Summer, I guess?

Every time I read my BFF Jessica's blog I realize how crappy of a family blogger I am. She inspires me. I stink. Anyway, I realize I didn't post ANYTHING from summer. So while she posted every camping trip and fun outing and milestone moment, I'm going to post a giant summer re-cap. (Since it's November.) Maybe in the Spring I'll post first day of school pictures.


Cowabunga Bay water park in Utah.

 

Rigby Lake!

Gregg's awesome outdoor concert with his band Alternative Nation! Saw my long time BFF Shanan there! Her husband is "in the band".

 My  mom and I babysat Lynzi's kids while she taught EFY in Alabama or somewhere like that. We took them to Cherry Hills water park. We also took them to a little indoor amusement park. There are random pics of that scattered throughout. ;)

 

4th of July in IF!

 

Got to see most of my High school Besties and meet Rochelle's little Vivi!

 

Hale family reunion in Island Park!

Christmas in March

Well that's depressing. I was going to blog about how FABULOUS this Spring Break has been and then I realized I haven't blogged on my family blog since November! GAH! I'm always the catch-up queen, so let's get to it!

This Christmas was different because my parents are on a mission in Salt Lake City again and it was kind of everyone's years to be with their in-laws except Tami and I don't do in-laws for Christmas and Heather WAS so far away. (more on that later!)

So we decided since it was a weird year anyway and our kids needed NOTHING for Christmas, we would do a vacation! We looked at places like Hawaii and San Diego but air fare over Christmas is Re-Donk. So we found cheap flights to Portland and then drove to Grand Mound Washington to the GREAT WOLF LODGE... Pretend I just said that like Oprah. May her show rest in peace.

I wish we had a super cute family picture in the super cool lobby but we don't. We were literally having too much fun to stop and take very many pictures.

The airplane ride went well but the rest of Christmas Eve was a little shady.

See HERE.  I was the nut-job lady yelling at the Wal-mart worker and crying at customer service. I was super menstrual.  Even that night in the hotel was kind of shady... kids were kind of whiny and acting slightly entitled and I lost it a little bit.

 But then Christmas morning came and Santa came and we played all week and gloriousness ensued.

 We ate Christmas morning breakfast inside a life-size Gingerbread house. This thing was literally made of Gingerbread and candy.

Great Wolf Lodge has a really fun indoor water park.

























It also has this thing called "Magic Quest" where you buy these wands and play this magical quest throughout the resort where you're finding things like treasure chests and fairies and you get clues as to the next place to go. It was really fun. I wish I'd had a chance to play that part more with the kids.

They also have this animatronic show in the lobby a couple times a day and for the month of December they make it snow indoors. "It's snowing...at great wolf lodge...and all our friends are here..." (A song they play every time.)

There's also a bunch of other stuff to do like mini golf, arcade, build-a-bear type thing that also comes with a quest game...


























































 We went with our friends Ryan and Natalie Taylor. Again, I wish I had pics of all of us together! We've been friends with them since before we had kids or houses! We love them!

So we spent 3 FULL days there and then decided since we were flying out of Portland, to spend the last 1/2 day there in the city. We went to the Portland Children's Museum and VooDoo donuts, which is a must visit in Portland!

Then we flew home, had a day to recover and then drove to Salt Lake City to meet this little ADORABLE BABY!!!! 

And to spend New Years with my family. Deacon got sick the morning we were supposed to go, but there was a big family party that night, and I really didn't want to miss it, so we went anyway! Deacon through up randomly off and on for 3 days.

We also celebrated Brighton's birthday there!  Holy cow, we did a lot!

In BRIGHT Lights!

Brighton is a weird dichotomy because she's a total ham/drama-queen but she claims to have stage fright. She won't sing in church or be in a play but she really enjoys performing in groups. She doesn't seem to even get nervous. She did a GREAT job at her spring dance recital. She's gotten a lot better at dance this year even though (to put it nicely) her teacher and I have different "styles" of talking to children. It's a good thing Bright has no lack of self-confidence.
 Here are a few pics.

Piper also "performed" if you can call it that. I think the 2-3 year olds MAKE the recital, even though they are clueless. It just doesn't get cuter.

The best part was that my mom came just for the recital! The most "homesick" I ever get is when I look around at things like recitals and everyone has aunts/uncles/grandparents and I always wish my parents were closer, so this was super cool. I hope my girls appreciate how awesome that was that she came.

THEN our ward did something super cool. They did a ward musical! All the 8-12 year old girls did "A Hard Knock Life" from Annie and it was ADORABLE. Also Aaron and a few guys did "You Gotta Have Heart" from Damn Yankees. It was cute.

PS: I just found this today unpublished with a few pictures missing.  So I'll publish it now!

Tonsils and Tragedies

I KNOW I always have some excuse for not being great at keeping up this blog. The other day I was looking at my Jr high/High school diary and I start almost every entry with, "I'm sorry I haven't written in here in so long! Ugh!"   Some things never change.

But I have a good excuse! I started ANOTHER blog. Remember when I started the horrible MOM-ents blog? It's kinda like that but my goal is to have other writers write 50% of it so it's not all about me. :) I want a place women can go read stories about other moms that are totally real.  The mantra is no advice, no guilt, no judgment. But keeping it positive and fun! Anyway so all my spare time is being taken by that. I'm mean not ALL my spare time. That candy's not going to crush itself.

This week I'm at home with a laid-up Piper. Well, I wish she was more laid up. She had her tonsils out Tuesday and besides the "Devil's Breath" you wouldn't know. She has bounced back so fast!

Nana sent her these glasses and wand and she wanted to take them with her to the hospital. The hospital gave her the Teddy Bear who she named Sweets Ty. They were all so awesome at the hospital. They let her decorate her mask with stickers.

 Then she wanted to give Sweet Ty sleepy air.

After the surgery was kind of scary. Not out of the ordinary for the surgery but it's so hard to see your baby that way even though you know they're fine. When she woke up she was just confused and trying to sit up and kept trying to clear her throat which would send her into hysterics. The nurse had to give her more pain meds in her IV. After we got her calmed down she ate 7 popsicles right there in the room and 2 more on the way home. She was pretty inconsolable on the way home but has only had a few moments of crying since. I can't say enough about the breath though. HORRIBLE.

Now on to the tragedy. About 3 weeks ago we got two bunnies from our friends Ryan and Natalie who needed to get rid of them before they became stew meat. Ew. I thought they sounded like a pretty good low maintenance pet and better than our "Grow a Frog" who has to stay in the water all the time. So we got Lil' Ninja (the black one) and BunnDracula (The white one.) Lil' Ninja was clearly the house favorite. Firstly, because his eyes aren't red. Secondly, he's just sweeter and easier to hold.

So two days ago, as I was taking care of Piper, Deacon decided to go out and feed the bunnies.  The hutch has a big lid on a hinge and it's really heavy. Well, when Brighton got home from school she went out to check on the bunnies and came in hysterically crying saying Lil' Ninja was dead. I thought maybe the heat lamp was too much but no. We found him hanging halfway out of the hutch smooshed to death. I know, so gross. But also so sad and traumatizing! Deacon claims he didn't see it happen and I really hope he's right! Brighton was super traumatized by the sight and honestly, I was too! My friend Tina thankfully came and took care of it for me cause I was super disturbed. Last night we went and got a new one, a baby bunny named Carrot Nibbles. He's light tan and super cute!!!