March

Riley joined "sundance singers" a choir at her school. Anyone can join and they practice once a week and have a handful of performances throughout the year. At The beginning of march she performed t the literacy fair. They have TONS of arts and crafts following the "world famous sundance singers" (that's what the principal always tells them and Riley believes it!)

    While the singers were getting ready they did a few games with the other kids. Braden and Max got to go to the stage and hold a 2liter soda bottle straight out as long as they could. Braden made it to the top 3 before his dropped! And Max never quite got his arms straight out haha. They each got a certificate for a free milk shake for playing. 

Clifford was there walking around and Max was cracking me up. He loved spying on him but would NOT get close to him at all!

When they got home they were begging to play in the rain...I finally said ok and it turned muddy fast! We definitely followed up with baths all around. 

Later that day we dropped the 3 older kids off to Lynne and Max so josh and I could go out to eat. They were at their young women fundraiser dinner which was carnival themed and put together SOOO well. 

     Reese enjoying her tummy time on one of my old baby blankets. 

She did NOT like her first taste of rice cereal! It was hilarious to watch. Poor girl :)

   Braden finally had enough of a growth spurt for me to take his training wheels off. I think he would of been ready last summer but he was too short to reach the ground while sitting in his bike. He can reach his tip toes now-just enough! He didn't want to try but was willing to try for me. And i am so proud of him. I just gave him a push and he took off! I ran next to him the first time to ease his nerves but he didn't need me at all! He just needs help starting and he does great!

         Cuddling up with daddy

Grancy came to visit and she always brings a surprise...sunflowers for me to plant and silly string for the boys!

Max has found a "love" (too strong of a word?) for broccoli and likes to eat it like a dinosaur...

Max has also taken to potty training all on his own. I mean we encourage it but I'm definetly not forcing it or really bringing it up. I'm too busy/lazy to do so. He started to get really good about telling us when he has go#2 but only sometimes tells us before he has to pee. I hope it sticks! It's been easy so far but he definitely still wears diapers...I let him go in underwear until he pees on them the. I switch back to a diaper...I should really stick with it and maybe he will potty train fast!

  4 days before Reese turned 5mths she sat up on her own for close to a minute!

Fun birthday party the kids were invited to...Max had such a wild crazy good time, this jump house place was right up his alley. 

Max was wiped out afterward!

Fun on the trampoline with uncle Adam after dinner one Sunday

                       Skate Park

Me, josh and Reese went to an Ontario reign hockey game. Reese was perfect and just looked around at all the lights and people. 

Josh and Reese! Josh is growing his beard out a bit per my request-so handsome!

We had the opportunity to go to Pretend City for Skyler's 2nd birthday. We had never gone and the kids LOVED it. The party started off in the party room with waffles and all the fun toppings then off to play!

They had lots of cars to drive around in and trafc lights that worked!

Max found this stationary car to drive and some pretty sweet goggles 

Rikeybwas a great grocery store clerk and I have to admit it was fun "shopping"

This water table was amazing! You could build sail boats and use these wind hoses to race them

In the farm section they had real baby chicks to look at

the kids could've stayed all day im sure but after a few hours we had to head back to a wedding. 

I wasnt going to do much for St patty's day, I looked up lots of ideas but as the day came I just didn't have anything set. But I'm a sucker for making sure my kids have a fun experience so I melted some butter and dyed it green to pour over our eggo waffles and cut them into a rainbow shape, a little syrup,4leaf clover sprinkles and there you have it! Poor Riley was soooo hoping the leprechauns would come do something sneaky that she kept saying things like "look that shoe is out! Must've been a leprechaun!" me-"Nooo Riley, it just didn't get put away" she would say things like that allllll morning finally I felt so bad I snuck out to the car and toilet papered the inside. I'm glad I did because she, along with all the other kids LOVED that and thought those sneaky leprechauns were so mischievous!!!

 Reese has almost mastered sitting up this month. She can sit up for a long time but she loves to rock herself and sometimes gets crazy with it and will plop backwards. 

Her first time sitting in the cart like this, she fell quite a few times but did good!

Reese found her toes this month! Anytime she is just in a diaper she automatically grabs those toes, too cute!

More horse back riding. Still doing one hour lesson once a month.  

Opa sure loves Reese

Reese is still not enjoying baby food, besides rice cereal I tried green beans and sweet potatoes. Hates them all! 

