Frozen Fun

We watched Frozen for our family movie night Friday. Normally we choose a movie off our computer or Netflix but since we are going on two LONG car trips in the next few months I decided buying Frozen, since it was on sale, would be a good investment. Jared and Lydia were with me when I picked it up at Costso earlier in the week so they have been anxiously waiting to watch it.  They were so excited! It's so funny because they really didn't know anything about the movie except that it had 2 princess's and a silly snowman. This they gathered from the cover of the DVD.
Yesterday I was looking at my blog and saw someone had put up pictures of some frozen activities so I decided I could do some too. I made a silly snowman snack for them and we went snowman bowling. Simple fun.

We loved the movie. It was so fun to see the sisters caring so much for each other. It was nice to take a few minutes and talk to Jared about how great it would be if he and Lydia were such good friends. It was sweet. Jared had a hard time falling asleep last night so when I asked him about it this morning he said he just kept thinking about the movie so couldn't sleep.  Silly.

Luck of the Irish!

Our Saint Patricks DAY celebrations were a little off this year.  Mark had taken Monday off to finish the floors so our downstairs was inaccessible. I really can't imagine ever living in a house that you are remodeling or just living in till you "flip" it later for a profit. No way! Having things all mixed up and crowded upstairs was hard. But I know a lot of people who do this regularly with little kids and I think they have to be some of the most patient- make it work people I know. Our house was only like this for a weekend and it was enough. (And the results are worth it, Mark totally nailed it!) We still managed to have some fun the past few weeks.

Our Saint Patrick learning time activities included:
Lucky charm graphing, Roll a rainbow with skittles, gold coin counting and hunting, fruit loop color sorting, patterns and necklaces, Saint Patricks sensory box, beginning and end sounds of words on shamrocks, and a fun science experiment.

Each time before we graphed we estimated which marshmallow there was the most of and how many there were.  Jared guessed rainbow every time. I think it was correct once. 

Lydia loved Fruit Loops! Every morning for breakfast she would ask for "Loops?" We typically eat Life cereal or some form of Cheerios when we have cereal.  For the month of March I buy Lucky Charms and Fruit Loops and they love it! I do too!  

 The green and blue turned out the best. Jared thought it was pretty awesome. Especially since blue is his favorite color. 

I am so glad we could do these fun activities through out the month.  I found some fun art projects which we enjoyed especially or pop up rainbow:

Jared left. Lydia right.  

It was great color identifying and counting because you had to hold down each side and count to 10 which was great practice for Lydia. I have been trying and trying to get her to count and can't seem to break past 3. We will get there one day.

 The Cat in the Hat is from Jared's preschool and the shamrock on top is actually Jared's but the rest on the top are Lydia's. 

And of course we ate green food! Saturday I ran to the store to pick up some Saint Patrick's donuts and then dyed the milk green.  On Monday I braved the downstairs and made green shamrock pancakes. We also enjoyed many, many green smoothies although that will keep happening.

 It was kind of fun eating in our front room instead of dining room.  We didn't have any Irish food but did have our fun lime sherbet floats which were well received.

Earlier in the day Jared and Lydia went on a treasure hunt. I hid a few Rolos and Reese Peanut Butter cups for them as their treasure (gold wrappers).  It was fun to watch them search. I think it was way harder upstairs because we had so much of our downstairs stuff up there so it was crowded.

It was a lot of fun. I feel like March is just flying by. Mark's Spring Break starts next week and we leave town next Friday. When we get back the first week of April will already be over! It will be hard to fit in some conference activities since we will be in Utah for it. I think if the weather is nice we should just go up to Temple Square. That would be way more fun than anything I come up with and there will be plenty of teaching moments.
Time to plan our Easter activities. Thank goodness it is later in the month this year!

Christmas in March?

Kids are so creative! The other day I was cleaning up the kitchen after breakfast and I looked over to see what Jared and Tanner were up to.  Jared saw me and said "come look at our Christmas tree!" It's very modern.

I love how they stacked the pillows and decorated it with our puzzle pieces and added the presents. It is so great to see them playing and having fun. Being creative in a way I would not have thought of. At the end of the day I often think back over the day and wonder if I used my time well and spent enough time with them. More often than not I feel I could have done better.  Seeing what they come up with is pretty fun. Sometimes the activities I plan to do with them really flop. I feel like I am forcing them to play with me in the name of quality time and teaching time when really I should just follow their lead. I will still plan these activities and some will go great and others won't.  But I do want to take more time to just sit by them while they play and see what they come up with it. I saw this article on Facebook this week and enjoyed her thoughts, especially the following quote:
"So, I guess what I am saying is that you are the perfect mother for your children and your kids just need YOU. They need your best self, and when you are being that, whoever YOU are, is enough. After that realization, who other people are, what they do and what they have fades into the background and what emerges is who you are now and who you can become."

