Playing Catch-up Again

Our house is constantly filled with the pitter patter of little feet, whether my own kids' or the neighborhood kids'. I don't mind the kids playing here ( I prefer it actually--so I know what my kids are up to...) but sometimes I feel like I spend half my day crouching toward the floor picking up the tornado that is my family. The older kids aren't great but at least can clean up themselves when I tell (read: threaten) them to pick up. But Maggie's definition of cleaning up consists of putting all the toys on TOP of her bed, as opposed to where they were before, on the floor. I know, I am working on it. But the worst, the culprit of 90% of the mess in the house is this little felon right here...Look at that innocent expression. Don't let him fool you. He knows how to make the biggest messes in the shortest amount of time. Case in point, the kitchen drawers. His favorite is this one where I keep all my rags. At least four times a day I see this. And I find rags all over the place. Maybe he just wants to be very clean, I don't know.

I decided to head down to my mom's house for a few days. The kids have been dying to go and I won't be able to go down over spring break, so the kids got to skip a couple days of school and have a mini-vacation. We were lucky enough to get free tickets to Disneyland for the day and it was a blast. I didn't get many pics though. As you can see below, getting a decent pic of my kids is nearly impossible these days. This is the best out of about 10 shots....
The best picture of the day was on the tram from the parking lot to the park. No one is tired and grumpy yet, all fed, all excited, all energized!
Tyler is making big headway in the thrill department. He went on Space Mountain with me and though I got "You're the worst mother ever" looks from people in line as Tyler was crying, begging me to not make him go on it, half way through the ride he shouts to me that, "It's not that bad." To look at our picture after the ride you wouldn't know it, but he said he would even go on it again...next trip. It was a milestone. We even got to meet Woody!
Another day at my mom's we went to a museum called Pretend City. Highly recommend it to anyone traveling to Orange County. It is a whole city, just in miniature. Includes post office, restaurant, beach, police and fire station, grocery store, farm, construction site, home, bank, doctor's office, dentist's office and more. Everything is hands on so the kids get to pretend to be the dentist and play in the moon sand at the beach, ride in little play cars around the whole place, buy groceries in little baskets, etc. It is so fun, my kids love it. The even have a craft station where the kids can make a craft.

Even Joey had a great time.
He felt even better after this... Can you tell what he is doing in this picture? I know it's gross, but I didn't even mean to capture it, I just took a pic because he was finally holding still for a moment. Look what I ended up with!
Another of Joey's favorite cabinets in the kitchen is the bowl cabinet. His favorite is this strainer. He pulls it out and wears it over his head around the house. I don't blame him considering the rough housing his brothers involve him in. Hey, little guy has got to protect himself! Guess I better wash it after this.
And I had to document Tyler working so hard on his homework. He sat down and did it without complaint--a moment to remember.
Today, between sessions of general conference, we went up Payson Canyon and had a picnic. It was beautiful weather and great to get outside for a while. The kids behaved really well and I could have stayed there all day! Eric and I actually got to sit and talk for a little! Joey loved the freedom. That's Doritos cheese on his fingers. It wouldn't be a picnic without the Doritos.
Jacob in true form, happy and smiling with mess all over his face. Yes, we even had doughnuts as the treat--bet you wish you could come on a picnic with us, huh!

Tyler built a teepee, with a little help from Jacob, until Jake got distracted collecting other things.
The finished product, complete with fire pit on the right. I thought about leaving Tyler here overnight but decided I didn't feel like driving back up here tomorrow. So we brought him home with us.
All in all an eventful month!

Catch Up

Well, it's been quite some time since I've updated anything. Time is flying by quickly and before I know it March is here! A few fun things going on. If you've been to our house you know the ceilings are very tall. So, when a light burned out we finally broke down and bought a mega-ladder. The boys were dying to try it out so we set it up and they climbed up and down again and again. You can't tell in the pics, but the top of the ladder is probably about 20' high. The ladder isn't even all the way extended! They climbed even higher than this, and they thought they were soooo cool!Tyler was hesitant and it took him a little while to climb all the way up, then of course Jacob gets on, hustles right on up to the top and looked like he was going to climb right off the end. No problem. My little daredevil. I'm going to have to worry about this kid when he's a teenager... No fear.
For President's Day weekend we went down to St. George with Katie and her family, Jessica and her family and Eric's parents. It was fun. We did some exploring, the kids got muddy, shot some guns, and I even shot a clay pigeon! It took me 5 tries but I finally nailed it. Just call me Annie Oakley.
The hooligans hooliganing.
On Monday morning we decided to take our little family and go hike the famous "Swenson's Crevasse." Hiking there is really fun because of all the slick rock. You can walk steep inclines, and there are lots of places to explore. The boys were having a ball.
Maggie got adventurous too.

Eric brought his rappelling gear and we tried to get the boys to go down a small descent. Joey was happy just playing with the ropes.

Tyler starting on his way down....
That's about as far as he got...

At school, the boys had some fun projects they have been working on. Jacob had his "Kindy 500." All the kindergartners make cars our of boxes and "drive" around the school. They stop at different places and learn about different places in the United States. Jacob was so proud of his racecar. He pretty much did it all himself. I had to assemble the box but he did all the painting and glueing..he was adamant about me not helping. And it turned out great!
Although he looks goofy in the pictures...
Joey is growing fast and keeping us laughing. He can be so much fun. He loves to be loved.
Tyler has been in basketball for the first time. It is a hoot watching the kids play. He was lucky enough to play on a team with his cousin. Ty loved it...definitely his favorite sport.
For Ty's school project, he had to make a WORKING invention using at least one simple machine. (I know, I had to look up simple machines on the internet too...apparently they are lever, wedge, screw, incline plane and ...I can't remember the other one.) Ty came up with a Gumball Show. You put a gumball down the chute, use the lever to push it off the cup onto the inclined planes, it falls into the soda bottle top into a screw and then falls into a little cup. It turned out pretty cool, but he got a little generous with his gumballs and only had one left at the end of the night.
Maggie is growing up way too fast...she acts like a teenager most of the time. Here she is on the phone with my mom. She talked to her forever, walking around with her inside out nightgown on, her hands on her hips, her high heels on, talking like a teenage girl. So funny.
Anyway, lots of pics, little words. Life is good, all is well in the Swenson house.