April 22-30

The kids enjoy when my "little" brother comes to visit. I think P3 looks a lot like my brother when he was a little boy.

Enjoying a sunny day at the park. The grass was so tall that P3 had a hard time walking in it! 

We got a bigger bike for P1, so P3 wanted to try out the little bike. He can't reach the pedals, but he had fun!

Yummy strawberries:

P3 loves to try to sleep in the big kids' beds. He gets quite upset when we put him in his crib at night.

We went to the Japanese Festival downtown and had a fun time. The weather was perfect this year. We saw a dragon dance, and the dragon came right up to P3. He wasn't sure what to think about that.

 P3 loves to play with the Pokemon legos. Unfortunately, he battles with them and the poor Pokemon break apart into a million pieces...

P3 eating Cheetos with Grandma:

We had some very tall tulips in our flower bed that couldn't stand up straight. I decided to cut them and make a bouquet. P2 made a little one with me. The tulips were very droopy, but they straightened up by the next day and they were beautiful.

Having fun in the car right before school:

We have a little bit of time between picking P2 up from preschool and picking P1 up from kindergarten. Sometimes we stop and play at this little park.

 

April 15-21

After tax day we went out to lunch with my parents. We went to Cafe Zupas, and the kids were being silly as usual.

 

I had a Remicade infusion this week, but my parents were out of town, so my friend watched the kids for me. P3 was very sad when I left him, but I guess he perked up with some snacks. I was gone for 3 hours, and at some point P3 just grabbed some blankets and fell asleep on the middle of the floor. Later that night I realized that he had a fever, poor little guy.

P3 being a goof:

P2 had an Easter party at her preschool. They also did an Easter egg hunt. P1 had a field trip to see baby animals at the Cross E Ranch the same day. In the afternoon, we went to a Kindergarten Round-Up to register P2 for kindergarten. It was very chaotic, but at least she is registered. We saw lots of people from our neighborhood, and I believe we have 9 kids in our ward that will be in kindergarten next year. Right after the registration, we went to a neighborhood Easter Egg hunt. This was their 4th Easter Egg hunt! They had fun, and we had a potluck afterwards.

We have spent a lot of time (and money) at Lowe's the past few weeks. Here is P3 chillin' in a little rocking chair: 

A nakey baby with zebra sunglasses:

Dad spent all day Saturday working in our crawl space to set up a bigger sump pump. Afterwards, we went to Zao's for dinner. P1 ate his food pretty well, but P2 and P3 didn't really care for it. 

Kids lounging on the couch while watching a show:

Since we have already had 2 Easter dinners, and 4 Easter Egg Hunts, I was a bit Eastered out by the time Easter came around. We still had a ton of treats, so I didn't buy any candy for the kids. We also have so many toys that I didn't want to give them more. So we settled on letting the kids pick out seeds and letting them plant a little garden. I really liked this idea, especially with the symbolism of new life and the Resurrection. On Sunday, we really just focused on the Savior. It was nice to keep it low key. We also needed a day of rest after working hard on the problems we've been having in our house.

On Sunday night, the kids were running around like crazy and I needed them to calm down so we could read scriptures. I had them all sit down, and we tried to meditate. P1 and P2 were really trying, but as soon as we would start, P3 would just start laughing hysterically and get us all laughing. We tried it quite a few times, and every single time P3 would start laughing hysterically. Silly kid!

Unpleasant Interruptions

The night we came home from St. George, we heard a weird sound in our house that would go on and off. We finally realized it was coming from the fridge. I opened the freezer and saw that all the food was melted. Our fridge had died! What a lovely thing to come home to! We have no idea how long it had been out, so we had to throw out most of the food. We were able to borrow a mini fridge from a friend in the ward. The next day PE tried to fix the fridge. We found a piece that seemed broken and we were hoping that if we got a new one it would fix the problem. We found the part for a mere $75, and replaced it. Unfortunately, that did not fix it. It looked like we would have to replace the compressor, which is very expensive. So we decided to just go for a new fridge. We found a decent priced one at Lowe's and had it delivered on Tuesday.

After we came home from St. George, we also discovered that we had a pond in our backyard. PE checked our crawl space and found that it was flooded. It appears to just be groundwater, and we have had a lot of rain and snow this month. PE has spent a lot of time and energy setting up a sump pump down there. We have to turn the pump on every half hour or so to keep the water level below the wood. We don't pump during the night, and by the morning it is flooded again.

