Sunday Minis

The minis have colds but that hasn't stopped them from smiling. They aren't sleeping as well but they are still pretty happy during the day.

I think Tag needs a hair cut. His tuft of hair on top is turning into a pretty long mohawk. Marshall thinks he looks like Jack Jack from Incredibles. I agree. What do you think?

Sienna had two happy pictures so I had to include both.

They are more talkative this week.They roll all over the room and with a little help they love to stand up next to their play table.

Safe Kids

It was the annual Safe Kids Fair yesterday. Betsy came with and helped me out. I couldn't have done this one my own. We had a good time. One of the radio stations was spraying hair different colors. Lynnlee chose yellow, James went with Red and Kaden picked blue. Lynnlee's blends right in. Kind of funny she chose yellow out of all the colors.

We walked around the booths, they played in the bounce house, play ground, wiggle cars and did the fitness test put on by the police.

The minis were great in the stroller and traded off taking naps.

One of the booths had sunglasses and fake teeth.

It as a great weekend with these cuties. Thanks Aunt Betsy for coming with us!

Museum of Curiosity

I am an independent person and it has been so hard not being able to take my kids places by myself. The minis are happy most the time now and so I decided to try taking them all by myself to Museum of Curiosity. Marshall was at a camp out so it gave us even more reason to get out.

It went surprisingly well. No one got lost, everyone got along, there were no tantrums and everyone seemed to have a fun time. The pictures don't really show that since they all looked stunned. Kaden has come a long way. He normally runs off and goes from exhibit to exhibit so fast that we can't keep up with him. This time he stayed with us and played for awhile at each one.

The minis were happy in the stroller the whole time.

It went so well that I think we might try it again soon. It's exciting to think I might be able to get out more.

Sunshine in My Soul

This weather has been awesome! The minis finally get to play outside with everyone else. Every afternoon Kaden and Lynnlee play outside together until James gets home. Then James joins them. On the warmer days the minis come outside too.

President's Day

President's Day started out with a pajama morning. It was a nice break not having anywhere to be.

James loves to help out with Taggart. He has been helping by carrying him places for me since it's getting hard for me to carry them both at the same time.

The three older kept piling stuffed animals around Sienna. She loved it.

In the afternoon they all wanted hats so I found a hat for everyone but Sienna.

I'm not sure what pose Kaden is doing in this picture. He is such a funny kid. When he is looking for James and Lynnlee he says, "Where is them?" or he asks, "What's happening?" Then my favorite is that he and Lynnlee love saying the word "parallelogram." They repeat it over and over all day every day because they think it is so fun to say.

James doesn't get into very many pictures since he is gone to school all day normally. So I have been trying to take more pictures of him when he's home.

That afternoon we were rear ended as we were leaving to go to Salt Lake. Thankfully no one was hurt and our car wasn't damaged. After being delayed by that, we made it to Salt Lake and visited my Grandma Jarvis who goes by Granny J. I have been horrible at visiting her since she has been in assisted living and now a nursing home. When I worked in a nursing home in high school I was always surprised by the lack of visitors. I wondered how someone could put a loved one there and then not visit. I understand a lot better now that I have a family, work and lots of additional things occupying my time. Although my granny is a lucky one because she does get lots of visitors between my parents and aunts going every week. My parents were there when we went so they helped keep my kids entertained. They haven't been to a nursing home so they were pretty shy and stood back. My dad played the accordion for Granny J. She was resting in bed so I didn't get a picture of her but I borrowed this picture from my aunt. 

After our visit, we went to City Creek for dinner and my kids to play at the kid corner. These three are buddies and it is so much fun! They are so cute to see how they take care of each other.

The minis were happy in the high chairs and in a few months will soon be playing in the kid corner with the others.

It's not family night without a treat so we went to Farr's after. Kaden was Betsy's buddy.

I sure love Aunt Betsy and Kaden. Aunt Betsy is so great with all my kids!

Bath Time

Tonight I put both bath chairs in and let the minis bath together. They loved it. Their feet were touching, they were laughing and they were splashing.

They were having so much fun that I didn't want to get them out.

Valentine's Day '15

I love holidays and I love traditions but we haven't really established any traditions for Valentine's Day yet. Each year brings something new and this year was a different holiday for sure. Leading up to it I worked Thursday night and Friday night so I was exhausted. I slept for 20 minutes after I got home for work, I got up, and got ready to go to Layton.

Marshall's cute grandparents celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary yesterday. They are the sweetest couple and such a good example to us.

All of Marshall's family met up at Golden Corral for a special program and lunch to celebrate. The program was very nice.

