Doing What They LOVE Best!

Here are a couple short videos of Connor and Mylie doing what they love best!  Mylie is a little tumbler and tumbles all over the place.  Connor is, once again, obsessed with pole vault this spring and is very excited about the progress he is making.  Of course, I'm proud of them both, but mostly I just love watching them be so passionate about something they are doing!  Everybody should have that.

Spring Break

This year, one of our family goals was to go on a family vacation. We had such a great time going to Alaska last year, that we decided we needed to do something yearly, although not always so expensive or so far away. Since my baby is due July 25, we decided that we would be better off going somewhere this spring rather than summer. So we spent spring break (and only $425 total--hotels, food, gas, and entertainment!) and headed south to the Flagstaff, AZ area and the Grand Canyon. It was a fantastic trip, and I would recommend it to any family. Tony and I really loved everything we did, and so did the kids. At the end of each day, we would ask what everybody's favorite thing was, and it was tough to decided because we loved everything we saw and did. Here are a few pics from the trip:

We visited some 800-year-old Native American dwellings that were awesome! This is a village that originally had 100 rooms.

We also visited Sunset Crater, which is a volcano that erupted about 1000 years ago. The whole area is filled with lava rocks, which were neat. The kids favorite thing here was hiking to the top of one of the smaller craters.
Also near Flagstaff, we went to Walnut Canyon, which is home to about 300 rooms of Native cliff dwellings. We were able to hike through one area of them and go inside them. This may have been our favorite place!

South of Flagstaff is Oak Creek Canyon, on the way to Sedona. This is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. Right near Sedona is Slide Creek State Park. The red rock and greenery are sooo beautiful together, and the river there is amazing, too. The rock is smooth, creating a natural waterslide area. If it had been warmer, we would have gone swimming here. The kids would have loved that!
At the Grand Canyon, we went on a hike down Bright Angel Trail, which took us down partway into the canyon on a beautiful switch-back type trail. The hike back up was tough, but so fun! It took about 3 hours round trip, but the kids were great hikers!

Projects and Honesty

Sometimes I like to do a project--like redecorate a room or build something. And then, of course, when you do a project, you have to blog about it because half the fun of a good project is the praise it brings. (Have you noticed that pics of your projects always get twice as many comments as pics of your darling kiddos?)

So last spring, I set out to do a project--bar stools. I have 2 barstools that I picked up at a yard sale a few years ago, but they are looking pretty shabby, especially the one that has the end of the seat actually broken off! So I found some barstools that I like on Ana White's website, and went and bought my supplies. When I got home and ready to start, I pulled out the boards (21 boards per stool x 4 stools) that the kid at Home Depot had pre-cut for me. As I lined them up, I quickly realized that the stack of boards that should have all been the same size were actually not so much the same. In fact, there was about a 1/2 inch difference from smallest to largest for each set of boards! AAHHH! And most of them were smaller than what they were supposed to be, so I couldn't just trim them down to size, either. So, I redrew the plans to adjust everything to fit with the smallest board, which really took some problem-solving math skills, and then re-cut all the boards to go with my new plans. By that time, I had little motivation to move forward with the project. And so the boards just sat in my basement . . .

. . . until a couple weeks ago, when I got the feeling that it was time for a project! I decided, thankfully, to just attempt one stool first and see how it went. And then if I liked it, I would go ahead and build the other three. So I did the tedious job of painting all 21 boards for the first stool, letting them dry, then adding a second coat, and then went at the building phase. I put the top together with no problems and was getting pretty excited about how it was turning out. But then came the legs. Well, without a long explanation, after over 4 hours of work, on the second to last step of the process, this happened:

That spindly little 1x2 board that was supposed to be a support for the legs split. It happened first on one end, and I was upset but thought that maybe I could salvage it if the rest of it held together, and then as I put the screw into the other end, it split too! I actually cried. In front of my 3-year-old, who didn't know quite what to think of that. And so it sits. Just like this, in the basement. I'm not proud of it. And I really have no motivation right now to come up with a solution, or spend another 4 hours trying again, wondering what will happen when I get to this step again.

Common blogger sense would tell me to not share this particular project, as it will recieve NO praise whatsoever! But I'd rather be honest. We're all human. We all fail from time to time. Sometimes in this world of FB, Blogger, Twitter, and Pinterest, we begin to think that everybody else does everything perfectly, but my guess is that they are actually more like me, and they sometimes screw stuff up. So that's why I share this.

(Now please, somebody let me know that I'm not the only one who has totally ruined something?!? Please?)

My Little Poser

Lately Mariah loves to have her picture taken, and we've captured some fun moments, too.

A couple weeks ago, we were getting ready to go to a cousin's birthday party. I told Mariah to go get dressed, and this is what we got! Doesn't she look amazing?!

She loves her baths, especially with bubbles and ALL the bath toys!

Although Mariah will do the pricess/barbies/house thing quite often, especially with Mylie, she is also quite a tomboy. She loves to play with trucks and dinosaurs, and was having fun dressing up as a football player the other day.

