Eleanor’s First Sled Ride and Igloo Building in Utah

March 2, 2019 by

Utah trip continued…
The snowfall was the most they’ve had in March in a long time, so we totally lucked out while we were there!
We bundled Eleanor up in her baby bunting suit and took her on her first sled ride!
She was mesmerized by the snow and giggled the entire ride.
Meredith loved pretending to be a reindeer pulling her sister in the sleigh.
WHAT IS THIS WHITE STUFF EVERYWHERE?
She wasn’t crawling very well yet, so it was easy to park her in the snow!
UM… IS SOMEONE GOING TO COME GET ME?
All right, I’m cool chilling.
Swing ride in the snow.
After Eleanor went  inside to warm up, the other girls stayed out with Jake and Uncle Mike for hours building an EPIC igloo.
They spent a lot of time getting the foundation right!
Snug in their very professional looking igloo.
Voila!
Pretty impressive!
All bundled up and very hot! It took forever to squeeze her out of this thing.
Other indoor fun… playing the piano with Grandpa.
Our family friend, Susan, brought over a birthday cake for the twins and we did an early birthday celebration! Red velvet cake was exactly what they had wanted and they were so excited to have cake then AND on their real birthday.
Happy early 6th birthday!
Making pancakes with Grammy in the morning.
 
Eleanor chowed down every meal, as usual.
Swinging on a non-snowy day.
Nothing beats hot chocolate after hours of playing in the snow.
Grammy and Jake also took the girls out to the Natural History museum in Salt Lake while they were there and the girls had a blast.
 
The girls are on a quest to color at every single place they visit.
Watch out for those velociraptors… and I don’t mean the dead ones.
Lots of love,
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Spring Snow Fun in Utah

March 1, 2019 by

At the end of February/beginning of March we took a road trip to Utah to ski and get all the wintery stuff out of our system since we don’t experience a real winter where we live. We felt like we had traveled back in time going from sunny weather at our house to cold winter at Grammy’s! We did an overnight in Vegas this trip to break it up and left early the next morning to get to Utah as early as possible. Eleanor hated being in her car seat, but other than that, the trip was manageable. Meredith and the twins were occupied with coloring and movies the entire trip, so as soon as Eleanor gets to that point, we’ll be golden. It’s going to be a long couple of years though…

First winter sports activity to check off: ice skating! Good times at the Peaks Arena in Provo.

The skating stabilizers were a huge help with three kids who couldn’t skate very well!

       

move

 

 

Meanwhile, Eleanor enjoyed her vacation in the warmth of the house playing with toys.

 

While the weather was cold, there wasn’t any snow on the ground until the last two days of our vacation. We woke up to beautiful snow covering the ground! We were the only ones at the park that morning sledding and building snowmen… since it was March, I’m sure all the locals were sick of the snow by then! But to us it was so novel and the kids played for hours. They couldn’t get enough!

 

Hauling snow for their snow princesses.

Meredith was obsessed with getting the balls of snow perfectly round.

One down two to go.

And then there were three.

 

The girls then demolished their snow princesses to create an igloo.

The snow wasn’t great for sledding, but it was packable and PERFECT for an igloo.

 

\We had a bet on whether the igloo would be there the next morning and it lasted the entire time we were there!

Two bears snug in their cave.

Proud of her handiwork!

Meredith LOVES the Going on a Bear Hunt book and had fun pretending to be a bear when we entered the igloo.

   

Attempting to sled.

 

Not the most thrilling sled ride ever, but that didn’t stop them.

We loved experiencing the winter wonderland for a few days (and then going to home to warmer weather!)

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Random February

February 25, 2019 by

Almost every weekend in February was rained out, which meant softball games were cancelled and we had to find alternate ideas of things to do inside, which are not plentiful around here! Home Depot craft to the rescue.

So much rain this month!

Group hug!

Every day, Meredith asks when Eleanor can share her room. I’m not sure how Eleanor feels about that.

Samantha had her yearly eye appointment and her eyes are looking good.

Another rainy day project… the twins made a car, complete with steering wheel out of a box and styrofoam.

Post-bath silliness.

Hey, sis.

After four weeks, Amelia got her cast off! Her arm wasn’t completely healed, so she wore a brace we could take on and off for another two weeks. Amelia was so happy that itchy thing was off of her.

Organizing Jake’s coin collection.

The girls were torturing playing peekaboo with Eleanor.

Back at the school’s fundraiser during the fall, I won a silent auction item of a pizza party for Samantha and six of her friends with Miss Holly. We planned it for the half-day before President’s Day weekend and the party was a blast! I thought Miss Holly was just bringing pizza for Samantha, Amelia, and the friends Samantha chose for her party, and thought that was pretty brave. But Miss Holly actually had them MAKE the pizzas. I can barely handle making pizza with our three, let alone eight kindergarteners/preschoolers. Miss Holly is a pro and everything was so organized and ran seamlessly. The kids even made dessert pizzas afterwards. Miss Holly told me that now she understands how Samantha must be at home— Samantha is usually so quiet and reserved at school that her teachers never believe me when I tell them how rambunctious and silly she is at home. At the pizza party, Samantha and her friend, Emily, were dancing like crazy to the music Miss Holly put on and were being super silly. Miss Holly said it was fun to see Samantha come out of her shell!

