Our Final Hurrah

Caleb took work off on Monday and Tuesday, with the intention of taking the family camping. But we all got a little sick last week and were still recovering so we decided to take a couple of little day trips instead. The plan was to do something fun with the kids as a family of four for the last time before the baby comes (which will hopefully be soon :) so we spent Monday at Seven Peaks and Tuesday at the Children's Museum. It was a lot of fun to hang out together as a family and hopefully we formed some good memories that the kids will be able to hold onto in the coming months.

Seven Peaks was honestly a bit of a let down, but we own season passes, so we decided to try to look for the positives. (Mostly just a lot of their slides and the little kids' play area were closed, so hopefully it will be better next time.)


Caleb was able to take each of the kids down one of the big slides on a tube and they seemed to like that. Makelle seemed happy on the slide anyway, but got dunked at the end and the water was FREEZING cold, so she didn't ask to do it again.


I think her favorite area was probably the wave pool. She is so stubborn and independent that she kept wanting to stand by herself, but even little man-made waves were honestly just too much for her pint-sized self and she could only handle being about 2 inches deep in the water without getting knocked over.


We didn't get a picture, but Corbin surprised us when he walked over these little floating islands half jumping and half swinging from the balance ropes overhead to make it to the end. Considering the platforms moved and the distance between them compared to the length of his legs, we were impressed.

I've taken the kids to the Children's Museum a couple of times in the past, but this was the first time Caleb has been able to come with us. At first we all stuck together and the kids played with balls and delivered some mail, but then we let them each wander off to explore their own things and Makelle proceeded to spend the next 2 hours sitting in the entrance to the little play house taking care of her baby.




She did laundry, cooked dinner, put the baby down for nap, washed dishes, did some vacuuming and only left the house to run to the grocery store really quick and make baby a sandwich for lunch... pretty much all the things I dread having to do, she was overjoyed to pretend to do all morning long until we pulled her away for lunch.




Corbin on the other hand is all boy and pretend to be a firefighter, worked on the farm, built a couple of towers in the construction area and played in the helicopter. He told us his favorite things were delivering the mail and playing in the grocery store.





They also both seemed to enjoy making (well eating) some cereal necklaces in the little craft area. I think that they had a lot of fun, and were definitely tuckered out by the end of the day.



Caleb and I even had a chance to relax and read quite a bit over the weekend while we watched them play, so overall I'd say it was a successful couple of days hangout out as a little family, despite the canceled camping trip.

More good lines from the Kiddos

The other day Corbin was working on a math worksheet and needed to write a six for the answer. But he accidentally started at the bottom and it turned into a nine instead. When I was looking over his paper, I pointed out to him that he did good, but that the six was upside down and sort of looked like a nine instead. He cocks his head to the side and sort of analyzes it for a second before responding, "Ya, I'm just gonna go with it though." Not only does that sound ridiculous coming from a 4-year-old, but when you write a nine instead of a six in a math problem, you can't "just go with it" and have that be okay.

Today after church Corbin was wearing his little knight shield and playing when Caleb asked the kids to pick up their toys. Corbin was sort of dragging his feet and getting distracted, so Caleb grabs their toy nerf gun and tells Corbin that he is gonna shoot him if he doesn't clean up. So Corbin ducks under his little shield and stays undercover while he works, but Makelle frantically starts cleaning and moving toys around, under clear distress, while begging, "please don't shoot me!" She has never worked faster, so Caleb let me know that he now needs a giant nerf gun that can hold more ammo for Father's Day.

Corbin-isms

There is a cute little girl in our ward that is a year younger than Corbin. Apparently she has caught his eye because last week after church he told us, "My body thinks she's pretty and wants to marry her when I grow up." We tried desperately not to laugh out loud and embarrass the little guy, but seriously..."My body thinks she's pretty?" Oh boy, we are in for some fun teenage years with that kid once his mind gets on board with his body :)

Yesterday after church Corbin grabbed a water bottle out of the fridge. When he was finished he offered me a drink. After I was done, I handed the bottle back to him and said thank you, to which he casually responds, "Don't mention it." Somehow from the mouth of a 4-year-old, particularly one you take care of all day, waiting on his every need, that sounded a bit comical.

