Spring Break 2016

We haven't done much of a family trip since we've moved, so Jacob and I decided we would head down south for Spring Break.  While we were down there we wanted to stop in and say hello to our old ward, so we decided to stay with our old neighbor and dear friend Kathy Riggs in Enoch Saturday night and go to church there the next day.  It was SO fun to see so many of our friends down there!  We were so warmly greeted, it was so so nice.  We had some great years down in Enoch and it was fun to reminisce.  After church Kathy made sure we had a wonderful lunch.  She was so gracious to take such good care of us while we were there.  I meant to get a picture of us with Kathy and completely forgot, I was so bummed.

 After lunch we toured around and made a few stops.  Our final stop out of town was to take a peek at the Cedar City temple which is being built.  It will be so incredible!  I still remember sitting in my living room down in Enoch when President Monson made the big announcement of a temple to be built in Cedar City.  It had been rumored, and was somewhat anticipated, but when Pres. Monson made it sure in Conference it was the most incredible feeling!  I think all of us down south were jumping up and down in excitement.  Now when I hear those wonderful gasps of excitement in Conference when new temples are announced, I have a whole new understanding of just what that feeling is and I can't help but smile.

After this we headed on down to St. George.  We got checked in to the hotel then headed to the park to top off our Easter with some high quality homemade PB & J sandwiches.  What?  Peanut butter and grape jelly aren't part of a traditional Easter meal?  Crazy! 

Okay fine.  I won't lie.  Part of me really could have gone for a nice slice of ham just about then.    

Looking at the weather we figured Monday would probably be the nicest day to spend outside so we took full advantage of it.  We started off in Snow Canyon.  Even though we lived there for 9 years, we never did make it to Snow Canyon.  Go figure.  So now we'll just drive 6 hours to go visit...

It was a bit overcast and slightly on the cool side, but we still had a lot of fun.  This is the point where Kenna decided to pull her adventurer pose in every picture.  When I went back and looked at all the pics I took during the week, I couldn't help but giggle.  Silly kids!

There was an area with a great big sand dune that the kids loved to run and play in.  Jacob and I  couldn't help but take off our shoes and put our toes in the sand.  We did, however, suddenly have a flashback to being on the beach in Hawaii when a passerby starting singing to Jacob, "Blinded by the light."  Ha!  Hey, I'm proud of those been-covered-all-winter white legs!  However a little toenail polish will go a long way.....

Lunchtime!  Kenna, the adventurer, still manages to strike a pose even while eating.  Talent.

After lunch we tried to go back out to play in the sand, but the wind started to pick up and the sand blowing in our faces was less than desirable.  So like the rest of the people out in the dunes, we packed up and headed out.

We didn't get too far before finding some more red rocks to climb on with less sand to blow in our faces. 

There were plenty of fun little crevices to climb in and out of.

Allie was not about to be outdone by her sister, so she came up with a pose of her own.  Amazing.  For a minute I really thought she might be sleeping.

Love these little darlings.

After a few hours in the wind and sand, the kids decided they were past due for a nice dip in the hotel pool.  A bit too cool if you ask me, but they were adamant the pool was calling for them and they simply couldn't resist.  Fortunately the hot tub made it juuuuuuust right.

To top off our day, we headed out one last time to catch Kung Fu Panda 3 at the cheap seats.  Did someone say cheap?  Now that's talking my language!  Twenty bucks for the whole fam dam to go see a show is a lot easier to swallow than forty or fifty.  It was a fun show, even though Lexi was pooped and slept through the majority of it.

After the show we grabbed a bite to eat and then headed back to the hotel to get ready for day 2.

Easter

Easter came too early this year.  It kinda snuck up on us, hence the Easter bunny wasn't quite in full swing this year.  Not to mention we were planning on being down South for the weekend, so I was more focused on that.

We still got in on some great Easter action nonetheless!  Both sets of Otte cousins had their Spring Break the week before we did and were down visiting G & G Otte.  Kind of a bummer, but finally Friday afternoon we all got together for a bit.

First item of business, dye eggs.  Many thanks to G & G Otte who let us have free run of the house while they made a last minute drive down to Salt Lake to see Mom's pulmonologist.   

Thanks to Aunt Nic, we got in on yet another egg hunt.  Everyone get your game face on!

A successful hunt!  Now on to a crazy sugar-filled frenzy.

The Saturday before Easter is the day we usually do our own Easter bunny stuff, but seeing as though we were getting ready to go down to St. George that morning we really didn't do anything at our house.  Just before we got in the car to head out of town, the Easter bunny made a real quick stop and left their baskets and eggs on the kitchen table.  Thankfully we already had 2 other egg hunts under our belts so it worked out a-ok.  Tell you what, that Easter bunny is one remarkable little creature.  So wise, loving, and I'm sure incredibly good looking as well.  Wink wink.

