Sunny St. George

2 weeks ago we took a nice trip to St. George for President's Day weekend. We almost didn't come home. It's no secret that we LOVE that place and it seems like this time every year, we contemplate moving there (not like we would).
The weather was soooo nice with 65 degree temps and sunny, while it was super foggy and freezing here. Oh how we welcomed the warm sunshine and being outside! We're not turning into Snowbirds, we just wish it would either dump some major snow or else get warm and springy.

We left Friday after the kids' Valentine's parties at school.
When we arrived at the hotel, we were stoked to find out that the outside pool was heated and ready to go. We stayed up late watching the opening ceremony for the Olympics in Vancouver.
Saturday morning Sam went on a bike ride while I took the kids swimming. Then we grabbed some Cafe Rio and had a picnic at our favorite water park. Of course, we had to grab a yummy from Judd's mercantile store. Millie loves to get old fashioned candy while the boys love to get these weird soda drinks in glass bottles with a marble inside.
We spent all afternoon soaking in the sun at the park and on the "Dixie rocks" which is our new favorite thing to do there. We might be the last ones in Utah to know about this place, but I cannot believe we have never taken our kids there before, especially when we go to St. George so much!
It is this huge red-rock playground with lava tubes, narrows, arches, tunnels, caves, and climbing rocks. It only takes 2 minutes to get there. Wow is all I can say. We started out with Quin in the backpack, but even she could handle all of the running and climbing "by myself" as she always says. Everything is "I do it myself" these days with her.
Anyway, after that Sam took the kids swimming while I spent some time at the Parade of Homes. It was nice to have some alone time and admire the incredible new homes with the latest and greatest. Then I snuck in a little shopping where I found darling flip flops and swim suits to give the kids for Valentine's Day.
We ended the near perfect day with dinner at The Brick Oven (new). We used to go there all of the time when we lived in Provo and we are so happy to have one there now too. Again, we ended the day with the olympics - we are addicted.

Sunday morning we woke up to discover that Cupid had come!
We spent some time at Snow Canyon. We hooked-up with my Uncle Denny and Aunt Marcia, along with my cousins and their kids. They took us on a cool hike called Johnson's Arch or something. Afterward we were treated to a festive and fantastic dinner at their place, complete with chocolate hearts and chocolate dipped strawberries. So yummy. Then again, the olympics. Thanks guys!

Monday Sam worked then I took a nice bike ride to Hurricane and back. I had to dust off the cobwebs for sure. Then we met up with our friends, the Banks family (they were headed home from Califoronia). We took the kids to see "The Lightning Thief." Millie and Brayden had read the book so they were anxious to see it. It was a great show, but they said the book was better. At that point, the plan was to get on the road to drive home, but our kids were begging us to take our friends back to the Dixie rocks. So we did. We decided there was no rush in getting home and back to the crummy weather. Once again they had a great time. After that we headed for home.

It's always nice to be back home, but it took great will power not to stay longer. Sam had more work to do there but we had to get the kids back to school. Darn.

But I also realize I only have a little while left to get in some good ski days before it warms up here.

Three!

