April Randoms

Me:  What should we do for Spring Break?
Lucy:  How about YOU go shopping and DAD tends us?
Sounds like a win/win for everyone.  :)
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Austin is convinced he doesn't sleep at night.  Like - AT ALL.  No one can tell him otherwise.  Even pics.  "I was just faking."

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I was using the potty when the door opens a crack and Cole's little head pokes through.  He sings, "Hey.  I know you're in there." (from Frozen's "Do you wanna build a snowman?") ha!

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While driving home from Geo's office,
Austin:  "WHOA!!!  Look at those big cranes.  There are even three of them!" (shakes)  long pause.  But I still want to be a train conductor when I grow up.
Elise:  "What about a builder?  That would be good."
Austin:  "Yeah.  A builder is good.  But builders work really, really hard."
Elise:  "What about a doctor?"  long pause while Austin thinks.  "Cuz doctors have those cool ice machines that make ice into circles." (pellets).  There was never was a response, so apparently he's considering this one.

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At breakfast table...
Austin:  "Dad, did you know my teacher is voluptuous?"
Dad:  "um... no.  How did you figure that out?"

Elise went to her friend Miley's Frozen bday party.
They came home with fancy Elsa hair, dress AND
BLUE MAKEUP!!! = happiest girl ever!!!

Austin:  "well... we are studying the letter "v" in school.  And Miss Tami told us that Miss Shauna is 'voluptuous'."

similarly...
Austin:  This day is absolutely GORGEOUS!
me:  You are right!
Austin:  I know I am.  My teacher is the one who told me.
(This kid is a sponge!)
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We've had more issues with fighting lately...

George hears the kids yelling at each other in the basement. "HEY!!!  Break-it up!  Or your fight is only going to get bigger."
Elise:  "Of COURSE it is going to get BIGGER!  We DON'T LIKE each other!!!"

Lucy and Elise at the breakfast table...
Elise bursts into tears and screams.  "Lucy looked at me!"
Lucy looks over.
More screams.
Lucy looks over, with meaner look.
More screams.
Lucy looks over, even meaner.
... and so it goes!
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Somehow this picture didn't make it into the March posts... but it was sorta close to April.  We went with the Cole ladies to the 1st General Women's Meeting at the Conference Center. Usually the General Young Women's meeting is held in the Spring and the General Relief Society in the fall (or did I mix that up?), but for the first time all women 8 years and up met together.  The Cole ladies met for dinner and then we took two different cars to the Conference Center.  Gem, Linds, and I found our seats and then Linds and I walked back a little to look for my mom and the girls.  When we walked back into the Conference meeting room, I thought to myself "Whoa!  Something is different!  What just happened?"  I guess the prophet walked into the room while we were gone.  It was a cool thing for me to feel that noticeable difference.  The meeting was wonderful!  Sister Wixom had all the young girls 8-11 stand up and sing "Teach me to Walk in the Light". It got me a little choked up.  I am very grateful for a beautiful, pure little daughter who soaks in the teachings of Jesus.

Spring flowers at temple square were amazing!

Look at all these cuties!  The Butler's and Johnson's joined us for dinner and it was so fun to catch up.  I sure love those ladies!  The kids' favorite thing about the house tour was the toilets.  haha!

Austin and Elise especially loved wearing footie PJ's.  ???  Well, in truth, I guess I wish I had some too.  April was still freezing cold! Is warmer weather ever coming?

Project of the month.  New wall for the pantry:

Before

After

And guess who stopped by from HI... the Tuitele's!!!  So fun to see them!  The kids had to stay behind this time, but we were thrilled to see Chris and Channy.

Side note:  Check out those beautiful green hills!
Come July/August they'll be brown, but right now they are gorgeous!

Melts my heart.
Austin is becoming quite the reader!

Coscto trips usually require 2 carts filled to the brim.  This one was particularly eventful because we are in middle of potty training Cole.  Again.  He picked up #1 in a couple days.  Even dry at night.  So proud!
#2 is a whole different story.  Mercy!  I am about to go insane.  I am a believer of the "It's not too bad if they are ready" philosophy, but how can you be totally ready for one and not the other???  Boo!!!
Anyway... back to the story...
Cole said he needed to go as we were getting out of the van, so we made a b-line for the restrooms.  But hauling four kids from the entrance to the back of the store isn't exactly the fastest thing.  We're just getting to the pizza/hotdog eating place and a random lady says, "Is that your son back there?"  Cole wasn't too far behind so I thought it was a bit "over-kill protective".  Old people love to give "helpful" comments like this.  But this was a younger mother.  Odd.  Then she said, "I think he needs to use the restroom."  And I said, "We're making our way there.  Thanks." (in my politest voice - but in my head thinking, "Sheesh.")  He's holding his frontal area so I figured that was it.  Then I did a double take.  He has his privates out ready to squirt while walking to the bathroom!!! Yikes!  Thanks for the heads up, lady!
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Want more potty stories?  Ok... you twisted my arm....
Cole came out of his bedroom around 11pm, saying he needed to go to the potty.  Ok.  I take him and then he crawls over the top of Austin, gets about an inch from his nose and says in a deep funny voice, "I go pee-pee."
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I told Austin and Cole to get in the tub.  They running back (naked), Austin saying they went to the potty "AT-THE-SAME-TIME". (shaking).  Then Cole says, "And our pee-pee was FIGHTING!" sigh.  I'm not completely used to boys.