A Par-tay!

March 18, 2016.  A day that will go down in the record books as having one of the best parties of all time!

We had a surprise birthday party for Auntie Maria!  It was SO fun!  The girls were so so excited for the party and sleepover at Aunt Connie's house.  Maria thought she was going to babysit for Connie and Dustin while they went on an overnighter, but we had much better things in store.

Here the girls are hiding behind the couch waiting for Aunt Maria to arrive:

We all hid and then when she walked in the room we jumped out with "SURPRISE!"  I think she was definitely surprised.  Here she is trying to figure out exactly what is going on.  It was so funny! 

No doubt Aunt Maria is loved!

She had plenty of help opening gifts.

Maria does not take making wishes lightly.  Here she is contemplating the PERFECT wish before she blows out the candles.  Kenna stands by absorbing copious amounts of wisdom.

The next morning Grandma had an Easter egg hunt all ready for the kiddos.  Needless to say it was a big hit and so fun to watch all the girls run around collecting eggs. 

Of course Oakley got in on the egg action too:

A perfect party for sure!  Thanks Maria for giving us a great excuse to have a good time! 

A Recap of March, Part 1

One Sunday afternoon Jacob and I were out delivering some info for Cub Scouts, and at one particular house Ty man found himself a little buddy.  A box elder bug.  He was quite excited about his new little pet.  He so affectionately named him "Box Eldie."  While we were in the car waiting for Jacob, Ty put his little bug on the console between the two front seats.  Lexi decided to get her little fingers in there to play with the bug and Ty cried out, "No Lou!  Don't!  I'm his owner!"  He tried to make a bug habitat when we got home (with one of my plastic containers, of course).  Unfortunately Box Eldie didn't survive more than a day.  Fortunately, Ty wasn't too distraught about the whole thing.   

Behold Box Eldie:

We must give honorable mention to Aggie, our little bottle fed goat.  She was a triplet and her mama didn't quite have enough milk for all of them.  The kids (as in our little Israelsen humans) loved to let her out in the backyard and she would run around and play right beside them.  It was so fun to watch.  When we left for out little Spring Break trip down to St. George she was weaned down to one bottle a day and went back to the farm with all the other goats. 

I finally got back in to the dentist for a cleaning.  It's been waaaaaaaaay too long.  (Hey, at least I'm right on the dot at 6 month check ups for my kids.)  I went in to the same dentist I saw when I was growing up.  Here is Lexi in the dentist office playing on the exact same toys I played with as a child!

Jacob and I have our first Cub Scout Blue and Gold Banquet under our belts.  It was a lot of work, but it turned out great and we had a lot of fun with it.  Many thanks to Pinterest I found some fun ideas.  Our theme was "Cub Scouts are One in a Minion."  Let me just say I am not a big Pinterest guru.  I hadn't ever really actually got on Pinterest before Scouts.  However, feeling like a blind old bat when it comes to Cub Scouts, I was desperate for some ideas and it was a big help.  I am soooooo not naturally creative.  Thanks to modern technology and information sharing, I don't have to be!

The soda was a little thank you to all of our leaders.  I found these darling printables.  One of them uses the A&W logo to say thanks for being an A&Wesome leader and the other is Fanta to say thanks for being a Fantastic leader.  Pretty darn creative!  (Thank you creative people in the world willing to share your creativity and giving me the option to simply click and print!)  

The table centerpieces.  

We had a Father/Son cake bake.  Each of the boys brought a cake.  We all voted on the cakes and then ate them for dessert.  It was so fun!  We had some great cakes and I think everyone really enjoyed it.

Here is Lexi standing out by the garage at my parents house.  She didn't want to leave and was not happy to get in the car.  Lexi is one determined little lady and when she has a Lexi-style tantrum, she really throws on the brakes.  Instead of a gargantuan sized battle to get her strapped in her carseat, I had her stay by the side of the garage and wimper until she was ready to get buckled without initiating World War 3.  Each child definitely comes with their own personalities, and learning to navigate these little personalities can be quite the challenge.  I often feel like the children coming down to earth right now were given a lot of spunk to help them combat the world they will live in.  Figuring out how to effectively channel all of this spunk is quite the undertaking.  I quite often feel like in all of this parenting I will end up being the undertaken.  Sheesh.  One day at a time.

Thankfully there are moments that help make the road a bit more smooth.  For example, here is another shot of Lexi sporting her AMAZING glasses she got in her Happy Meal from girls' night out during the Priesthood session of Conference.  Now tell me that doesn't make you smile.  If not the glasses then her peace sign she just had to add......