Amelia felt lucky to be one of the friends Samantha invited to the party.

My friends, Venus and Debi, came to visit Eleanor and she just ate up all the attention.

Eleanor presided over our sushi feast.

Park day with Maple.

On the hunt for poor rollie pollies who would die from the elements, neglected in the cage Meredith put them in.

Unicorn sighting.

Explorers on a voyage around our neighborhood.

Meredith with her rolly pollies and her new dog.

Meredith in her natural habitat– photos from Aunt Sarah when she came to visit.

Giganto-baby.

I came downstairs to find the girls had attacked Eleanor with hairbows.

HELP ME.

Eleanor had been crawling backwards since December and every day, we tried to encourage her forward with no luck. We figured out that some of her footie pajamas were so tight around her chubby thighs that her mobility was restricted! She seemed to do a little bit better naked, but still didn’t crawl for real until a few days after her 8-month birthday.

 

Typical 4th kid… Eleanor crawled for the first time and no one was around to see it!! Lots of chaos going on in the background, courtesy of the twins. I walked in and thought, “Hey, how did you get over here?!” and then realized she must have crawled!

Lots of love,

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Cousin Susannah Visits

February 20, 2019 by

Aunt Juliette and Cousin Susannah from Colorado visited for a few days and the girls were so excited to hang out with their cousin! Juliette and Susannah hung out at the beach and toured around while the girls were in school and over the weekend, Susannah stayed with us while Juliette was at a “Sister’s Retreat” in Newport Beach with some of Jake’s sisters.

Susannah has seven brothers!! With two sets of little twin brothers!! I can’t even imagine. So our very girl-centric family must have been a shock to her, but she seemed to love it and was so helpful and fun with the kids. She’s also great with hair and did a nice job curling their hair and putting it up. All the girls loved hanging out with Susannah, but Meredith grew particularly attached and wouldn’t let me help her with anything while Susannah was around.

“I want Susannah to help me go to the potty!”

“I want Susannah to read me a story”

“I was Susannah to get me dressed!”

I had to tell Meredith to leave Susannah alone so that she wouldn’t feel smothered and would want to come back!

 

We went to Aliso Creek Beach for the afternoon and had a beach bonfire. It was nice, but chilly for us, and we laughed that Susannah was constantly walking around in tee shirts and shorts, since this felt like hot weather compared to the snow she was used to.

Eleanor loved having an extra cuddler around.

 

Glasses and beach waves twins.

 

Lucero, Kennedy and Sebastian joined us for the beach bonfire. The kids hardly played in the sand at all because they were so occupied finding sticks to build a “nest.”

We were sitting down closer to the water, when I looked up and saw about 100 seagulls going crazy over something by our bonfire pit. Thinking I better go check it it, I ran over to our stuff, only to find that the evil gulls had somehow reached into our bag and pulled out a sealed, unopened Costco-size bag of hot dog buns and were fighting over it, ripping it to shreds! We’ve had seagulls steal sandwiches and other food that was just lying around before, but never have I experience that cunning of a seagull at the beach. Our hot dogs were bunless that night.

S’mores times.

 

When we got home from the beach last night, I asked where Sammy’s glasses were and we decided they must be in the car and that we’d find them in the morning. When our search in the morning did not turn up her glasses, I started getting a sinking feeling. I was not paying $800 for new glasses again! I remembered that Samantha had been lying on the sand, and Meredith had kicked sand in her face, at which point, Sammy had taken off her glasses and put them down so that we could get the sand out of her eyes. After interrogating her, we surmised she never put them back on, so they were still at the beach! I told her if we couldn’t find them, she would be doing a lot of chores to help pay for her new glasses, and she was pretty upset.

After they left on their rescue mission to the beach, I was already online picking out new glasses options. There was NO way they would be able to find them! Either they were lost in the sand, or someone took them.

Much to my shock, Sammy returned home, triumphantly, with her glasses! Jake had asked Sammy to say a little prayer in the car, asking Heavenly Father to please help them find the lost glasses. When they got out, everyone went to the bonfire pit we had been at the night before and searched. Amelia and Susannah saw something catch the light right below the fire pit and Amelia pulled out Sammy’s glasses, which were half-buried in the sand. A miracle! Samantha was SO happy to find them, and I couldn’t believe it!

Riding the ferris wheel at the Spectrum with Susannah.

It had rained so much that we went to see some of the waterfalls on local hikes.

Don’t know what Sammy’s deal is!

 

Susannah accompanied us to the park several times, and Meredith basically ignored me, preferring to play in the sand with Susannah and begging her to swing her.

Every parent has to put in four hours of volunteer duty at the snack bar for the season, and lucky for us, Susannah was there the weekend it was Jake’s turn (the league cut us some slack since we have two on the team and just made us have one parent put in the volunteer hours instead of both parents). Susannah helped with the kids during the game, while Jake was on snack bar duty.

Post-softball game park fun.

Susannah figured out a way to bribe Eleanor to crawl in a certain direction– she loves that Roomba!

Lots of love,

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