I tried to mow our lawn on Friday to help out PE. Our grass was super tall because we've have been out of town and it was just been wet most days. Our poor lawn mower was having a hard time, and it died on me. Just what we needed! PE came home and was able to work his magic. It needed a new filter, but then it started working well enough.

There have been a lot of interruptions to our normal life. It can be frustrating and overwhelming. We have a lot of things needing our attention (and money). But we are also very blessed. We are blessed with good family, friends, and neighbors who have helped out. The Lord has always provided for our needs, and I know that He will continue to do so.

“The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one's 'own,' or 'real' life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one's real life -- the life God is sending day by day.” -C.S. Lewis

St. George

PE had a conference down in St. George, so we tagged along to spend some time with Grandma and Grandpa. P3 fell asleep as soon as we left our driveway. Unfortunately, he only slept for an hour. That made for a long car ride.

We were about an hour away from St. George, when P2 threw up in the car. That was a first for our kids. No more snacks in car!!! She handled it pretty well considering she was covered in vomit. Of course, the next few exits had no gas stations. So we had to just drive for 10-15 minutes. We finally found a gas station, and I took P2 in to get cleaned up. We got her new clothes, and washed her hair off in the sink. We found a spigot outside, and rinsed off the car seat. Fortunately, we had towels packed, so we put those under and on the soaking car seat. Another tender mercy was that I had packed extra garbage bags. While packing, I thought I should pack some and I almost brushed the thought away. Thankfully, I did pack them and we used them for the soiled clothes and blankets.

As soon as we arrived, P2 had a bath and we did a load of laundry. Can't even escape it on vacation! We ate dinner and put the kids to bed. P3 had a really hard time. We put all the kids in the same room, just like at our house, but P3 just kept sobbing. I finally had to just stay in the room until he fell asleep. He did well the other two nights we stayed, but that first one was a struggle.

P1 and P3 enjoying some morning cartoons:

 

Playing dinosaurs with Grandpa:

P2 still had to do her computer school every day. P2 missed one day of preschool, and P1 missed 3 days of kindergarten while we were gone.

The kids were very excited to go swim at the Sand Hollow Aquatic Center. We've been there a couple of times, and the kids remember it. It was the first thing that they wanted to go do. P3 took a while to warm up to it, but by the end everyone was having fun. All the kids went down the big water slide.

The kids took turns playing Zelda: Breath of the Wild. P1 and P2 are getting pretty good at the basics. They panic if they find bad guys, and throw the controller at me. P3 also loves to "play" with his controller that doesn't really work.

We also went to Thunder Junction Park, which the kids love. They all had a blast, except for the time P1 and P2 got lost. I was with P3, and the big kids were with Grandma and Grandpa. Suddenly I hear screaming and I think that it sounds like P2. I look down from a platform, and I see her frantically running around, just screaming. By the time I made it down, another mom had stopped her and was helping her. Thank you fellow mom! Turns out grandma had gone to get train tickets, and grandpa was over calming P1 down because I guess he also got lost and was frantically running around.

P3 really wanted to play in the water. It was cold though, and as soon as he would put his feet in, he would just start crying. But I also couldn't drag him away from the water without crying. Silly kid!

The park has a train ride that just goes around the park. Grandma got us tickets and we hopped on the train. P3 liked it at first, but then he wanted to get off. Once the train started moving, then he was okay.

We got an extra long train ride, because the train couldn't make it back up the hill. P3 was very frustrated that the train had stopped, but we weren't getting off. The train had to back up several times, before it finally made it up the hill.

On our last day at St. George, we went to the Children's Museum. The kids had a blast and could have stayed there all day. But we had a long drive to make, so we lured them out of the museum with the promise of getting a treat.

We made one last stop at Menchie's for a frozen yogurt treat. The kids loved making their own creations. I got one to share with P3, but he just stole the whole thing from me.

P3 making sure to get every drop!

We made the long drive home without any incidents. We stopped in Nephi for dinner, and then we made it home around 9 pm and put the kids straight to bed. The kids had a lot of fun on the trip, but it was nice to be back home.