Ice Cream, Pinewood Derby, Etc

It's always nice to get snuggles from Dad on a Sunday, Penny sure does love them ;) :

After getting the house all clean Monday, I was more than happy to let the kids play outside so that my house could stay clean longer than a few minutes. It's always nice when the weather cooperates and let's me do that. Lucy is sure loving riding her bike:

She has also become a huge fan of PB&J's. She literally eats them for breakfast, lunch AND dinner. I'm just happy she's eating and it doesn't hurt that they are easy to make.

For FHE Monday we went to Dairy Queen and it is always fun to spend time together eating sweet things. Both Ben and I had a hard time eating our "small" cones, we ended up with sticky messes. I was only a little less sticky then Benny.

On Tuesday I had the kids all loaded up to go to the library when I saw Lori walking down my driveway and realized our Primary Presidency meeting was this Tuesday, not the next. That was embarrassing but at least they caught me before I left! 

Tuesday night Tyler's "big boys" (scouts) came over. Tyler was the only leader so after a talk about what they should pack in their hiking backpacks, Tyler, me and the kids went with the Scouts on a walk around the neighborhood. The kids had a blast hanging with these "cool" older kids and they also enjoyed watching the scouts try to run laps with their big hiking backpacks on.

Saturday Steven had his first ever Pinewood Derby. Last year he had made a Minecraft Steve car for the local troop he was in but he never got to race it because I was lazy and didn't take him to the Scout meetings while Tyler was Winter Testing. Now that he is in Cub Scouts at church, we are all much more involved so he finally got to race his Steve car. It was ridiculously slow which I think bummed him out but when they called him up for the reward of 'The Most Creative' he was so surprised and happy. I'm glad he won for creativity, it made his day!

This week I have been doing more basement cleaning, more organizing and more scanning. I bought 100 slim DVD cases and was able to transfer 100 of my DVD's into these. I love how much less room they take up but how they are still easy to find. It was a good purchase!

 

I've been scanning in Tyler's pictures and these are some of my favorites:

The Quick Lowdown

Our week involved: haircuts for the boys, holding Laci's adorable new baby, dropping off a truck load of stuff at the Salvation Army, park time with new friends in the ward (and Penny being a total bully to their little boy her age), dinner with the missionaries (who tried to teach our kids a lesson WAY too long for their attention span, while our kids tried to teach them everything about Minecraft), Steven losing a tooth (literally, and it took the poor Tooth Fairy 2 days to find it) basement organization (which ended with me feeling like we somehow still have TOO much stuff), some errand running (where Lucy tipped over the whole cart with Penny in it, thankfully I caught it before it completely fell but not before it gave employees heart attacks), and a playdate and birthday party with Lucy's bestie, Audrey (Lucy is always in tears when she has to part for Audrey). And that is our week in a nutshell :)

Looks Like Spring

So this week started out like this, cold and snowy and just plain yucky:

But this week has ended like this, sunny, amazing, definite picnic weather:

I'm hoping this warm weather sticks, I am SO ready for Spring! Other happenings this week:

Steven had his first pack meeting this week. Pack meetings are when the whole family attends. These will not be my favorite things because Tyler has Young Men's which means I have to take all the kids on my own to something that is right at their bedtime. The girls were stinkers, no need to elaborate. Steven got some patches and things though so that was exciting.

Tyler had to go out of town last minute to Kentucky. He was gone Wednesday morning and came back Friday evening. This meant I couldn't go to Bunco Wednesday night so instead I decided I would try to make a fun night with the kids, pizza and ET. Unfortunately Lucy was terrified by ET. I told her to just go play in her room or the playroom but she kept coming back, hiding behind me and covering her eyes. She was in my bed most of that night, crying about "eyes" and other creepy things. But at least she is cute...

Speaking of being scared, Penelope has become very scared of EVERYTHING. If she hears sirens or loud vehicles (they can be close or super far away) she'll run to me and cower. Then on Friday we decided to enjoy the warm weather and went to the farm in Kensington and she was terrified of all the animals, despite the fact that they were all safely behind fences. Oh Miss Penny has got to toughen up!

And Tyler and I had an exciting date night Saturday which included a thrilling dinner at TGIFridays and some errand running at Walmart. You know you're getting old when you actually find that enjoyable ;).

Spring Snow

This week...

I tried to be a grown up and contacted a real estate agent to see if it was possible for us to get out of our lease early or if we should just wait until December to buy a house. She contacted our property manager who contacted our land lord and then Tyler tells me he doesn't want to take the risk of them not being able to find a tenant to replace us and now I feel like I should have just waited and not caused unreasonable worrying for everybody. I hate being a grown up.

I started up a new project, scanning in all the kids memorabilia stuff: artwork, writing, cards, letters, etc. I've got all but Penny's stuff scanned and now I feel like I need to do me and Tyler's stuff as well. This is starting to feel like the project that never ends, but at least it feels good to rid myself of things and be able to organize documents in pretty little electronic file folders.

For FHE this week we were talking about Pres Monson's talk about choosing the harder right instead of the easier wrong and as we were bringing up examples of easy wrongs, Steven blurts out, "Like when I throw away my carrots at school instead of eating them!?" Oh geez, way to tattle on yourself Mr. Steven.

