this month and I don't think any of us feel anywhere near prepared. We don't even have a baby name picked out yet. I have started going to the doctor once a week at this point.

     March was a busy month for all of us. Joel worked a lot on getting our yard fixed up. He has half of our fence put up and he has started on the sprinklers. He also found some big rocks that he put up around the yard. The girls had fun getting ready for and celebrating Anna's birthday. The train is still at our house so the kids have gotten their dad to take them on lots of rides around the neighborhood. We all wore green for St. Patrick's day and Annalyn made sure she was completely green. Brynlee also make a leprechaun trap for school. Annalyn was scared of Leprechauns for a few days and had a bad dream about a leprechaun coming into our house. Luckily she seems to be over that fear. Brynlee's teacher ended up getting sick and missing the whole week of St. Patrick's Day and then Brynlee had Spring Break so she didn't get her trap back for a while. When she brought it back she told Annalyn all about this leprechaun that they caught at school. Her teacher made her let it go but it had a pink hat and a pink belt so it was a girl leprechaun that was a nice one.

     During Spring Break I signed the girls up for swimming lessons. The pool was a 30 minute drive from my house but there really are not many options that are closer and it only cost $20 a piece for them to do lessons for the whole week and I could put them in the same class. The girls had a blast swimming everyday and they both gained so much confidence in the water and Brynlee is close to swimming on her own. Annalyn did tell me on the way home after the third day that she didn't want to do swimming lessons anymore because it took too long to get home. I took the kids to Burger King after their lessons the next day and that made it even more exciting for them. My mom watched Kyla on Tuesday for me but the rest of the week she was pretty content to be my buddy and walk around the pool or sit and color. On the last day of their lessons someone ended up pooping in the pool so everyone had to get out. The kids only had a few minutes of lessons left anyways so their teacher took a turn taking each kid down the big slide that they have. My girls loved that. Brynlee got to go down all on her own and she felt pretty proud of herself.

     The girls and I spent lots of time outside. We wrote a lot with sidewalk chalk but we discovered that we can't write on our slanted driveway without our chalk rolling away. The girls also rode on their scooters and jumped on the trampoline lots this month. We played games inside and they spent plenty of time playing with toys and doing chores so they could watch a movie. We went to the park a few times and our ward does a play date once a week that we went to a few times. The girls have really enjoyed helping me cook dinner and make all of our meals. We went to Wahooz one night for family night because Brynlee got a free ticket from school and we all had a blast playing some arcade games, the kids played in the little play area they have, and then Brynlee and her dad got to go through the laser tag maze that they have. We tried to get Anna to do it but she was too scared so Joel took her place. Brynlee loved the maze and really wants to do it again. 

     Joel and I both gave a talk in church and got new callings at the end of February. Joel is the second counselor in the Young Mens organization so he gets to work with the 14 and 15 year old boys. He teaches almost every sunday, goes to the wednesday night activities, and he even went on a campout and a 20 mile hike this month. There are only about 5 boys in his group and he enjoys working with the boys but it takes a lot of work and time. I was called to teach the 9-10 year old primary class. This is the first time I have ever taught the older kids but I am enjoying it so far. I am not sure how it will work once I have the baby but hopefully we can figure something out. 

     Joel also got a raise at work at the end of the month. He is now on salary and Joel is going to start doing all of the tile work. Joel was getting tired of framing so I think he is excited for the change. Now that he is on salary there will be times when he has to work a lot of long late hours but we are hoping it will even itself out and there will also be slow times when he doesn't have to work as much. We will see how it all works out. March was a pretty good month and we are excited to see what the future brings. 

Easter 2016

     Easter seemed to come early this year. Brynlee had her spring break the week before Easter and Joel had a campout and a 20 mile hike with the scouts from church that he went on the day before Easter. Of course the night he was gone poor little Kyla ended up getting sick. She was throwing up all night and pretty miserable. I had planned on taking all of the kids to the community Easter egg hunt but since Kyla was still sick and throwing up there was no way I could take her. Brynlee was devastated. She kept begging me to call someone to come and take her. In the end my grandma came to the rescue and she took Brynlee and my cousin Ryder with her to the egg hunt. I kept Anna home with me because she has been extra naughty lately. The last time I tried to take her somewhere she ran off right in the middle of the road and then she threw a big temper tantrum when things didn't go her way. I didn't want grandma to have to deal with that. Brynlee had a blast at the egg hunt and she came home with several prizes that she won, including a stuffed bunny that she loves.

     When grandma got back she took Brynlee and Annalyn both to her house where her and my mom put on a little egg hunt for the kids. Grandma fed them lunch and kept them for a few hours while I took care of Kyla. By then Kyla seemed to be feeling a little better and she was able to eat a little bit and keep it down. Kyla was pretty jealous when she woke up from her nap and saw all the candy her sisters had. They were good to share with Kyla but I did not want her eating all of that candy after she was just getting over being sick. She kept taking their candy out of their baskets too so I had to take it and hide it from Kyla.

     The kids and I decorated eggs the Thursday before Easter. Joel had a lot going on so he was not able to help me out. We went over to grandma's house and decorated our eggs with Ryder but it was a lot of work to supervise all of my kids with their eggs. Kyla needed lots of supervision. Brynlee decorated more than her fair share of eggs and most of them were green. Ryder dropped and broke several of his eggs while he was decorating them and Kyla spilled the yellow dye all over her clothes. Luckily it came right out and the kids had fun. They put lots of stickers on their eggs when they were done and were pretty excited to show them to their dad when he came home from work.

