Crazy Hair and Half Birthdays

Last week was work. My kids pushed me to my limits every day. My visiting teacher came and said she used to have to tell herself, "I like my house, but I love my kids." I thought, that's good of her. :) So I'd rather not remember everything that happened that week, but I will highlight one thing.

3 tubes of lanolin. 1 tube of desitin. 1 full tube of baby sunscreen. 1 full tube of lotion. 1 full travel size bottle of baby shampoo.

All in my children's hair. It was a mess. It was all over clothes, and furniture, and carpet. And despite the mess, I saw the $ signs. Everything is expensive and it drives me bonkers. I try not to yell, and I'm usually so flabergasted I have nothing to say but, "find a corner." They know they need time-outs and away they go. Sitting in corners laughing and joking about how funny they look. I hate hearing laughing in time-outs.They are supposed to feel bad. So my normal 2-5 minute time out kept going and going. 30 minutes in and they were still smiling, but starting to get tired. 45 minutes in and the tears started. "Can we get out yet?!" I have to think I'm not the only mom out there that feels good when this happens. I could finally go get my camera and document their nasty hair, because they were sad. They could remember the hour time-out they got. Yes, one full hour. At least they were not making messes during that one hour, because that is about the only times they weren't.

When time-outs were over, their sadness didn't last long and they excitedly said, "Mom! We need a bath!" Sorry. No bath. I made them stay nasty and did not let them sit on the couch that day, as their hair would have stained anything it touched. That night they were sentenced to a torture chamber, the shower. Oh my how they screamed. They don't like showers. And they got another the next day, and baths the rest of the week before their hair started resemble hair again.

So... after another day of brand new lip gloss emptied all over Ezra's hair I decided it needed more attention. They make products for hair. The things they are using, are not. After talking to them we found out they do it because "they think it looks cool." So I explained, if you want to play with your hair, talk to me. We will get stuff for your hair and do it crazy together.

Now to Noah's 1/2 birthday. It was Tuesday. A new week. I needed to love my kids again and wanted to have a fun day with them. Noah got to pick whatever he wanted for dinner and dessert and we made everything together. Those little things mean so much to little boys and he was "So EXCITED!" He also asked if we could do crazy hair on his half birthday.

So it was a nice day. We had taco casserole and a half cake-

Happy 1/2 birthday No-no! (It's an appropriate nick name :)

Provo - Tuesday

Tuesday Jack had to be at BYU nice and early to get ready for EFY. I dropped him off and headed over to my sister's house. My plan was to go swimming at my Grandma's condos  where a couple of my cousins' are living, but it was overcast and rainy so we thought maybe later in the afternoon.

After hanging out at my sister's house for a little bit we went over to the University Mall. I heard they too put in a play area for kids I wanted to check out. City Creek was definitely more fun for the boys, though this one is probably more impressive to look at. They have a giant tree house with slides and dinosaur bones to crawl on.

Next we went to Costco and got some lunch, but Ezra ended up falling asleep on our drive back. Since he had such a busy day the day before I didn't want to wake him. Swimming plans were forfeited and the rest of the afternoon was spent lounging around until it was time to pick up Dad.

The last thing I wanted to look at was the path south of campus. I heard they made the duck pond nice and the pathway really beautiful. Everyone was right! Wow, so much nicer than what it was before. The duck pond has a cute little dock area around it and the pathway that leads up to campus has a river running along the whole area with lots of trees, rocks, and inlets of grass and tables you can eat, relax, study, whatever! (As Jack put it, lots of places you could take engagement/family pictures :)

A quick look at the bookstore and everyone was ready to be back at Grandma's for our last night there!

I have to note my Grandma's mantle in the back, which she tells every person that comes to her door, doesn't matter who it is, that it is all her grandchildren that have gotten married in the temple :) (She used to keep missionaries up there too, but it got too full so now they are on the hutch)

Wednesday we were up early and packing to go. I tried to get a picture of the boys with my grandparents. Note for the future-take a picture the first day, or during the week. Because they are not happy when it is time to go and will cry, fuss, and not cooperate not allowing you to get picture proof of how much they really adore their great-grandparents.

Okay, so they're at least in the picture. Sure I had to be in it too, but we got 1 smile! And after Jack's grandpa's sudden death I was grateful I made them take a picture even though it was work. You never know when people are going to go, especially grandparents and I am disappointed I don't have a picture of Grandpa Jack with Ezra (He never met Asher). But I do know he loved them!

On our drive home we stopped by Jack's mission president's home in Fayette (bummed I didn't get a picture of Jack with him) and picked up Charlemagne in Richfield which have already been covered. Whew, done with that trip from almost a month ago :)

Temple Square/City Creek - Monday Part 2

After Hogle Zoo I wanted to stop by the new City Creek Mall next to Temple Square while we were in Salt Lake. It had been a long day, so my main goal was just to walk around and see what they had. 

It is a beautiful mall! Our first stop was to the food court where they have a play area for the kids. They LOVED these dinosaurs. It is a huge play area with lots of dinosaurs you could climb up and slide down. For 20 minutes easy they were running around gigging, jumping, climbing. If we lived up there, definitely an awesome hang out in the summer.

Then they have a couple cool water feature fountains designed by the same guy who did the Bellagio fountains in Las Vegas. So they are mini-shows with music and there is also a splash  pad in the same courtyard, but I didn't want my kids getting wet. Luckily they didn't seem to care.

