Some Day in the Life Collages

I wanted to capture some of the day to day things that I don't record sometimes.  Just a few things that happen on a regular basis around our house:

 There's often exercising, although it's usually me.  The kids (especially Lily) do enjoy doing their "Kick to Get Fit" video and my 30 Day Shred video.


There's always some oogling in the mirror when we're doing hair.  Also plenty of drinks from the sink all day and choking/loving Mama.

 Lots of playing with toys.  They haven't been playing with toys as much these past few weeks, but they'll go back to it soon. They seem to cycle in and out of toy playing.  Lily goes to school in the afternoon, so she and Brigham have a lot of fun in the mornings.

 Are there really houses where there isn't TV watching?  Not ours.  Cannon watched a show while the kids were at school.  I think he was watching Sesame Street here.

 Preschool for Briggy!  He loves it and loves to be picked up.  His grin makes me so happy!

 Oops!  Forgot to turn off the TV before the girls got home!  I try not to have it on when they get home from school because they have a really hard time doing anything else when the TV's on.

Homework.  It usually takes us 30-45 minutes to get homework and reading finished.  Lately I've been letting the girls read their homework books in bed because by the time they finish homework, we're all kind of burned out.  School is long, they get home late in the afternoon, and between Family Home Evening, piano lessons, dance, and gymnastics...not to mention baths, dinner, relax time, etc, I feel like they are overloaded emotionally.  So, putting off the reading till bedtime seems to help.

Question:  how do you fit chores into the school year?  My kids only real responsibilities during the school year are to make their beds each morning and do their homework.  Chloe has the added responsibility of practicing piano every morning.
I just can't seem to find a way to fit any other chores into our week (at least during the winter when we ski on Saturdays) and most of the time I'm okay with it -- I feel like it works for our family.  Other times, like today at church when our Relief Society lesson was about the value of work (and our responsibility as parents to teach our children to work), I feel guilt and wonder if I'm failing my children.  I don't know.  I guess I don't know if I even want advice here, just needing to vent a bit.

There's a day in our life.  Not pictured:  piano practice, bed making, endless eating and snacking, fighting, whining, reading, me yelling, kids crying, hugs, and love.  And the pure joy on the kids' faces when Dad walks through the door.

From This To That....

We had some gorgeous weather in mid-February.  Gorgeous.  So gorgeous that Brigham and Cannon played outside without their shirts on.  In Cache Valley, when it's 50, it's shirts off weather...at least according to little boys who've survived a long winter!

The kids ate their lunch outside and had a great time.

I did like the three different clothing choices.  And this is a good shot of Cannon's gallon bag cast cover.

I had to take this pic just because it amused me how different each of their sandwich cutting requests were.  Just like their clothing choices.

Here's where I wish I had taken a photo of the next day.  We got 8 inches in almost an hour the next evening.  I have learned to embrace Cache Valley's weather craziness and not expect any sort of consistent Spring weather till May.  I'm a much happier person when my expectations are low realistic.

That nice weather was a fun little break from our usual winter days.

Happy Birthday to our Chloe Girl!

I seriously can't believe she's 7.  Seven years old.  We are so lucky to have this wonderful little girl in our family and in our life.  She's teaching us so much about love, acceptance, charity, patience, and joy.  She brings us so much joy.  We love her.

Our day was lovely.  My parents came to visit this morning and so Chloe got to go to school late.  The kids were all up early and singing Happy Birthday with gusto.  My parents arrived at 7:40ish and spent breakfast time with us (Chloe chose Eggo waffles with an over easy egg on top - and syrup? + our usual smoothie), played and read with the kids, listened to Chloe practice piano, and brought Chloe a super fun present.
To preface, Chloe's dream is to be a chef when she grows up.  She's wanted to do this for 3 years now and even though she gets very few opportunities to cook with me, she enjoys it so much when she can.  Anyway, they gave her a kids' cookbook and a set of cooking utensils.  She was so excited!!!

PS, she requested a "low ponytail" for her hair today.  Thus the messy hair in every succeeding picture.  :)

After my parents left for the airport (they are on their way to Florida to visit my brother and fam), Chloe headed off to school.

