Road Trip 2014- A Week in St. George

Since Dustin can't take off more than 1 week at a time at work, the boys and I spent a week in St. George with Grandma and Grandpa Jensen while he flew home. We discovered it was better to keep the boys busy with outings (else they would drive my parents crazy) so we did some fun things while we were there. One day we went to a splash pad and then loaded up with tons of fruit at the farmers market.

 Another day we went to the St. George Children's Museum. The boys had a lot of fun getting energy out while we were there!

 

 One morning I took the boys down to see my grandma and grandpa's graves. We didn't get to come to Grandpa Jensen's funeral because it was a month before Hudson was born. 

We spent some time searching for his name on the memorial. Carson finally discovered it-

Perry D. Jensen     Marines    WWII / Korea

We also went to a fun pool one day with my parents and the boys loved that. They also loved going to get frozen yogurt- a treat Dustin doesn't enjoy! Before we knew it I was off to Vegas to pick up Dustin and we were on our way to SLC to begin our journey home.

Road Trip 2014- The Return Trip

The return trip took twice as long as the trip out, but we made sure to spend time with some family and we also took the time to wind down just as our little family before making it back to our own beds.

We spent a couple of days with Aunt Jennifer and Uncle Adam in SLC. Jenn took us to the Aquarium in Sandy. Jenn and I were disappointed that there weren't any really big fish, but the boys didn't seem to mind at all. Jensen and Mason liked petting the sting rays (and Carson did not) and Hudson liked seeing  the fishes swim right in front of his face.

 After our stay in SLC, we began our journey west, and visited with Dustin's extended family in Roosevelt. The big boys got to go golfing with Dustin and Uncle Brent and some of their boys. The little boys and I stayed with Ann Marie and played. On our way out of Roosevelt we made our obligatory stop at the Dinosaur National Monument outside of Vernal.

The Monument is actually located in Jensen Utah. We had to let this guy take a picture in his own city!

 Then it was on through Colorado, through the beautiful mountains (and some crazy rain storms), into New Mexico and finally back into the Lone Star State. We planned from the beginning to stay our last couple of nights on the road at the Great Wolf Lodge in Dallas before heading home. It was perfect- slow paced, relaxing, and fun. I didn't end up taking many pictures here, because a lot of our time was spent in the water park, and after Hudson destroyed my last phone with water, I wasn't up for risking taking my phone there!

I did get this cute shot of a baby wolf in our room, though. :) 

 I also thought I broke one of my toes at the water park, but since we've been home, it's improved quite a bit, so that I don't think it was broken, but maybe just sprained or something.

 We're all quite happy to be sleeping in our own beds and having all of our clothes to choose from. I think we will remember this trip with much fondness in the years to come.

Cub Scout Day Camp and the Storm

The week after school got out Carson got to go with the rest of his cub scout pack to Cub Scout Day Camp for 4 days. Boy were they some long days, but he had so much fun. They got to go fishing, play chess, learn to do archery, shoot BB guns, swim, play ultimate frisbee, and so much more. I went up to the camp and spent the day helping with his group on the second day of camp. I had fun watching him interact with his friends and learn new things. And thankfully, we had decent weather that day, so I survived being outside all day!

 At the end of that week we had a pretty serious storm come through our area, and unfortunately, we suffered some loss to a couple of our trees. This one in our front side yard lost a major limb.

 This tree in the back pretty much snapped in two, and thankfully fell straight down instead of crashing into the family room. We also had a cedar tree that had some small broken limbs, but it was a tree that needed trimming anyway. 

Thankfully we had some friends with a nice chainsaw that lent it to us for the weekend, because Home Depot had sold out by the time Dustin got there! Sadly, some of our neighbors sustained a lot of damage to their yards, homes, and in at least one case, vehicle. We felt very lucky to have otherwise been safe during the storm.

Mother's Day & Father's Day

I never posted about my Mother's Day or our recent Father's Day, so I just decided to do them together. The boys made me cute things at school, and they were so excited to give them to me. 

Carson gave me a cute "recipe" for being a great mom. He also made me a cool piece of art.

