Spring Break

What a fabulous Spring Break we just had!  It gives me hope that this summer will be good, I've been nervous about having 3 kids to entertain and a newborn, with no school to distract the girls and give us a schedule.  But last week went really well so.... we'll see!  

Anyway the first few days were full of relaxing and playing outside, and our first lawn-mowing of the summer.  After watching Eric mow, Owen spent about 20 minutes "mowing" our front lawn, it was hilarious!  He would go back and forth, then over on the side and back, I really think he covered the whole area of the grass, so cute and methodical. :)

 Wednesday of Spring Break Eric took the day off and we went up to Provo, it was so fun.  Owen really wanted to sit in the backseat with his sisters, and he was SO happy when we let him!

We went up to Provo Canyon and played at a park and rode scooters on the River Trail for a while.  I LOVE the river trail, and even though it wasn't pretty because everything is just barely starting to bloom, I was in heaven.  It was a beautiful day and I was all nostalgic- every run I've done on that trail has been either a super long training run or a super long race, all of which are good memories for me!  I am excited to be able to run again in a few months. :)

And then the big day arrived- Thursday we went to St. George (Ivins actually- I really liked it out there!) to Katrina's and Allison and her kids met us there and we had a big 3-day-long cousin party!!  ( Eric stayed home and worked and went on a scout campout.)

It was definitely a little crazy having 9 kids between the 3 of us (including 3 2-year-olds and 2 babies!), especially at mealtimes!  Here is Owen sitting between Caleb and Jenna at breakfast Friday, cute cute.  Caleb is hilarious and Jenna is adorable.

 Owen playing with Seth: actually right here he is trying to stop Seth from grabbing his Cosmo haha, but really Owen loves Seth and kept asking to hold him and talking to him in this cute little voice.  Whitney really liked to talk to him too.

 One of our activities was hiking "the crack" as my kids call it, a little slot canyon the locals call "Fat Man's Misery." Here we are walking there from the car: Jenna running out in front, Caleb and Whitney wanting to be first, Lydia and Owen following the crowd, and Katelyn and Natalie leisurely making their way, talking non-stop!  Then Allison and Katrina with their babies and me with my big belly bringing up the rear. :)  This was pretty much the scene everywhere we went together!

 Owen and Ryder had at least as much fun playing in the dirt as the big kids who went up the slot!  

Owen really likes Ryder too, and it's super cute now that Ryder is walking, he's going to be a fun real playmate soon!

 Yay for sisters and cousins!!  I love this picture, I have a feeling it's going to become a classic!  There are 2 unfortunate things about it though-- how largely pregnant and chubby I am, and that we are missing one little cousin, Evelyn!

 Right after this picture Whitney started doing her favorite thing, climbing, and I kind of noticed Caleb and Katelyn following her, but then we were getting ready to go so I was distracted until suddenly there they were, calling out to us from the rocks above!  Cuties.

 Next we went to the St. George Temple, and I didn't really get a good shot of the kids because Owen refused to stay up by the door.

 So, sorry Allison for this picture of your behind!  I'll steal a better one from you when you post it on your blog. :)

 Love these little blond twinners, born just 2 weeks apart!  

 And these twins too: our next stop was a splash park, and we discovered Caleb and Owen have matching swim shirts. :)  Whenever Caleb wasn't running around with Whitney, Owen let him lead him around, it was SO cute.  

 I didn't even get any pictures of the girls, because they literally never stopped moving long enough for me to even talk to them, but they had a LOT of fun!

 So WEEKS after I had planned this trip to St. George with my sisters, we found out my parents would be passing through the same weekend after picking up Jonathan from BYU-Idaho!  Fun surprise!  So Saturday morning the kids woke up to Grammy, Grandpa Jamie, and Uncle Jonathan!  It was a crazy fun time.  We decided to go on a hike that morning to see some petroglyphs, and I brought the stroller in case Owen got tired of walking, but he decided to throw a fit right at the beginning because he wanted me to carry him--not happening buddy!  I can only carry him anywhere for about 30 seconds.  So by the time I got him calmed down (notice the fruit snacks in his hand!) we were way behind and he refused to ride in the stroller.  So here we are happily walking far behind the rest of the family. :)  Soon my mom came back to walk with us and he finally got in the stroller, so we eventually caught up.

 The best part was climbing around on the rocks and finding the petroglyphs.  Here's Whitney with the deer/mountain goats?  I can't remember what they were supposed to be.

 Katelyn, Jenna, and Grandpa Jamie with some cool people, snakes and symbols.

a rock we couldn't get to.  

 The girls really liked the petroglyphs, since they're into history, and Katelyn loves rocks in general!  Also I wish I had taken a picture, almost the whole way back Whitney was walking with Jonathan and he was teasing her and they had a lot of fun, it was cute.

 A few hours later we packed up and went home.  I was so glad I could spend a couple of evenings chatting with my sisters and Phillip, spend a couple of days watching my kids play with their cousins, and spend a few hours catching up with my parents and brother.  Oh and one thing that was really fun was when we drove to the petroglyphs, my parents came in our car and my dad sat in the back between Katelyn and Whitney, and it was super cute I could tell they were really excited and felt special to be sitting by him and talking to him about all kinds of random things.  I can tell my kids listen to all their grandparents differently than they listen to me, it seems like they really pay attention and soak in and believe what they say more!  They know their grandparents are wise I guess. :) 

Anyway I'm grateful Katrina was willing to host us all so I could be sure to see Allison some time this year!  And now we're back to normal life for the last few weeks of school. I just want my baby girl to come, I'm dying to hold her!  But I WILL try to enjoy this time before I have a newborn to take care of. :)