While she was at school, I made her cake, got the other kids ready for their school days, helped them wrap Chloe's presents from them, wrapped our presents to her, cleaned up the kitchen, got lunch for the kids, etc.  At 1:20, Cannon and I packed up cupcakes and busy activities and snacks for Cannon and went to Chloe's class for my regularly scheduled volunteer time.  It was a delight to be there today.  Her teacher has a special little thing she does with the class on the children's birthdays.  It was so fun to be there for it.  Chloe got to pass out her cupcakes to the class and then we did our normal stuff.  I spent a half hour or so working with the kids on their math facts and of course Cannon had to poop during that half hour.  He was plenty distracting, which reminds me why I never ever take Cannon to volunteer with me.  Ever.  I won't do that again.

Alright, after we got home from there, Brigham and Cannon watched TV while I frosted Chloe's cake.  She made the best cake request ever:  The Beaver Mountain logo.  I love that.  Seriously.  So, I got her cake finished just as she and Lily were walking in the door from school.  We snapped a couple of pictures while they were having a "snack" of graham crackers and frosting with sprinkles.  "Snack" meaning "Junk Food" of course.  Thank the heavens we don't have after school snacks like that too often.  I can see a distinct difference in their dispositions when we eat crap versus healthy foods.  Sorry for the irrelevant aside.  Here are the pictures.

I was pretty excited with how it came out.  She loved it.

(Another irrelevant aside:  It has been so long since I blogged that I am having a really hard time putting sentences together.  Grrrr.)

This is the part where we were going to go to Beaver Mountain for a night of skiing with Stanton's parent's ward.  This funny thing called reality set in, though, when we started doing the math and realized that we wouldn't get up to Beaver until 6:00, it was going to be darn cold, that it was a school night (a school night which was preceded by a school afternoon with no homework doing - oops), and she hadn't opened any presents yet.  SO, I presented the options to Chloe:  go to Beaver or would she be okay with going to dinner with the family.  Sweet girl, she happily agreed to going to dinner - Chick-Fil-A to be exact.

First we opened presents.  Lily, Brigham, Cannon, and I had gone to Six Star the day before where they each picked out a present for Chloe.  They were SUPER excited to give Chloe their presents.  Chloe was a sweetheart and let Cannon help her open pretty much every one of them.

That shadow puppet is Chloe's 7.  Cute.  So, Brigham got her a coloring book and an eraser pen thing, Cannon got her a Barbie tissue paper dress up doll, and Lily got her a Littlest Pet Shop.  She loved all 3 of them.

She also opened from us: a giant Highlights activity pad, a new lunchbox, a nightgown with a matching one for her Bitty Baby, a new dress, and a Shutterfly book with pictures of her throughout the years.  She was so cute with each one and declared it the "Best Birthday Ever!"  She also got cards and money from Aunt Cindy and Grandma J.  She was honestly so excited about every single thing.

So, we went to Chick-Fil-A and spent an hour eating and playing there.   Chloe chose to order a grilled chicken sandwich meal (that's an adult size meal, for the record).  She ate most of it because she's a crazy awesome eater.  Another thing I love about Miss Chloe.

Can I just say how great that place is?  Healthy options for the grown ups (I'm of course wishing there were healthier options in their kids meals), great play area that's clean, enclosed, and sound proof, friendly staff, closed on Sundays.  Great restaurant.
While the kids finished up playing, Stanton ran to Al's to pick up our big present to Chloe (it was being put together).  We got all the kids in the van and headed home.

A new bike!!!  She was looking quite like a clown on her old bike and Stanton rocked the bike purchase.  It's a great bike that she'll be able to ride for the next 5 years at least.  It shifts gears, has hand brakes, and (a huge bonus for the family with boys and girls) is not pink!  She was really, really, really hoping for a puppy for her birthday but was thrilled with this surprise.  She had to get out on the road and try it out for a couple of minutes before birthday cake.

I love these next pictures.  Lily had had just the right mix of sugar, hours awake, and non-her-own-birthday-ness and pretty much lost it when that bike rolled in.  Life's rough sometimes.

Is her face in the cake picture not hilarious?  She had some good moments, too.  She put the candles in Chloe's cake and helped me light them.  Then it was back to tears.
Look, though!  Just in time for the last picture of the night, she was happy again.

