9th anniversary

On March 15th we celebrated our 9th anniversary. We were planning a couple of days in Park City, but then found out that Shane's aunt was planning a surprise 80th birthday party for his grandma (which, by the way, I said it was a bad idea to do a surprise party for her, but no one listened) and we talked about it and realized we will have many more anniversaries, but who knows how many birthdays his grandma has left.

We headed to Brigham City at noon for the party.

Grandma Stevens with almost all of her great-grandkids.

With almost all of her grandkids.

Ari had to skip her nap and she just wanted to cuddle daddy.

Ryley and Lexi get along great!

Kaden ran around the entire time we were there.

Ari, Lexi, and Ryley's silly faces!

Sweet girls!

There was a video of old pictures going the whole time. Pretty cool.

The party was fun and it was good to see Shane's side of the family. I really like his cousins and we usually only see them once a year.

After the party, Shane's parents graciously took the kids off our hands so we could spend some time alone on our anniversary.

We were in Brigham, though, and had no idea what to do there. After some Googling, Shane decided he wanted to do mini-golf. We went to the only mini-golf place in Brigham and it was inside and blacklit. SO, as much as I would enjoy an easy win because of Shane's eyes, we opted to bowl instead. I despise bowling, but it was better than nothing. :) 

 

After I, of course, lost horribly, we headed to Maddox for dinner.

Free pie!

We both ate about 20 too many rolls, so when we got back to the van, we just laid our chairs back for a little bit to digest. Shane slept. I played on my phone. And for 30 straight minutes, it was silent. Aaahhhh.

 

Eventually we picked up the kids and headed home.

Not our most fancy anniversary, but it was great. I loved spending the day with family and my sweet kiddos. I told him next year, though, we're going big for our 10th. ;)

Parent Teacher Conferences

Last week both the older kids had their parent teacher conferences. Lexi's was first and I was excited to see how much she's learning.

We got to "help" them with an art project at the start.

Lexi's elephant!

Then the teacher (not the lady in pink) had them show us their spelling and math skills.

I sat back and watched Lexi perform with her class. She was happy about it, but she's happy the majority of the time anyway. When they started to do the math problems, though, I was really, really surprised to see her whole face light up. Her entire body posture changed - she was suddenly sitting straight up, leaning forward and excitedly watching the white board for the next problem. While the other kids were counting on their fingers (addition and subtraction only up to 10), Lexi was already shouting the answer. Not once had it crossed my mind that Lexi would be so passionate about math. I was seriously shocked.

After the other kids and parents left, I talked to Lexi's teacher about her progress. She said that Lexi gets rowdy sometimes because she's bored. Apparently Lexi is "ready to read," but at the preschool level, they're not allowed to start teaching them to read yet. Mrs. Hedges recommended I start on some early reader books with her at home and said she would do great with them. Then I mentioned how I noticed Lexi got extra excited about the math part and Mrs. Hedges said, "Oh, yeah. Lexi LOVES math." She then went on to say that, again, because of preschool policies, she can only teach addition and subtraction up to 10, but that Lexi is more than ready to keep going. She suggested we get flash cards and work with Lexi at home. (Which I went out and got that day.)

It's a good thing Shane is good at math 'cause Lexi will know more than me in a few years!

Later that same day, we went to Kaden's PTC and heard great things about him as well. He's reading at a first grade level and his regular teacher and art teacher are really impressed with his drawings. The only thing his teacher had wanted to really work with him on at the last PTC was his social skills - mainly getting him more comfortable speaking loudly and clearly in front of the class. He's doing MUCH better at that now, although he's still quiet and gets shy sometimes. But his teacher stressed that that's just fine and as long as he's making progress, she's happy.

 And now Ari talks about her imaginary teacher who she loves. 

hahaha Poor girl.

On a random note:

I have been wanting to get the kids a little play pop-up tent for a while. I saw a cool one at Kohls, but it was $40. Then I saw it was on clearance for $11! And I had a 30% off coupon! So, we now have a super fun tent that all the kids had to have a turn getting their picture taken while in the tunnel (that detaches easily if they don't want to use it).