 

Stuff

Looks like Spring might actually be trying to make its way back into the world.  Not a word of complaint about it, either!  Having these warmer temps and sunshine is such a welcome relief.  This winter was a rough one.  The gloomy days, the cold temps and lots of snow made it a game of endurance.

Even the wee ones think we're in a heat wave and (try) to dress accordingly:

 Sorry Ty, swimsuit season is still a ways down the road.


Allie wanted to make some cupcakes last weekend.  Of course they must be frosted in blue frosting.  Out of the goodness of her dear 8 year-old heart, she allowed her older sister to help in the frosting of said cupcakes.  And when there is extra frosting, decorations on paper towels are the way to go.  Or just forget the paper towel altogether and frost your face:

We've decided to take the plunge and work on getting our basement finished.  YAY!  I will like this sheet rock a lot better when it is on the walls, not the floor.  This particular room won't be completely finished for a while, but it will at least have up the sheet rock.  The goal is to get the 2 bedrooms and the bath all finished up right now.  One step at a time, I suppose:

The other day I was down trying to clean up in the basement, and my faithful little companion (aka Lexi) was studiously following in my footsteps.  As she toddled around behind me, Lexi informed me that I was not to refer to her as "Lexi," rather she was "the mom."  I finally took the time to take a close look at "the mom,"  and realized she had taken her new role very seriously.  Here she is sporting her anatomically correct (albeit a bit uneven) mom goods:

It really was pretty innocent of her.  I had to smile.  Thanks for always keeping us on our toes little lady.  Even if that means you are the most determined little monkey out of the bunch.  She may be the youngest but she certainly likes to make her place known.  Juggling 4 little personalities can be quite the challenge as a parent, that's for sure.  Just like finishing a basement, raising little ones is very much one step at a time! 

February Week 2

February is off and running, and we can't quite seem to catch up with it!

It all started yesterday.  Our Sunday morning was going seemingly well.  Jacob had to run out to the farm and do something or other with the goats.  I'm reaching goat overload so am was starting to tune them out and didn't pay much attention to what he was doing.  Meanwhile, I had the kiddos (as in my own children- not to be confused with goats.  How many people actually have to make that distinction?  Seriously?!) go out to check on the puppy we moved outside on Saturday.  She was getting a leeeeetle too big for the garage and was chewing on anything and everything in sight.  Not to mention her leeeeetle puppy deposits were growing in size as well.  Hence, despite all her furry cuteness she was moved out back.  Well, I watched out the back window as Allie and Ty were coming out of the shed holding the puppy who just didn't look right.  They brought her in the house and she would hardly move.  She was really laboring to breathe and just was not doing well.  I wasn't quite sure what to think.  At first I thought maybe it was just too cold for her and we needed to warm her up.  But then based on how she was acting it seemed more like she eaten something that maybe poisoned her.

Oh great.  The Sabbath is a delight.  Repeat to self. 

Fortunately Jacob was on his way home and I told him he could come take care of another animal.

He was thrilled. 

Time was quickly ticking away and I was getting behind at getting ready for church.  Then the dog threw up.  In my living room.  Time got even further away.  In the meantime, I was hollering at my youngsters to get dressed and find their church shoes.  Lexi came out of her room sporting her boots.  Her farm boots.  "No no no my dear, try again!"  And then I forgot about it.

FINALLY, we got out the door and were on our way to church when Kenna chimes up from the back of the car, "Mom, Lexi is wearing her boots."  Suddenly I remembered I was going to double check on that before we left.  Sigh.  At this point I had a choice.  Either take Lexi home to change and miss the Sacrament, or just keep on going and get in by the skin of our teeth.  See for yourself how it panned out:

Hair curled?  Check.  

Dress?  Check.  

Tights?  Check.  

Church shoes?  Um, church shoes?  Ya.  Not so much.  

The Lord looketh on the heart.

So you're wondering about the dog, huh?  Well, she wasn't improving so Jacob took her out to Young Ward to have Reed Hall the vet take a look at her.  The vet says she was suffering from a collapsed lung and her prognosis wasn't looking too hot.  We still have absolutely no idea what happened out there in the shed that could have caused a collapsed lung.  But collapse it did, and as of last night, that is amen to our puppy.  Fortunately the kids took it well and weren't too upset about it.

Rest in peace Mango:

So here's the deal.  I'm done and done and done with poor little animals suffering!  It's too much for my wee little heart.  I have made a vow NEVER to have a dog again.  Ever.  Please don't let me forget.

I thought we were done with animal drama for a while.  Unfortunately it only lasted about 12 hours.