Oh, but Brig's sad.  Well, I guess we can't expect all of them to be full grin at the same time on such nights.
Now that I have accounted for every. single. second. of this day, OH, SY-EEK!
We got the kids showered, put the younger 3 to bed and then I did homework with Chloe.  While she was finishing up, Dave and Judy came over to visit.  She got to open her present from them while they were here.  They gave her a new novel (The Sisters Grimm), an I Love Puppies activity kit, and a Junie B. Jones diary.  They were all right up her alley.  She LOVED them.
After Dave & Judy left, we got Chloe to bed and here I am 3 hours later just finishing this post.  Holy cow, I need to brush up on my "tell the story in as few words as possible" skills.

Chloe deserves a long post, though.  She's a great kid who is really trying hard to make good choices.  Sometimes it doesn't come easily for her, so it's really neat to see her making a conscious effort to choose the right.  We love our Chloe.

At 7, this is Chloe.

Favorite colors: 
Favorite TV show:
Favorite food:
Favorite activity:

Valentine's Day Family Home Evening

I really went all out for Valentine's Day this year.  *Snort*

I have a confession:  I'm really not into making every holiday a big deal.  I'm doing well to get a healthy dinner on the table every night and decorating and having a theme added in is just too much for this momma.  And here's the best part:  I don't really even care.  I hope my kids don't either.

Anyway, we went all out with dinner and served it on red plastic plates.  Yep.  That's it.  I did manage to make chocolate dipped strawberries for our Family Home Evening treat.  Mostly because I needed chocolate.  These were some cute pictures of the family eating our snack after the cast signing party.

 Cannon was desperately trying to find some more chocolate in that strawberry.

 Our perfect-faced Brigham boy.

 Lily.  Really, what else do I say?

 ChloeBird.  She always knows where the camera is, so I was glad to catch one or two candid photos of her.

 Stanton entertaining the crowd.  I hate when I get behind on blogging because I forget the story behind the pictures.  He was doing something really funny and cute with the kids here, but I can't, for the life of me, remember what it is....

See, something cute was happening here and I can't remember it!  Grrr....

Anyway, a fun Valentine's Day, especially after we'd been away from the kids for our weekend trip.  It was nice to be together as a family on Love Day.

Happy Valentine's Day!

 These were the pictures from the kids' valentines.  Lily and Brigham's had a Tootsie Pop and Chloe's had a toothbrush.  (They got to choose what they gave, I promise!)
The toothbrushes/suckers had a little flag taped on them.  Chloe's said, "You make me smile, Valentine!" and Lily/Brig's said, "Happy Valentine's Day, Toots!"

Cannon was just dang mad he didn't have anyone to give a valentine to.

I think they turned out so cute.  Thanks to Kellie and Adrian, who tended our kids while we were on vacation, for helping finish these up while we were gone.
The kids loved giving these valentines to their classmates.  Super fun.

What's a Cast Without Some Grafitti?

For our Family Home Evening activity on Valentine's Day, we had the traditional cast signing on little Cannon's leg.  He thought it was the bee's knees!

 One of my favorite little drawings was that one in the middle up there.  Chloe was being very meta and drew a cast on Cannon's cast.  She thought she was pretty funny...and she was!

Pretty fun Family Home Evening.

And just for a record:  Cannon is doing SO well with his cast.  He knows not to get it wet, he's very responsible and brings me a big Ziploc bag when he wants to go outside (hehe), and just really goes with the flow with the cast on.  We go back on the 7th (I think), to have it removed and x-rayed.  They'll recast if the bone isn't completely healed, but that's very unlikely.  All in all, this hasn't really been a traumatic experience for any of us...although I'll be happy if it never happens again!

Heading Home

We spent a nice morning in our hotel room reading the Sunday School lesson and relaxing before catching the train back to Salt Lake Sunday afternoon.  It ended up being delayed, so we spent a couple of extra hours in the station reading, etc.  It was nice to get back on the train and have some private space. 
We had dinner with a really....interesting?....couple that evening.  It was nice to get back to our room once again. 
Even though it was only 7:00 pm, we were beat and decided that since the train would arrive in Salt Lake close to midnight, we'd better get some rest so we could make the drive home from Salt Lake to Logan.  It was so nice to have a place to lay down and get a real night's sleep.

