In Other March Madness

Besides hiking, skiing, having guests and getting baptized, we still had MORE fun in March.

Luke was the star student! I remember spending days on Ellie's poster. It had ribbon! And flowers! Nate and Sadie's were very much the same. And then poor Luke. We knocked this baby out in 25 minutes.

 

He still loved it miraculously. And I didn't feel so guilty throwing it away.

We were out at dinner one night with friends and I mentioned making bread balls as a child. It's where you take a loaf of bread and mash it all up together and eat it. For Valentine's Day she made me one and while we all died laughing, Luke fell in love and became obsessed.

One day he was suppose to be making his lunch, he came to show me his very own bread ball.

Dustin married one of our old babysitters. That came out wrong. Dustin performed the marriage for one of our old babysitters. 

 I cannot get over all these kids growing up. Including my own. I took her to get her eyebrows waxed and she suddenly looked older.

Luckily she does not always act that way.

Nate's football team played their main rivals for the football championship. Our team had won 2 out of 3 championships up until that point. The game was insanely heated with parents on the other team behaving poorly (including calling out our plays and screaming across the field). It was so heated, we actually had to have the league commissioner come over at half time and ref the rest of the game.

But we WON!!!! And by 2 touch downs. It was a great game and a fun pizza party afterwards. Little did we know 2 weeks later and a new season we'd be playing them again.

Luke proved that he is the best game player of all time by winning UNO! repeatedly.

And also becoming a land baron  in Monopoly.

 Dustin and I squeezed in a few date nights with friends.

We also got to go on field trips! The 2nd grade and Kindergarten field trips were the same day so after a few days of mourning the fact that I couldn't go on both, I talked Dustin into going on one.

I'd actually been on the Kindergarten field trip three times prior, and never been on the 2nd grade field trip, so I was really trying to talk Dustin into letting me go with Sadie. Guess where I ended up.

  

I will say Kindergarteners are the sweetest though. They all wanted to hold my hand and Luke constantly told me how much he loved me.

Plus, we get lunch as part of our field trip. It was at 10:30 and consisted of deep fried foods, but there was dessert!

Dustin had an excellent time on his field trip too.

And to end the month off, Sadie started softball.

She definitely needs some work on the field, but off the field she's a star!

Baptism!

The day after we got home from our whirlwind trip, it was time to switch modes to get ready for Sadie's baptism!! She had to wait a few months for family to be able to come, and finally it was time.

My mom and dad flew in on Thursday and Friday morning, my Aunt Kristine and Uncle Dave showed up. We spent Friday playing: shopping, getting paint samples for our hallway bathroom (nothing like a home improvement project before 60 people show up at your house), pedicures, bike rides for ice cream. . .

It was no surprise that by the time we went out for dinner the kids were exhausted. I was a little worried Sadie was getting sick, but it appears she was just so exhausted from all the fun.

Dustin insisted that we have the luncheon after catered so that made the whole thing pretty stress free. The baptism was beautiful and simple and reminded me of what an angel Sadie is.

She was baptized in one of my old dresses from the 1980's. Vintage, baby! It used to have navy blue trim and was a little sailor dress.  My sister was baptized in it, as was Ellie.

My family gave all the talks and said such sweet things about Sadie. She really is the best!!

A large portion of our families were unable to attend, and I was worried with it being Spring Break that all of our friends would be out of town as well. Even with some missing, we ended up with a full house.

 Dustin insisted that we cater so that we wouldn't have to worry about making food. Best decision ever. It was so nice to just relax and chat with everyone. Plus the leftover Cafe Rio lasted for days. Perfect for company!

One of the best things about the day was having my mom and aunt there. Growing up we would always ask my mom who her best friend was and she always replied, "My sister." Kathleen and I would roll our eyes, but now we are each other's best friends. I hope Sadie and Ellie will be the same way.

 After everyone left, we did a little cleaning, saw Cinderella in the recliner seat theater and headed out for some night swimming and a Midnight Run.

I'm amazed at how little stress there was (although my last baptism was right in the middle of our turkey trot, my birthday, hosting Thanksgiving for 25 and 9 out of town guests). It was a perfect day for a perfect girl!

 We still had a few days left with my parents so we squeezed in a trip to the zoo and my mom and I finished off the bathroom so it wasn't just a room of paint swatches.

I need to get rid of the hints of green now.

Oh yeah, and Luke got gum in his hair. Hence the peanut butter remedy.

This is actually my first kid to ever get gum in his hair. He seems to introduce me to a lot of firsts in parenthood.

Solo Trip

I can count the number of times I have taken the kids on a trip without Dustin on one hand. He just has this way of calming everyone down and making every problem seem small, so I enjoy trips with him about a million times more. But truth be told, he doesn't have as much free time as I would like and the kids are getting big enough that it's time to start taking off on our own some more.

When my sister had to cancel her trip to Arizona, I knew we needed to come up with something fun to do on Spring Break. Luckily for me, my girlfriends had already planned a trip and let me tag along. So technically I wasn't even all that solo, but I'm taking baby steps here!

When we combine Molly and Meredith's family with mine, we create a perfect trifecta of children. Everyone has a friend which means way less work for the moms and really quiet car trips.

Our first stop was beautiful Sedona. We had packed picnic lunches and went hiking in the gorgeous red rocks.

 

The kids pretty much took off and we tried to keep track of them.

That night we headed up to Flagstaff to pick up our ski rentals and dinner at Five Guys.

 

While the moms tried to watch the BYU game, the kids were divided into rooms. The boys managed to make Molly's room look like a garbage dump in ten minutes while the girls burnt popcorn in the microwave in my room which smelled oh so divine.

We had two double beds and Nate slept on a blow up mattress. I thought I was so smart sharing a bed with the smallest one, until I remembered how much of a bed hog Luke was. He asked me to sing him a song to fall asleep, which then reduced him to tears (this is the kid who cries at Silent Night). But finally everyone fell asleep, which was good because I made everyone get up at 6 am the next morning.

The next day was SKI DAY!! I put 3 of the kids into ski lessons for the day, so that I could enjoy myself too. Luke ended up in a group with a 10 year old and Nate and Sadie had pretty much a private lesson where they skiied down black runs all afternoon.

 Ellie and Lindsay decided that they were big enough to ski around by themselves. EEK! Are we already to this point in life?

Molly, Meredith and I took off to do our own runs. It was pretty empty, so we got a bunch of runs in before it was time to wrap up for the end of the day. That was probably the most chaotic time of the day. Trying to find everyone was no easy task and they were all hungry and tired so if you can tell from the picture -- we're not all the happiest at the moment.

But all in all, it was a great trip and I'm so glad we went. We had disgusting Taco Bell for dinner and then made a sleepy drive home. I love my little family and it's kind of exciting to start stepping out on our own a little more.