A Spring Snowman, Dirt, Mud, and Bikes

Max loves to photograph dying snowmen. He has quite a portfolio. This is this year's installment.

Emmet loves to put things in his mouth, even dirt.
And this is Emmett's favorite place to play, the turtle sandbox. We normally try to remember to put the lid on the sandbox so that this doesn't happen, which reminds me I need to do that before I go to bed tonight. I had to change multiple outfits a day for a few days in a row when the weather first turned warmer. The older boys would leave the back door open and before I knew it, Emmett would be soaking wet, but oh so happy.
And "bike" although is sounds more like "ba" is officially Emmett's first word. The first time we pulled it out and put him on it he was so excited. He couldn't even walk yet in this photo but he could with the bike. His brothers love to ride, too, and so anytime the door to the garage is open, Emmett sneaks out and finds his "ba."

Bowling with My Boys

I got to go bowling with two of my favorite people in the world a while ago. There is only one bowling alley in Iowa City, which is so different than the college town than I knew. In Provo there was probably one bar and, what, 20 bowling alleys? Here it is just the opposite, except way more than 20 bars.

This is Jonah after getting an actual strike, with no help from the bumpers.
As you can see, both of my boys have very good form. They learned it from me. (And Lindy if you're reading this, I still remember your crazy arabesque/kick--I think about it every time I go bowling. Anyone else remember that?)
Yep, two of my favorite people in the world!

Where's Emmett

Peek

a

boo!

Oh, Yeah

I just found these photos and realized I totally forgot to record two fun but totally unrelated things that happened in December and January.

First in December, just before Christmas, we went to the Wilderness Resort at the Wisconsin Dells. Max had the week before Christmas off so we had to do something fun. We had considered driving home to Utah for Christmas, but it was either drive 18 hours each way and maybe get stuck in Wyoming if I-80 happened to be shut-down for 4 days in Utah or drive 3 hours each way and spend a couple of days playing on water slides, wave pools, and indoor parks. We love you family, but the shorter drive to the water slides won.

The indoor water parks at the Wisconsin Dells are such a fun treat in the middle of winter. I think they would do really well in the West if anyone has a lot of money and is looking for a business idea.

Jonah snapped this shot. One evening, Max offered to put Emmett down so I could go play with the boys (but really so he could watch BYU--part of why he looked forward to the vacation since we don't have cable). We had passed the laser tag area several times and that's what they decided they wanted to try. The vests were obviously a little bit big and heavy for 3 and 5 year olds, but they sure felt cool lasering all the older guys in the maze.

In January we participated in the Dance Marathon, a fundraiser for cancer patients at the University of Iowa Children's Hospital. We attended a small part of it at a local preschool. The invitation said you could dress up and when I told my boys this they took it to mean full-on costumes. I tried to explain dressing up might mean something else for a dance party, but they would have none of that. So as you can kind of see in this photo they went as a dragon (and yes that costume fit a year and a half ago) and a pirate.
It was really fun--one of the preschool rooms had been all decked out with a disco ball and blacklights. All the kids got glow-sticks and groovy sunglasses. Even Max danced and he has told me before that God never intended for him to dance (or ice-skate).

Chicago Craziness

In March, Jonah and Wyatt had a week off preschool for spring break, but Max didn't. So I called a friend and asked if she and her two boys wanted to take a quick little trip to Chicago to see the Shedd Aquarium and the Museum of Science and Industry. Her husband was out of town interviewing for orthodontic jobs, so she was in. All in all it was a fabulous trip, with just one little hitch--our hotel room--but that makes it all the more memorable, right? The drive there was really good. The kids were great, babies slept a little bit, and then we got to our Priceline hotel. When I had previously used Priceline for our little family, the website asked me how many adults for the room, I entered two and we got a room with two queen beds and a fold-out sofa. So, this time, the website asked me the same question, I entered the same thing thinking we'd get a similar room which would be more than enough since two of the five kids-in-tow would be sleeping in pack-n-plays. Well....