Of course, we did plenty of our usual techy stuff, too. 
I had to snap a picture of all our luggage.  With having brought our own skis, boots, snow gear, etc., we had quite the load!  That's another nice thing about traveling by train, though.  The luggage allowance is MUCH more generous. 

This was a great trip.  It was fun to be gone for a short period of time, just a long weekend.  It was fun to go, go, go the whole time.  It was fun to ski and to try a new sport.  It was really fun to be together and to be on a trip that Stanton planned.

Snowmobiling and Cave Tour

So, Saturday was spent on more adventures.  We got up early and drove up past Glenwood's ski resort to their snowmobile tours.  We ended up being the only 2 on the tour, so we got a fun, personal 3 hour ride.  We originally planned to ride on the same sled, but the guide convinced us to get separate ones and I'm so glad.  It was way funner to drive my own.

Ready to go on the tour.

Me making a fool out of myself again.  I tried to trudge through the powder to get the perfect camera shot.  It was a lot deeper than I expected it to be.  I fell.
It was worth it, though.  Wanna know why?  Because we got this next shot:

Pretty incredible view, right?  That is Mt. Sopris behind us.

Snowmobiling was a blast.  I hadn't been in years and years.  In fact, I can only vaguely remember riding on a snowmobile one other time.  It is a fun sport and more physically active than I gave it credit for before.  Fun.  Super fun.

So, after snowmobiling, we went back to the hotel and got ready for our afternoon activities -- the cave tour and adventure park.

These caves (the Glenwood Caverns) are up in the mountain.  Apparently a family homesteaded the land up there back in the day and discovered these caverns.  They opened them up for tours and while that family doesn't still own them, they are privately owned and a fun adventure park surrounds the area around them.
We rode a gondola up the side of the mountain to the park.

It was a cool view.

Since it was winter, many of the activities were closed, but we did get to enjoy the alpine coaster, which is somewhat like the alpine slide in Park City, but kinda cooler.  It twists and turns and is a wild ride.
They also had a 4D theatre, which was fun.  We saw 3 little movies.  The 4D has the addition of the seats moving and water spray.  The movies were a little lame and a little fun.

We had lunch at their little restaurant and then headed to the caves.  They were really pretty amazing.  Our tour guide was a bit of a putz, but we made the best of it.
Whenever I go inside a cave, I have one of those, "Wow, God is truly amazing" moments.  The tens of thousands of years that it takes to make these formations is remarkable.  And the shapes that the stalagmite and stalactite make are incredible. 

The picture on the bottom left is a room called the "Hall of Kings."  The formations in there are stunning.
I'd definitely recommend the caves if you find yourself in Glenwood.  They were really neat.

We went to dinner at a restaurant called Russets that evening.  It was in a town near Glenwood and had the best bread I've maybe ever eaten in a restaurant.  I had this amazing pasta dish with freshly made egg linguine and a spicy marinara sauce.  Oh, it was so good.  Stanton loved his dish, too.
We shared a creme brulee cheesecake that was to die for.  I don't know how they made it so airy and fluffy, but it was incredible.  And then the crunchy creme brulee topping.  Oh man, do I go on and on about food every time I write about a trip we've taken?  It was really delicious.

Great day.  So fun.

Aspen

Glenwood is about 40 minutes away from Aspen, so since we were so close, we couldn't pass up the opportunity to ski in such a famous place.  Much to Stanton's credit, however, he found a resort that was seriously made for people like me who are not really fantastic skiers.  He passed up on Ajax and Snowmass, which are pretty famous major mountains in Aspen and we spent the day at Buttermilk Ski Resort.  It was so amazing!  Loooong, wide, well-groomed runs that were the perfect steepness.  It was a really great ski day.  Oh, and the lifts were fast!  That made it nice, too, as we didn't have to spend so much time on the lift.

I felt like I made huge progress skiing there that day.  I was way more confident than I have been before and actually "got" the rhythm of skiing that had eluded me before.  It was a great feeling.