It is right next to Temple Square so we took a walk across the street. They were cleaning it or something, so you couldn't actually go up to it, but we got to see all the windows open. Now that is something you don't get to see every day. :)

A missionary gave Noah a map. Haha, he was hilarious with this map. He loved it and was all smiles clutching it close to him, asking him if we needed to know where to go. The next day we were driving and he said, "Mom! Dad! Do you know where to go? I have my map and I can tell you!" Little did he know it just showed Temple Square.

this was before he got the map. Not quite as happy :)

We also got some precious moments where Jack was able to teach our kids. I love that he takes every opportunity to teach them about the gospel. They learned all about Joseph Smith and the restoration of the priesthoods. It is so cute to watch them think and grow.

It was a beautiful fun day where we ended it with going over to one of my cousin's houses where they made us delicious chicken cordon bleu and played Just Dance on the Xbox, fun!

Grandpa Jack

Grandpa Jack was Jack's grandfather. He was his last living grandparent and he passed away Tuesday early evening, after suffering from a brain aneurysm sometime Monday night/Tuesday morning. He lived quite the life and Jack could fill you with crazy stories from his life and Jack's childhood. 

Even though he wasn't my grandfather, I've known him for the 12 years I've known Jack. The summer I met Jack and learned he lived in Vegas not far from me, I had to wait a couple months before seeing him again because he was on his way to his Grandpa's farm in Hinckley. He would stay there most of the summer every year helping him on his farm and I only heard good things. His grandpa also had a home in Vegas next door to his family, so they were very close.

I'll have to talk Jack into doing his own post as while we were up there he snapped a few pictures of the farm. He wasn't a very clean or organized man, but he was a good man and it was nice to go up for his funeral and be with Jack's family.

There was a viewing Friday night and Saturday morning-

cute little Asher boy. I had to include it :0)

He wasn't very active in the church and didn't want a big funeral, so Saturday there was a simple graveside service-

Jack gave a very nice talk

His cousin played some cowboy songs

All the great-grandkids also sang "Families Can Be Together Forever" but I went up with the boys and so we didn't get a picture of that. I'll have to try to get one from another family member. 

Our family. I also need to get a copy of the picture of his whole family together

At the end of every family gathering Grandpa Jack would say, "Well, it's been a swell party," hence it written on the headstone :)

It was nice visiting Hinckley. I've been able to visit a few times when his Grandmother passed away and for the annual 24th of July celebrations they have. His Aunt Bonnie and Uncle Walt are always very kind and generous when we go and let us stay with them.

We made a stop at Leo's (now Delta Freeze) while we were there, which is run by annoying, very slow teenagers, but the shakes were as good as I remember.

Got a soda at the service station in honor of him on our way out-

And stopped by Fort Deseret-

We'll miss you Grandpa Jack! 

The family's epic cowboy.

Video of the graveside service - It would be more interesting if I had pictures to show during the songs, but I don't, so for now, it'll do. :)

Hogle Zoo - Monday Part 1

I'm getting closer to finishing documenting our trip up north! :0)

Monday we took the kids to Hogle Zoo. We've been once before when Noah was little and it was okay. The animals were lazy, he didn't seem too interested, and he still took naps so got tired and we didn't end up staying very long. This time, my boys don't take naps and Ezra loves animals so I had higher hopes. It was a nice day, not too hot, not too crowded and we ended up staying about 5 hours, so it was great!

Noah loves reading maps

The bird show may have been my favorite, even though it started 15 minutes late. The hawk didn't cooperate in the opening act and flew into a tree. They spent awhile trying to get it back since as they put it, "Couldn't go on, since the hawk is a predator, and other birds in the show are not." :0)

Waiting for the bird show to start - We had great seats and birds were flying right above our heads throughout the whole show

Ez was trying to get Jack to volunteer at the bird show

The talking bird. He was really funny. If I had had my own camera I would have recorded the whole thing :)

Rhinos!

some kind of primate :)

sea lions

The polar bear exhibit was new and a lot of fun. I watched him for 15 minutes and he swam flips the whole time. It was so funny it looked like he was putting on a show just for us. He would dive down, climb up the wall, flip to his back and glide across the water over and over. 

I was nervous to film video after the guy in front of me moved since I didn't know how much battery my Grandma's camera had so I skimped the whole day

Noah asked from almost the moment we got there to go see the tigers. They were kind of boring though so we didn't stay for too long :)

He was also really excited about seeing crocodiles

They liked this whole area. We didn't go here last time but they had lots of cool animals

nasty bats

Other bats. They hollow out the bananas, crazy looking

I needed a picture of Ezra with a porcupine since he calls everything a "poke-e-pine" if it's sharp or pokes him. It's funny

Giraffes are crazy looking animals. And they stood completely still the whole time we were there. I guess to stay cool?

Elephants, gorillas, grizzly bears, giraffes

Some lady gave our boys carousel tickets since her kids (teenagers) weren't going to use them. The boys LOVED it, even though they chose the boring peacock that doesn't go up and down :0)

Noah's all-time favorite though was the gorilla. We stopped by earlier in the day and couldn't see him. So we told him we would try again later. When we went back he was eating paper, got up and walked around, and the mom and kid were outside too. Noah was fascinated and very happy!

We never made it to the Children's Discovery area last time, but I remembered it from when I went as a kid and my boys had a good time playing. Their favorite was sitting in the eggs :)

They had lots of skins you could feel

Okay, this was their second favorite of the play area :)

Our boys asked so politely about 100 times if they could ride the train. You know I must have been in a good mood and having fun with my family because I said yes. They LOVED it and said thank you twice as many times as they had asked. It was "SO FUN" and "SO COOL" I had some video and awesome facial expressions, but the camera (I was borrowing my grandma's since mine broke) didn't save them. :(

Tickets!

It was a FUN day at the ZOO!