I took the boys to the big guy little guy party at the library this year. It was space themed again. We got a picture with these two outside while waiting for it to start. It was a good thing too because we missed the photo op inside while the boys were getting their faces painted
Tucker opted for a snake on his arm and a matching one on his face. He was originally going to be darth maul but the painted kind of scared him out of it telling him his whole face was going to get wet. I like the snakes though
Hunter wanted to be Darth Vadar so the painter did her best following the Darth Maul picture she had.
There were carnival games for the kids to play and get prizes, a tent with the constellations, giant balls to throw, a light saber battle area, Lego building area and science show. The boys had lots of fun.
Brylee was sad that she didn't get to come along, even thous she had fun at the babysitter's house but she wanted her picture taken too.
Poor Hunter fell off his bed at the end of the month. I'm not sure what happened exactly but he fell flat on his back. I think he got a mild concussion. He took a long nap and complained about his head hurting that evening during dinner but bounced back by the next afternoon. Oh and it is apparently not good to give your child Ibprofen if there is a possible concussion, it makes it worse. I gave him some when he was grumpy because we were out of children's tylenol. Thankfully no damage resulted.
This week we eagerly awaited the arrival of Grandma and Grandpa Whiting! On Sunday last week, in the morning, Tucker asked me how many more days until they would arrive. I told him 4 (I realized on Monday that I had miss counted). He was super exited. He asked me again in the afternoon and was super disappointed when it was still 4 days. We were expecting them to arrive on Wednesday.
Here is a picture on Gunnar wearing the two large shirts that we got at the Home and Garden Expo last weekend. He was super proud. This is also the state the house was in on Monday. Tucker stayed home from school after coughing most of the night and not feeling well. So there was plenty to do to get the the house ready for our anticipated visitors.
On Tuesday, we learned that Grandma and Grandpa would be arriving sometime that evening! Everyone was super excited to say the least. They even made it in time for dinner :) On Wednesday we helped Grandma hunt down special sugar pearls and biscouff spread for her Leige waffles. None of us had previously tasted Waffle Love, the place that uses these ingredients in their "to-die-for" waffles. We had lots of fun perusing the aisles at Harmons in Orem. They have quite the selection of goods! It was very impressive. We spent the rest of the day relaxing.
On Thursday, I let Tucker skip school, since it was also Bryant's day off of work and we went lots of places. We started our day playing at the free playground at the Provo Rec Center. It is a glorified McDonald's play area with multiple floors and slides. The kids had lots of fun running around. Gunnar needs help climbing up the first couple of platforms to the play area and then does great on his own. After I helped him a few time, Tucker took it as his responsibility to help Gunnar get up each time he was ready. I was super grateful :)
After the rec center we went to the BYU Museum of Art (MOA). They have a special exhibit going on right now called sacred gifts. This is a continuation of an exhibit they had a while back. It was a collection of pictures of Christ that have not been loaned out before (or rarely loaned out) and were not permitted to be part of the previous exhibit. We learned that you needed tickets to get in (they are free) and thankfully they had plenty of stand-by tickets available when we arrived so we didn't have to wait. In the evenings a lot of people come and they try to limit the flow of the people through the exhibit at any given time to ensure everyone has the opportunity to view the art.
As we walked into the exhibit Brylee saw the first picture and said, "Jesus!" She immediately folded her arms and kept the attitude of reverence throughout the entire exhibit. Every one of our children did a superb job of being reverent throughout the exhibit and asking questions about the various pictures and talking quietly about Christ's life as depicted through the pictures.
Everyone was hungry by the end so we had lunch and came home for naps before continuing on our fun. We then went to the Provo Beach Resort and road twice on the carousel, using our free tickets from some expo in the past.
Here are the kids climbing on the shark shaped bike rack outside the resort.
They had lots of fun riding on different things. Hunter liked to pretend that he was falling off his horse.
Tucker enjoyed the exotic animals and was sad he didn't get a chance to ride on the gorilla
Brylee was just excited about being up there.
Gunnar warmed up to the ride on the second go around and gave this great face for the picture :)
Here is a short video of everyone the first time around
After the carousel ride, Gunnar found Grandpa watching a basketball game on a t.v. and we walked over and joined him. As I attempted to get a closer shot, Gunnar decided he was done. I like that he gravitated to his Grandpa and checked out what was going on.
We watched a couple of men surfing on the wave rider and then headed to Waffle Love to experience the amazing waffles. Bryant and I were both skeptical that a waffle could be just that good but goodness were we pleasantly proven wrong. We are now all officially hooked on waffles from Waffle Love and have had numerous requests from our children to return :0) If only it wasn't $6 a waffle... The waffles are Leige waffles from Belguim and the dough has the sugar pearls kneaded into the dough after everything else is mixed in. Then the dough is frozen or refrigerated until used. They are cooked for a longer time on a lower heat setting and leave your waffle iron covered in crystallized sugar but they are delicious!
Here is Tucker with his waffle with strawberries and whipped cream (Bryant and I got the same)
Gunnar eagerly awaited his waffle and ate it so fast that I never got a picture of him with it
Here is Brylee with hers. She had the Biscouff and then strawberries and waffles. Biscouff is kind of like a cookie spread. It looks like peanut butter but is cookie butter. Her and Hunter had the same
Here we are outside after the magic of Waffle Love.