At the top of one of the runs.

These next pictures are of, hands down, the funniest part of the trip.  I was leading the way skiing and took a run that we hadn't been on before.  Everything was going along fine until I realized that I was completely unfamiliar with my surroundings.  I had a little panic attack and started trying to figure out where we were in relation to the lodge and then realized that I wasn't paying any attention to skiing and skied right into the hill.  I fell face first in the snow, completely sprawled out like a cartoon character.  I was laughing so hard and by the time Stanton got to me, I was uncontrollably laugh-crying. 

He of course snapped a picture of me trying to get up.

Stanton commented that I looked like I had fallen straight out of the sky onto my face.  It was truly comical.   It took me a few minutes to stop giggling and calm enough to ski to the base.  We didn't take that run again.  :)

It was a super fun day of skiing and I'm so glad Stanton convinced me to do it.  Truth be told, I think the reason he planned this trip as a "surprise" was less as a romantic gesture and more because he knew I would veto a winter sports vacation.  To me, vacation means warm, lazy, reading books, and shopping.  He had a vision of how fun this trip would be if he could just get me on it and he was right!  It was so fun to do some more adventurous things and be going the whole time. 

So, after a quick change in the parking lot of Buttermilk, we headed in to Aspen to walk around.

Aspen is a pretty typical resort town, much like Jackson Hole and Park City.  It's very pretty, though, and the people are very friendly.

This was a fun little warming station in town.  It had heaters up top and a fire going on bottom.  A nice little place to sit and get warm for a bit.

We headed back to Glenwood that evening for dinner.  We ended up at an Asian fusion restaurant called Xang that was so delicious.  Tons of vegetables, spicy, and awesome.  We really loved their food and atmosphere.

Stanton was getting annoyed with my insistence that we take pictures everywhere, but I just want a dang archive, okay?  Plus, I like my outfit and wanted to have picture evidence of it.  So there.

For the second night in a row, we vetoed the hot springs right outside our hotel (and that Glenwood is famous for).  I'm too wimpy and didn't want to wear a swimsuit in the freezing cold air.  We were definitely the odd ducks, though, because those hot springs were FULL every night we were there.

So, we went to bed early so we could be rested for our big day Friday.

Lazy Day in Glenwood

We got into Glenwood around 11 am or so on Thursday and spent the afternoon at the spa. 
First we ran 3 miles each on the treadmill, then went to the actual spa.  It was awesome, by the way.  I got a manicure, which actually healed up my terribly cracked knuckles.  I haven't had a problem since, as long as I keep them moisturized.  I get terrible cracked skin in the winter, especially on my hands, which have to be washed so many times a day as a mom.  The gal who did my manicure actually put on the stuff that they use on feet during pedicures because my hands were so bad.  It felt SO good to have the pain of the cracks gone.
While I got the manicure, Stanton decided to get a facial.  He he!  He actually really enjoyed it.
We went to dinner and then we went back to the spa that night to get massages.  It was really enjoyable.  Stanton has to get a deep tissue massage a few times a year for headaches that are caused by the position he holds all day long as he does dentistry.  So, he got his hard core deep tissue massage and I got a nice, wimpy one.  I have to admit, I enjoyed the 90 minutes of silence as much as the massage itself.  It was so relaxing.
We melted back to the hotel and got a good night's rest because our next day was to be spent in Aspen skiing.

Midnight Train to Glenwood

Stanton planned an awesome long weekend trip to Colorado.  It was a blast.

We left on the night of the 9th of February --  I was a dummy and planned that Wednesday would be my "get ready for the trip day."  The day I made the schedule for the babysitters, did the laundry, grocery shopped, packed, etc.  Well, I really should learn my lesson and plan ahead because something always happens to get in the way.  This time it was our little Cannon's broken foot ordeal.  I spent the entire day between the pediatrician, the hospital, and the orthopedic's offices.  By the time I finished with those appointments, it was 5:00 and the children hadn't eaten (thank you to Judy for taking care of the older 3 on short notice!), there was no schedule typed, and NO packing had been done yet.  None.  Our babysitter would be there in an hour and a half and Chloe had gymnastics.  I ended up bagging gymnastics, feeding them a rotisserie chicken or something random like that, and hurriedly typing up a schedule.  We hadn't even packed when Kelly and Adrian got here at 6:30.  Yeah, that was when we had planned to leave.  Oops.  It was nice that we were able to put the kids to bed ourselves, though, and give them one more kiss goodnight before we left.