Lyman high school's child development class is offering a preschool that is nearly free (just a $10 supply fee) so their kids can practice teaching real kids. Mariah will get 20 days over the next month and a half! She is so excited to be a big preschool girl now. On the first day, of course, I had to take a picture before heading out the door.

And then before we left on Day 2, she said, "Oh, don't forget to take a picture first, Mom!" Thus, we have a "second day of school picture" for Mariah.

I also have her convinced that the moms all get really sad when they leave their kids at preschool, so the past two days as we've walked up to the school doors, Mariah has said, "This is the part when the moms need to be brave, huh?"

A Saturday in Pictures

About three weeks ago, we had a Saturday at home that turned out to be one of the best days of the year! I can't really explain why I loved it so much, except that it was just the perfect combination of activities with a lot of opportunity for great family bonding as well.

In the morning, the kids had some time to do some of the things they love best. I worked on my primary lesson, and as usual, Mariah had to do her "wesson" too, which always includes cutting, gluing, and taping. So fun!

Mylie and Mariah played together for awhile. One of their favorite things to play lately is school. Mylie is always the teacher since she knows so much about school now, and Mariah is a wonderful student.

Meanwhile, Connor shot hoops in his bedroom. Typical.

They also spent time doing their chores, which they did quite willingly that day. (Maybe that's why it was my favorite day!) Connor has really been doing well with the piano lately--never mind his posture!

And here's Mylie completing her reading time for school. Yes, chapter books already!

Could a Saturday at home be complete without a late, delicious breakfast? I don't think so, so we had french toast with strawberries and whipped cream. YUMMM!

After morning chores were done and breakfast was digested, Mylie accompanied me for a little exercise. She rode her bike and I ran. On the way home, which was a bit uphill, her legs kept getting tired and she needed to walk a bit. I was grateful for the excuse to slow down a little myself. Packing this baby on the front of me makes running a little more difficult.

After exercise was done, we did a family work project that I was so excited about. We hauled rocks from a nearby field to our yard! Sounds exciting, right? Well, it was. On one end of our yard, we have planted five trees, and I wanted to fill in the dirt area around them with river rock. So for no cost, and with a great work crew, we were able to put quite a dent in the project. We did 2 small truck loads before trading for a bigger truck and doing 2 large loads. One more load should finish the job!

We took a break after the second load, and the kids had a picnic. The best part? The packed it all themselves. I stayed outside doing yard work the whole time, and they all got lunch. Nice.

We ended the day by watching some college basketball games with some of Tony's family. A perfect Saturday in March.

Ah, Kids!

Favorite things from kids' mouths lately:

Mariah has started talking a lot about things that have happened in the past, or things that she will do sometime in the future. However, the words she uses in the process crack me up. Everything in the past is "last year"--even if it was just yesterday--and everything in the future is "to later", which I'm guessing is a mix of later and tomorrow? Another Mariah-ism is the word "fortending", which is derived from "for pretend" and "pretending." And Mariah has been doing a LOT of "fortending" lately!

While watching a NCAA tournament game a couple weekends ago, I was telling Connor about Rick Pitino's career, and how he coached the Celtics for awhile, then came back to college basketball again. Connor said, "I would hate to be an NBA coach. If you had rules like Dad does on his team, you wouldn't have a team!" Amazing how an 8-year-old already knows this.

And since I can't think of anything great Mylie has said lately, and I really don't want to leave her out of this post, I'll record a funny moment I had with her last summer that I don't think I ever wrote about. She was going to summer school and we were in the van waiting at her bus stop. I asked her why she and Mariah were so cute. She said she didn't know, and so I suggested that it might be because their mom is so pretty! She started laughing (really laughing!) and said, "You're not pretty!" I was a little taken back by this and didn't help things by asking her to repeat it: "I'm not pretty?" "NO!" Followed of course by more laughing. But then Christina Aguilera saved the day as she came on the radio at that exact moment, reassuring me: "You are beautiful, no matter what they say." So there, Mylie!

an ENTIRE WEEK at home

What? That's not my style! At least not lately. But this week, it was really so nice. Part of me wishes I could list off a huge list of accomplishments due to this entire week at home, but the other part of me is grateful for the slower paced week, and the things I was able to enjoy, such as:

Nice weather! 50's, and even up to 60 this week! Which resulted in 3 runs outside, a walk with the stroller, two trips to the park, and an entire afternoon of yardwork! Wahoo! (Of course, it's snowing outside now, but I can handle a storm anytime during the spring if I get a week of warmer weather in between.)

Lots of time with these crazy kids!



We watched a few NCAA basketball games on TV, and everyone got into the spirit somewhat, even Mariah in this awesome get-up!

I opened my kitchen cupboard this afternoon to find these three sillies. (And yes, I do actually have food. I have these huge cupboards, but then a huge storage room in the basement, so this particular cupboard usually only holds a few cans of things, which I forget to look at before running downstairs to get everything I need. Too much storage space--nice problem to have, eh?)Last night, Mylie told me a joke she had made up, which of course, made no sense whatsoever. When she asked if I thought it was funny, I was honest and said no, to which she confidently replied, "Well, I do." I then said, "Well, you must have a different kind of humor." She looked instantly offended and said, "I am NOT a different kind of human!" Haha. Lovin' life!