Hair - April 24, 2014

Thursday - April 24, 2014

Brinley let me do her hair!  She doesn't usually let me do her hair, but she saw the hairstyles that I had pinned on Pinterest and she wanted her hair done.  I just finished Brinley's hair when her friend Sierra got here.  Sierra comes over in the mornings to walk to the bus with us.  Sierra wanted her hair done also.  They both agreed that they loved it and from now on they would let me do their hair in the morning.  I'm excited because I have a ton of fun hairstyle ideas that I want to try.

Decorating Easter Eggs, Alissa's Glasses, and Spring Pictures - April 23, 2014

Wednesday - April 23, 2014

We didn't get a chance to decorate Easter eggs before Easter.  I bought all of the stuff for it, but we just didn't get a chance to do it.  The kids had wanted to decorate eggs really bad.  So, even though Easter had passed, we decorated eggs.  Their friend, Sierra, came over to play and decorated a few eggs also.  

It turns out Alissa really did need glasses.  I feel really bad that it took us so long to figure it out.  Her eye sight is so bad, that she wouldn't be able to pass the eye exam to get her driver's license.  Poor girl.  She's happy to be able to see.  she can't wait for her glasses to arrive.  These are the ones she ordered, but it will take about a week to get here.

Every Spring, the school has another picture day.  As you can tell from Parker's pictures, the kids forgot to tell me it was picture day.  I would have had Parker wear a nicer shirt and I would have cut his hair.  Anyways, so they have a second picture day.  The difference between this picture day and the picture day at the first of the year, is that they give each kid a packet with all of the pictures in it.  If you want to keep these pictures you have to pay.  It's $14.00 per sheet and they send home 5 sheets (8x10, wallets, 5x7, and key chains printed in different shapes and sizes).  If you don't want to pay for the pictures, you have your child return the pictures to the school.  I really don't like this.  I think it is just rude!  We can't usually afford to buy these pictures.  The kids get really upset, because they want to keep them.  It's extremely annoying every year.  The most annoying thing is knowing that when we give them back, all they do is mark that we returned them, then they throw the pictures away.  I just think it is an evil way for the photography place to make money.  It's evil to torture the kids like that.  I feel bad disappointing my kids each year.  I am not usually pleased with the pictures anyways and it just feels so annoying to buy pictures from them when it is so easy to get pictures of my kids and much cheaper to use my own camera.  We can never afford to buy the pictures, so I at least get a copy of the picture.  That's how I console the kids.  I let them know that we still have the picture.  I'll just copy it and can easily print it up to the same sizes that are in their packets.  It helps them to be able to cope with the loss of their pictures a little better.

Here are Parker and Brin's pictures that they got this spring.

"Winds"day - April 22, 2014

Tuesday - April 22, 2014

We found one of the first computers Roger and I owned.  We needed to finally throw it away.  Parker was excited to see that it was garbage and he wanted to take it apart.  Parker learned from his dad that it is way more fun to take stuff apart and break it all to pieces before you throw it away, rather than just throwing it away.  So Parker had fun, taking this all apart, then we threw it away.

 While Parker was taking apart the computer, a big storm was blowing in.  The wind was so strong, it was exciting.  I love to experiencing the weather (except when it gets too scary).  This wasn't too scary, since we didn't have to worry about a tree falling on our place (there are no big trees anywhere in sight).  We went outside and let the wind blow us around a little bit.  It was so fun and just a little bit scary.  When it got too bad, we came back inside and watched the storm from the window.  I noticed that the siding was being blown off of the town houses across the street from us, so, of course, I took a picture.  I was just amazed at how strong the wind was blowing.