this is was our room. One queen bed and barely enough room to set down your bags. My friend Katrina and I shared the bed, we squeezed the pack-n-plays between the bed and the wall and then lined up the other three kids on the floor. Luckily I had packed Jonah and Wyatt's sleeping bags at the last minute, but they had to sleep with their heads under the desk. Katrina hadn't brought a sleeping bag, so we had to have a roll-away brought it. Well, there just wasn't room for the rollaway so we took the mattress off of it and stuck the frame in the shower. Luckily the hotel staff didn't say anything. We must have looked so funny because the hotel was right in the middle of what seemed to be the financial district and all the other guests were in suits and had little black rolling suitcases. We had bags, strollers, two pack-n-plays, coolers with food in them, and 5 CHILDREN!!

Luckily, the rest of the trip didn't compare to our hotel room. It was fabulous.
The first night, we walked to Ed Debevic's and crossed the river, which was still dyed green for St. Patrick's Day.

The next morning we went to the Shedd Aquarium. It was amazing. It is huge and has so many animals. But the most amazing part to me was seeing Jonah so excited. Wyatt was excited, too, but Jonah was on cloud nine all day long. I couldn't believe he was able to maintain that level of excitement for so long. I was expecting him to crash or to melt down after a while, but he was thrilled all day. It was wonderful!


Wyatt loved the penguin kids' play area where he could dress up as a penguin, climb through caves and slide down "ice" slides.
Emmett loved it too because it meant he could get out of his stroller.

All the boys loved the submarine next to the beluga whales. Emmett was in heaven--so many buttons to push and wheels to turn.

The next morning we went to the Museum of Science and Industry. It was spectacular. You'd have to spend days there to really see everything. I could tell the boys were a tired from the previous day and the less-than-restful night in our closet of a hotel room, but they still had fun.

My boys called this thing the invention. They loved the OK Go/Rube Goldberg music video so they stood and watched this machine for at least 20 minutes and could have stayed longer.
This museum is huge! This is a full size steam engine...
...these are real airplanes...

...and this is an actual, full-size submarine. Seriously, this place was huge!
It was an amazing place to go and definitely kid-friendly with an exhibit on just about anything you could think of--even how to make slime--and hands-on activities at every corner.

NO MORE BRACE!!!!!

In March, after three-and-a-half years of nightly strapping, Wyatt was told he no longer had to wear his Ponseti brace to repair his clubfeet. It was a wonderful day, so we made a Batman cake. For about a week after this, it was as if he wanted to make sure we weren't going to recant because he repeatedly said, "I don't have a wear a brace anymore, right Mom?" "No more brace, huh Mom," and "The doctor said no more brace, right Mom?" He was happy to be done with it and we were happy and so grateful for Dr. Ponseti and his amazing non-surgical method of correcting clubfoot and to doctors in Utah and Iowa for treating him with the Ponseti method.

Messy Monkey

This is how the kitchen looks whenever I am making any meal or whenever he isn't busy sucking on his and his brothers' toothbrushes in the bathroom.

Luckily, the messy monkey doesn't mind getting cleaned up too much and he looks just as cute messy and messing things up as he does when he's squeaky clean.

Snow Caves and Olympics

In February we built snow caves--yes, plural, caves--because, well, there was a lot of snow in our front yard and what little (or big) boy doesn't want to climb in a snow cave?

Unfortunately, the snow cave caved in when Jonah climbed up on it (after we explained what would happen if he climbed on it).
This was cause for much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth until...
Dad turned the once-snow-cave into a snow tunnel which then became an Olympic race course because the boys had been staying up later than usual every night watching the Olympics.

Now we had our very own luge and there was much rejoicing...
and laughter...
and silliness.
Thank heavens for dads! (because Mom would never think to put a 9-month-old on top of a 5 and 3-year old and send them down a snow-tunnel luge, but look how happy everyone is!)

January in Iowa

It snowed A LOT this past winter. The snow first fell in November and we never saw the ground again until late March.

Even with all the snow, Max biked to the hospital every day--only fell a couple times, and only once slid out into traffic, but luckily we still have him with us.