Derrick's Fifth Birthday

Usually when we are coming up on Derrick's birthday I think, "what? He's turning three? I already thought he was three?" or "Oh I've been telling people that Derrick is four for weeks now, I'm glad we can make it official."  But this year I was like, "What? He's turning five already! How is that possible?"

I just can't believe that he's five. Five just seems so grown up. One minute he was this little baby, and now he'd getting ready for Kindergarten. Wow.

This year we decided that it would be fun to do a dinosaur themed birthday for Derrick.  I know that a train themed party would be the obvious choice, but honestly we live and breath trains every day in this family.  I wanted to do something a little different.  (And maybe help guide Derrick toward other interests.)  Besides, in the 5 months we've lived here we've already been to the Ogden Train Museum, ridden Frontrunner, ridden Trax, gone to a model train show, ridden the little train in the mall - twice, and have plans to go to the Golden Spike National Historic Site in May.  We've done pretty much every low-cost train related thing in the area. 

But we haven't done any of Utah's dinosaur related things yet.  And I really wanted to take the kids to the Eccles Dinosaur Park in Ogden. Going there for Derrick's birthday seemed perfect. 

The kids were on Spring Break this whole week (I'll blog more about that later.)  I had work so Brandon took care of directing the kids in the art of making and frosting Derrick's cake. We'd bought dinosaur figures to put on the cake, but Brandon ended up decorating it so well it didn't even need the dinosaurs. (It's a volcano, a river, and dinosaur bones in case you can't tell.)

 On Friday night Charlotte and Lydia stayed up and helped me blow up balloons. I'd picked these out because they looked so happy.

 And I picked these out because they looked like dinosaur eggs.

 When Derrick woke up this morning the girls directed his to the balloons right away.  I heard him say something like, "Oh WOW, Happy Balloons!" He carried around three balloons most of the morning.

Since Derrick's birthday was on a Saturday I decided to invite our siblings and their kids along for the activity at the Dinosaur Park.  This was for two reasons.  The first, and most important reason, was because we love our family and we were excited to celebrate one of our kids' birthday's with them for the first time since Charlotte and Lydia were two.  The other reason was that we would get a group rate discount if we had a group of 10 or more people.

Brandon's sister Melanie would be out of town with her family for Spring Break, so unfortunately she couldn't make it.  But Shannon and her kids said they could make it.  My sister Hillary and her husband were also excited to come.  And of course Brandon's parents would come.  So I called and reserved us a spot several weeks ago.

The weather ended up being a little iffy (it was snowing while we ate breakfast) and Shannon was worried about making the drive.  So she had to cancel.  Hillary's husband had to take a final, so he couldn't make it either.  We missed them but we also understood.

For a few minutes I was tempted to just cancel the whole trip and try again on a day with better weather, but the kids still wanted to go so I decided to just go along with the original plan.

I'm glad I did because the weather improved on our way down to Ogden.  We could see blue sky as we came out of the canyon.  We drove to the Dinosaur Park and the kids could see some of the dinosaur statues on the other side of the fence.  They were so excited.  Derrick immediately started saying, "Help me out." and trying to get out of his seat belt.  We got the kids out of the car and they RAN to the museum entrance.

Derrick noticed some brochures for the Golden Spike Historic Spike right when we walked into the building.  I was like, "how did you even see those."  He wanted one so I gave it to him, he started jabbering on about Dinosaur-Train.

We'd brought umbrellas, but it wasn't raining at the moment so I decided that we should see all the outside statues first before going into the museum part.  So we went out there. The kids had so much fun running around and looking at the dinosaurs.

 Later we were joined by Brandon's parents, and my sister Hillary.  Veronica was so excited to see Hillary.  She kept saying, "Hillary wook - Dinosaurs."  Later we all talked about our favorite part of the day and Veronica said her's was, "Seeing Hillary."

 This wasn't Derrick's first time here.  We'd come here in the summer of 2014 when he was two.  Back then he could barely talk.  He couldn't even say "Choo Choo Choo" when he played with his train.  Instead he's say, "Boo Boo Boo."  But when we walked into the park he started growling at all the dinosaurs.  I didn't even know he knew about dinosaurs.

This time he ran around and yelled, "Dinosaur!"  They had some dinosaur noises playing and Derrick would keep saying, "Hear it Mommy? Hear the dinosaur?"

 I really like this place and how each of the dinosaurs is posed differently.  It's fun.

 I kept trying to get a picture of Derrick, but he didn't want to pose for me.  He just wanted to look at the dinosaurs.

 The first time I came to the park was with Brandon when the twins were babies.  Brandon posed with this dinosaur and Charlotte and Lydia have always loved the picture.  Charlotte wanted to reenact it with her.

 Derrick and Veronica wanted to do it too.

 And I like this one of Lydia protecting Charlotte.

 And of course Brandon and I had to jump up there too.  This perfectly illustrates how well we are handling life this year.

A little bit after this picture was taken Derrick did something that surprised me.  He walked by another family and said Hello to a little boy who was about his age.  The boy didn't say anything so Derrick said, "Say Hi" and then the boy said hi.  Derrick showed the boy his "Dinosaur-Train" brochure and said some other stuff.  Then he said bye.  I've never seen Derrick initiate a conversation with a stranger before.  It was amazing. 

 The kids got really into posing in front of the dinosaurs.

 We through this was pretty funny.

 After we had walked by all the statures outside we decided to go inside.  This is where the best part of the whole park was waiting for us.  They have an anamatronic display set up.  The T-Rex and the Tricerotops move and look like they are getting ready for a fight.

 The kids LOVED it.  Derrick and I actually came back to this display a little later and watched it for about 15 minutes.  (Thankfully they have chairs against the wall so we could just sit in those.)