After the program everyone ate lunch. I am not a fan of Golden Corral and on top of that my stomach was feeling icky after no sleep for two nights. So when a family member started throwing up and some of it landed on Taggart, my appetite was definitely shot.  I turned my head and closed my eyes after the throwing up started and it felt like it continued on long enough that I was worried it was a domino effect causing others to throw up, like in the movie Sandlot. Thankfully that was not the case and thankfully Sienna wasn't sitting in a high chair next to Tag like I had wanted her to or else she would have been showered with it. I will be happy never to go to Golden Corral after this experience that continues to play over in my head.


After lunch my awesome hubby let me sleep at my parent's house while he went to his parent's house and entertained our kids. Best Valentine's gift, in addition to his real gift.

Lynnlee made this cute crown.

That night we hung out with Marshall's family. It was fun! Definitely a different Valentine's Day for sure though.

Sunday Minis

This was the first Sunday in a few weeks where the minis smiled so big with no effort on my part or anyone else trying to get smiles out of them. They were just so happy all on their own. I love it!

I'm also thrilled that Taggart is starting to get a neck and Sienna is sprouting hair. Just sprouts though but at least her hair is finally on its way, only 7 months late.

Valentine's Boxes

I am not a creative person and so when it comes to projects with my kids I look to someone else for help. My sister Ali was on Studio 5 last month showing how to make some cute valentine's boxes. I decided to give them a try for my kid's boxes.

The cool thing is you just need a kleenex box, foam board (I got one sheet at the dollar store), markers, and some white paper to cover the kleenex box. My sister provided patterns on her website. You can choose whatever animal you want and adjust the pattern for that animal.

Kaden chose a cow.

James chose a dog.

Lynnlee chose a pony.

I cut out the patterns and drew the faces on each animal. Then my kids were in charge of coloring them. I helped Kaden because he lost interest after his 2 minute attention ran out. Last, we hot glued the pieces to the kleenex box. It was a fun project!
Since I've had the minis I have done less crafts, sewing, reading, and hobbies. There is a big trade off when I spend time on something else versus staying on top of laundry, cleaning, cooking, errands and other things to keep the household running. I spent most the day Thursday making these and so I was behind on all the household stuff. It took me a few days to get caught back up but it was worth it to do something fun for my kids and hopefully they will have good memories of it.

Musical Minis

I forgot to share a cute thing from when my parent's watched the minis. My dad is the cutest grandpa! He played the accordion for them every day. They loved it!

Disney Days

We spent a day at California Adventure and two days at Disneyland. It was lot of fun! Aunt Betsy was so helpful and it was nice to have one adult per kid. It made it even numbers for the rides everyone went on. One adult would stay with Kaden and Lynnlee when it came to the bigger rides and the other two would go with James. Then we used the stroller pass to switch so the other adult could go on the ride. We also took advantage of the fast passes. It is a great time of year to go because a lot of times the fast passes didn't change the wait because the lines were so short. It was definitely less crowded than when we went a year ago in October. We will probably go back in a few years and it will have to be the same time of year so we can avoid the crowds.

 The pictures are in no particular order. I uploaded them from my phone and didn't rearrange them.

Lynnlee really wanted to see some princesses while we were there. She didn't mind which ones but wanted to meet at least one. She got to meet a few of them.

We missed having the minis but at the same time I kept thinking how much harder everything would have been with them there. They would have been stuck in the stroller a lot. Even though we missed them it ended up working out for the best.

This random picture is from our pit stop in Las Vegas. We were near where the sister wives live and I'm sure people thought we were sister wives. :)

Marshall lined up the kids in front of Mickey Mouse so the it looks like they have mouse ears.

James was about a centimeter too short for California Screamin so we did what any responsible parent would do. We stuffed some card board in his shoes so he was tall enough. He loved the roller coaster!

You can't tell but they are watching the parade and zoned out, probably from the long day.

Kaden was a typical toddler and had tantrums because of the long days, lots of sugar, and being off schedule. He fell asleep in the stroller one afternoon and woke up super grumpy which is when I took this picture.

James was tall enough for Indiana Jones and went on it about 10 times.

While James was on Indiana Jones these two played on Tarzan's tree house about 10 times.

The castle looked like this the first day. It was disappointing to see as we came up main street. The next day it looked a little better but not the same as the real thing.

Kaden and I were sad that we didn't make it into this picture but we had to go back to the hotel right as it was opening to change his pants/underwear. He has been potty trained since May and rarely has accidents, I mean really rare, like once a month. I was completely unprepared and so the only option was to go back to the hotel and change. I'm glad James and Lynnlee got to meet Mickey since that was on their checklist.

It was a successful trip! Besides missing the minis, I didn't want to come back to reality. We left at 3:00am on the way home and got home around 1:00pm.  It was so nice to have the afternoon to unpack and get settled back home.