     On Easter morning the kids woke up early and Brynlee helped me to set up a little Easter egg hunt. We just did it in the living room but at least Kyla got to find a few eggs this year. I didn't buy a ton of candy. My grandma found some old stuffed bunnies that she had and she brought them over the night before so all of the girls got stuffed bunnies. They were pretty excited and they ate quite a bit of candy that morning.

     The girls all got ready for church and then we came home and went to visit Joel's parents where we had a yummy Easter dinner. Kyla acted like she didn't feel well all that night and she ended up throwing up again in the morning so she must not have been completely better from her sickness. Or maybe she just ate too much candy. It made me grateful for our health and for the atonement of our Savior. I truly am grateful for all he does for me and I know he lives.

Anna's Rapunzel Birthday

     Annalyn had a hard time coming up with a theme for her birthday party this year. At first she wanted another bear party, then a butterfly party, then a ducky party, then a Rapunzel party, then a Cinderella party, then a butterfly party, then she finally settled on a Rapunzel party. Her main requests were to have a pinata, go on a train ride, have a treasure hunt, and to make some princess crowns. I wasn't so sure about driving the train around our little subdivision but Joel told her he would make that work.

     For the pinata this year we just painted an oatmeal box and decorated it so it looked like Rapunzel's tower. Anna also had a hard time deciding who to invite to this party. She really wanted her aunt Alesha to come and she kept giving her a bad time about missing her last birthday party so Alesha drove over from Rexburg so she could come to Anna's birthday party. Anna also wanted to invite her sisters and her family and several of Brynlee's friends. We invited Josie who is older than Brynlee but she is one of Anna's favorite people. We invited her cousin Jakobee and Anna's friend Keira but Keira couldn't come. We invited one girl from our new ward who is older than Anna but she was the only other person Annalyn wanted to invite. The girl from our ward had a birthday party the day before Annalyn did so Annalyn got to go to her party too. For the invitations I had Anna color some pictures of Rapunzel and we glued them to a card that we wrote inside. I made everything pretty simple for her. Annalyn's only request for a cake was that it be pink and she wanted it to be a circle. That was easy enough. She wanted to help decorate it so I let her and Brynlee do most of the decorating. Brynlee said the cake looked like the greatest cake ever and I think Anna was pretty proud of it. I wrote the words and helped a little but they did most of the decorating.

     We started out the party by decorating our crowns. I hid the cake and had a treasure hunt set up where the kids had to perform all of these different tasks to they could get the next clue that would help them find the cake. I lined the stairs with crepe paper to make it look like Rapunzel's hair and the kids had to climb up the hair to the top of the tower, aka, the bonus room. Then I had Alesha come up and she pretended to be a bad guy that the kids had to tie up with Rapunzel's hair. They really got into that. Alesha gave them the next clue which told them that they needed to untie her. They liked that too. Their next task was to play a quick game of pin the nose on Flynn Ryder. Annalyn colored the poster for me. One of Anna's friends ended up missing the poster completely and stuck her nose on the wall. Annalyn started balling about that. She ran to Alesha and told her "that was so rude. She ruined my party!" It took Anna a long time to calm down. Jakobee didn't want to put the blind fold on so I just gave him a nose and he put it on the wall as well. I don't think they got that game.

     After the games we went out for a train ride. Joel took them for a good fifteen minute ride and the kids had a blast. I tried to get Kyla to go for a ride in the train the night Joel brought it home and she would not even let me get near the train, she was so scared of it. Alesha rode with her on this ride and she was pretty scared of it and cried for me at first but by the end of the ride she did not want to get off. She has gone on it by herself since then and begged to ride it everyday since. We did the pinata after that. Jakobee was the one to break it open. Really he just broke off the top of the pinata so Joel took the lid off of the oatmeal box and dumped the candy out. Annalyn didn't get her bag completely filled with candy so she cried about that for a while. Josie had to leave by then but the rest of us went inside for a dance party. 

     After our dance party we found the cake that was hidden in Anna's room. Then we let Anna open her presents. She loved everything she got. We got her a pony surprise since that is what she asked for. My mom took her shopping and let Anna pick out her own dress and she even got some new shoes. She loved the extra time and attention from Grandma. My mom said Anna tried on several dresses, twirled in each one, and spent a great deal of time admiring herself in the mirror. When it came time to open her present from grandma she got really concerned because she already knew what it was. "I should have never seen this!' she wailed. She was not happy that the surprise was ruined. 

     We ended Anna's party with cake and ice cream and then it was time for everyone to go home. I think Anna had a pretty great party and she was one happy little girl. 

     Anna's real birthday was the next day which was a sunday and she was real confused about why she was having a birthday again. "How old am I going to be this time?" she questioned. I tried to explain about how she just had a party and that tomorrow was really her birthday and she got really mad. She kept crying about how "We never should have broken my pinata. This is terrible. Now we have to make a new one!" She really wanted me to make her a new pinata because she really thought she needed one for her birthday. My grandma made a little cake for Anna at her house and we ate that the next day. In the end we sang to her again and let her blow out some candles off of the cake grandma made her but that was it. She wanted to know where the rest of her presents were and she was a little disappointed that she didn't get a whole bunch. My aunt did get her a little something so that made things much better and in the end she was pretty happy and had another great day.