It's official. Our baby girl is 3. Such a roller coaster of emotions. At this age, she couldn't get any funner; but, today I wish I could go back to the moment when my nurse handed her to me after her first bath at the hospital. Then I could live the last 3 years over again. I'll be honest - After having 4 babies in 7 yrs, it's a little hard to accept that there will be no more babies in our home. I.Love.Babies.
But we are so happy with our 2 girls and 2 boys and it's perfect for us. Quinny is the perfect ending. When I had her I knew this would be our last kid so I have really tried to take-in and enjoy as many moments as I can with her. I could go on and on about this little girl. I'm still in denial and I might cry if I keep thinking about it. Not only because she is growing up - but also because this is a giant milestone for me. I'm no longer a mother of toddlers and babies. The phase where you have 3 car seats, double strollers, a huge diaper bag packed with the whole house, and really defined biceps from carrying 2 children at once (infant car seat in one, 2 year old in the other).
Heaven knows there were some hard days during that phase. Exhausting. But I loved it. And I will miss it.
BUT, I am also loving this next phase we are transitioning into. The kid's homework, activities, and such keep us busy. Being the youngest child, Quin spends lots of time in the car, has learned to be patient, and is good at "going with the flow." There are times when indeed she is the "spoiled baby" of the family, getting so much attention and most things she wants. But with that, also comes the opposite. Because she is the 4th, I spend far less time making sure she looks all done up just right every day, I haven't taken video of her nearly as much as I did the 1st and 2nd, and I found myself completely unprepared for her 3rd birthday.
I had a little meltdown on her birthday, feeling guilty that I hadn't planned a big themed birthday party with her friends and family. I felt guilty I hadn't baked and decorated a fabulous cake. And I felt guilty I hadn't even bought her a present yet. This was not the case with the other 3 kids. I was feeling so insufficient.
I had intentions of doing all of these things, but it came down to these 2 things:
1) I need more time. Period. And unforeseen events occurred Friday that I couldn't control.
2) I finally realize that she is only 2 (well 3) and that she really doesn't care if she has a party, what kind of cake she has, and that she won't even remember!
But still. I care. I enjoy doing these things for my kids and I felt bad.
So we did the best we could scramble together at the last minute and it turned out just great.

Friday was a crazy day so in the evening we rushed out the door and drove up to Ogden (Sambo had a TNT comp. early the next morning in Roy so we decided to sleep at Grandma Cindy's). We let the kids choose where we ate dinner. They chose a Greek Restaurant. It tasted yummy, but I couldn't help myself from thinking, "It's Quinny's big day, and here we are at some random restaurant and she doesn't even have her hair done."
I know it's so dumb to even think those things.
Afterward we went to Toys R Us and let Quincy pick-out her present. She found a cute little 4-wheeler and a Zhu Zhu pet hamster named Nugget. Then we went to Grandma's where she was prepared with balloons and decorations! Aunt Heidi was there with a birthday treat ready! She made one of our faves, a "P'zookie" which is a huge doughy cookie with ice cream, caramel, and hot fudge. We stuck some candles in and Voila, we had a birthday cake!
I wrapped her presents, and it turned out to be a great party. Even Grandpa Tom who just had knee surgery enjoyed it.
The next day, after Sambo's competition, we took the kids to "Surf N Swim" in Layton for one last bit of birthday fun. That place was as fun as I remember from my childhood. The kids loved the huge waves and Quincy loved having her very own tube.
Things worked out great after all!

Here she is ready for church in her Hotch Potch cupcake skirt which is perfect for birthdays:This is how she shows that she's 3. She has to hold her thumb and pointer finger together with her other hand :)

Love Day

We really, really like Valentines' Day. We like to cut out hearts and such to decorate the house with. We like to wear heart shirts (the girls) or red (the boys) on Valentine's Day. We make pink heart pancakes, pink heart rice krispie treats (usually sugar cookies but we ran out of time), heart banana bread, and heart brownies. We research the funnest V-day games to play at the class parties. We take our time in planning what kind of valentines will be handed out at school (why can't I just go to the store and buy a bag of cards)?
I kept asking myself that question when we were spending way more time than necessary assembling our homemade cards. I blame myself...I am the one who started it (with Millie's 3 year old preschool class). Now my kids just expect it and look forward to it every year. And I'll be honest, I look forward to it too. It's fun to include them in on what they want and let them help assemble. Last year we made glass candy. 2 years ago we made heart and lips suckers. This year we made "Rock Candy" for Millie's - iPods made out of a box of conversation hearts and a pair of peanut butter cup ear phones (idea from family fun). She was really excited about them and put them together all by herself.

Here she is, showing them off. She really wanted to make sure I could see her heart earrings. Can you tell they are clip-ons? She still has no interest in getting her ears pierced. Mostly because there is pain involved.

