Our Final Week

Sunday morning I took the boys to go meet little Lily Mae:

After our hospital visit, we went to church with my parents. Penny was super fussy and made it a pretty miserable Sunday for me but the rest of my kids did spectacular. Ben loved the teacher he had there and told me that she had just moved to my parent's ward. I asked Ben where she had moved from and he proclaimed, "I don't remember where which planet she moved here from!" That kid is too funny!

Sunday night we went to Tyler's parent's house to celebrate his mom's birthday. The party had a Kung Fu/Sumo Wrestling theme and of course since it was a Hatch Birthday Party, costumes had to be worn. Here is his mom with her BF Michelle:

Awkwardly blowing out the candles in her sumo suit:

After the cake, Tyler's mom and friend did some Kung Fu dancing and then the kids got to dance as well. Lucy really got into it!

After the dancing their was a pinata for the kids and surprisingly, no injuries! And here's Lucy swinging with her cousin Broden and her cousin Kyle:

On Monday Mecca was still in the hospital because of her blood pressure, so we took Oliver and my kids to the Sea Life Aquarium in Tempe. I had been missing sea animals and AAA gave us a pretty good discount so I thought we should give it a try. Though the kids rushed through (it wasn't super huge) I still think they enjoyed it- Lucy wasn't afraid of these fish like she was of the fish in the Bass Pro Shop. I don't think it would've been worth it if we had to pay full price for the tickets though...

Penny really wanted to get at those fish!

Treasure!

5 Crazies:

Tuesday I met Karen and her kids at the beach pool at the VVL Clubhouse. I miss that pool- it is so fun! I had a great time chatting with Karen and Steven loved being reunited with his buddy Colin, it was like no time had passed since they last saw each other. And Ben was once again having a blast in the pool- I guess he just had to gradually learn to love water again. When it came time to go, Steven left with Colin so they could have some more time together. I went back to my parent's house and me and my mom went to the Gilbert Temple to do an Endowment Session. That temple is so pretty and so much bigger than the Michigan one. It was nice to not feel so squished in a session.

After the session I picked Steven up. Aren't they just the cutest friends?:

Then my mom took me out for a (super early) birthday dinner at Arriba's- oh how I love and miss AZ Mexican food! We brought Penny along to give Poppy a break and the server mistook Penny for a boy so I quickly put on her hair bow. He then apologized and said his girl had the same problem so he pierced her ears. Ha ha! No ear piercing for my babies- way too much effort ;)

That evening I took the girls for a quick visit to Mecca's house so that they could meet little Lily. Lucy was immediately in love and wanted to hold and kiss Lily lots and lots: 

Penny was not enthused and got super jealous every time I tried to hold Lily- Trouble! 

After the kids went to bed I had one last hang out with Rebekka. We got Frosty's and strolled the Target Aisles. It was super fun! We talked about our dislike of the movie Frozen, we looked at ridiculous greeting cards and determined which ones were of worth and which ones stank, we talked about my children's obsession with Minecraft and we even discussed the merits of place mats ;) Always fun to hang out with someone that knows you're a dork and just doesn't care!

Wednesday we made another trip to Bounce U. This time Mike & Oliver came and Lucy came as well. At first Oliver and Lucy were not impressed and frankly too scared to go bouncing with the older kids. But after some time one of the bounce houses got a little less populated and Oliver and Lucy got brave and ended up having some good times:

Ben got brave this time and went on lots of the slides:

After we bounced our hearts out, we grabbed some lunch at Chick-Fil-A:

Wednesday night we met Tyler's family for dinner at Chuck-E-Cheese. The kids had fun playing games, chowing done on pizza and they even got to meet THE Chuck-E-Cheese-- such a creepy large mouse if you ask me but surprisingly Lucy was not scared of it in the least.Here's my kids with Tara's kids (Melissa had to leave early with her kids because Kyle decided to strip himself in the middle of the place):

Thursday we met Grandma Hatch for lunch at Oregano's. The pizza was super delicious- Steven had 4 slices! It was nice for the kids to get some one on one time with their Grams for once and I had a good chat with her.

Thursday afternoon I took all the kids over to Mike & Mecca's house for one last hurrah! I know we are a lot to take and we were pretty happy that they put up with us. We sure do love them!

And then like that, our trip was over and it was Friday and time to fly home. Poppy flew with me so I wouldn't have to fly alone with 4 kids. I am so grateful for that! Check in and security went really well (it pays to fly with an old guy ;)) and then we got to our gate and had to wait and wait and wait...Not only were we super early because everything went smoothly but our flight ended up leaving an hour late. By the time we got on the plane both girls were pretty irritable. Poppy managed to get Lucy to sleep which was awesome. I failed to get Penny to sleep which was not awesome. She was shrieking, crying, kicking, screaming- it was miserable. We still had an hour left and I was really close to a nervous breakdown when this sweet off duty flight attendant that was sitting next to Poppy offered to take her. I willingly gave Penny up and wouldn't you know that 5 minutes later this lady had Penny sleeping. That was such an answer to my prayers. I know I would have had a full out melt down if this lady hadn't got Penny to sleep. Albeit Penny only slept for like 20 minutes but it was enough to make the rest of the flight bearable. Needless to say, it's going to be a long time before I willingly get back in a plane with that girl!