And here are the wonderful grandparents that introduced us to it, with Hunter photo bombing, but at least he is smiling :)
We were all plenty full after that meal that we didn't end up making dinner, which was fine with me. The kids were pretty excited to have cheese crisps for their dinner.
Friday, I asked Grandpa to take a look at one of our bikes. The chain keeps falling off, despite my efforts to get it on their as tight as possible. He tried his best to get it tight and now we will just have to see how long it lasts until it comes off again. Hunter is getting really good at riding this bike and getting braver. For whatever reason my kids are scared to go up the driveway bump but Hunter was attempting to go up the sidewalk itself the last time he was on it just before popping the chain off before the repair below. Tucker prefers to ride tricycles because his muscles are built up for the different angle of the trike rather than the bike and he is not yet motivated to master the bike. Brylee, on the other hand, prefers riding around the circle on her bike but is scared to go down the driveway bump with any sort of speed when crossing the circle so she inevitably needs a push at that spot. Thankfully I convinced her that she could get off the bike and drive it up the other driveway bump and then climb back on so that I don't have to walk back and forth across the circle for each of her laps.
Gunnar was excited to help grandpa work on the bike.
Brylee saw that Gunnar was getting her picture taken so she decided that she needed to help out too
And finally, here is a video of Brylee "reading" a book. She was rather pleased with herself.
Our greatest news is that Bryant got the new route at FedEx. He will have a guaranteed 30 hours every week now instead of 20 :) This won't take effect for another month as he works to get his CDL and then attend the FedEx safety course. He will likely have to leave the state for a week during that time and we will certainly miss him. Our children are so accustomed to praying that Bryant can get the route (or more hours) that they have continued to pray for it even after he got the route. As a result, Bryant had lots of hours last week! He worked more than a normal week's hours by Wednesday. We were grateful for his day off on Thursday to be able to spend so much time with him!
We had mini-pizzas for dinner this past week. The children had lots of fun decorating their own pizzas.
I was also an amazing teacher one day and we made this letter tree. Capital letters are in the tree and lower case are on the ground. The children had lot of fun putting all the letter up. Even Gunnar got to help, Hunter identified the letter and if it was lower case he gave it to Gunnar to put on the "ground." The letters were supposed to be leaves in fall colors falling from the tree but I knew I would never accomplish the task if I waited to make letter leaves
This is Gunnar's favorite place in the house! He loves to sit and look out the window for dogs! One of our neighbors(ish) is letting their dog spend more time out in their fenced front yard so Gunnar gets excited every time he is able to find and spot it!
I wasn't feeling the best on Friday so I spent much of the morning laying the couch while Hunter, Brylee, and Gunnar played. It was a beautiful day outside so to make it up to them I decided to take them on a picnic when Tucker got home from school. They were all super excited and it helped me get up and moving. We had lots of fun playing in the sand and then on the playground, in hopes of shaking all the sand off :)
Here is a game Tucker was having fun playing and Gunnar really wanted to join in! http://youtu.be/lH78p-vTgNA
Last week the kids were having fun dancing like robots. By the time I thought to get the camera they were not dancing so much like robots as just being silly, except Tucker who was being a slow robot.
Here are some pictures from February you didn't get to see yet.
We got this box from Costco and it is well loved by all. Usually, Gunnar wins out because no one enjoys being sat on by him
Everyone is ready for family home evening!
Tucker working on his Valentines is so fascinating!
Gunnar just couldn't hold out until nap time
Gunnar loves to read books!
And here are my crazy kids on a Sunday evening. To pass the time they piled all the blankets and pillows in the hallway to jump over. Sometimes I'm not sure what the purpose of their games are but at least they have each other
I have had all of my children vaccinated so either Gunnar's chicken pox shot was unsuccessful or it gave him the chicken pox. Either way he got the chicken pox (or what we believe to be the chicken pox). He has almost fully recovered but it now appears that Brylee has them, not as many but still frustrating.
Last week I stayed home from church with Gunnar because Bryant was volunteering in Primary. I was supposed to teach Sunday school. I had printed off the lesson on a Thursday but still hadn't looked at it by Saturday afternoon. So I called the sunday school president and asked him to sub for me. He is also my home teacher :) I was grateful for his willingness and that I had been unable to look over the lesson so I had not spent all the time preparing. This week we all stayed home from school as we have lots of runny noses, Brylee has the chicken pox, Gunnar is almost cleared up, and Bryant was diagnosed with strep throat!
Thursday was our expected day to celebrate Valentine's Day. I am grateful that we did not buy tickets for a dinner and play since Bryant spent the entire day in bed. He went to an insta-care on Friday morning and was told he had strep throat and got a shot in his bum. He was well enough to go to work on Friday afternoon and has been feeling loads better since Saturday afternoon.
On Friday, to celebrate Valentine's Day with the children we made "gingerbread houses" with sugar cookie dough. We failed to make gingerbread houses around Christmas this year and so I told Hunter that we could make them for Valentine's Day. Well, when Tucker started talking about getting to have a party at school on Friday for Valentine's Day Hunter got super excited and reminded me that I said we could make gingerbread houses! I made the dough on Thursday night and Friday afternoon we cut out the shapes and built the houses (after cooking the dough, of course). Here are some pictures of their creations:
Here is a video :) Hope you had a wonderful Valentine's Day!
We were married in August 2006 and have loved every minute of it. Bryant is working for FedEx. So far we have 5 children, Tucker, Hunter, Brylee, Gunnar, and Connor. They are so much fun, check out some of the posts to see what they can do.