Thursday I decided to try for a girl's night out with the ladies in my ward. People had been expressing that they wished I would plan another one so I did but then suddenly nobody could come. It was so frustrating and I thought I was going to end up all by my lonesome's (especially when Laci got sick and couldn't come) but thankfully (after sending out some texts) I still had 4 awesome friends who came in the end. Me and these 4 ladies had a good time and that made all the silly planning drama so worth it!

In the car the other day we were talking about having lots of something (I can't remember what) and Steven said "Like 99 billion!" and Ben shouted "99 billion is not a number!" I worry about that kid.

On Friday I had my annual Gynecologist check up and Penny mistook it for her own appointment and immediately started freaking out when they called me back. It took about 10 minutes for her to calm down and realize this was not her appointment. Lucky for me I had a really awesome doctor who helped with things, she took off her white coat (so she didn't look doctorish), let Lucy listen on the stethoscope and was overall just really sweet to my girls. Helped so much.

Friday night the boys started a Soccer Skills class through our local Rec Center. They were so excited that they picked out what they felt was their most soccer appropriate clothes about an hour before time to go. Thankfully the class was indoors since it was only 33 degrees outside (and snowing). The boys seemed to have a blast, despite the fact that they both got penalty's for touching the ball, ugh.

Picture from this week:

 

Spring Break

This week was Spring Break for the boys. I tried to make it fun but despite that (or maybe because of that?) they still made me crazy. I love my kids, I really do, but half of them are in a really cranky, contentious stage that can be down right exhausting.

Anyways Monday was be productive day so not so fun, Tuesday was Tiny Treasures (see Ben's birthday post) and Wednesday we went to an Instrument Petting Zoo at the library. Steven, Ben and Lucy got to try playing a trumpet, a trombone, a clarinet, a flute,a violin and a cello. It was fun to watch them struggle with making the clarinet and trumpet make a sound, Ben got especially red faced with the clarinet. Steven determined that the trombone was his favorite because it was the easiest to make a sound with, such a great attitude ;)

Thursday we didn't do anything super eventful during the day. Steven just went to a friend's house and the kids played in some mud puddles:

But Thursday afternoon, when Tyler got off work, we all went to see "Zootopia". I think it was a fun movie and the kids all seemed to enjoy it, minus Penny. Thankfully Tyler was on Penny duty and took her out halfway through which meant I could just enjoy the movie with the other 3. I super appreciated that!

On Friday we made the drive to Detroit to see the Outdoor Adventure Center. It was a super neat place: a plane to sit in, quads and snowmobile simulators, a waterfall to walk behind, stepping stones going through a "river", a suspended bridge, a tree to climb and slide down, a kitchen to play in, a tent and pretend campfire... Cool right!? Lots of fun right!?

Well it was at times but it was also pretty not fun for me at times. When we got there Lucy didn't sit on the potty correctly and managed to pee all over her underwear, Penny accidentally stepped into the river soaking her shoe, Penny also kept screaming and crying for reasons I am still unsure, Steven constantly complained "Is this it? I'm bored!" and I finally reached my end when Lucy accidentally stepped into the river, got the bottom of her pants wet and insisted on pulling them up as high as she could while walking. She looked ridiculous and I was officially done with it so we headed home. Despite it's coolness, it might be awhile before I go back there or at least awhile before I go back there with the whole crew.

And I'll end this post with 2 stories...

First we moved Lucy to the boys room so that we can start letting Penny cry it out when she wakes up at night (she doesn't always wake up at night but she does it often enough that it's making us crazy). Anywho, the first night Steven was all excited and asked if she could sleep in their room forever. However, his tune changed after one night with Lucy. The second night he prayed that Penny would sleep through the night so Lucy could go sleep in her own room again. Apparently Lucy needs some sleeping through the night help as well!

And this next story is sad but funny. Poor Miss Penny slid down a couple steps the other night and Lucy immediately proclaims "Oh, not again!"-- as if this is a regular occurrence.

Ben Turns 6

Ben woke up on the morning of his birthday eager to open his presents so we let him. His gift were all Minecraft things, his biggest obsession!

After present opening, he had a bowlful of his favorite cereal, Lucky Charms, and then we headed off to Tiny Treasures. We went to this indoor play place on his 5th birthday per request and this year he requested it again. He loves it so much, although I think he may just be getting a little to old (and rambunctious) for it: 

The boys favorite thing to do was to run around crashing these grocery carts, see what I mean about too rambunctious?

After playing at Tiny Treasure we headed to McDonald's for lunch and more indoor playing Lucy got a cute pair of pink glasses in her kid's meal:

That was pretty much the extent of excitingness for Ben's actual birthday. We ended up having Ben's birthday party the next night with a few families (our neighbors, the Chappell's and the Brandley's). We had them over for a Star Wars themed party (since Steven had stole the Minecraft party Ben decided this theme would suffice) and pizza and cake.

I went through effort of making Jedi Robes, spray painting the handles of bubble wands so they looked like lightsabers and putting together a few themed games (shoot Storm Troopers, don't drop Yoda & save Hans Solo from the ice). However, all this effort was totally unappreciated. Not all of the kids would even put on the robes and the ones that did took them off after a few minutes. The kids only wanted to play one game (shoot the Storm Troopers) and then they were too busy doing their own thing to be interested in doing anything else. Everyone had a blast so that was great, I just know now to put a lot less effort into a 6 year old's party.