I had the chance to go to Time Out For Women an over night conference at the long beach comvention center not put on by our church but LDS people come speak and it was just what I needed. So spiritually uplifting..the speakers were great! I'm not a note taker and man did I feel the need to write down everything!!! The speakers were so funny and also very good delivering a message that made me ponder things. I came away wanting to try a lot harder to be a better friend, daughter, wife and mother. 

I went with Britney, Katie, Becca and Shelley. We drove up friday night grabbed a quick dinner at hooters (pretty funny to eat there during a church confeenece!) and went to listen to speakers and some music. After we drove around to find some

Frozen yogurt and went back to our room.We split a hotel room an stayed up

past 2am talking and laughing. We were up nice and early to eat breakast, pack up and check out of the hotel. We got to the convention center and got better, closer seats and settled in for some amazing speakers. 

Here were my quick notes just so I can look back later and try to remember haha

Such good friends and a great weekend!

Riley had a week of spring break this month and I was itching to get out so I tried to make it fun! 

On Monday we ran some errands, got Braden's birth certificate so we could sign him up for transitional kinder in a couple weeks. Stopped by a fun park too. 

Tuesday I took all 4kids to the LA Zoo

Where I met up with Britney and her two kids. They have a membership with the zoo and somehow got us all in free, so generous!!!

We had a GOOD long day. Got there at 11am and stayed til closing 4:30. 

This was the start of our expedition. 

                   The silly group!

The stinky flamingos 

The rhino

Kids loved to play on this giant snake

The whole group the end of a fuuunnnn filled day

Wish I got more pictures but every time I turned around Max was missing from the stroller scaling some fence...

Wednesday Riley Braden and Max went to Oma's for a fun day while my mom watched Reese so I could attend company orientation for my new job at Maxim (home healthcare agency). (soon after i realized this is not the job for me and started applying elsewhere)

Afterward I met up with josh and we got the kids and took Riley Braden and Reese to a ontarion reign hockey game. We wanted to take Max but didn't think he would sit that long. Even the older kids didnt last!!

  A few highlights from the game were getting there early to see players warm up. The kids stood by the glass and Riley got a puck to the face as she was standing behind the goal. It was funny to see her jump and run her forehead haha. Also one of the players skated over and pounded on the glass right in front of the kids. They LOVED that. 

It wasn't long into the game that they got restless and would NOT sit still. We left early but it was a good experience. 

My mom and stepdad had their trailer in palm springs for two weeks and I took the kids for an all day swimming experience on Thursday. (by now I was feeling the effect of a long busy week but pushed on). 

Grancy and Papa with all their grandkids!

Braden learned how to swim without floaties but is NOT efficient enough yet. He did great for first try and figured out how to poke his head up for a breath and continue swimming. 

Riley was her normal fishy self and did great swimming

Aunt Tami brought her hair stuff and gave  Riley the bangs she has een begging for. I finally gave in thinking it will just grow up

Anyway thinking they would not look good on her and wow! They looked great!!

Reese's first time in a pool!! She wasn't giddy but she wasn't sad at all. So glad to have another water baby!

Grancy and Reese

Some of the group 

my boys

hunter and Braden had a blast playing together! It was fun to watch them. 

Braden gets gutsy

Reese in her cute towel Oma made her, she even fell asleep and took a great nap. 

Max had fun poring and pooring. He shocked me exercised great caution around the water!

We switched to the big pool once it was cleaned and jerry played with the kids for a long time!

Reese playing with some toys while I was busy wrangling the other kids. 

Riley and Max poolside. 

What a great day!!!!

We spent Friday recovering from the week. Laundry, house cleaning and lounging were on our to-do list. 

Saturday we ended the week of spring break with a trip to see great grandma Ruth! She hadn't Seen the kids in a long time. She is getting old and often sick so I wanted to be sure we made this trip since we had the day open (had this planned for past 3weeks)

 My mom tagged along to surprise her. Grandma Ruth looked great and treated us all to mcdonalds!!!

She knows all sorts of poems she sings to the kids. 

And although she doesn't see her grandkids often she has toys for them still! (and always has extra surprise treats for anyone who comes to visit!) I wished she lived closer. Even told her she could live with us!

She was really excited to treat the kids to happy meals and icecream cones

I can't complain. I think we took advantage of march and didn't waste a single minute!