Ogden Marathon

For the 4th year in a row, we spent the day up at the Ogden Marathon yesterday. Caleb ran the 3rd leg of the relay with his coworkers, which was 5.5 miles and included the only hill on the entire course. Being so busy with his work schedule lately he trained approximately 0 times, but somehow still did good and at least passed the other Tanner guy that was running the same leg as him.

This year we decided to get the kids involved and signed them up for the Kids K. Makelle finished 2nd to last... there were actually quite a few kids in her little age group, but all but two of them got carried or pushed in a stroller, so I was proud of her tiny little legs, running down that course. Corbin was so excited to run in a race and ran the whole time. He told me a lot of kids in his age group started running and then had to slow down and walk for part, but he kept running and passed them. He was pretty darn proud of himself, plus he passed a couple of bigger 6-year-old kids, so he did good :)

It was fun to see them get excited about being active and enjoying being outside. Although, poor little Makelle was out cold, full on asleep before Caleb even started the car to finally head home at about 1:30, so it might have been a bit much for her.

Sports!

This summer we purchased the Salt Lake Pass of All Passes, which is basically a season pass to Seven Peaks water park. But it also included a bunch of perks, including tickets to 4 Real Salt Lake games--being our motivation behind buying them. We neglected to take any pictures, but the past month we have had fun attending Real soccer games and going to our first few Grizzles hockey games (which included much more fighting than I remember in NHL or high school games).

So far the kids have gotten pretty excited everytime we go, but that could just be because we usually meet Caleb or some of our neighbors there and the kids are starting to comment on how they miss seeing daddy at night. That and we got to ride the shuttle bus, always a thrill.

Then last week we went to the SUU Alumni night at the Bees. Caleb happened to be working at a client's that was only 4 blocks away so he was able to take a short break and come down to eat with us and watched the first three innings of the game. Corbin got a little into it, asking questions and trying to understand how baseball worked, but mostly the kids just got really excited about the watermelon. I have to admit, it was good watermelon!



We still have another soccer game, a few motorcross races and some Blaze, indoor football, games to look forward to throughout the summer, so this has become our sports fan summer.

It has been fun to get out of the house and hang out as a family, especially with two kids that can walk, use the bathroom and feed themselves, before the baby is born in a couple of months and we have to start over dealing with a stroller, diapers, bottles, spit cloths, etc. everywhere we go.

Easter Weekend

On Friday when Caleb got home from work we were able to drive up to Midway and meet Caleb's Mom and brother and sisters at his Aunt and Uncle's condo. We played Bananagrams and Corbin learned how to make little crossword puzzles out of the game tiles.

They had a fun little Easter egg hunt for the kids. I helped Makelle fend off big kids and get a couple of eggs, but Corbin went out there all by himself this year and ran around the mini golf course collecting his own eggs. He is getting big!





The resort that we stayed on also has a carousel that kids can ride whenever they want, so we took the kids on that. We asked Makelle what animal she wanted to ride on and she said, "pink." So Caleb helped her find the bunny, which had some pink on it :)



Right before we headed home we got to go swimming, which was fun with all the cousins and got us excited for next month when our pool will open and we can swim as often as we want.



On Saturday night we drove home and got ready for Easter Sunday. Corbin and Makelle woke up and had a little Easter egg hunt before church and then spent the afternoon playing with their new goodies that the Easter bunny left them. Corbin got his first set of official Legos and Makelle, whom you'd think was a 12-year-old girl based on her gifts, got a little backpack, some make-up and a new hat.




At church the primary kids got to go up on the stand and sing "I Know that My Redeemer Lives" and "He Sent his Son." Corbin worked really hard all week to learn the words so that he could actually sing along and did a great job participating... now we just need to work on keeping our hands away from our noses while standing in front of a crowd :)

After church we were asking the kids what they talked about in their classes and Corbin told us he learned about when Jesus died and was resurrected. Then he asked us what we talked about and thought it was so cool to learn that we had all talked about the same thing as him! What a coincidence!

