March Winds

March blew in like a breath of fresh air.

First of all we had some much needed sunshine after dealing with the winter inversion and a vortex of sickness between all the kids. It was sunny enough to break out the shades!

Believe it or not, it was even warm enough to sit outside with some cold treats.

We had a fun St. Patrick's Day. I was lax with the camera and didn't snap any pictures during the week our leprechaun Shamus O'Reilly visited or the chocolate gold coin loot he left on St. Paddy's Day morn.  I did however, get a picture of the apology note Ava left Shamus after she gave him a make over with make-up and then was devastated when we told her he was going to leave and never come back. 

He accepted her apology but didn't cause any mischief or participate in their traps until he was thoroughly cleaned. Our St. Patrick's Day feast this year consisted of Beef Stew made with shortribs and Irish soda bread homemade by Tyson himself.  It was fantastic and the kids actually ate some. For dessert we had Green mint shamrock shakes.

After the holiday, my niece Tanille and I went to Arizona to visit my sister Michelle and her family.  It was a fun girls weekend full of movies (Divergent), bowling (I scored like a 50), service for starving children (box 500), good food (Michelle's taco salad), card games (Oh My!), gym time (working it), hiking (or trying to kill me) and pink eye (yep I got pink eye about 4 days before the trip). We also learned that I am an alarmist and panic when stuck between a rock and hard place. My other sister was suppose to go with us but sadly she had to have an appendectomy on the day we flew out so she was unable to join us. We had so much fun just being carefree, kid-less and responsibility-less for a weekend.

Plus sleeping in was to die for!

While I was gone, Tyson and the children survived quite well.  He even braved the zoo on two different days and let the kids take friends.  If any men need lessons on how to be a good Mr. Mom, then Tyson's the man to teach you. The kids probably didn't even miss me.

We ended the month with a trip to Antelope Island with some friends for a picnic and some hiking and some sight seeing.  It was actually a lot more beautiful than I thought and totally something I would love to do again.

The Island's namesake

They are HUGE!

 

In the midst of our adventures at Antelope Island, we had to get in and out of the car a lot and Talmage got weary of not being able to see anything. He finally had it and would not let us put him back into the car until we reversed his car seat to forward facing. Now he is a happy camper (or car rider at least).

These two had fun dealing in all sorts of shenanigans since they were finally feeling better.

 

February 2014...almost caught up

February was pretty low key...thankfully since I still felt I was recovering from the holidays and the end of my first Term of my Master's degree.

We started off by experiencing Tepanyaki for the first time with some friends while we helped them celebrate their cute daughters 7th birthday. It was delicious and fun! Claire and Talmage were momentarily traumatized by the huge burst of fire as the cook lit the stove, but the rest was just fun!

Claire picked the blue ice cream and ended up looking like Grandma Nae at her birthday party. She thought it was funny for these pictures, but later when it wouldn't wash off, she lost her sense of humor...(but Tyson and I didn't).

I hosted a little baby shower for my dear friend Katie who was expecting her first little bundle of joy!  We ate some fattening Chinese food from Asian Star and gorged ourselves on homemade ice cream and chocolate sauce.
(Sadly this is the only picture that I took. We sent Alisa this picture since she couldn't be with us and to cheer her up as she was living in the middle of a winter vortex in Michigan).

Talmage was experiencing #2 of what ended up being 3 consecutive ear infections so we enjoyed a lot of snuggling at the expense of his suffering.  Poor guy just took one health hit after another from January through March.

 His ear infections would advance to eye infections that then excoriated and chapped his little cheek. He looked pitiful!

The kids managed to have some fun and bonding in between Talmage's sicknesses and even helped with the chores.

On a funny note, every time we go to Old Navy, Claire has to say high to "the other Claire with brown skin". She goes up to her and hugs her and greets her like a long lost friend. So cute and kinda creepy. I mean she hasn't even seen a episode of Today's Special. Maybe this is a sign I need to start doing some play dates for her. :)

January 2014 {A New Year and a New Semester of School}

January began with us celebrating New Year's Eve a day late on New Year's Day.

Our kids are little and don't know any better so we decided to postpone our festivities for a night because I had one last paper to submit. We celebrated the New Year with the Ramsey's who are our great friends and neighbors. We had appetizers and made fun cotton candy flavors with our new cotton candy machine that we got for Christmas.  We had fun, but of course didn't stay up too late since all the kiddos were pretty young.

I took a week off of school work to kind of recoup and then had to dive back in. But we decided to make some time for some fun too.

Poor Talmage, always the guinea pig with his sisters. Or should I say baby Moses in a basket.

Talmage also started making some headway in the walking department. He has stood for along time and would even take some steps while holding furniture, but he wouldn't pull himself up to standing on a regular basis. We found him up in bed a few times but now he is finally doing it regularly. Our hardwood floors make it slippery, but he finally is finding his footing.

Our little man has been becoming Mr Independent. Wanting to feed himself with utensils and hold his own big drinks.

Ava had five weeks of ski lessons and is quite the little skier now. Tyson also took her up for some night skiing sessions. One night he even braved it and took both girls.

 

Little Miss decided to give herself a pink make over.

We re-enact the movie Frozen and have full on singing sessions almost every day.

That is why we had to take a little trip to Midway with our cousins to see the Ice Castles. We had fun singing and re-enacting the song- "Let it go". Hope everyone around enjoyed it to!

Of course we had to get something to eat later at Don Padros which is our favorite Mexican Restaurant in Heber.

One Saturday as Tyson and I were changing Ava's sheets we found this under her pillow.  

Oh no!

And so it begins...

We attempted to go see the ice castles again with our friends the Ramsey's but it was the weekend of the Sundance Film Festival and it was cold and crowded. We scrapped the ice castles and headed to Provo to eat at Bajio and hang out at the Riverwoods. Ava R. said her infamous words "I'm tired" and then promptly fell asleep at the table. We all had a good laugh because she does it almost every time. I wish we had a good sleeper like that!

We ended the month by celebrating Claire's 4th birthday which I will detail in the next post.
To be continued...