Treat others how you want to be treated. Let people live their own lives. To me it is that simple.

Shocked

Today Jared's preschool class went on a fun field trip to PetCo. I know so many people love animals but I have just never been that way. After walking around the store I feel even firmer in our decision to probably never have pets. I was happy Lydia and I could go on the field trip since it was on Wednesday and Tanner wasn't here. Normally they are on Thursday's and it is just harder to go places with three kids. It was a fun outing just long. We were there for like an hour and a half.  The kids loved seeing the animals and holding them. They held a tortoise race in an aisle and for some reason one of the tortoises really wanted to be where Jared was.  They kids lined up on the sides of the aisles with the tortoises in the middle.  The employee placed their food bowl a short distance away.  Neither one made it to the food bowl.  It took them awhile to start moving. Once they did one just kept moving towards Jared (he was the first in the line). After awhile Jared moved to the other side of the aisle and the tortoise followed him over there. It was weird and fun. Sadly Lydia woke up today with a runny nose and runny eyes.  We were already committed to the field trip so we went but she was pretty sad. She did pretty well (lots of tissues and her constant sad: "Nosee... Eyes...") until the very end.  We all met up at a park after the pet store to play and have a snack.  We only played for a little while since the store tour took so long.  Lydia tried to play but just wanted to cuddle. I let Jared play for about 10 minutes then we headed to the car. I got Lydia in her car seat and then she started throwing up. I was shocked! I didn't expect that at all. She just had a runny nose! We had pumpkin waffles for breakfast so you can imagine how disgusting it was. As if throw up isn't already completely disgusting. It was so sad.  I tried to clean up some but there was not much I could do.  As I drove home she just looked so exhausted and sad.  We got home and cleaned her up and put her down for her nap with no lunch. She spent most of the afternoon cuddling with Mark and me. We gave her some crackers when she woke up and she held them down fine. I am really not sure where that throw up came from.  I don't think it will happen again. It seems really delayed from Mark's illness Friday so I really think it's just a cold. She ate dinner really well and seemed sleepy but much happier. Hopefully she has a better day tomorrow.

I don't know how many times I have read this "Ariel!!" book the past few days. Ariel is Lydia's new favorite princess. We went to Costco the other day and found Frozen on sale for $14.00 and went ahead and bought it. We have never seen it and are very excited for family movie night Friday. Ariel may be about to be replaced.

So as I mentioned awhile ago we bought a fancy new blender.  We love it! We have a green smoothie every morning with our breakfast. Spinach, Kale and Chard + frozen fruit + flaxseed + coconut oil.  We love them! Jared and Lydia drink them like chocolate milk. It makes me so happy!  They would never eat any of those green things on their plate.  Jared doesn't even like fruit that much yet they love these smoothies. It has really helped increase their fruit and vegetable servings which was one of the main points of buying it. The other day I was making some orange chicken and orange rice for dinner and had forgotten to set up the frozen OJ concentrate for the rice. I thought why don't I mix it up in the blender? The motor is super strong and will mix it right up. Bad idea!! I poured in the water and concentrate and hit pulse. It was way too much liquid. The motor is so powerful it shot the lid off and therefore cold, sticky OJ splashed everywhere. Again, I was shocked! I was drenched in sticky OJ and that side of the counter was disgusting. If I ever do that again I will use one can of water. It would have been pretty funny to see I suppose. It was the frothiest OJ I have ever had.

Done!

For awhile now Mark and I have talked about taking out our carpet downstairs and putting in some form of hardwood floors.  We asked around for some local recommendations and decided on Hickory laminate floors.  We went and bought the flooring/supplies last Thursday and Mark went to work this weekend. I was sort of unprepared for it to happen so fast.  I thought Mark would wait until next week when his spring break started but once he had the stuff he was ready to get it done. We debated on hiring someone to do it but Mark decided he really wanted to do it so he did.  It was a lot of work with some bumps along the way but Mark stuck it out and with the help from some great friends we now have beautiful floors. I love them! They make our house feel so much lighter and cleaner.
The plan was for him to come home Friday from school and rip out the carpet so he could start work with a guy from our ward Saturday. Unfortunately Mark got a terrible stomach bug at school on Friday. He came home early and then slept for an hour or so. Our friend had done his basement recently so he had all the tools Mark needed and said he would bring them by after work. Mark felt a little better after his rest but not much.  Our friend came over with his two 13 year old boys and kindly helped Mark move all our furniture into our kitchen nook.  Then Mark took a turn for the worse, ran upstairs and proceeded to throw up. Our friend and his boys proceeded to rip out half the carpet for us and swept us their mess. It was so thoughtful of them! Mark went to bed at like 8:00 and fortunately felt better Saturday.
Most of Saturday was spent ripping out the other half of the carpet, the tack strips, breaking up and removing the tile in our entryway, and smoothing out the mortar used to hold the tile down. Taking out carpet is pretty quick but getting the stuff holding the tile down took forever.  Finally towards the end of the day they started laying down the flooring.