My favorite thing about talking about being resurrected with Corbin is that he will always tell you that his resurrected body can't get sick or hurt and that he won't be allergic to things anymore, how precious is his little testimony?

Blog Overload!

I finally uploaded pictures to go with all the posts I have been saving, so if you have a lot of down time feel free to read through our happenings of the past month.

Egg-cellent Little Monsters

On Sunday we dyed Easter eggs together.

First the kids stuck the eggs into the good old cups of colored dye then after they had dried we let them accessorize their eggs and make little monsters.

However, it turns out most glue cannot adhere pipe cleaners to an egg shell, despite having come in a kit that claimed otherwise. So after attempting and then failing to get three different types of glue to work we had to bust out the hot glue gun.

At which point Caleb makes my favorite comment of the night and declares, Alright this is where I draw the line. Once you pull out a hot glue gun it is no longer a fun holiday tradition, but rather becomes a full on craft project, and I don't do crafts! :)

But the kids loved it and we had fun making our little egg monsters.

Home Improvement Projects

Neither Caleb nor I have any interest in home decor or interior design of any kind. Thus our house has remained exactly how it was when we bought it. But with hopes to try and sell sometime in the next year we decided we should start to put a little effort into making it look nice.

Then, while Caleb was in Logan I had a lot of down time in the evenings by myself and must be getting that whole "nesting" sensation because I decided to just do it and ended up painting two rooms, re-framing and hanging doors on the kids' closet and redoing our fireplace.


There is no before picture but imagine the walls a brown color and nothing but the black fire frame sitting in the middle of the wall. For having no experience with tiling I think it turned out pretty well... it's amazing the things you can learn on the Internet!

When it was all done Corbin announced that we needed some Easter decorations, so we dug through our boxes and found some cheap grass and plastic eggs to put up, along with a few other random, brightly colored, 'springish' things... like I said, we have no sense of decor! But if Bean is happy, then we're happy, and hopefully sometime in the near future someone will want to buy that nice looking fireplace surround :)

Logan

The past 3 weeks Caleb was working with a client up in Logan. It only took one night of driving the hour and half commute at 10:30 at night just to wake back up and leave again at 6:30 to decide that he needed to just get a hotel room and stay overnight.

Let's be honest--the kids really didn't even notice that he was gone as they are used to him not getting home until after they are in bed and already being gone before they wake up, but it was hard on Caleb to not even see his family all week so we took a couple of days and went up and visited him.

The kids got to swim in the hotel pool, which was good because Corbin was able to "swim" on his own by the end of last summer, but seemed to have sort of forgotten over the winter so our trip was a chance for him to relearn how to swim.

The continental breakfast was a highlight, of course because they got to eat sugary cereal and endless amounts of apple juice for breakfast... what a treat!

We also went out to eat a late dinner with Caleb one night at a local restaurant where they had vegan spaghetti on the kids' menu. I honestly think that it was the first time that we have ever ordered a full meal off a regular menu at a restaurant for Corbin. It made me so happy when his food arrived and he looked at it all weird and asked in a completely perplexed tone, "but why is the spaghetti white?" It took a minute for us to realize what he was talking about and then Caleb attempted to explain that Mommy is weird and only buys whole wheat pasta when she makes spaghetti at home. It was cute.

While we were there we stopped at the mall and let the kids pick out a pair of flip-flops. They have never picked out their own clothes off the rack at a store before... partly because Corbin doesn't really care, but also because they usually get whatever is on sale, rather than whatever they like. So I found a cute pair that was sort of neutral colored and I thought would be good for Makelle, but from the moment we arrived at the shoe rack she got her sights set on a pink pair, and starts squealing at the top of her lungs, "I want pink sannals!" Despite my efforts she could not be convinced to go with any other color and now owns some bright pink flip-flops.

On our way out of town I was able to drive a little ways out to Richmond to meet an old college roommate. It was fun to see her and her girls and get to catch up a little bit.

It was a short trip, but the kids thought it was so fun to sleep in a hotel and get to stay up late going to dinner with Dad and we all enjoyed our little semi-vacation.

Soccer Mom

Well it is official. We have the SUV, the 2.5 children and now the kid in little league soccer--there is no denying that I have become a true stereotypical soccer mom.

