Catching Up

Our weather can't make up it's mind. It starts to get warm and then it gets cold again. Well, a week and a half ago we had some nice warm weather so I took the girls to the park for some play time. Alice sure enjoyed getting out after being sick for a few days. They insisted that we go to the "Farm" park, which is a fairly new park out on Midway. It happened to be the same day I was taking Nikki to the Nampa Bowl to finally hang out with some friends. I dropped her off and we headed straight to the park and played for an hour. There were lots of kids and parents there all with the same idea. The girls had a great time!

That looks really uncomfortable to me but she was having fun!

A nice big cow to climb on.

The next day we went to church as usual and the girls got to bring home these crowns  to color and cut out. They were just a little too short in length so I had to print an extra off so we could lengthen the band. It's their "Crown of Righteousness".

On Monday the 15th I decided to try a new hair style on Alice while she was watching a movie. This was a style I did on Nikki when she was little. Alice loved it so much that she had me do it on her every day last week. Once I tried to do it on Charlotte. She wore it for about a minute and didn't like it. She settled for a ponytail instead.

See how thrilled Charlotte looks.

It was kind of nice again so we went to West Park. (Notice that Charlotte's hair is  now in a ponytail with her hair falling out of it.) 

Last Friday was a busy day. We had just found out the previous night that the boys Garrett's age (the Teachers) were going on a campout to Bruneau Sand Dunes from Friday to Saturday. Garrett was asked if he could go up early to help set up camp so we scrambled to get him packed that night. Bright and early the next morning at 8am I took Nikki to her orthodontist appointment where she would be getting her braces on. It was going to take about an hour and a half so I took Garrett to Walmart to get him a fishing license because they said they would be doing some fishing on the campout. We also picked up some snacks for him. Then we went back home for him to load up his gear and take him over to the leader's house. Right after dropping him off I went and picked up Nikki. Now all 3 of my oldest have their braces on and the appointments will be about every 5 to 6 weeks so I can breathe a little. We had so many appointments at the beginning to get things going.

The leader's wife sent me some pictures. She went along since they brought their camper.

I don't think I've been here since I was a kid. It's looks so pretty!

After 2 1/2 years from her initial ortho exam we're finally making it happen! The good thing about having waited to do her teeth is that since we're doing multiple kids they are giving us a family discount on each of them.

Later that morning I dropped Nikki off at a friend's birthday party and then in the afternoon I took Alice to have her speech checked a little more thoroughly. It was nice because the gal who did part of her screening and then the speech test happened to be our primary president from church. Alice did very well on speaking loudly and repeating when asked. I told her it's a good thing she didn't have to do Garrett because it's so hard to get him to talk, even now, because he's so shy and quiet. Alice definitely needs help with speech so I will be waiting for them to schedule a weekly time to start coming in for therapy. It will probably be Fridays.

Sunday was another day for me to try and do something a little different on the girls' hair since most of the time all they have me do is brush it. Alice actually told me while I was brushing her hair to make her look beautiful. It wasn't much but she did like what I did. Charlotte didn't want me to do her hair but I did anyway and this time she kept it in.

To help keep their hair from falling into their faces I braided the side that had more hair and then pulled it into the ponytail. 

It was a fairly nice day again on Sunday so Curtis and I took Charlotte and Alice down the road to the dam at Lake Lowell and walked across it. The girls brought their bikes while we walked.

At one point we stopped and looked over the edge and saw this little brown colored animal sitting on the rocks. I'm not exactly sure what he is, maybe a rock chuck?

Curtis ran into an old high school friend while coming back across the dam. The girls took off way ahead of us so I had to go catch them and then I took them down to the water.

While we were gone Garrett and Jack were busy baking some chocolate chip cookies. For fun they decided to bake them in muffin cups to see how they would turn out. They were yummy as usual! Kind of a fun way to do them though.

That evening we did a come follow me lesson. We seem to only do those once or twice a week now with Curtis studying. This week was about putting on the armor of God. The girls got to put on some armor. Charlotte was so excited about it because she had heard about this lesson earlier that day in primary. 

Alice

Charlotte

Finally we're in Spring break this week! Well, technically it started on Friday since the kids didn't have school that day. Monday was a lazy day for all of us. I spent most of my time looking online trying to find a car to buy for Nikki to drive. I almost got scammed. I finally decided that I just need to wait until Curtis is done with his test so that he can help me with car hunting. However, because I have been looking now Nikki has been a little more proactive about practicing driving again. She will drive to work and then I'll drive the van home. She also drove to and from the library when I took her. She had homework to work on still. 

I was happy that later that evening Charlotte discovered the hat looms in the office so she got Nikki to help her learn how to do it. 

This is as far as she got after working on it Monday night and Tuesday morning. She hasn't worked on it since so we'll see if she finishes.

Yesterday was better because I went to the Rec Center with Jack and walked but then after we came home we got busy doing chores. Nikki said that it was good that we did chores in the morning because that woke her up and got her motivated to do work at the library.

Today was a little relaxed again since I had to take Jack in for his allergy check up. It had been 2 1/2 years since he was last seen so I figured I better do it before they consider him a new patient again. His condition has pretty much stayed the same for his dairy allergy so that's one reason I waited so long. I knew he wasn't ready to take a milk challenge. He can have dairy in things but not straight yet.

Later I took the boys and the two little girls to go clothes shopping. Sometimes I take the time to go thrifting but today I just went to Walmart. Our main objective was to look for swim suits but I also picked out some other clothes for the girls. I love getting them matching outfits!

Charlotte really wanted this outfit so I got one for both girls. Alice wanted it too because Charlotte wanted it. She's in that phase where she wants to do whatever her big sister is doing.

I told the girls I didn't want them getting a swim suit that showed their belly. I was a little surprised after Charlotte looked at lots of other types she decided she wanted this one and of course Alice had to match her big sister. It will be nice not having to put so much sunscreen on!

Whew! I think that's all I'm going to write about for tonight. It's hard trying to catch up from the last two weeks.