Two trips, Easter, a color run, crafts, and a regretted haircut

So two weeks ago was Easter Sunday. The Thursday before that, I flew to Colorado with my brother, Ben, and Steve drove the kids to St. George. Steve's trip went significantly better than mine.

He and the girls had an uneventful drive to St. George, even though they had to come back twice before they actually got on the road and they left an hour and a half later than I thought they would. They all had a great weekend in sunny and warm southern Utah. One day they did a short hike into Zion's National Park along the Pine Creek Trail with Cindy, Haley, Flo, and Sebastian. The kids splashed around in the small pond at the bottom of the waterfall. Steve took some great shots of his feet (we don't know why) and some amazing selfies (he needs practice). :)

They also went to the "train park" and rode a train and played in the water and had a picnic. Saturday afternoon, they attended the Coombs' family Easter egg hunt, which I thought was awfully generous of the Coombses.

I, on the other hand, drove an hour to the airport with Ben, sat at the airport for six hours after two delays, and then flew the hour and a half to Denver and then drove another hour to Megan's house. So it took me 9 1/2 hours to fly and it's only an 8 hour drive from my house. We got to Megan's at 4:30 am. I don't recommend flying with Frontier. It was a terrible experience. Especially since the flight back was also delayed. Thankfully, this time for only an hour.

We were flying out to Colorado because Alison was going through the temple for the first time and we wanted to be there to support her and show how excited we were for this big step in her life. It was the first time the entire family was in the temple together and despite the terrible travel conditions, I was glad I went. Every time I go to Megan's house, I'm awed by the beauty there. I love the farmland backed by the mountains. Gorgeous.

The only picture of the family was taken by my Mom's phone. I'm terrible at remembering to take pictures of people. I'm always drawn by the landscapes. *whacks head*

We all returned home Saturday. I got home around 1:30pm and had a relaxing rest of the day working on projects, exercising, and eating leftovers so I didn't have to cook. Steve and the girls got home around 11pm. The next day, the girls got to search for the Easter baskets I had hidden. I remember loving searching for them as a kid, but my kids just find each others' and tell where they are. Party Poopers.

They all looked super cute for church though.

On one of the non-rainy-but-still-cold days, I took the girls out to find some lilacs, feed the ducks, and pick up some on-sale blackberries. I was getting my hair cut the next day, so I took some pictures of my hair long. I loved it long. But I thought I was ready for a change. I think I was wrong. But it's too late to go back now!

Last Saturday, we had a busy day. Steve and I ran a 5k Color Run because a friend of mine gave us tickets. It was a super fun date. Though both of us agree that we have no desire to do it again.

I found these pictures that Mira took with my phone of Daddy while he told them their room was a mess and they needed to clean it up. It pretty much sums up his Daddy stance. :)

This is the haircut I got. It was pretty cute the first day. But after two days and a washing, I'm just not loving it. It's going to get cut again and colored on Thursday of this week. *sigh* I wish I just hadn't cut it.

Last night I was craving something with sprinkles. These "unicorn ice cream sandwiches" filled the craving, but were kind of terrible.

Pictures of Cecily using the YouCam Makeup app. She's so cute.

I've not been writing lately, so I have gobs of time to work on crafts and such. Here's one of the things I decided to try. These are shrinky dinks with resin on top. I'm really pleased with how they turned out. I've been doing a bunch of other things, too, but I can't post pictures until I've sent them to the intended recipients, so stay tuned.

Spring break turned out awesome

Last Saturday and Sunday, we got to watch the LDS Church's semi-annual General Conference. I love listening to God's living prophet, the twelve apostles, and the other leaders of the church. Their words are inspiring and inspired. Unfortunately, we also got to deal with a whole lot of throwing up. So instead of our usual General Conference Sunday of going to one of the grandparents' houses to watch with them, we stayed home. The week before that was mostly normal. Mira got to go to Dylan's birthday party and Cecily and I went to the park while we waited for that to get over. We also did a lot of cleaning up after throw up during the week. It was a nasty bug even though it only lasted for 24 hours. Emilia and Mira were the only ones who got it, but Emilia got it twice five days apart. Weird, right?

Cecily at the park--

The cat napping on our oversized stuffed bear--

Mira hanging out with me--

Cecily being sassy. The accompanying conversation:
Mira and Cecily were fighting over how their play phone was to be used.
Mira: No, I will not do that! I'm not going to follow your silly rules.
Cecily (screaming): I'm not silly, I'm perfect! Now put it in there!

I loved the little feet sticking out.

Our kids were screaming and crashing around the house after the last session of General Conference, so Steve and I decided we needed to take a walk.

We were about half a block down the road when we hear frantic meowing and see Mystery running down the street after us. The silly cat walked the entire mile and a half with us!