Finally organized the Storage Unit - April 21, 2014

Monday - April 21, 2014

When we moved last year, we weren't able to get very many people to come and help.  So, by the time we got to the storage unit stuff, we were all so tired.  We pretty much just threw everything in here.  It was a mess and very difficult to find or get to anything.  We had planned to come back and organize it as soon as we got things unpacked at our townhouse, but it never happened.  I didn't have the energy for it and I kept thinking that it wouldn't be too long until we move again, so it wasn't really worth all of the hard work.  Since we decided to tough it out at the town houses for one more year, we decided to clean and organize the storage unit.  It was a lot of work, but it felt good to get it organized.  We were able to get rid of a lot of things.  I always have such a hard time getting rid of things, but I didn't this time.  It was much easier, since I had already lived for a full year with out all of this stuff, it was easier to see that it was just junk and I didn't need to keep it.

I forgot to take a before photo.  I always forget to take the before photo of things.  I get so frustrated at myself for doing this all the time.  Anyway...... at least we can all see and enjoy the after photo.  Here it is!

Easter 2014 - April 20, 2014

Sunday - April 20, 2014

I love watching the kids on Easter morning.  It is so fun to hear them giggling and see how happy and excited they are as they search for their Easter baskets and the eggs that have been hidden through out the house.  It is also fun when they find all their stuff and we get to help them eat some of their candy.  They had fruit roll ups in their baskets this year.  In the lower corner of this picture, Roger is sporting a fruit roll up tattoo on his tongue.  

 The kids posing with their baskets and all the eggs they found.

 Sisters

 The kids got some duct tape in their Easter baskets.  They love to create with duct tape.  Parker made this super cool car.  He found a piece of wood last summer and has hung on to it.  He knew he wanted to make something with it, he just wasn't sure what.  Today, he figured it out.  He decorated it with duct tape and added wheels.  I think it is the coolest car ever!  I was so impressed when I saw what he had made.  He did this all on his own.

 Silly Brinley

 We got a little bored in the afternoon, so we decided to go out adventuring.  We have never driven over the hill past Marble Hill.  So, we decided to see what was over there.  We knew that Howell was there, so we figured, if we didn't see any other cool or exciting places to stop, we would just go to Howell and see if maybe they have a park or playground or something. There wasn't much to see, so we drove to Howell.  We found a playground first thing.  As soon as we got out of the truck to play, someone drove up to find out who we were and what we were doing.  They said that the playground we were on was the school playground.  they closed the school a few years ago and put up no trespassing signs.  They recently took them away from the playground, so people could still use that.  The people we visited with were really nice.  They said there are only about 200 residents in Howell.  It is a very tiny town.  The playground wasn't too exciting.  We played for a little while, then we wandered over to see the front of the school.  Then we headed back to Tremonton to find some other fun.

 When we got back to Tremonton, we decided to go play at Jeanne Stevens Park.  That playground is a lot more fun.

It was a very nice and very enjoyable Easter day.

The Bothwell Easter Egg Hunt - April 19, 2014

Saturday - April 19, 2014

We haven't been to an Easter Egg Hunt since we went to the horrible Tremonton Easter Egg Hunt in 2006.  The Tremonton hunt was such a horrible experience, that I vowed never to go to another one.  They had all the little kids line up.  I figured, since they divided them into age groups, that it would only be that age group searching, but that wasn't the case.  As soon as the hunt started, parents and siblings of all the little kids went running out to get as many eggs as they could.  It was scary how aggressive they were being.  So, each of my little ones only got one or two eggs.  Then they announced, that all of the eggs are empty.  To get a candy, you had to wait in line and exchange each egg for a piece of candy.  We got in line and were slowly pushed to the back by all the super aggressive parents and kids.  By the time we got to the front of the line, we gave them our eggs and the told us that they just ran out of candy.  It was a miserable experience.  I had 3 little ones who did not understand what was going on.  They expected that they were going to get some candy, instead they got pushed around and we left with nothing.  They were all fussy and crying by the end of the whole experience.

So, I was hesitant to go to the Bothwell Easter Egg hunt.  But the kids had heard about it and they really wanted to go.  The people in Bothwell have always been much nicer than the people we met in Tremonton, so I hoped that would make all the difference at the Easter Egg Hunt.  It did make a difference.  This Easter Egg Hunt was very enjoyable.  Each egg had a treat in it.  Some eggs even had money.  Parents and siblings were not allowed to help, so it really was their own age group.