 I don't know what Mason said to me, but Dustin caught me laughing at whatever it was.  

Jensen made me a cute magnet and had some funny things written about me.

 Mostly, I was glad to get to hear the kids sing in church on Mother's Day, despite having to wrestle all 4 boys by myself, because Dustin had to speak in sacrament meeting and he sat up on the stand that Sunday.

For Father's Day I copied my fun sister-in-law, Stephanie, and took the boys to the Dollar Store and let them all pick out one thing for Dad. 

Carson bought Dustin a bag of Tootsie Rolls, because they both love them.

Mason bought Dustin a bag of pretzel rods, which Dustin discovered were way better for dipping in Nutella than twisted pretzels!

Hudson picked out a dog toy. Then the boys helped him pick out a little hand held fan instead. :)

Jensen got Dad a flashlight. Because he's always taking Dad's flashlights. I'm pretty sure Jensen has since stolen this one as well.

 I love this picture of all my boys. I think I've got a pretty handsome bunch. 

Outside Improvement #1

We had our first outdoor improvement installed this morning. Carson could not be more excited!

Jensen is making some pretty good shots out there. 

 
The boys can lower and raise the hoop by themselves, so even Mason can get in on the action. (He totally made this one.)

I'm pretty sure that with 4 boys, this will be an investment that will be paid off in hours and hours of activity. (P.S. To all my basketball playing brothers, is this enough incentive to come and visit yet?)

We also discovered today that Hudson can open the door and get outside. My life is officially over, because all he wants to do all the time is go outside, and if he can find an unlocked door, I'm toast.

Cinco de Mayo

We don't usually do anything worthy of notation on Cinco de Mayo, but hey, we live in Texas, and many Mexican traditions run deep here. So tonight we did a little piñata smacking after our Family Home Evening. Someone who Dustin knows from work gave this to him today, so we stuffed it full of leftover Easter candy and the boys had a grand time hitting it. And I love the good piñatas from Mexico (apparently the guy that gave it to Dustin just got back from a weekend trip there) because they are super heavy duty. It took us a long time to finally break into it.

Mason got a couple of good hits on his turn.

I love Jensen's face. I think he considered this batting practice for his game tomorrow night.

 Carson, of course, did a fair amount of damage.

 Hudson really wanted in on the action, so we let him take some swings. :) I got down and helped him hit the piñata with the bat and he was just grinning the whole time. Can he please just stay little…please? 

Sometimes it hits me, much like a bat to a piñata, that all these little boys are mine. I love spending time with them, together as a family. They may not remember this Family Home Evening when we hit a piñata outside after filling out a pedigree chart together, but I hope that someday they look back and remember that we spent time together as a family, and that we were happy.

Walnut Palooza and Stuff

First of all, I was brave enough to make another attempt to cut Hudson's hair. It turned out much better this time. I just used the clippers on the back and then I had to blend it with scissors. That part wasn't so much fun, but I learned that if I sat him on the bathroom counter in front of the mirror and gave him a bunch of Q-tips to play with, he was still enough for me to use the scissors without taking a chunk out of his ear.

The boys had a school fundraiser last night called "Walnut Palooza." (They go to Walnut Springs.) It was quite the event, and the boys had fun. I helped out by donating a cake for the cake walk. It's a peanut butter cake with chocolate buttercream and a tiger stripe (because their mascot is a tiger) design made out of Reeses Pieces. Little hard to give that one up without cutting into it and taking a big ol' bite!

Jensen and Carson tried and tried their hand at the cake walk, but they didn't win anything. Maybe next year... 

 They had tons of games for the kids to play. Jensen was the only one with enough patience to wait 15 minutes in line to have a go in the human hamster ball. By the end of his run, he got the hang of it.

 They also had some pretty cool bouncy slides and stuff. My boys had a great time on the super slide- it had quite the steep drop! I was surprised to see Carson go down!

 Poor Hudson had to stay strapped into his stroller the whole time. We did feed him popcorn and cookies and he was entertained by everything going on around him, but by the end of the night he was done.