This spring we signed Corbin up through the rec center for a Real Salt Lake Junior league. He is on the Raptors and ever since his first practice last week has been wandering around the house randomly shouting, "Gooo Raptors!" Last night was his first official game. His team met 30 minutes before the game started for a little practice session, but it wasn't looking good.

He appeared moderately bored and disinterested in the little drills they were making up. It was freezing cold and super windy and he and Makelle both seemed to just want to go home. But then the game started and he was in love! I guess the boy just needed some competitive motivation, because as soon as the other team showed up and they began playing an actual game he got so into it!

He scored the first goal of the game, another one later in the second half and got off a couple of decent shots in between. As long as his own teammates didn't get in his way, he actually did a good job of breaking out of the "bunch ball" group and taking it down field to shoot at the goal.


Afterwards he immediately asked when he gets to play another game, but said that he didn't really want to go to practice. We might have to work on that attitude a bit.

It was fun watching the kid play... his first extra-curricular activity, he is getting so big!

Sunday Best

On Sunday after church Makelle comes wandering out and tells me, "Mommy, I got too much make-up, too much."



Hmmm... maybe just a tad bit too much sweetheart :)

Out of the Mouth of Babes

We love conference weekend. Nothing like laying around the house in your pajamas listening to the prophet and apostles.

We have carried on Caleb's family tradition of eating a big pancake breakfast on Sunday morning, complete with strawberries and whip cream. (So basically the exact same ingredients that went into Makelle's birthday cake last month, is now our nutritious breakfast :)



We played conference bingo and got rewarded with a haagen dazs ice cream bar or popsicle when we got a bingo. (Good motivation to listen, no matter what age you are :)

This year we decided to have Corbin try to pay attention and take some notes. They were well worth saving... you may notice his recurring theme of swords which somehow seemed to appear in about half the drawings he made. Here are a few good ones:

Faith. Reading the scriptures will help me do hard things, like fight a ghost monster.


On Sunday we need to pick good things to do, like ask Mommy to turn on a church movie.


The prophet talked about temples.


Families. Mom, with the baby in her belly, Dad, me and Makelle, with her curly hair. Mom and Dad are showing Makelle how to sword fight since she doesn't know how yet and the parents are suppose to teach the kids.

Revelation. I am praying to ask Heavenly Father if the scriptures are true.


Wives support their husbands. Mom is helping Dad because he is getting bombed and his gun broke so she has to get the bombs with her sword before they hit him.

Kids are so awesome!

"I do it, work too!"

I am making an effort to become less of a pack rat and not hang onto every one of my kids' drawings and worksheets as they grow up. So I have decided to scan in a few pages and record the kids' learning progress for posterity's sake. As such feel free to simply skim through this post looking at cute little kid handwriting and come back next time for some fun updates.

In an attempt to balance Corbin's desire to attend preschool with his friends and learn new things with my desire to not spend a lot of money or have a committed schedule yet, I started doing school work with the kids on a daily (well semi daily) basis this past fall. He usually enjoys it, plus then I feel better about letting him watch TV in the afternoons while Makelle naps so I can get things done around the house.

Depending on my ambition level on any given day it ranges from reading books to elaborate projects with accompanying themed songs and stories. Most days are just middle of the road though and we do a math and writing worksheet then work on reading a book together.

He's a smart kid and aside from being able to add coin sums (2 nickles and 3 pennies equals 13 cents) he has basically finished two of the kindergarten level books. (Though his handwriting skill is still that of a 4-year-old, if not worse, so we have to modify some pages.) So yesterday I started him on a first grade one. There is no way he can do the more advanced pages yet, but he made quick work of some of the pages at the beginning.




Since Makelle typically likes doing whatever Corbin does, she insisted on "I do it, work too!" So her daily work became playing with her shape sorter or having books about colors read to her, doing those little toddler wooden puzzles or coloring. Yesterday she got a hold of one of Corbin's older preschool wipe off workbooks and a dry erase marker and started coloring on it. Just to make her feel cool I told her to draw a line to the other slipper that matches and to my astonishment she actually did!



