April is for Birthdays and Airplanes

I left off with this huge grin and Adaline being so stinkin' excited to see her Nama.

A couple weeks before we came to visit, my parents got a puppy. Alex and Boomer hit it off immediately. There was mutual love from the second they met.

Poor Matthew. Within minutes of arriving at my parents' house, he ran into the china hutch and got that shiner on his right eye. Just as it was starting to fade, he slid across the driveway on his forehead. He seemed to be accident prone and banged up the whole time. 

Sometimes we called Boomer the land shark because he liked to chew on us and occasionally looked terrifying.

On one of the first days there, we went over to Sheel's to ride the indoor ferris wheel and wander the store. 

No trip to visit my family would be complete without lots of doing my little sister's hair. Unfortunately, I think this was the only one I got a pic of. 

Uncle Daniel teaching Adaline to play Plants vs Zombies. I had mixed feelings about this activity, but I let it go in the name of building family relationships (and the fact that they're 1,700 miles away).

Friday night we went to the science center downtown. They had tons of cool exhibits and we could have spent way more time there if it wasn't closing and it wasn't after bedtime. Michael's favorite was the "ball wall" where there were different places to put in the balls and then you could watch them go through different tubes, etc and then pop out somewhere else. Daniel and I attempted playing DDR, but that ended terribly. The kids played doctor, had wheelchair races, ran across the floor piano, solved puzzles, build animals, learned about snot, pretended to be astronauts, and lots more. 

My little siblings are such amazing uncles/aunt and my kids adore them. 

Stopping for ice cream on the way home. 

On Saturday, we went to a small aquarium and butterfly house. About 5 seconds after we walked into the butterfly room, Michael found a butterfly on the ground and intentionally stomped right on it. I was so embarrassed and didn't even know what to say. Thankfully, he didn't do it anymore and we spent a long time watching the butterflies and looking for the ones on the guide.

Adaline really wanted to ride the mini segways like she saw other people doing. We all thought she would be too small, but she picked it up so quickly and loved it. After this, she spent tons of time outside riding the segway all around the yard. 

General Conference bingo

 On Monday, we went to the Sioux Falls zoo. It was the perfect size for us to see everything in the short time that we had. I think my favorite part was one of the apes that was super active and swinging all around. I thought I took an awesome video of it, but when I went to show Andrew it was two seconds long and showed nothing interesting. I had apparently clicked the button an extra time. Ha! How old am I anyway?

I wanted to watch Daniel's lacrosse practice since he didn't have any games while I was there. The kids cam to watch too, but mostly spent their time running up and down the bleachers

Just my daddy being a grandpa. They're cute.This trip was the first time they met!

Tuesday was the jump place so we could get energy out and get out of the house before the big storm came. I had so much fun playing with my kiddos, but man those places really take it out of you. 

Decorating Easter eggs! We took suggestions from my sister-in-law and experimented with some super fun ways to dye eggs. It lasted more than 20 seconds and we all had fun with it.

He spent a good chunk of the trip getting into trouble. Like anytime he managed to sneak into the kitchen and made a beeline for Boomer's food...I don't even want to think about how much dog food he ate. 

Trying to entice his brother to play with him instead of sleeping

The next couple days were pretty snowy and we mostly hung out at home-my siblings even got a snow day! Adaline was so funny because she kept bundling up in this mis-matched, too-big snow clothes and going out to play over and over throughout the day. 

It wasn't long before they found the nerf guns and the dress-ups

I love getting to witness my siblings talents and interests and I was lucky enough to see Chloe perform in a quartet and, the next day, perform with her band. 

Four generations of awesome women! (Who have a hard time smiling for pictures.)

After the quartet, we went to a nail salon to celebrate the two birthday girls. Adaline had never been to a nail salon before and was beyond thrilled to be counted among the big girls. She was ecstatic basically the whole time. Afterward, we grabbed some ice cream to share with all the boys baby-sitting at home. Maybe we would have skipped the ice cream if we'd known they dressed Alex up like a girl and called him Lucy...but at least everyone was in bed when we got home. After the ice cream, we played some game on our phones...with the xbox...where you all submit answers through your phone...yeah, I don't remember the specifics but it was super fun and had us all laughing.

My grandma Nichols was dying to see/meet my kids so she drove up all the way from Texas as the blizzard was coming in. In was so great to see her and to watch my kids get to know her a little bit. 

