March 2018

In February we ordered some caterpillars to try out a caterpillar/butterfly experiment. We had a coupon for a free set of 6 caterpillars so we decided we wanted to try it out! They came in the mail and sat in a little jar for a couple weeks, eating and getting bigger and bigger! Then one by one they each started forming their cocoons on the top of the jar on a little piece of cloth that had been attached to the jar. 

The instructions said to wait 3 days after the last caterpillar formed its cocoon and then take the piece of cloth out and pin it to the side of your butterfly cage. The kids were sooo excited to finally take the cocoons out of the jar and wanted pictures with them. However, the instructions said it would still be another 7-10 days before the cocoons would actually break open and release the butterflies. So, the waiting game began.

A while ago we ordered the first couple books from the Dragon Masters series to start reading. Garrett has totally fell in love with them and has become obsessed with reading them. I love how much he loves reading! Anyway, it's been something that's really fun for me and him to snuggle up on the couch and read together, often times right after Kimbri leaves for school and while Brenna is still sleeping. 

We have discovered something called Cosmic Kids Yoga
on Youtube and the kids are totally into doing yoga now!

The "G" shield I made for Garrett for "dress-up-like-a-knight" day
at preschool. We didn't have any knight clothes so we just attached
this to a black shirt for him to wear He was excited about it so I guess
that's all that matters!

Wearing one of my old dresses and running
around with the florals we bought for decorations.

Whenever we FaceTime Gma Sundee
Garrett loves to eat a cutie "with" Gma.

After the first cocoon hatched. They were all very ecstatic!

The first butterfly that came out of its cocoon!

One afternoon we were out doing errands and texted Rick at the hospital to see if he would have time to come out to the car and have a little lunch break with us. He was available! So we swung by McDonalds and got some dollar sandwiches and a pack of chicken nuggets to share and then met up with daddy for a quick lunch in the hospital parking lot! It was fun to get to see daddy during the day when we don't normally get to. 

Afterward I took the kids to Mazerick Park. Obviously, from the amount of pictures they had me take, the cement statues of animals were a hit!

Brenna was jumping on the couch in her undies
and suddenly turned around and struck this pose.
It was hilarious and Cosette quickly snapped a pic!

The weather here in NC has been soooo bizarre. One day the kids can literally be out playing "beach" in their swimsuits and then the next it will randomly snow. So weird!!

The snow we got in MARCH!

An example of Kimbri's personality. She loves to gather things.
Any and all sorts of things. Then she spreads them out and works
on a project, usually dealing with only one of the many things
she has gathered up. She is definitely a collector and likes keeping
and hiding things in bags and all over her room!

An example of little miss bag lady...
a bag full of stuff on the front, to the side and
a stuffed backpack on her back!

Oh boy... Kimbri dressed Garrett up like a girl.
It's a good think Garrett is getting a brother soon!

Garrett is supposed to be Merida, from "Brave"

I added a felt Wonder Woman symbol on a
red shirt for Kimbri's super hero fun run at school.

Kimbri is always writing notes to people. She's
so thoughtful and sweet that way.

Another lost tooth!

So we recently found out that Kimbri needs glasses. We had wondered on occasion if we should get her eyes checked but she has never once said anything about feeling like stuff was hard to see, so we didn't really ever do anything about it. One day one of her primary teachers asked if we had ever had her eyes checked. Apparently she recognized some things that her daughters had manifested right before needing glasses that were similar to what Kimbri and been doing in class. I figured we'd better at least take her in to get checked.

The first counselor in our ward, Brother Skinner, is an eye doctor so we just set up an appointment with him. They did some tests and after checking her eyes, Bro. Skinner wanted to dilate them and check one more time to make sure, since he said he was surprised at the results. He checked again and confirmed that Kimbri is farsighted. She can see things that are far away a lot clearer than close up things. So weird!

Her eyes when they got dilated, hahaha.

What her prescription ended up being.

The large leprechaun that Kimbri made at school.

Then everyone wanted a picture with the leprachaun.

Kimbri came home from school one day wanting to dress up
and then requested I do her hair in 2 princess buns. 