So Jacob headed out the door this morning somewhere around 5:30. A.M. to head down to Nevada for work.  That means I vaguely recall hearing him get up but before long I was happily back in dreamland..... 

....Until 6:15. A.M.  My phone rang.  It was Jacob.

When Jacob calls me at 6:15 A.M. something isn't right.  Fortunately he was ok, but some new baby goats weren't.  Benson had called Jacob because there were 6, count them, SIX baby goats born earlier that morning out in the freezing cold and needed some TLC. 

Let's add a little insert here.  I mentioned Benson in the above paragraph.  Benson is a Saint.  Benson should be officially knighted.  Benson should be mentioned forever after in the book of time as being AWESOME!  He has saved our bacon the past month or so with the goats.  We are beyond grateful for all his time and energy in our behalf.  If it weren't for him we Jacob and Seth and their beloved goat herd would be up a creek!  He was headed out this morning to play ball with some friends when he had a thought to check the goats.  A million trillion thank you's to Benson for heeding a small prompting to check the goats because he literally saved their lives.  One of the babies had already died, so he frantically started picking up babies and getting them into the warm warmer granary to defrost.  He got them in with their moms then had to start guessing who belonged to what!

I finally got there to deliver another heat lamp and see what I (in all my pathetic goat wisdom) could do to help.  They actually were doing much better than I anticipated, but there was one little fella who was still really struggling so I scooped him up to bring him home to warm up.

 

Thanks to the fire and a good 30 minutes under the blow dryer, Jack Frost here warmed up.  Yes, we named him.  No baby goat is complete without a name, don't you know?  I'm surprised the little guy really dared raise his head considering all he had to look up at was Lexi with her bed head.  Yow.

Oh ya, this was in the middle of getting the girls off to school.  They were troopers and got ready great and headed off to school.  Meanwhile our little buddy Jack was doing much better so I decided he needed to get back with his mama.  So Ty, Lexi and their mama got all bundled up to head back to the farm.  Whose mother am I?  Am I part goat?  I'm really beginning to wonder.  After this morning I certainly smell like one.  Ew.

To make a long story short, after a bit of work I got Jack reunited with his mother and settled to where I think hope he would be ok.  Then I had to turn my attention back to Ty and Lexi in the car.  You never know with those two, so I always cringe a bit wondering what I'll come upon.  Just to make the morning super extra special, Lexi found a pen in my car and decorated it a bit.  Behold, Picasso:

Thankfully, a little rubbing alcohol when we got home made a big difference.

And well, I think that sums it up.  Now on to Monday afternoon.....

Moving Right Along

I'm just going to pretend like there has been no lapse whatsoever and move right along as though I just posted a blog last week.......thanks for indulging me.

So tell me what doesn't fit in this picture:

Let's see.  We have brown carpet, brown chair, brown table, brown wall, brown couch, brown cabinets.  Shoot, maybe I should add some more color to my room decor.  Oh wait a minute, maybe it's the BROWN GOATS that don't quite fit!  I won't tell you what I had to clean up off my brown carpet shortly after I took this picture.  Sheesh.  Cute?  Yes.  Absolutely adorable.  I just don't think I can handle all the anxiety that comes when mama goats are kidding.  And then to try and remember all the names my human kids give them?  Impossible.  I love the looks on their faces when I refer to the goats with the wrong name or simply forget their names altogether.  In the back of my mind there's Chilly, Jellybean, Jazz, Spider, Junior....

Goat people are weird. 


At least this little lady doesn't seem to be experiencing any anxiety:

Yes, that is a goat enclosure.  In my kitchen. 


The goats certainly cannot take center stage when there is another lovable furry creature in the house.

Behold......Skittles.  We jokingly call it Caitlin Jenner because originally we thought this here Guinea Pig was a girl.  Weeeeellllll as this youngster has matured, some of the anatomy has become a bit more pronounced.  So now we know Skittles is in fact a male (despite being wrapped in pink).  Kenna had a bit of a rough afternoon upon our initial gender discovery, but now she has warmed up to the idea of Skits being a boy.  She quite loves the little critter and is doing a great job taking responsibility for him.   


Isn't there a universal parental phrase out there that goes something like, "Don't complain about it or I'll give you something to really complain about?"  Well, maybe that's how it is with weather.  Maybe I shouldn't complain about the cold or snow because then I might be smitten with something that will really give me something to cry about.  Sigh.  No thanks.  So in honor of being optimistic, here is Ty with the winter equivalent of turning lemons into lemonade:

Who says you can't ride your bike in the winter wearing your boots and snow pants?  After all, he has a good 10 feet of clear sidewalk there!  10 feet is better than no feet, right?!  Lemonade my friends, lemonade.  

As for the girls?  Well, we'll just stay inside and frost cupcakes.