Spanish Fork Hot Pots

I realized today that yesterday was one of the last Saturdays where we have nothing going on before Iris leaves town, so I looked over her list of things to do before she leaves and decided we had better go to a hot spring.  I went back and forth between a few and finally decided we should just go all the way and hike the Spanish Fork Hot Pots.  I was really really worried about how well the kids would do a 2.5 hour hike, and I knew with carrying swim stuff and lunches that we wouldn't be able to carry both of them the whole way as well...

I love that you can see Peach's swimsuit tutu poking out!

 But they did surprisingly well!  The Frog walked almost all the way up, with a brief stint in the middle in the stroller.   Peach mostly was carried or rode in the stroller, though if she had her way, she would have walked more of it.

That's right... we brought our STROLLER!  Thank you thank you Phil & Ted's for making an AWESOME stroller that could carry my two kids on rocky paths for multiple miles.  I was terrified the whole time that one of the wheels would get punctured by the terrain, but we made it up and back w/out issues.  There were a couple of times we had to have the kids get out because the path got too narrow and/or steep, but it was mostly mild enough to be ok.  I am not suggestion you try this with an ordinary stroller though, be forewarned.

Iris soaking her feet in the hottest pool

 We got to the top and began stripping down (despite the freezing wind) but Peach wouldn't get in- "too hot!"  And The Frog felt the same way.  Peach seemed quite adamant about not getting in at all, so I coaxed The Frog down to a cooler spot.  However, once we got there, he was creeped out by the moss in that one, so neither of my kids really got in, and as a result, neither did I, since I had to man one of them.

 At least we got some pictures of us at the top!

 It was a nice hike- not too steep and well traveled.  The trail basically followed the creek the whole way up, which means Peach and The Frog would have probably enjoyed it more if we just stayed next to it and threw rocks into it all day.  I think I won't attempt this again until they are both much older... 5 miles is quite far and a long day for them.

 I felt rather stupid on the way up, receiving questioning looks from passers-by.  I was pushing an empty stroller while The Frog walked and Jay carried Peach most of the way, but it was SOOO worth it for the walk back.  While it took 2 hours to get up, we were able to cruise down in less than an hour, thanks to that beautiful contraption- which was needed because we were walking down during nap time and Peach was crying most of the way.  (I think she didn't like how bumpy the ride was, so I relented and carried her for the last 15 minutes of walking.)

PS.  The Frog fell asleep in the car- around 3:15 and slept all night again!!  Well, kinda... he woke up at around 3:30am, (which we suspected he might do) so we gave him a previously made sack lunch and set him up with the iPad, and went back to sleep.  What is with his sleep schedule lately?  Thoughts anyone?

Unique Week

What a week we've just had!  We've been having crazy warm weather- warm enough for popsicles, swim suits and sunscreen!  We also recently bought a "death contraption", i.e. a trampoline, so it's been extra fun to play outside.  It even got warm enough for "swimming" in polar hose water in the blow-up pool for a few days.

Of course, I have pictures of none of this.  Only one, as per The Frog's request.

I must try and get out the camera more.  I'm just out of the habit after my slug-month.

Besides the weather being unusually summery, my little sister was in town for a wedding and came down to spend the day with us.

Again.  I have not even ONE picture.

I was very surprised at how much more gentle The Frog was with my 1 year old niece than he is with Peach.  It gives me hope that maybe he's maturing and this is just a phase?  Or maybe it's just because she's not his sister...

Thursday, I watched my brother's kids while my sister-in-law went to women's conference.  I admit I was pretty nervous about having two more little boys in the house (I had 4 kids in diapers all day long...) but it ended up being surprisingly easy. (I suppose it helps that I didn't plan on getting anything done too)

Peach spent a lot of time in baby A's carseat, which I find hilarious because it used to be hers, when she was a baby, and she always detested it.

Cousin S was awesome at keeping himself entertained and The Frog and he even played together.  It was so cool!  I guess I need to have friends of The Frog's over more often...  He was so distracted by his cousin that I barely had to break up fights between he and Peach.

The Frog munching on a treat from Cousin S's lunchbox

While making dinner, I put the kids on the sofa in front of the iPad.  Cousin S quickly got bored and went back outside to play, and Peach never watches TV for long.  I couldn't believe it, but about 10 minutes before dinner was ready, I noticed The Frog like this on the sofa.

He slept ALL NIGHT long, without dinner.

Even MORE unbelievably, he did the same thing the next night on our way home from eating dinner out!

This was truly a unique week!

Rainy April Day

I took too many pictures.  Probably I felt like I needed to make up for my lack of picture taking...

I eventually convinced The Frog to put on a jacket, but not until after he got pretty wet and cold.  Never would put on shoes though...

Mom has camera.  I say "cheese!"

Peach doesn't want hers?  Great!

Okay, I guess two are hard to handle...

