The Girls

Back when Makelle was first born my Grandma Nash came into town around Easter time and all 4 generations of girls got together on my mom's couch for a nice picture.  It has since been 5 years and recently Grandma was in town around Easter time again and I decided that it was time for an updated version:

We've all gotten a little older, aged a little here and there, but man, that Makelle, out of all of us, she has definitely aged the most in the past 5 years! :)

Caleb and I have been taking a genealogy class at church for the past few months and are working on researching and learning more about our ancestors and heritage.  The new Family Search website they have is pretty amazing, and we have been encouraged to not only find names but post pictures and stories about our ancestors online to share with distant family members that might not have access to the personal information we do.  In class we irreverently referred to it as, 'facebook for dead people'. I don't have a ton of time for it in my life right now to dedicate to all the research, but we have decided that we are going to start collecting stories and pictures from our lives so that our posterity will know who they came from.  Hopefully one day Makelle will treasure this picture.

Girls' Night Out

For her birthday, I got Makelle two tickets to see Disney on Ice, just the two of us.  She got all dressed up as her favorite Disney Princess, braided hair, with lots of flowers and all, and we headed out.

We were going to take Frontrunner down to Salt Lake so that I wouldn't have to worry about parking, but we were running a little late and pulled into the station to see that the train was already there.  We jumped out of the car and started running through the rain to catch the train, much like would occur on some television drama, but alas it left without us.

It worked out though, because being in the car allowed us to stop at Makelle's favorite ice cream shop by our old condo in Bountiful on the way back, and no girl's night is ever complete without ice cream or chocolate, preferably both.  This place is basically a giant ice cream bar with tons of flavors and toppings that you load up and pay for by the ounce at the end of the line.  Plus you get cute pink spoons, which we all know is a big bonus :)

She was enthralled with the whole show.  Many of the little girls around us got little light up toys and crowns and treats to keep them entertained by the end, but Makelle just sat there oblivious to it all, didn't even ask for extra stuff, she just sat perched on the end of my lap watching the whole thing play out below.  Or perhaps she just knows by now that her mom is cheap and won't buy junk from walking vendors, but I like to tell myself that it was because she was so interested in the show she didn't even care about all the gimmicks, right? :)

She was so cute and so excited.  She told me that we should make it a tradition and come to see the Disney Princesses every year for her birthday.  Sounds good to me!  As much as I thought I hated girly crap like this, I have surprised myself with how much fun it is to see her enjoying it.  Don't get me wrong, I still will not ever choose to go by myself, but watching her watch it all is pretty cute.

Because we have so few pictures of me actually with my kids, we also took our first selfie.  I thought it worked pretty good, until I got home and looked at the picture on a bigger screen than my little phone and realized that it is kind of obvious that I am looking at where my fingers are pushing the shutter button and not at the lens, but that's okay, we'll work on it!

The Joys of Growing up with a Big Sister

"Makelle, have you seen the little bubbas?"

"Oh, yeah! I put them in baskets.  They are being my baby chickens."

What you can't see in this picture is the little bits of cereal she kindly sprinkled into the bottom of their crates.  She may have abandoned them in the mudroom, but at least she left them something to peck at :)

Farmington Station

The kids have been wanting to ride 'the train' aka Frontrunner for, well, years now.  So we finally planned a trip less than 8 miles down the road to Farmington Station.  We got on the train, lugged our diaper bag and purse, stroller and four children up the stairs, so they could sit on the top level, got all settled down and then almost immediately got up and lugged it all back down to exit the train.  Let's just say Caleb was getting annoyed that I even let them talk me into it.

Once we got there we walked around and looked at all the fun shops, let the kids play on the playground, saw the water fountain show, ate lunch and bought a bunch of over priced trendy candy from the Sugar store before heading back home.  It was great fun.

This was going to be a cool action shot with the fountains going in the background but I never was able to get them all to turn around and smile at the same time, let alone in sync with the water show.

Corbin found disgusting looking gummy eggs at the candy store and for novelty's sake we had to get a picture of him eating his first egg :)  If only you could cook with gummy shaped eggs, it would be a lot easier raising our little allergy boy!

Caleb read some social media article that pointed out that you should have your kids hold the little flaps on the corners of juice boxes to keep them from squeezing it and making a mess everywhere.  Somehow he still managed to spill some of it and looked pretty silly in the process.  I guess what works for some, doesn't always work for others.  We had a pretty good laugh watching him sip away with his delicate little finger holds though.

Can't forget our little Mister Mister.  He was such a good little trooper riding along checking out all the sights and people.

Hamblin Farm

Corbin went on his first field trip today.  Like the typical controlling, overly-involved mother that I am, I was right there with him :)

They took the kids out about 10 miles west of the school to where all the new housing developments are going in in Syracuse and showed us what they were proud to report was the last operating dairy farm in Davis county... until 2 years ago when they sold out.  Now it is an empty farm that the IFA kids from USU let elementary kids tour.

The kids thought it was cool though, they had brought a few petting zoo animals and taught them about plants, animals, and soil conservation.

These cute spring piglets were fun to watch fighting to get to their momma to eat lunch.  One of the kids called it World War 1 of the pigs.

Here they are learning about pesticide run off and how farmers protect the soil and water from people that over fertilize their lawns and what not.