 Here they are all lined up, waiting for the hunt to begin.

 Brinley found a half dollar.  She was so excited!

 They had a little petting zoo.  It was fun to see the animals.  The kids were a little nervous to touch some of the animals, but they had fun.

 Here we are, after we got home, sorting through the eggs to see what we got.

 When Roger woke up, we decided to go out and play.  We went to the Corrine playground.  We think that is one of the best playgrounds, but we don't go over there very often.  We love it because it has a teeter-totter, a merry-go-round, and swings.  For a while they had done away with all the swings at the parks around town.  That's why finding a park with swings was so exciting.  Now, the parks have swings again, so that's not a big deal.  But you rarely find a park with a merry-go-round or a teeter-totter.

Parker's Super Cool Magnetic Sculpture - April 17, 2014

Thursday - April 17, 2014

Parker's Hair - April 15, 2014

Tuesday - April 15, 2014

Parker's hair grows too fast!  It's hard to keep up with his haircuts.  He likes to have his hair cut, but he doesn't like the actual process of getting it cut.  He really wanted his hair cut before he went to school today.  I was planning on waking up earlier so we would have more time, but I just couldn't get out of bed.  So, I woke up at our regular time.  That meant I had to be quick with his haircut.

I had such a hard time waking up this morning because, I stayed up a little later than normal to watch a movie with Roger.  Then, I set my alarm to wake me up around 1:00 am, so I could see the moon all red.  I was so tired when I got out of bed to see it.  I was cool to see the moon looking different than I've seen it before, but it wasn't very red.  I was hoping we could just see the moon from Alissa's window, but we couldn't.  We had to go outside to get a good glimpse of it.  If Roger weren't here to look at it with me, I probably wouldn't have gone outside.  As I'm writing this, I'm realizing that I am just way too fussy when I am tired.  If the moon thing was during the day, it would have been a whole different story.

I just checked KSL to see if there were any pictures of last night's lunar eclipse.  There were some pretty cool ones.  I think I would have been more excited had I seen the moon around 2:45.  I saw it shortly after 1:00am, when it wasn't very red.  I would have liked to see it when it was at it's reddest and after, when you can see a line on the moon as it is going back to normal.  Here is a picture that someone submitted to KSL.  

Playing Jelly Belly's Bean Boozled - April 14, 2014

Monday - April 14, 2014
There was a blood drive over at the high school today, so Roger and I went and donated.  This was my first time.  Roger has donated before.  I never went with him, because I was either pregnant or had to be at home with the kids.  It was nice to be able to go with him this time.  I know this is probably not a good thing, but I finally beat Roger at something (he wins everything).......  My blood drained much faster than his.  The guy said that I was going to beat the record time that day.  He didn't tell me, if I beat the record, but I did beat Roger's time. So I won!  .......at losing blood.

When the kids got home from school today, we decided to play a fun and disgusting game, that I bought while on the sister's fling.  I bought a pack of Jelly Belly's called Bean Boozled.  It's a container of Jelly Belly's filled with some good flavors and some really yucky flavors.  Each good flavor has a yucky flavor that looks exactly like it.  Here is the Jelly bean list:

I did not enjoy playing this game.  It was soooo.... yucky!  My first two that I ate were yucky ones.  I ate barf and rotten egg.  They were horrible and it was not easy to get the taste out of my mouth.  I couldn't go on after that.  I quit.  Roger, Alissa, and Parker kept getting lucky and eating the good ones.  Brinley and I did not have good luck.  Roger, Alissa, and Parker kept at it and ate a lot more yucky ones than Brinley and I.  We both quit after having such bad luck with the game.  I took more video than pictures.  I had some brownies in the oven, so we could have something good to get the yucky taste out of our mouths.  The brownies, were cooking while we played the game, so we ate the batter that was left in the mixing bowl, when the Jelly Belly taste was too much for us.