Iris Spring Break: Day 6

This was our last day of planned activities.  We had originally planned to go hike to a hotspring, but since it was so rainy the previous day, and Peach and I were still drippy and coughy, we decided to do something that required less exertion and outdoor nakedness.  We drove up to the Kennecott Copper mines.

 This is everyone on the drive up.  I'm still baffled because it was about 10:30am!  Maybe 7pm isn't an early enough bedtime?  Well relish it because it's the best group shot I got.

 I love that you can read the sign that says "Do Not Climb on the Railing" in the same picture where you can see little Peach hanging on the railing.  That's all The Frog basically wanted to do.  (that is, until he found the puddle...)

And that's it folks.  I couldn't get anyone to stay together at all the whole time we were there, so this is the evidence of our being at Kennecott.  I think Iris's camera has a shot with her and The Frog in front of the giant tire, but this is all you get from me, sorry.  I didn't really even get to look at anything because I spent the whole time chasing either one child or the other.  I don't know what we're going to do when the kids outnumber the parents...

Iris Springbreak: Days 4 & 5

On Thursday and Friday, Peach and I were clearly sick, and I asked to stay home and rejuvenate.  While Jay and Iris were up at the planetarium in Salt Lake all afternoon, The Frog was busy creating a masterpiece.

 An indoor playground.

Here's The Frog posing with his final work.  (He wanted to pose behind it...)  My favorite bits are the screwdriver hanging from the stepstool hole and the hidden sippy-cup balancing on the chair leg.  I feel like this might make a good "I Spy" photo for Marzollo and Wick's next book.

This is what Peach thought of it...

Friday, Jay, Iris and The Frog all went to the aquarium together while Peach and I had a mommy-daughter sicky day.  It was actually quite relaxing.

Not really spring break related but...  That night, Jay and I had tickets to see Ballet West, and so I went armed with one pocket full of wadded tissues and the other, a handful of cough drops.  (I ate every one too...)  Despite my drippiness, it was fabulous!  Best Christmas present ever :)

Iris's Spring Break: Day 3

I had originally planned on the family going on a "real" hike, but Jay realized he had a lot of work to do and he probably shouldn't take the day off and I started feeling like I was coming down with something, so I instead decided to drive up to Bridal Veil Falls and we'd make the short hike, on paved path, from the parking lot to the falls and call it good.  

The kids are wearing their Easter backpacks.  Both are carrying some apple slices and water.  I just want to SQUEEZE them both.

 After a 2 minute walk, there was a bridge over the river and the kids thought this was so awesome that I almost felt like we could just go home after that.  Peach kept saying "woooow! woooow!"  It was so funny.

It kills me when I see pictures of other people's kids all nicely posed, sitting next to each other.  That just never happens with my kids.  This is the best I could get.  Running.  I celebrate when I can see both their faces...

 Despite the short walk, I wish I had brought the stroller.  I ended up having to carry the kids some of the way.  I had packed a cute lunch and we brought a ball and bubbles and planned to spend some time up there, but it ended up being much cooler up there than it was down where we live and after being at the falls about 3 minutes, The Frog said he was cold and wanted to go home.

So we did.

Iris's Spring Break: Day 2

Iris and I painted nails in the morning and The Frog decided he wanted to help us paint our toes while I did Iris's fingers.  For my feet, he chose clear and a very pastel peachy color.  For Iris he chose something a bit more bold...

 And thought he had no reason to limit himself to only the toenails...  (it took me like 30 minutes to get it all off for her, while her hands dried and some of the red on the feet just wouldn't budge.)

 Jay came home early from work to get his blood drawn and we all went bowling before dinner.  (Though he didn't want to bowl.  He basically played babysitter once the kids got restless.)  We've never taken the kids before!  I think The Frog looks so cute in this shot.  His feet perfectly fit into the smallest bowling shoe size!

 Peach acting like a teenager on her cute daddy's lap.

 I think Iris and I were the only ones who took it seriously.

 She ended up winning. I thought about posting the score-card picture, but decided my pride couldn't handle it.  To give you a sense, my first set was a strike, and my second was 00.  Yeah.  I lost.  Even to the kids.

 The Frog didn't always use this ramp thingy, but he always went too fast for me to get a picture of him dropping the ball.  I supposed I had ample time to get a shot of his ball creeping down the alley though...  We opted not to play with bumpers.  'Cause we're serious like that.

 By the end, the kids were running around in the arcade equipment and Iris and I took turns bowling for the kids.  Of course we always did a great job on their turn, and a lousy one on our own.  I ended up giving the kids a spare on the last set.  I think that's the only spare I bowled the whole game.

It will be fun to come back when Peach is a bit older, but it was fun nonetheless!