So I helped her finish up the page and then today we printed off our own matching worksheets so now Makelle does her work everyday too :)

And let me tell you, she is pretty darn proud of it!

Life

Let's face it, this blog has basically become our little family journal, as I don't do very well taking the time to write things down elsewhere on a regular basis. As such I try to record the things that I want to remember, good and bad alike, for memory's sake.

On Sunday evening my mom called to inform us that my Grandpa Nash had died. He was actually feeling quite well, especially considering the health struggles he has dealt with in the past, and simply passed peacefully at home while reading a book and enjoying a typical, calm Sunday afternoon. And though it brought a sense of comfort to know that he died in a manner that he would have preferred, I still found myself brought to tears knowing that it will be sometime before we get to unite with him again.

The kids were already asleep in bed so we waited until Monday morning to explain his passing to them. Kids are always better at handling things than adults are. I am sure it has something to do with an inability to fully comprehend time. That is, just what it means that we will have to wait until we die, as well, before we can see him again. But I also think they just have a greater abundance of that simple faith that the Lord is over all and everything is as it should be and will work out in the end. I specifically want to remember Corbin's response, as his reaction and coping ability is a testimony to me of the Lord's plan.


First of all Corbin was quite fond of Grandpa Nash. From the time we first went to visit them after he learned how to walk he just sort of gravitated towards Grandpa. He would follow him around, attempting to help with whatever project or chore Grandpa was working on. Grandpa was a fair skinned, red head living in Southern Nevada and as such almost always wore a brimmed hat around when working outside. Corbin would always try to wear his hat or one like it, grinning ear to ear when he succeeded in getting a hold of one.


I am sure it could not have been too flattering but Corbin always referred to Grandpa Nash as "The Really Old Grandpa" rather than as Great Grandpa. Luckily, Grandpa was always light hearted about it and teased him back rather than taking any offense.


We would usually visit Grandpa at their summer house on Cedar Mountain and later in Hatch. There was lots of wildlife to feed and watch, a fun park for the kids to play in, lots of outdoor space to explore, fun games to play and four-wheelers to ride. But when I asked Corbin if he remembered Grandpa Nash, he immediately shouted out, "Yes! Remember he played swords with me and chased me!" On our last trip to Hatch it was nearly Halloween, Corbin was in his Musketeer phase, and somehow got my 75-year-old Grandpa to chase him all around, using rulers to sword fight. I love that that is Corbin's favorite memory of Grandpa, even over all the "bigger" things we did with them. It reminds you that life is all about those little moments.

When I told him that Grandpa had died last night, his first question was, "How?" Despite my attempts to avoid exposing him to violence I think that his only knowledge of death was when superheros killed bad guys or of people killing each other in the scriptures, so he was a little concerned. After I explained death as associated with old age he seemed a lot more accepting of it. I asked him how he felt and he quite simply stated that he felt sad because he was going to miss Grandpa.

I am going to miss Grandpa too. I am sad for the all experiences he won't be here for, but I am so grateful for all the time I did have with him. Not only did I get to have him around throughout my entire childhood, but he was close throughout my college years, he got to know my husband, he was there the day I received my endowments and he held my children in his arms. I am particularly happy that he got to see his grand kids in this life and that I will forever have fond memories of him playing with my children.

St. Patrick's Day

We woke up late this morning (the kids are still adjusting to daylight savings time) with no real plans for the day. Then midway through the morning Corbin's stellar memory set in and he started talking about how "remember last year when Daddy wore his blue shirt to work and he had no green and I got to pinch him when he got home from work?!" He was so oddly excited about the whole green holiday thing that we decided it would be fun to celebrate St. Patrick's Day after all.

So we called up some of his friends (well sent out a mass text in today's world, but same idea :) and made a fun green lunch for everyone. We had pesto pasta, green cauliflower, green grapes and an avocado milkshake for dessert. My kids were far too busy complaining about the chicken in their pasta and talking to their friends to actually eat very much, but everyone else seemed to enjoy it and the kids sure had fun playing.



(Horrible picture--not even sure what Makelle is doing there, but at least we'll remember our little get together 10 years from now :)