They were SO hyper on the bus!  We got stuck waiting for a train for quite awhile on the way back and soon they were crawling all over and under their seats.  Oh, childhood, so fun.

Elle!

Our sweet little Makelle turned 5 this year and decided to celebrate Pinkalicious style, after her favorite book character, as of late.  The book features a little girl who makes pink cupcakes with her mom and then eats too many and turns pink.  The doctor then orders her to eat only healthy green foods in order to return to normal.  So, after getting dressed in as close of a look-a-like outfit as we could find:

We had a lovely green dinner:

Followed by delicious pink cupcakes:

Then it was on to present time.  She got an "American Girl" doll :) from Dad,

And an accompanying ballet outfit from her brothers.

Mom got her tickets to go and see Disney on Ice, just the girls.

She also got spoiled rotten with far more toys than necessary from her grandparents and cousins.  Then we played her Silverlicious board game before heading home.

She then spent the entire next day in her new tent in her room reading books, making crafts, and assembling toys.  Pink, dolls, princesses, crafts, castles... pretty much heaven for this little girl.

Makelle's Happy Song

I found this little gem on my phone after Makelle had gotten a hold of it the other day:



That girl gets so easily distracted and lost in her own mind, this is just confirmation of our suspicions about what goes on (or doesn't go on :) in that pretty little head of hers when you ask her to do something!

Living Planet Aquarium

For Christmas my parents and little brother got our family a membership to the new Living Planet Aquarium, scheduled to open December 2013.  Come April 2014, it finally opened with about half of the exhibits actually ready.  Despite the annoying delays and incomplete attractions we were excited to go and opening week happened to fall on Corbin's spring break.  So Caleb took a day off of work and we all headed out for some family bonding :)

The kids had a blast.  We saw penguins and seals diving around, lots of beautiful tropical fish, some dull brown, Utah-native fish, and an amazing shark tank, among other things.

Our membership also included some passes to their 4D theater and the kids had just about as much fun waiting for the Great White Shark movie to start as they did actually watching it.

The effects were not too impressive.  At one point Corbin asked why the air gusts, which were supposed to be misters, smelled like paint, but the cinematography was wonderful and overall we enjoyed it.  Perhaps just a 3D show would have been preferable though :)

We stopped for lunch on the way home and thoroughly enjoyed our day out together as a family and are looking forward to many return trips to the aquarium in the coming year.

Corbin's Photo Shoot

Corbin is the least photogenic kid we have, by far.  95% of the pictures we take of him look like this:

After several failed attempts at a nice Easter picture, I decided on an impromptu modeling lesson:

"Don't pay attention to the camera, just act natural and think about something that makes you happy."

"Now look at me and do the same thing."

"Try to open your eyes wide."

"You're getting better."

"Let's try one more."

"Mom! I'm DONE!"

I think we saw a marked improvement by the end.  Minus the attempted hand in my face, I'd say that last one was almost perfect!

V-Day

The night before Valentines Day the kids made Valentine cards for their friends and family members.  Corbin printed out a bunch of Mad-Lib style Valentine's Letters and then rolled them up and tied on a note that said "You have MAD skills" and "I'm MAD about you!"  

Makelle and I watched an American Girl movie while making a dozen friendship bracelets from embroidery thread that she gave to all the girls in her dance class. 

The morning of Valentine's Day we ate yummy heart-shaped pancakes with fresh berries and whip cream for breakfast.  Then the little kids went to Grandma's house while I went to volunteer at Corbin's school helping with his class party.  It is fun to see him interacting with his little friends.

Afterwards the kids went to Aunt Tori's house for a little while so I could meet Caleb for a quick lunch date.

That night, once we all got home and had dinner we gathered in the living room for what has become our family tradition of "Ring the Bell and Run."  Caleb got all the kids a little toy, they made cute cards for each other (Corbin took out all the chocolate he had gotten from his friends at school and Makelle had made a boy colored bracelet that she left long as a bookmark) and much to Caleb's excitement, I gave each kid a letter promising them a trip to IFA for new baby chicks :)

Easter Morning

The Easter Bunny came and brought some fun Easter Baskets and hid a bunch of eggs at our house Saturday night.  We woke up long before our alarms said it was time to get up and ate sugar for breakfast while searching for eggs.  Then we got the kids all ready and went to church.

At church we listened to beautiful music, learned about Christ's resurrection and heard dozens of references to the new church movie Because of Him, which we had to go home and watch. Afterwards we played with our Easter goodies, watched Frozen and ate more sugar. At that point everyone needed some time away from screens and candy so we ate some real food and took a nice little walk as a family. It was a great day.

Eggs!

We had so much fun dyeing Easter Eggs with the Lloyd cousins at Grandma's house.

Jefferson handled egg decorating the same way he does everything else: instant hand to mouth action.

Seth thought it would be best to create a dozen blue eggs.  Only blue, that was his favorite and you couldn't convince him to try anything else.  He did add a few super hero stickers at the end to give a little bit of variety :)

Makelle is just the sweetest and happiest little person on earth, no matter what she is doing.  She is getting so big (although those tiny pigtails aren't so big), she even boiled her wrap eggs herself this year.  

Corbin had soccer practice the night we ended up getting together, so he came a little late, but jumped right in and had fun making secret messages with the white crayon and watching it show up once you dipped the egg in dye.  On one of his eggs, he wrote "I love you, Seth!"  He is a great big brother.