We finally got out the door at 8:00ish and headed down to Emily and Nate's to hang out for a bit before we caught our train.  Em and Nate were awesome and stayed up till midnight with us!  We left and headed to Salt Lake where we had another 3 hours to kill before our train left.  3:30 am is a crazy time to catch a train, but thankfully, Stanton had booked us a sleeper car.  It was so nice!  Small, but we were able to stretch out and get a good night's sleep while we made our way to Glenwood Springs.

 The California Zephyr making its way to the train station.

Our car.  Bunk beds that fold up into the ceiling and apart into comfy chairs.

We woke up refreshed and ready to enjoy a morning on the train.  With a sleeper car (there's a technical name for them, but I can't recall hit just now), meals are included, so we had breakfast in the dining car.  It was fun to move from one car to the next just like on Polar Express.  Dining is cruise-style in that you are paired with other travelers.  We met a really lovely couple who were traveling from the Chicago area to San Francisco.  That's over 2 days on the train!  I think that might be fun to do sometime.

After breakfast, we went back to our private little room and enjoyed the beautiful scenery passing by.  The train travels about 65 miles per hour and is quite high up, so it was a great view.  I was a bit concerned about car sickness, but it wasn't a problem at all.  I really enjoyed some quiet private time to read and do some projects.  Stanton enjoyed walking around the train and seeing all the other cars.

We got into Glenwood Springs at about 11:00 am and were picked up by our hotel shuttle.  More on that in the next post.  Suffice it to say, though, that we really enjoyed traveling by train.  It was old-fashioned, provided a great view, and fun socialization, as well as really nice privacy when we wanted it.  We'd definitely do it again if the opportunity came up.

Hard Luck Kid

Remember last year when Cannon was our first kid to have an accident needing stitches and ear tubes?  He continues to be our hard luck kid.  Yes, I know that Brigham has had major open heart surgery, but Cannon is our accident prone kiddo.

Anyway, the night before Stanton and I left on our trip, Cannon and Chloe were goofing around in the kitchen.  They were rough housing, but not anything really out of the ordinary.  I didn't see it happen, but from what I can reconstruct of the situation, he fell funny so the top of his foot was on the floor (our hard kitchen floor) and Chloe fell on him.  It was the right angle and impact for a freak accident.  He cried one of those really terrible "I'm really hurt" cries, but calmed down pretty quickly.  He would limp around intermittently and cry here and there, but we were able to calm him down every time.  Well, he woke up twice in the night complaining of his foot hurting and by morning when he was still limping around and complaining of foot pain, I wondered if something was up.  Facebook to the rescue!  I had one neighborhood friend in particular who really encouraged me to take Cannon to the doctor.  I realized that she was right when I considered the fact that I was leaving out of town that night.
So, what was going to be my day to pack, make the schedule for the babysitter, clean the house, finish up the laundry, etc., became an entire day in the doctor's office and orthopedic's office.  Cannon broke the first metatarsal bone on his left foot right near the growth plate and ended up needing a full cast.  He did really well during the entire process and has adapted amazingly well.  In fact, despite the PA's warning that Cannon might start crawling again for a while, Cannon walked out of the office on his own.  He's been a gem and looks dang cute in his green cast!

 This was him in the middle of the night.  Same night as the "Melt My Heart" post.

Leaving the orthopedic's office. 

Another post on his cast later.  For now, my computer battery is about to die.

I'm really proud of him for how well he's handled everything.  What a trooper!

Melt My Heart

I'm not a huge fan of getting up in the night with my children, but maybe since he's my baby and it just doesn't happen very often, I really appreciated the half hour I got to spend with little Cannon just now.
The heart melting moment came when, snuggled against me and eating a graham cracker, he whispered, "Sing a lullaby, Mama." 
Yes, sweet boy, I'll sing you a lullaby. 
And now that you're in bed, please stay there.