We did hair and then painted her toenails and fingernails.

Then of course Brenna wanted to join in on the fun! 

I love her attitude in this picture, haha! Too funny.

After getting all dressed up she wanted
to FaceTime Gma Tammy and show her.

We went to story time at the library with Kelsey,
Grey, and Tenlee. Then they had a springtime
craft for the kids to do afterward.

Kimbri wanted me to take a picture of her and
the Easter quiet book page I made for them.

Rick's schedule has been so crazy this year that every time there
has been a daddy/daughter  breakfast or dance, they haven't been
able to go together. So one night he took Kimbri out on a date.
He said she could pick where they went to eat and she picked
Texas Roadhouse. When they got there it was an hour wait
so Rick convinced her that Logan's Roadhouse would be just as
good. She said as long as their rolls had cinnamon butter too, ha!

Garrett's leprechaun he made at preschool.

Brenna loved looking at the fish at Walmart.

Toward the end of March when all the butterflies at emerged from their cocoons and had been our "pets" for a while, we decided we should let them enjoy the great outdoors for at least a portion of their life. So after Kimbri got home from school one day, we set them free. 

One of them fell into the water bowl right before trying to let them go and then it couldn't fly. So the kids took turns holding it and then they made a little home for it in a bin outside with flowers, grass, sticks and shells.

The kids enjoying a frozen Gogurt outside.

The injured butterfly (the one that
fell in the water bowl).

The last day in March was great! It was the first day of General Conference, but since we live 2 hours ahead, conference didn't actually start for us until 12pm. So we decided to get up and make Mickey Mouse waffles with ice cream and strawberry syrup complete with whipped cream! After breakfast I took Kimbri to pick up her new glasses and we went to Old Navy afterward to stock up on flip flops for everyone for the summer. Pretty much everyone had grown out of their sandals from last year and Old Navy was having a sale. Kimbri loved trying on the shoes and picking out some different colors. We also got the girls, Kimbri & Brenna, cute little spring dresses that were green with a floral print. I'll have to make sure and get a picture of them both when they wear them.

Kimbri loved trying on her new dress and wanted to keep posing and wanted me to keep taking picture after picture. Haha. She loves to be in the spotlight!

They had these fun springtime crowns at Old
Navy that Kimbri wanted to stop and color.

That about wraps up March for our family! 

I'm always feeling like I'm paying catch-up with the blog. But I really am trying to catch up before the baby comes! I want to be better about writing more thoughts I have or more details of things our family does day-to-day instead of just dumping a ton of photos with brief explanations, although pictures are always fun to look back on. Hopefully I can do better though! I think this will be a really fun "family history" of sorts to look back on someday.

Brenna

Whenever I pull out and old dress or piece of clothing that I wore as a little girl and put Brenna in it, I of course have to take a lot of pictures :) Every parent thinks their kids are adorable but isn't she just adorable?! And having her wear something that you used to wear as a little girl adds a whole other layer of sentimentality. 

Also, Brenna has been on a kick lately with requesting curly hair for church. We have 1pm church so it has been easy to honor her requests, haha. When the new baby comes I'm not sure if I'll always have time to indulge in doing her hair but I'm loving it in the meantime! Her little blond curly locks are just too cute!

That hand on her hip though! So cute and sassy!

This little pink sweater with sheep on it was also mine as a little girl. I remember seeing pictures in a photo album of me at age 2 wearing this when I had a broken leg. I had a pink sweater to match my pink cast. Now I have a little girl that is wearing the same sweater 26 years later... and her little smile just melts my heart!

Raleigh, NC ~ Childrens Museum

We have always loved taking the kids to children's museums! There is always so much exploring that can be done and the kids always looove going! We had a pass to the Phoenix Children's Museum when we lived in AZ and then we ended up getting one to the Salt Lake City museum when we lived in Utah for the last year of med school. So, we figured we should check out the Raleigh museum here in NC. 

The kids had a blast with their water table area, the pirate ship, the hockey rink, making race cars, doing crafts, playing on the pretend animals, doing the kid-size exercise equipment, the play kitchen area, and the list goes on. It was fun to go on a little family outing together. 