Iris's Spring Break: Day 1

Iris gets the whole week off this week and we toyed with all kinds of little vacations, but everything just seemed too expensive for what we would get- expensive in time to get there, money, and the amount of enjoyment for the kids wouldn't be enough to make it worth the trouble, so we instead decided to have a "staycation" where we tried to do something fun every day, from a list of things Iris wanted to do here before she goes home.

 Day 1, we hooked up the bike trailer and pulled this kids along a bike path to a park about 2.5 miles away.  Here are the kids sporting their Easter shades and Red Sox hats, preparing to go.

 Thanks to Jay inventing the kids' favorite game (and one of my least favorite...)- The Jumping Game- I catch The Frog and Peach trying to jump off everything, lately.  I can't wait until I find one of them on the roof....

 The Frog was very proud of his ability to jump off this and wanted me to document it.  I think it's the highest thing he's jumped yet!

Leave it to The Frog to always find someway to get soaking wet or muddy when we have no convenient way of changing clothes.

 The Frog spends just as much time climbing up slides as sliding down them.

 I love this picture!

 Peach and Iris going down the dual slides.

 After many attempts, this was the best group shot I could manage...

We came home and had a much needed popsicle, as evident by Peach's little red cheeks.  I was terrified that she may have gotten sunburned on her face because I ended up with a little on on my arms, but I'm happy to say I think both of our kids lucked out and inherited Jay's skin.

Hurrah!

Happy Easter!

Iris had never dyed (or ever heard of dying) Easter eggs before, so it was extra fun to share our American Easter traditions with her.  (It was also extra fun for me because I wasn't the only one who actually wanted to try doing something creative with the eggs.  Jay never wants to help...)

 You can see some eggshells sprinkled around.  That's because we were all so enthralled with the egg dying (and making sure The Frog didn't splash the dye everywhere, again, by dropping the eggs in from amazing heights) we didn't notice Peach innocently burrowing her finger into the center one of the eggs...  We just ate that one, which is why there are only 17 in this picture.

 The Frog was determined to keep up his perfect record and wanted to "win" and find all the eggs.  Iris was was and put the ones she found in his bucket.  (we purposely put a few too high for The Frog so Iris could find some too).  Meanwhile, Peach was too busy looking for "teats" in her loot.

 Everyone got mini squirt guns filled with water and so a water fight promptly broke out in the living room.  Nothing like some good, wholesome, family fighting to remind everyone about the true the meaning of Easter...

 And of course, the children devouring their pre-breakfast chocolate.

 Nanie (Jay's mom) always sends the kids something awesome, and amidst their loot, she gave the kids sunglasses, which they love.  We gave Iris some fake glasses so we made them all pose with their new shades.

We had my parents over for dinner, but I failed to get even ONE photo.  I guess that's how you know we had a good time :)

Happy Easter!

More Whirl

I guess I overestimated my slugginess because I didn't think I had any more pictures on my camera besides Easter on, but I was wrong.  So here's a couple more weeks of update:

 

Peach loves taking things out of the cupboards while I cook, and trying to sit in/on them.  (sometimes she'll turn them upside-down and try to jump off them)  I guess these mini cake pans were too small for sitting inside.  The Frog must have thought it looked super fun...

 Peach has recently become obsessed with "unnies!!" and since The Frog's are easier to reach than her own, she often wears his.  This particular day, she insisted on wearing 3 pairs over her pants, but usually they end up on top of her diaper, under the pants.  I have let her wear her own undies a few times, trying to see if the potty thing would catch on, but she still doesn't get it.  She often asks to sit on the potty, and I let her, but has yet to produce.  I'm going to wait until after our summer travels and then potty-train the two in one swoop.  (at least that's the plan.  The Frog can definitely do it, he just has no motivation to, and I think not wanting to be shown up by little sis might do the trick.)

 Weather is warming up and the kids are asking to spend more time outdoors.  It's fantastic!  I can even let them play out there for 30 minutes at a time without close supervision or crying :)

 I always get excited when our first flowers come up, and I wanted to bring some daffodils inside, until I noticed that some of them have little tiny wormy things in them.  Never mind, these just livened up our patio table instead :)

 Peach has finally figured out to go down the slide all by herself.  Going to the park is actually fun again!  (for me and both kids....)

 The Frog was invited to his first birthday party ever, and he talked about it for a whole week- especially because he won the Easter egg hunt.  I guess whoever found the most won something, and that's made him feel awesome all week.  (also very competitive...)

 Some of the plastic eggs he found had little stamps in them and Peach got one while I wasn't looking...

 Started a few plants indoors.  My red bell pepper never came up though... :(

 And as per tradition, our Easter wheat grass.

Oh yeah, despite wearing shorts for several days, we got a sudden snow storm?  The Frog wanted to make a snow bunny, but while I was inside getting to carrot ears, I looked out at him and he was punching the head off.  Here if you look closely, you can see the decapitated snow ball.  (and The Frog running away from the picture)