Well it has been a very busy two weeks, so I will try to get caught up Reader's Digest style. Two Saturdays ago it was a beautiful day. We had a quick, but fun lunch of octopus hot dogs that the kids liked (except for Josh who can't like anything that Matthew likes
EVER):
You cut the hot dogs half way up and when you boil them their 'tentacles' curl up. It looks cute, but I don't even want to venture a guess as to what is in hot dogs that make them do that. It is probably for the best I don't know what is in hot dogs anyway.
After lunch I was excited to FINALLY get to try out my kid bike trailer.
I have had this bike trailer for a few years, but haven't been able to use it. I haven't been able to use it because Daniel was too afraid to ride his bike last summer and this bike trailer only holds two kids. Can you see the dilemma? Noah and Sarah could use the trailer, but Daniel really didn't want to run beside me as I rode my bike pulling the trailer. Thankfully, by the very tail end of the warm weather last year he figured out the bike riding by himself--phew. So this past week I was finally able to dust off the trailer, all the kids bikes and Aaron's bike to use--only in getting all the gear out we realized that three of the bikes, including the bike trailer had flats--DOH!! Aaron went to work and was able to fix everything up so later on we all went for a family bike ride. However, we only got a few houses away when Josh's bike brakes locked up. Aaron went back to fix those and I went on ahead with Daniel and Matthew. We got a few more houses away when Daniel's bike chain fell off. Daniel walked his bike back to the house. Matthew and I made the loop around our neighborhood and came back home. That's when I noticed my other trailer tire was flat. I gave up at that point, but Aaron took the rest of the kids around the loop. He was almost home when his bike tire exploded. About that time I was starting to think we just weren't meant to go on a bike ride that day!!! Here's Aaron and the boys:
Aaron has since fixed my bike trailer tire, but it has been a little on the cool side to go bike riding. Hopefully it warms up soon because I want to go on family bike rides. I have fond memories of doing this when I was growing up and I want to do the same with my family. Hopefully the weather and the bike tires, chains, seats, etc. cooperate!!
This past week was Spring Break for the kids. Josh came home and reminded me about that Friday when he got home from school--as if I didn't already know this minor detail that there would be absolutely NO SCHOOL for a whole week. Anyway, he also said that in his class they went around and everyone got to say all the fun places they were going for Spring Break. Well unfortunately, after buying the new house and attempting to put in the yard this year, we have no excess of funds which means no trips for us. Josh was disappointed he wasn't going anywhere fun. I felt bad so to try and do something different and fun I decided to take the kids down to stay at G&G T's house and spend the first part of the week doing activities in Utah County. Aaron is trying to save up his vacation leave, so he decided to work instead of come with us. As I was packing up the car Monday morning, Matthew was having a very difficult morning. He was being rather contrary so I sent him to his room to calm down. He didn't like that idea so he kicked the wall on the way to his room and left this basketball size hole in it. Good thing he was already in his room because I got pretty upset. Not a very good start to spring break, that's for sure!!!
If I am trying to look on the positive side, at least now I can see if someone left the light on in the downstairs laundry room without needing to actually go downstairs to check. I love my child, I love my child, I love my child....
On the way down to G&G T's house we stopped by the Capitol building. They were supposed to have free tours every 30 minutes, but when we got there the tours ended up being every hour instead. Of course we got there at 12:30 and the tour didn't start until 1. I wasn't about to wait around for 30 minutes for a tour that most of my kids probably wouldn't listen to anyway so we wandered around and went on our own tour. This is how it pretty much went--all five kids in different directions at the same time:
I did run into a creepy guy while we were there. I was trying to gather my sheep together when he came over and asked me if all those kids were mine. After I said yes, he then said to me how I was a perfect Mormon mom. My chest started to swell with pride, but then he ruined it by saying how I was the perfect Mormon mom because unlike paying millions for a basketball team like Larry H. Miller I kept having kids so I could make my own basketball team. I was speechless at that comment. I gave him the strangest look and walked away to try and gather my 'home made basketball team that didn't cost me millions' together--at least they haven't cost me millions, yet anyway. Really?!!What a weirdo!!!! He obviously hasn't read the book How to Make Friends and Influence People. I tried to avoid him the whole rest of the time we were there.
Here we are looking at the senate room in the capitol building:
After a quick picnic lunch in the car since it was too cold outside, we headed down to the Monte Beane museum down at BYU. After looking around at all the taxidermied animals and doing the cub scout packet that you can do throughout the museum, we headed over to the BYU Museum of Art. They were having an exhibit named Beauty and Belief about Islamic Art. The kids weren't too impressed, but the had fun in the kids part making their own scribbled art.
To keep things easier at the Museum of Art Noah stayed strapped in the stroller. Thankfully he didn't mind for the most part. He made his own fun by ripping off his shoes and socks and throwing them throughout the museum.
After that we headed downstairs to check out the Weir symposium which was a collection of all the Weir families impressionist art/paintings. Thankfully they place was almost deserted so I could enjoy the artwork while my kids ran around like a 'home grown basket ball team'. It made my miss my days in the study abroad program when I could go to all the museums in London and browse at my leisure. Browsing at my leisure does not happen when you have five little kids--it's more like you are lucky if you happen to even see what the painting is about as you run by it trying to keep up with the kids. After the Museum of Art we headed back to stay at G&G T's house for the night.
Tuesday Grandma took a day off to spend with us. First off we headed over to the Living Planet Aquarium in Sandy. They had a new otters exhibit that was fun to look at. We even got a close up glimpse of the otter right next to the glass.
They had a pop of window in the middle of the exhibit so you could get an even closer look. Right when Josh lifted up Daniel to see is when the otter ran right by the window. They were pretty excited to see the otter so close up.