Ice skating

Remember how I swore I would never take the kids ice skating again until they were all much older because of how traumatized I was from the last time? Well, Shane's family all wanted to go ice skating, so I tried to mentally prepare myself for what I knew was coming. And I prepared the kids by showing them hours and hours of clips of Scott Hamilton, Kurt Browning, and Michelle Kwan skating. They were inspired. Kaden was ready to do a backflip.

We all went to Cafe Zupas for dinner (where this cute older lady told us our little family is absolutely adorable and to enjoy the kids because time goes fast), then headed to the Ice Sheet. Right when we got there, I smelled something foul. Ari was poopy and I had left the diaper and wipes in the car. Since it was dark, I had to be the one to run to the car and get the diaper, then I changed her. As soon as I was done with that, Shane informed me that Lexi had taken her socks off in the car and left them there. So, again, I ran back out to the car and grabbed her socks. I gotta be honest, I was already done and ready to go home by this point. There was only an hour left of free skate time and we weren't even on the ice yet. *sigh*

Anyway, after changing out skate sizes ten million times, we finally got on the ice.

They started out clinging to the side.

Kaden wasn't nearly as scared as last time, which was great, and it was really nice to have Shane's family there for extra help!

Once around the ice and Ari was DONE.

 I half-carried Lexi halfway around the rink (again!!!) as she tried to skate. I showed her how, but she just wanted to cling to the wall. I was exhausted by that point and decided to sit out with Ari. Lexi decided she was done, but then got back out a couple of times when she could have people (Val, Shane's sister, and her husband, Bryan) holding both of her hands. (She did much better that way.)

Kaden did AWESOME! I had shown him lots of videos of professional skaters falling and getting right back up, so he knew he would fall and not to cry about it. And he didn't. :D

Kaden must have fallen seven or eight times and he jumped right back up. By the end, he wasn't even holding onto anyone or anything and just skating!

 

 

Lexi's skates were too tight and she took her socks off to show me the lines creased into her toes from the skates.

Ari had her own coat, but insisted on wearing Shane's.

The girls and I killed time by taking lots of pictures on the bleachers while we watched.

Lexi took this one.

Surprisingly, Ari took this one.

Hugging Ryley!

I'm glad we went for Kaden's sake. He absolutely loved it and wants to go back. I told Shane I'm not taking all of our kids at the same time again for four years, but I would consider taking them individually (well, at least Kaden).

Animal week

I've mentioned before that Kaden's school, Voyage, is a hands-on learning school. I absolutely love this about Voyage and it has helped Kaden learn so much.

The last week and a half, the kids got to do a report on any animal of their choice. In class, they got to see pictures of different animals from around the world. Kaden was so excited to do his report and worked really hard on it. He chose a jaguar.

 

 I volunteer in his classroom every other Friday for the full two hours they are in class, and yesterday I just happened to be there for the 100th day of school celebration as well as the last day of their reports. Well, Voyage is all about hands-on learning, so for the last day of the reports, Voyage had a camel, zebra, and a zonkey in the parking lot! (Zonkey=mom was a donkey, dad a zebra)

The camel's name was Moses and he was HUGE.

Waiting to see the zebra and zonkey.

 The zebra and zonkey had to stay in the trailer. They were a bit more wild than the camel and like to bite and kick.

The zebra was gorgeous!

Zonkey!

The kids (and adults) all got a turn petting the camel.

His fur was sooooo thick! 

The owner said that Moses was warmer than any of the kids with their snow coats on. Kaden was nervous and didn't want to touch the camel, so I literally had to pick him up and force his hand to touch the camel. Drama, drama, drama.

 

After the wild animal excitement, we got the kids back inside to work on their 100 days project.

It was so cool for the kids to be able to see a couple of the animals they had been learning about the last week. I'm glad I was able to be there and be a part of it.