Lowes Extreme

 The Get Out Pass is the best pass! We went to Lowe's Extreme as a family. We all tried the ninja warrior course, trapeze bars, and jumped on the trampolines. Marshall is like a kid there and can do everything they can do.

 

Lynnlee's 11th Birthday

 Lynnlee turned 11-years-old!!! We started off the morning waking her up and giving her presents in bed. Something new we are starting this year is a birthday candy poster. Since Lynnlee's birthday comes first in the year she was the first to get a candy poster.

We had chocolate chip pancakes, bacon and orange juice for her birthday breakfast. It was a school day and she was excited to celebrate in class and give her classmates little squishy animals. Her teacher gave her a cute birthday treat cup and she got birthday cards from her classmates.

Marshall checked her out for lunch and they went to Olive Garden.

That afternoon Lynnlee played with a friend. For dinner we had her favorite, cheesy chicken rollups, mashed potatoes and green beans. 

It was a busy night with Taggart, Sienna, James and I having plans. Marshall took Lynnlee to a movie for tradition and Kaden was lucky to tag along. They saw Tom and Jerry the movie. Perfect movie for them because they have loved Tom and Jerry ever since watching it at "Uncle" Lew's place in St. George six years ago.

The next day was Lynnlee's friend birthday party. Llamas were the theme and then we played lots of minute to win it type of games: cookie face, balloon stomp, marshmallow stacking with no hands, unwrap a Hershey kiss and starburst in your mouth and bingo, because every kid loves bingo!

We also played a game called Wink Assassin. It was really simple and really fun.

Donut on a string was Lynnlee's most favorite. 

We had llama cupcakes for the treat. Thank you Pinterest for the idea.

The next day Bonnie's and Beckie's families came for dinner. Bonnie's family brought Lynnlee this cute mini backpack. Katelyn had a mini backpack also so we had to get a picture of them together.

March Birthdays and Jarvis Cousin Time

Charlie's family came to visit! Angeline has a birthday in March so it was fun to celebrate March birthdays with her.

Kids these days...all in the same room and staring at their screens.

Ali and I played duets with my dad playing on the key-tar. We played the Ghostbusters theme song. It was really fun!

We had a cousin sleepover with Charlie's and Ali's kids. They have a hide and seek game they love to play called Thumbs Up. They played it a lot! We even filmed a Cousin's Cooking and Crafts. You can click here to watch it.

 We got to go night skiing with Charlie's family during the week. I'll post about that in the skiing post.

Random Photo Dump

 Time for random photos post.

Not sure how to caption this first photo...

Chewie is at his full size....10 lbs! Nice that Tag can carry him and I can carry both of them.

This is how primary looks during a pandemic. Normally they get to sit on the couch but this day they were all being crazy so I made them sit on chairs. Primary is usually a little rough with everyone fighting over who gets to hold Chewie. I will be so happy when primary starts back up again at our ward building!

Lynnlee made these glasses out of melty beads.

James likes to make rubber band bracelets to keep his hands busy while on a zoom meeting. He has quite the stash now after so many zoom meetings!

Chewie is treated like a baby and the kids love wrapping him in his blanket.

Every once in awhile Chewie loves being held like a baby. I snuggled with him while I worked one afternoon.

I think Taggart is the only one who can fit his feet in cereal boxes. Pretty random discovery!

When we see Chewie like this we all say, "Ohhhh, he's so cute!!"

Chewie and his friend Birdie.

Bike Buddies

The weather was nice so Lynnlee and Taggart went on a ride together. They enjoyed their independence. They packed snacks in their bag and stopped along the way. I love their blue bikes.

 

Dot Painted Mugs

Back in the fall sometime I accepted a calling in the young women program in my ward. Fast forward to March and I was in charge of a dot painted mug activity to go with the mug recipe cook book from a previous activity. I had never painted on mugs before so I wanted to make sure it would work and be dishwasher safe. I found permanent marker paint pens on Amazon. Marshall cut out some vinyl with the Cricut.

I found twenty white mugs at Deseret Industries. 

My kids were the guinea pigs to see if it would work. We put vinyl letters on the mugs and the kids painted dots all over with the paint pens.

Once the paint was dry we peeled of the vinyl and let it sit for 24 hours. Then we baked them in the oven at 450 degrees for an a half hour. It smelled really bad while it was baking. It was like a toxic chemical smell. 

This is how they turned out. Baking at such a high heat changed the colors a little.

A few days later James and Kade made mugs. I researched more on Pinterest and saw a blog that recommended baking them at a lower temperature for longer. We did that and their colors stayed the same. It also didn't smell while they baked. The downside was that the paint chipped off a little after washing them in the dishwasher.

The YW activity was a few days after my kids made their mugs. The activity went really well. I didn't take pictures but the young women really got into it and painted some fun colors and designs on their mugs. I would call it a success!

Deer Valley Tradition

Katie came to visit for her birthday again this year. We celebrated at Deer Valley. My sisters, Kasey and my dad all skied. I am loving this tradition! It was so fun to catch up with everyone while going up on the ski lift. Then cruise down to the bottom and repeat.

We made sure to get a picture over looking Heber Valley.

Kasey had to leave for a meeting so he missed lunch but the rest of us enjoyed a break in the lodge. The chef is a long time family friend, Brian Henning. He came out and said hi. His son Stevie used to go skiing with us when I was five-years-old through 8 years-old.

 

Tubing at Soldier Hollow

Katie brought Sid, Mir, and Brigs with her when she visited for her birthday. We squeezed in a lot of cousin time in five days.

 

We went to Soldier Hollow. We got more "excitement" than we bargained for. It was really warm when the sun was out and then we got there and the sun had just gone down. I heard someone leaving from the session before us mention it was icy. Sure enough we saw tubers coming down and crashing through all of the barriers at the bottom of the hill. It totally freaked me out. Thankfully the workers were aware of the ice and had all of the tubers wait while they groomed all of the runs. They instructed everyone to drag their boots and stop at a certain point near the end of the run. That helped a lot and I had a few good runs with the minis.

 By the end of the session it was icy again and you really had to drag your boots at the bottom to slow down and stop before the barrier. My boots looked like shredded tire from dragging them to slow down. It was so scary and crazy at times.

I thought this conveyor belt would be great instead of the rope tow but it was very tricky to hold my tube and one of the minis tube while staying in the center of the belt. During our first time up Sienna's  tube slid off the belt slightly and got pinned next to one of the fence posts. It blocked us and everyone behind us from moving up. The belt kept going and everyone was piling up behind us. It was madness for about thirty seconds until it came unpinned with the help of a guy behind us. It was really embarrassing! I really missed the old rope tow!

We had donuts and hot chocolate in the parking lot at the end of our session.