We also decided to swing by Trader Joe's, a grocery store that is up that way in Raleigh, because that's the closest one to our house which is about an hour away. We lived close to one in AZ and there are a few things we love from that store so we decided to stock up on some of our faves. Like for example, orange chicken, pesto pizza w/ broccoli and tomatoes, and Rick tried out some of the Asian food. Yum!

These crate things stuck out from the wall so
underneath your feet is a huge drop off. It was
so scary but Garrett had no fear!

Rick's 29th Birthday

Rick has officially started his last year in his 20's. Next year will be the big 30... wow! 

On Rick's actual birthday, he was on a rotation that he was going to get home by about 4pm. I thought about making the cake during the day so it would be done and ready but Kimbri begged me to wait until after she got home from school to make it. So I figured I could have everything else ready and just focus on the cake as soon as she got home.

Well, as you can see from the first picture on this post the cake-making process did NOT go well, hahaha. Trying to cook a cake quickly and with 3 kids that are "helping" doesn't always work out so good. So yeah, I forgot to add the flour and this is how a cake turns out when you forget flour:

So, you would know that as soon as I pull out all the ingredients to start remaking the cake, I realize we used all the cocoa on the last cake. Greeeaaattt.... so I load up all the kids in the van as fast as possible and run down to the store to grab more cocoa. Rick totally beat us home and was there when we got back! A meltdown from Kimbri ensued because she REALLY wanted the cake to be a surprise. I explained to Rick what happened and he took the kids all upstairs to play while I began remaking the cake. 

And then this happened:

Of course my whisk would decide to break in the middle of making the new cake! Luckily I had pretty much finished using it but still, the craziness of it all!

The first cake vs. the second cake.

The second cake actually turned out
really yummy and great!

A birthday picture from Garrett to Dad.

To go with the Texas sheet cake, we also got Moose Tracks
ice cream because that's a kind Rick really likes.

Left: picture of a cake with candles from Kimbri
Right: picture from Garrett to Dad.

Kimbri wrote this birthday card to Daddy

More cards for dad from Kimbri.

I forgot to mention that the main birthday present for Rick was a new tv! We got a tv for our wedding that was just a little bigger than the size of a computer monitor, (read: very small) and recently Rick has been talking of maybe saving up for a big tv someday. Cosette heard of his wish and gathered money from her parents and some of their siblings and then I put in some money I had earned from Etsy and we were able to give him cash to go pick out a new tv! He was completely surprised and soooo excited about it! It was really nice of Cosette to do that! 

As a side note, in the middle of the whole cake fiasco, I received these flowers on the front porch from Zach and Jessica. They work together and had decided to send me some flowers because they said Cosette had mentioned Rick had just finished a crazy rotation where we didn't get to seem hime much. It was so thoughtful of them and the flowers were so beautiful. It meant so much to me! 

Rain & Tornado Warnings

One day we were waiting for Kimbri to get off the bus and be home from school. Right as her bus rounded the corner the rain went from not pouring too bad, to MAJORLY pouring! It was so bad that the bus driver, who is also Kimbri's assistant teacher, dropped the kids off at the bus stop only two houses down (most of the parents were waiting with cars for them to hop in), and then drove Kimbri down to our house and let her off so she could book it to the front porch! It was so sweet of Ms. Clark to do that for her. 

However, by the time she got to the front porch she had the idea sparked into her brain that she wanted to play in the rain. It was raining hard, but there was no lightening or thunder and it was warm. So I figured, why not?! They all had the time of their lives!!! The gutters were super full and flowing with water so they ran back and forth and splashed and had a grand old time. 

Can't you just see the happiness on their faces?

Well, after the thrill and fun getting soaked, they did all get
a little chilly and wanted to snuggle in their towels by the fire.

Later on that evening we got alerts on our phones that there was a tornado warning for the area. I decided it might be fun for them to set up camp in the closet underneath the stairs and to make them a little picnic dinner. We propped up flashlights so they could see and spread out the picnic blanket for them to eat on. They had PB&Js, cuties, and pretzels. They all thought it was a fun little way to eat dinner :)