However, she was not so happy to see that I had printed "love" on them instead of "from" but I was not about to print them all out again. Deal.

Fortunately, the boys' were much quicker. The longest part was them deciding what kind of candy. They settled on red Blow Pops and Hershey kisses. They didn't really care about what the cards looked like, as long as they had some skulls on there (I guess because skulls show love??)
I admit it is probably over the top, but we have fun. I love you my little sweethearts.

Baptism

Look at the handsome lunchbox on his big day. According to his journal entry "Today I got baptized and it wasn't too bad". I am sure it was a day he will remember for the rest of his life! It was amazing the way the entire room felt. I think everyone present will remember how it felt!
We all played a little part in the service, including Mom and Millie playing the piano (mom did it impromptu), Dad doing the baptism and confirmation, uncle Sean and Wilbur doing a great job on the talks and Quincy looking super cute and singing so pretty. This is how Wilbur started his talk on the Holy Ghost (his idea):
"Why didn't the ghost cross the road? Because he had none guts!" But I am talking about another ghost..."

We couldn't be more proud of our little Sam.
As usual our families showed up to support him and us. We celebrated afterward at our house with lunch. Thanks everyone for a wonderful day!

8

Sam's birthday was on the 31st, but we waited until last weekend to celebrate with his buddies. For his party, the only thing he wanted to do was go skiing. We explained to him that not all of his friends ski and that it would be difficult to keep track of so many boys. But he still insisted on skiing for his party. I wasn't sure how the whole ski thing with 8 kids under 8 would play out (actually 1 was 10), but I decided to not worry about it and just go with the flow.
But we also wanted to include his other friends; so, we decided to take his friends that do ski for a couple hours, then meet up with the rest of the boys at Fat Cats for some bowling, pizza, presents, cake, arcade, and ticket spending.
Turns out....it was an excellent idea. The kids all did great skiing and they had so much fun! I think they felt cool going up the lift and down the hill on their own. They even figured out how to get their skis back on after a little yard sale crash! I even think Millie had fun being the only girl!
We met up with 6 more kids at Fat Cats for a really really fun time! I loved watching those adorable boys, they are all so cute and funny and play so well together.
What a fun day and night!
I love that in every picture I have of Sam opening his presents (like 10 pictures), someone is behind him giving him rabbit ears! Is that not classic 8 year old boys? They thought it was sooo funny!
I like to make a big deal of the birthday cakes. Other than a couple ice cream cakes from Baskin Robbins, I have always made the cake whatever they choose. I really like to bake/cook so this part is always fun for me. Usually I spend a chunk of the day decorating the cake...but not this time. Sambo said he didn't really know/care what his cake was this year so I whipped it up pretty quick and threw on some gumballs inpromptu. It's supposed to be a # 8. But the best part was....
The middle! This cake is made with Sprite instead of eggs and oil. It tasted yummy and looked even better. The kids loved the surprise inside! Oh yeah and the gumballs.
We love you birthday boy.

Sambo's Debut

Sam had his 1st "TNT" (tramp-n-tumbling) competition last Saturday. He goes to a gym called Black Diamond Gym and he loves it. Not only that, but he's good!
Earlier last summer I posted about when we went to the Olympic park in Park City and Sam had a blast skiing off the ramps into the pool. After that he wouldn't stop talking about wanting to do flips on skis, so we looked into it. Black Diamond is the gym in Park City where the athletes train and learn TNT...but we weren't thrilled about driving to P.C. 2-3 times/week. So for now we are going to their other gym in South Jordan.
Anyway, we are new to the tumbling competition world. Growing up I did some competitions in gymnastics but man it has changed. Everyone now is soooo good!
Sambo did awesome! He was a little nervous but did great remembering his tramp routine and counting the right number of back handsprings on the floor. He hates that he has to wear "stretchy pants" and all :)
We are so proud of him. He took 2nd place on tramp and 4th place in tumbling! My family came out to support him, thanks guys! Afterward we took him out to his birthday lunch. What a fun day!