We are fortunate that our floors are actually quite level. Our friend had to put down this quick drying cement mixture in places to level it out. Our walls on the other hand are not at all straight.  When they laid down the first row there was a huge different in the space between the flooring and wall from one side to the other. It was really tricky/annoying to cut around the fireplace and our bannister.  Other than that it was pretty straight forward. If you had a perfectly square or rectangular room this could be done really quick. We are so grateful for our friends help and so happy to have this done. Mark just has to put in some quarter rounds so cover up the gaps from the flooring and the wall but he needs a nail gun to do it so that will happen Saturday. I love it!! I am so happy that Mark was wiling to work so hard and learn how to do something new. I think it will really help us sell our house when the time comes.

Random

I feel like there is something I should have to write about on here but nothing is coming to mind. Maybe it's the weather. Colorado has been pretty random lately with its weather. Actually its been very normal for Colorado there's just random weather here all the time. For example: Sunday and Monday were beautiful spring days.  Light breezes, pretty clouds but mostly sunshine, and highs above 65. And yesterday was snowy with winds gusting above 35 mph. Today is not so windy but the high is around 44. So random.  We did get a super pretty sunrise though complete with pink snow!

On Sunday we went for a walk after church. We drove up to our old neighborhood because they have nice wide sidewalks and a trail by a little stream (Its not a pretty stream but there is water in it). Our neighborhood is one of the most boring neighborhoods to walk in so if we are going on a family walk I always try to get Mark to go somewhere else nearby.  It is silly but it makes the walk more enjoyable. Its nice to see new things too. We recently switched out our double jogging stroller for a single so Jared has been walking a lot more with us.  As we were walking on Sunday I told him it was training for Disneyland this summer. He had a super good attitude and did pretty well. We are all really excited for our LONG road trip this summer.  We are stopping in Las Vegas, San Diego, Disneyland (LA), Yuba City, Medford, OR, Portland OR, Seattle, WA, and Saratoga Springs, UT.  Yeah, we will be gone from home for just over a month. It will be awesome and exhausting but we have a lot of family to visit on the West Coast.  I have showed Jared some video clips of Disneyland and Sea World so he can know what they actually are and so he can see that we will be walking around a lot and waiting in lines a lot.
On Monday we went out for a walk for an FHE activity.  We had Jared ride his bike while Lydia stayed in the stroller. I keep wanting to get bikes for Mark and I so we can go on bike rides together but I keep thinking of reasons not to.  One being that we do not have a place to store them since we don't have a garage. We could keep them on the porch but it looks so cluttered with bikes there and so much of the year we wouldn't use them they would just sit there. One day when we have a garage bikes will be one of our first purchases! So back to Monday. Jared has never really ridden his bike anywhere but our little parking are/the sidewalk in front of our house so he was pretty pumped.  He did great stopping at corners and had fun pretending stop signs were gas pumps.  We spent some quality time at a park that morning an it was just nice to be outside without jackets and annoying wind.
Maybe the weather is making us feel more random too.  Mark's spring break is the last week in March and the first week in April.  We were not planning on going anywhere since we will be driving so very much this summer but we decided to go on a trip.  We asked Mark's mom is she could watch Jared and Lydia for us while Mark and I go visit Virginia. It's not really that random if you know us well. I have wanted to live on the East Coast for as long as I can remember.  Just like Colorado's weather is not that random for Colorado. So we are driving Jared and Lydia out to Utah for a week then flying to Virginia from Salt Lake. Tickets were actually cheaper from SLC so that worked out nicely. Jared and Lydia will stay with Sue Mon- Fri. while we go try to check out as much of Virginia as possible and spend a day in Washington DC. Isn't that sort of random too? Most people would go on a cruise or to some warm place for spring break but we want to go see some history and decide if Virginia would be a nice place to live. I was never big on beaches though.  This August is also our 10 year anniversary so we are tying that into this trip too. Mark's school year here starts August 01 so now is a good time for us since we will be gone so much of his summer.  We are excited and nervous/anxious. This will be the first time we have spent a night away from Jared and Lydia. I know they will be fine but I am such a what if person when it comes to things like this. I sort of wish Mark and I were on different flights so if one plane crashed they wouldn't lose both their parents. I know, random.
I knew if I sat down for a minute I would think of some things to write.  I don't believe myself to be some great writer but I do really enjoy having this blog.  I also found some random pictures from a trip to the zoo last month that I never got around to posting. They are from a random warm spring like day in February.