Lucy's paper model of a playground

Elise, Austin and Cole built this fancy building while I was
waiting for my copies to print at Morgan Valley Copy.
Cole is not in this picture because he was only in underwear
after having a #2 accident in the store.  *sigh*

One of my family's favorite games is the "steal the phone - take lovely pictures" while you are out of the room.  These two were the winners this time... WOW!  What a treasure to find these beauties!

So fun to have cousin Jax in town!

Daddy-Daughter Date

 The day after the POPS party was the annual Daddy Daughter Dance.  Elise was pretty lucky to have dates two nights in a row!  George said  the school was decorated all fancy.  The girls made tissue paper flowers, and were given tiaras and fancy crown pens as favors. They filled out these papers as the arrived:

Always one to have her own mind, Elise wanted to draw on the front of the paper and have Geo write her answers on the back.  

The girls helped me write the following:
Lucy loved dancing the best.  She liked the fast songs.  They played "What does the Fox say?" at least four times.  Lucy learned the line dance for that song in P.E.  She loved the mini chocolate eclairs.   Elise said, "It was fun and I loved him.  I liked eating the cupcakes.  It was fun eating with each other."

POPS party!

The Kindergarten held it's annual "POPS Party" on April 24th.  This year, it was patriotic themed.  They worked hard to get it just right for their dads.  Elise was WAY excited!  The dress rehearsal was an assembly for the school and mom's got to sneak over to that.  

This Land is Your Land

 
Elise looks darling in this video, but notice the belly button boy behind her.  :)

and another belly button boy.  :)

Miley and Elise.  By the end of the day, they were kinda done.  I'm sure they'd practiced lots of time and had to sit a lot.  Elise yawned through a lot of it.  :)

As part of the "POPS Party", the kids filled out questionnaires on their dads.  Here is Elise's:
My favorite thing to do with my dad is: play tag with him
My dad is good at: being kind me when I am sick
I love it when my dad: one day he helped me clean my room.
My dad is smart!  He even knows: how to take care of me.

Could this picture be any cuter?!?  Elise was so happy to have a date night with her dad!  She was extra happy to wear a bun! (first time)  First was the big program.  Elise's class sang the Air Force theme song and Geo had to stand during that part.  They ate dinner together (Elise got strawberry milk.  "It was so gooooood!").  They played games and Elise "got a scrape in the big gigantic playground."  What a fun night!

Easters 2014

Before my grandma's passing, we had planned a cook-out at Chris's cabin in South Willow for Easter Saturday.  I kinda thought we'd not worry about it since it had been an exhausting (but good) day with the funeral and all.  But party planning Greg to the rescue... we were at mom's an hour before he had us out the door and driving up to the canyons with food.  Geo was on call this weekend and had to drive to the hospital a few times, so he missed out on the fun.  And Mark had to take care of a piece-r rental car.  But the rest of us were around to enjoy the beauties of the earth!  And each other, of course.  :)

Cole LOVED the fire!

 Chris, Lacey and I were in charge of the money and candy eggs this year.  I just laughed watching those two hide the eggs!  Wish I'd have taken some pics of that!

Instructions from Aunty Lacey.  

These two didn't quite get the "group hug" memo

And they're off...

Cole and Jax were happy to find a couple eggs if they had chocolate.
If there was money, they tossed it back.  Love this stage!

Bigger kids are released...

After their chocolate, these two were happy to just play in the dirt.

Sunday best

Afterwards, we went to Gemmie's for an Easter feast.  By that time, we were photo-ed out and too stuffed to look cute.  It was a wonderful Easter to be together!

Grandma's Funeral

Grandma's viewing was held April 18th.  It was Easter weekend, which I thought was fitting.  We could remember that it was because of Jesus Christ that we will see grandma again.  Many thoughtful people came by to express condolences.    

Shannon, Kelli, Kari and I look like we could pose for family pictures with our color-coordinated outfits.  :)

After the viewing, the cousins got together to practice singing "We are your family" for the funeral.  This was the fun part!  We laughed and laughed.  Although we get together at our summer reunion and for other things, we're not ALL there.  At the funeral, we were only missing one cousin out of 47!  Pretty amazing!  Aunty Kristy said we were the worst choir she had ever conducted - all we wanted to do was talk.  And it was true!

grandpa Grant making sure we sounded okay

There was a small viewing the following day and Grandpa sang "Let me call you sweetheart" (one of grandma's favorites) right after the family prayer.  That really started the tears going.  It was pretty tender.  The funeral itself was really nice.  It was the "happy kind" where you know grandma lived a good life. I was honored to read the obituary.  The eight kids shared memories, eight grandkids shared memories, my mom and her sisters sang and the cousins sang.  I thought the bishop did a great job with his remarks as well.

Grandpa and Grandma have a posterity of 8 kids (plus spouses), 47 grandkids (plus spouses), 127 great-grandkids (plus spouses) and one great-great-grandchild.  WOW! Here are a few of us.

grandpa singing "My Little Marjie"

Austin really wanted to add a flower to grandma's casket

Grandma LOVED pink!  Roses were one of her favorites.

Afterwards, the relief society basically put on a ward party.  There are a bunch of us!  So sweet of them.  Again, it was fun to visit with cousins.  The aunty's ordered 400 eclairs from Schmidt's Bakery in SLC (that's always what grandma did for Easter).  There were a few left over... but not many.  And after THAT, we attended the baptism service of three of Trisha's kids... grandma would have been so happy!  It was a wonderful day to honor a remarkable lady!