Chloe had this plan that she wanted to take Adaline to Build-A-Bear for her birthday. So she went around with her picking out all her things and it was just about the sweetest gift. I loved seeing my sister love and spoil my baby, and Adaline not only felt super special, but has been sleeping with her new bunny almost every night. 

For some reason we landed at the mall play place and I guess these two decided it was a great place for a snuggle party

Happy birthday to my favorite new teenager! Yup, my baby sis is 13 now and it's hard to figure out where the time has gone. Love you, girl! Adaline and everyone older went and played laser tag while grandma watched my younger three. I forgot how much fun laser tag can be-especially with so many of my favorite people. 

One of my favorite traditions from when I was growing up was to make golden rod eggs with the dyed Easter eggs. Watching my kiddos make it with my parents was so cute. 

To finish off the trip, we had a little early Easter egg hunt in the basement.

You know all his candy disappeared in about 3 minutes. He has a serious sweet tooth.

 On Monday morning, we started the long trek back home. Mom, grandma, and Harris took us the 3 hours to Omaha for our first flight. I was trying everything to get kids to fall asleep on the way there, but with no luck. Finally, about ten minutes from the airport, all 3 of the boys were asleep. Since the two littlest needed their carseats anyway, we carried them like this through as much of the airport as we could. Exhausting? Yes. Worth the extra minutes of napping? Oh yes!

Trying to wave to dad to tell him see ya soon!

 Our flights were less amazing than on our way out, but we still experienced many tender mercies. We met more kind strangers, Michael pooped in the toilet on the airplane instead of in his diaper, I had enough extra clothes for everyone who need them, Adaline contained her throw up enough that just changing her clothes and wiping the vinyl seat took care of it, the person sitting next to her during the throw up was incredibly helpful, and on and on. It was exhausting but we made it and I'm convinced my kids are the very best.

The day after we got home was Adaline's birthday. She had made a very detailed plan of all the things Andrew needed to do to prepare for her birthday, and I gotta say, he nailed it!
At 6 years old, Adaline is incredibly helpful with her younger brothers, so sweet-often giving up something she wants, unprompted, to make someone else happy, loves to play pretend/dress-up, confident on her two-wheeler bike, loves to be around friends, enjoying ballet, loves experiments and art

Playing at the park during dance class. Alex figured out that he could climb the stairs, crawl through the tunnels, and slide down the slide all on his own. 

Didn't Andrew nail it on the cake?? She described what she wanted so thoroughly and he really came through.

Miss Independent skipped breakfast and lunch to build her castle all by herself.

Easter egg hunt/play date with friends

She loves being "girly"

I have no idea why they insist on eating like this so frequently.

Maybe I was tired, maybe I didn't want to think about cake again yet, I don't know the reason, but we celebrated Alex's birthday a day late and went with cupcakes instead of decorating a big cake. And guess what? Everyone loved helping decorate and Alex loved the cupcakes so much he ate two (clearly he's the baby and a bit spoiled).

He got a toothbrush from mom and dad, an airplane from Nama and Papa, and a book and bunny from his great grandma. Best day of his little one year of life.

Showing off the spin in the skirt we made for her birthday.

While I was in SD, Micheal suddenly decided he needed to use the toilet constantly. He wasn't even two and a half yet and I mostly found it annoying since he is still in the stage where he just pees constantly throughout the day. Anyway, he mostly poops in the toilet now which is helpful. It's also kind of hilarious to walk past the bathroom and seeing him, by choice, sitting IN the toilet. 

I looked over while I was cleaning up breakfast and saw the sweetest scene. I LOVE how much they love books.

The Oakland temple has been under renovation since February 2018. While we've missed having it open, we were so excited that we would get to take our kids to the open house before the re-dedication. In preparation for that, our stake put on a temple art exhibit. There were so many amazing pieces of art I wish I'd taken pictures of, but this was the contribution from our ward's youth. They spent so much time on this, and it turned out beautifully.

I recently got some chairs for the deck and now we eat out here almost constantly. It's lovely!

The first thing I noticed after I got home, was that my whole yard was in bloom. My yard isn't normally much to look at, but in the spring time, I absolutely love it!

Whew, thanks for sticking with me on that one. I had lots of fun reliving all those good times. Here is a bonus album to reward you for your dedication. I call it "People I Love Reading to People I Love."