 Jared especially looks forward to flying this plane when we go to the zoo. It overlooks the rhinoceros (that is never there when we are, always inside) and the elephants who are there about half the time.

 My most favorite boys. 

I was especially happy at the zoo this day because the Otters were out exercising. The otters are my favorite exhibit at that zoo. They always seem so happy to me. I love them.

And Jared and Lydia still love the garbage truck although we haven't seen it as much lately so when it came earlier this week they were pretty stoked! We have been having some St. Patricks day fun as well but its almost St. Patricks day so I will just wait till we are done with our celebrations.

Happenings

We spent last week getting over colds. Lydia was probably the most miserable. She has been sick before when she was young but I think she was more aware of how awful she felt and made sure we all knew it. She spent her days walking around saying "hold me, hold me" and "Nose nose" or she just half moaned cried. It was so sad. Jared and Mark seem to be completely better and Lydia and I are almost there.
Since we were sick we spent more time at home last week. In attempt to have something fun to do I made a fort for Jared and Lydia They were really not impressed or interested. They played in it some but I think it was more because they felt sorry for me.  They were much more interested in watching My Little Pony. There is a little girl at preschool that Jared plays with a lot and she loves "Ponies" so for the past 3 weeks or so Jared has been talking a lot about ponies so I decided to show him some of the cartoons. He loved them. I really loved My Little Pony when I was a little girl. I have been feeling so remorseful that I didn't keep any of my toys (that I can think of) from my childhood. I had a lot of ponies. Just for fun I went online yesterday and looked up "toys from the 1980's" and recognized so many of the ponies and even remembered some of the names. They are a little different now but brought back so many memories. It seems like they came out in 1983 (I could be wrong) and I was born in 1982 so they were definitely a big part of my childhood. It was so fun to see pound puppies, cabbage patch kids, Rainbow Brite and She Rah. It made me laugh when I saw all the WWF wrestling guys.  I also loved playing with my brothers Ninja Turtles and Micro Machines.

Jared also succeeded in filling up his "charms" jar so we went out to ice cream.  He was pretty much all better by then with just a little cough. He was so excited about it. As we were eating Jared said when he said his prayers tonight he would give thanks that he got to go to the ice cream shop. Cute kid. He gets charms for doing his everyday jobs like making his bed and brushing his teeth, keeping his room clean and then for listening well and doing kind helpful things. We are trying to get him to understand when he does good things like listens right away or does things without being asked good things happen. It is working pretty well. He can choose what he gets to do after he fills his jar but it may just be going out to ice cream every time.

We have also read a lot of stories which is not anything new but happens even more when we are sick. Jared has this book of CARS stories that he loves and I read Mater's Mission (CARS 2 summarized) more times than I can count. We both have it almost memorized and it is not a short story. Lydia's current favorite is "Tar boy" (Tarzan).  For awhile she kept calling it "boy" (which is what she still calls Jared) and we struggled to figure out which story she meant.  Now we got it and read it A LOT!

Reading CARS 2 from THE book and Tar boy. 

Mark and I also had a fun quiet date night at home where we worked on the puzzle I got him during Valentines. I love puzzles. I remember doing them all the time when I was growing up. I just find them so enjoyable.  I think it's a good indicator of how much I love things to be in order. Taking all those pieces and figuring out where they go and having something go from so chaotic to a great picture is rewarding. Its not so much the figuring out where each piece goes but taking a disorganized mess and getting that outcome. This one is much harder than I thought it would be. Mark commented that his strength is more in geographical maps. (Speaking of geography, its been crazy to read about what is going on in Russia/Ukraine. I have never been but we have some good friends posted in Ukraine. They were in Egypt prior so their last two postings have been a little stressful. Russia has always fascinated me. I was very interested in the Cold War era when I was going to school and getting my history degree. So I am interested to see where this goes. End tangent)

Fortunately we are feeling much better and we are supposed to have pretty nice weather this week so that will be fun. Unfortunately Mark's car is not working. Maybe with everybody feeling better and the nice weather he will have some time to go try to figure out how to fix it. Were so glad his school is only a 4 minute drive away so sharing a car is not that hard.