Here's the kids looking at the jelly fish through the portal window:
Grandma took pity on Noah who spent the first part of the aquarium in the stroller. She took him out so he could look at the jelly fish and once he tasted freedom there was no getting him back in the stroller. Good thing she came with me because it would have been really hard to keep track of everyone by myself since there were a ton of people there.
Here's some more jelly fish that Sarah and Noah looked at for a minute. I could sit and watch these for hours because they are so neat to watch. However, the kids had other plans.
They had a petting area where you could touch the sting rays. Josh was all about that and kept following the sting rays around to touch them. Daniel was a little more hesitant to reach in the water.
Matthew even attempted to touch them, but got too excited/scared and pulled his hand back out as it swam by.
Here's Matthew and Sarah looking at the HUGE fish:
After the aquarium we headed down to Provo to have a quick lunch at McDonald's. After 12 hamburgers and three drinks later (and that was just the kid's food alone!) we decided to attempt going to the dollar movies. However, when I was rounding up the 'team' I got close to Sarah and realized she had 'taken care of business' in her underwear. Why is it that my family can never go to McDonald's without someone pooping their pants??!! I had to take Sarah out to the car and basically give her a wet wipe bath because it was BAD!!! Right after I carefully slid off her underwear she started to sit down in the floor. Seeing as she was all poopy I did not want her sitting on the floor of my car with her poopy bum. I quickly tried to grab her back to stop her from sitting down, but I ended up grabbing her way poopy bum with my bare hand instead--um, YUCK!!!! After she got all cleaned up I had to go back inside McDonald's to clean myself all up. I am starting to really HATE McDonald's not because of the food, but because of what their food does to my kids--GEEZ!! Anyway, after that fiasco we headed over to Movies 8. Luckily Tuesday was all a dollar day--WAHOO!! However, the movie we wanted to see didn't start for almost two hours. To kill some time we headed over to Zurchers which is a huge party store to look at stuff. This, of course, was during Noah's usual nap time so he was "Chuckles" and was very cross about everything!! We headed into the store and the employees handed each kid a free balloon. I thought that might make Noah happy--boy was I WRONG!!!! He screamed if I tried to tie it to his hand, tie it to the cart, or if I tried to hold it. He screamed if you stepped wrong or if you said anything. He was one angry little guy. The whole time we were in the store he screamed. Also they had so much stuff around the kids were playing with stuff and screaming, too. By the time we got to the middle of the store Noah let go of his balloon and it floated away. That made him even more angry and he screamed even louder. We were making so much noise the store manager came over and asked, "Do you need any help?" I was about to answer when Josh cut in and said, "Yes sir, can you tell me who farted?" Upon hearing this my Mom got way embarrassed and tried to walk away from us pretending not to know us. Unfortunately I couldn't try that because all the screaming kids would have followed me!! Anyway, luckily, the manager rolled with the punches and told Josh, "Well, I know that I just got here, so it wasn't me!!" How embarrassing!!! Where's that mute button when you need it!!! About that time I decided it was time to leave before my kids embarrassed us even more. We headed back over to the theater and it was time for the movie to start. We watched the movie We Bought a Zoo and it was a pretty good show. However, it was over two hours long and by the middle of it Sarah and Noah were pretty restless. They started doing sprints up and down the main middle aisle. The movie theater was pretty empty thank goodness. Other than needing to take a tantruming Noah out for a few minutes the kids did pretty well during the whole thing minus the middle aisle sprints. After the movie we headed back to G&G T's house for the night. The next morning Grandma had to go back to work and I was back on my own. DANGIT!! I don't know how these single moms do it!! There is a pretty neat park in Pleasant Grove that we went to Wednesday morning. The kids had lots of fun playing. Of course when we first got there, Sarah got out of the car and ran over to the corner of the playground. As I got closer I saw she was 'assuming the position'. I ran over and grabbed her before she pooped in her underwear. I caught her before too much damage was done, but I put her in a pull up before she could finish. I have a dream...that someday my little girl will be poop potty trained!! However, the kids had fun playing at the park.
That afternoon I had scheduled a tour of the Sweet Candy Company for us. When we parked in the parking lot I pulled Sarah out of the car and lucky for me (not really) she had finally finished what she had started earlier in the day, she had pooped in her pull up. **Sigh** Luckily it was just a pull up so it was a lot easier to change than poopy panties--that's for sure!! I am happy to announce that I did not stick my bare hand in it this time either!! Yay for me!! Anyway after getting Sarah cleaned up we were ready to go. The factory didn't allow any photography inside the factory at all so we had to settle for this picture by the sign:
Noah was being "Chuckles" and was not a happy camper. He refused to pose for the picture as you can see Josh trying to wrestle with him in the picture. He was especially 'Chuckles' when I tried to put a hair net on him to go inside the factory. Lucky for me the inside of the factory was so loud no one could hear him scream. The tour group only consisted of me, my kids and the tour guide. Pretty much the whole tour I had to keep putting Noah's hair net back on because he kept ripping it off. Hopefully, people don't end up with hairy candy because Noah almost refused to wear his hair net. Other than fighting with Noah's hair net the tour was pretty interesting. We even got fresh off the conveyor belt samples throughout the factory. That was a pleasant surprise except every time we got to sample something Daniel kept telling them how much he hated all the candy they made. That was awesome. I just had to sheepishly smile every time. Again where's that mute button when you need it?! When we finished the tour Noah was more than happy to rip off his hair net for the last time and I was happy to let him.
We did get some factory seconds candy at the gift shop and for some reason Daniel likes those candies...I am still trying to figure out what the difference was between the candy inside the factory vs. the candy outside the factory. Who knows?!
After the tour we headed home to see Dad who had been missing his crazy, noisy home grown basketball team. And I was more than happy to get a break from my crazy, noisy home grown basketball team!!!
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