This past week was spring break for us. I debated taking the girls on a quick trip to Las Vegas to show them the fountains and the Belagio and do some of the other free stuff there. But there was the throwing up and then I wasn't sure I wanted to take the girls by myself, and then Steve didn't want to take two Fridays in a row off of work (and he has to take this coming Friday off because I'm going out of town) and the hotel rooms went up from $30/night on Thursday to $120/night on Friday, and I remembered how smutty Las Vegas can be and it just didn't feel like the right thing. That took almost the entire day Monday. I was disappointed and so were the girls to not be getting a road trip, so as I was praying about the alternative, I had an idea come to me. I thought, if I was going to spend two hundred dollars on a road trip, I could spare $60 for some spring break fun. I could give each girl a day during the week to decide everything we would do that day and give them $20 each to spend on whatever they want--a toy, a game, an activity, food. When I told them about this, they were super excited and so was I. Emilia got Tuesday. She chose to go to Kangaroo Zoo, an inflatable bouncy house playground. We invited a friend to join us and the girls played for a couple hours there while I worked on some illustrations. It was relaxing for me and fun/exhausting for them. (Both Mira and Cecily fell asleep on the way home.) Emilia also chose to watch Moana and have ribs and cornbread for dinner.

Wednesday was Nana's day. We drove up and spent the day with Nana and Grandpa. Nana helped them make rock ladybugs and paper bunnies and it was nice enough to play outside for a while. Cecily made me chuckle while she watched her sisters play a video game.

On our way home from Nana's, we picked up the friend that had joined us on Tuesday and she came and had a sleepover at our house. Thursday was Mira's day. They watched Moana again that morning. After the friend went home, Mira chose to go bowling and go to the Bean Museum. Since the Bean Museum is on BYU campus, and they have a bowling alley there, it seemed like the perfect double outing. We parked near the BYU MOA, so we explored some of their outdoor pieces before heading to the library. Emilia saw the skylights poking out of the ground and wanted to see them from the inside, so we explored the library for probably 45 minutes before heading to the bowling alley.

"Mom! Look at how far down it goes!"

They had the world's only modern, hand-written and illustrated bible on display. The calligraphy was stunning.

Bowling ten frames with these cuties took nearly two hours, but they loved it. Cecily would push the ball down the ramp, spin around, throw her hands in the air and cheer, then ask immediately if it was her turn again. She didn't even care if she knocked down any pins and she got the best score of the kids.

When it wasn't their turn, Cecily and Mira took turns spinning each other on the chair.

Luckily for us, we went on discount day, so Mira unexpectedly had money left over. We were all hungry at this point, so we went to the BYU creamery and got ice cream cones and ate them outside. Grandma works right next door to the Creamery, so she joined us for a few minutes while she ate. Cecily and Mira decided the picnic tables were the perfect stage for singing and dancing.

Once our bellies were full, the girls still wanted to go to the Bean Museum, which if you don't know, is a "natural history museum." Basically, it's just a bunch of taxidermied animals in dioramas and you walk around and look at them. This iron statue of a wolf sits outside the museum. Of course we had to climb on it.

I love how this picture embodies each of the girls. I tell them to pose and Cecily makes an excited face, Emilia looks calm and gently rests her hands on the nearest animal, and Mira make a goofy pose with her butt sticking out. Yup. That about covers it.

We also had to pose in front of the warthog, of course.

Pretty view.

Mira wanted Costco chicken and chips for dinner. Perfect easy end to a long but super fun day. I enjoyed my kids immensely that day.

Friday was Cecily's day and she chose to watch TV in the morning and to go swimming in the afternoon. It was a madhouse at the Provo Rec center. Chaos and excessive noise are generally draining for me, but put me in a place where my kids can also drown or get abducted because I can't watch three of them every minute, and I'm stressed to the max. But I tried to let go of my anxiety. I said a prayer for Heavenly Father to watch over them when I couldn't and let them play. I did make them all stay in the same area, since there is a lazy river, a regular pool, a huge kids play area, two big slides and a diving board area. They played so hard and enjoyed themselves, so even though I was mentally and physically worn out by the end of the afternoon, it was worth the effort. Cecily wanted noodles and broccoli (no joke) for dinner and then she picked The BFG for an evening of movie watching. I liked the BFG better than Pete's Dragon, but Steve thought it was weird. *shrugs* I did not get a single picture of our activities on Friday.

Saturday was mostly chores. Mira and I did finally put together her lego car whose pieces were missing from at her birthday party. It's such a cute car.

Today was a good, relaxing Sunday. Nick and Wilda left for a three week Jerusalem/Palestine(maybe?)/Egypt tour, so we fended for ourselves again. It snowed last night, so a good pot of chili seemed in order. Mmmm.

Last, but not least, this is a note I got from Emilia after I disciplined her one day (by sternly explaining I was upset and sending her to her room) for doing something she knew she shouldn't.

My kids kill me. They're so clever!