 Last time we came here Charlotte and Lydia had been so worried about the baby dinosaurs that they had prayed to Heavenly Father to keep them safe.  Charlotte was still pretty concerned about them.

 There were also gems and other cool rocks on display upstairs.

The rest of the museum was displays of fossils.  

There was a little place for the kids to color.  Derrick gave me a second surprise and said he wanted to color.  He scribbled on a paper while saying, "Rarrr" and then he told me, "It's a dinosaur picture." I've hardly ever seen him scribble, let alone say that he was actually drawing anything.  

 We'd been at the museum for about two hours when everyone decided they were done.  Originally I'd been thinking that we'd find somewhere to roast hot dogs for lunch, but the iffy weather had canceled the plan.  Instead we planned to just go back home and have sandwiches and hot dogs. Derrick was super happy to have all of his favorite foods; hot dogs, chips, and root beer.

 Brandon had bought large french bread loaves and we'd put together a big sandwich before we went to the park.  When we came back to the house all we had to do was cut it.  Everyone could add the whatever extra toppings they wanted.

 After lunch we brought out Derrick's cake and put the toy dinosaurs around it.  Derrick was so excited to see everything.  He kept saying, "Dinosaurs."

 We lit candles and sang Happy Birthday, but Derrick got upset by the loud singing and was kind of flustered with the candles.  That was the only time he was grumpy the whole day.

 He was happier when it came time to eat the cake and ice cream.  Brandon's dad, Steve, put the dinosaur near Derrick's ice cream and Derrick thought it was funny.  All the girls wanted dinosaurs to pretend to eat their ice cream too.

 And then it was present time.  We got Derrick a few things that he would like. ( A train/alphabet puzzel, a plush Charlie Brown doll, and a car garage.)

 But let's be honest here, certain siblings were almost more excited about the toys.

 Derrick's favorite presents were the train hat and train shirt that Steve and Jacque got him.

 I assumed the bought the shirt, but really they hadn't been able to find one they liked.  So being Illguth's they just made one.  Steve drew this train.  Let me repeat that, he drew this train!  He did it on Adobe Illustrator and printed it out on iron-on transfer paper.  Then they ironed it onto the t-shirt.  Derrick wanted to wear it right away.  And he'll probably want to wear it every day for the next week.

That was the end of our plans for Derrick's birthday.  He spent time playing with his toys.  Hillary gave Charlotte and Lydia haircuts, and we later gave Hillary a tour of the RV.  After she left I took Derrick and Veronica to the library.  Derrick had been talking about getting Dumbo from the library for several days so I figured today would be a good day to do that.  We also looked for "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" because Derrick heard about it on a pre-view for another Charlie Brown movie.  Seriously he has been repeating, "I want to watch It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown on DVD" for at least two weeks. They didn't have that movie, but they did have Dumbo.

On the way back we drove through a crazy storm where it started out raining and then turned to sleet. I'm also pretty certain I saw lightning strike the ground.

Derrick wanted me to watch Dumbo with him so I cuddled up with him on the couch. Watching Dumbo always reminds me of back when Derrick didn't talk at all.  Both of them have big blue eyes and are so expressive even without words.  And I like to think that there are similarities between Dumbo's big ears and Derrick's autism.  Both things can be seen as a problem, but there is also a lot of potential for greatness

As much as I love Dumbo I couldn't stay awake during it.  I've seen that movie like 500 times (it was on Netflix when Veronica was a baby, and now we get it from the library at least once a month).  So I dozed while Derrick and Veronica watched the movie.  Brandon made waffles for dinner and we ate those as soon as the movie was over.

We'd also picked up Wreck it Ralph from the library so we watched that for movie night. It's been about 3 years since we watched that so everyone was really into it.

And then it was bedtime.  Derrick was actually willing to take off his train shirt and hat.  He climbed into bed and just seemed so content.

There are a thousand things I could say about Derrick.  How he's so enthusiastic about things, how he has the most contagious laugh, how he is generally the most cheerful little boy.  But right now I just want to say that I'm so glad he's mine. Derrick is one of a kind. I love all my kids, but there's something about the bond between a mother and her son. I'm glad that he became my buddy 5 years ago.

Time Marches On

The memory section of Facebook has been pretty interesting to look at this past month.  I can't believe all the things that have happened each March over the past few years.  Here's a brief run-down that kind of illustrates the crazy twist and turns of our lives. 

March 2010 - Brandon and I decided that he should stop trying to get his commercial airline license through Utah State University.  Instead he changed his major to an Interdisciplinary Degree which meant that he could graduate that May. We started making plans to move away from Logan and to Bountiful as soon as possible. 

March 2011 - The twins were 5 months old and super cute.  We were also super poor and yet hoping that Brandon's job as a gate agent for Frontier Airlines would pan out. (Spoiler alert:  it didn't)

March 2012 - Brandon did all the paperwork to join the Army and we started counting down to his actual enlistment date in September  of that year.  We were also eagerly anticipating Derrick's birth any day (though he made us wait until April.)

March 2013 - We were living in Fort Hood, Texas, I was in my first trimester with Veronica, and Brandon was just staring the process to start his Warrant Officer Packet to apply to be a helicopter pilot in the Army.

March 2014 - Brandon was in Korea.  Meanwhile I was living in Texas with the kids. Veronica was 4 months old, Derrick was almost two years old, and Charlotte and Lydia were three and a half. Brandon was still working on his packet, but was close to being able to submit it.  

March 2015 - Brandon went to Fort Rucker to attend the Warrant Officer Career College. The kids and I were still in Fort Hood preparing for our move to Fort Rucker in May.

March 2016 - Brandon finished the Primary Phase of flight school and selected Black Hawks as his aircraft.  We hoped he'd have some downtime between training, but he ended up only having about 3 weeks off.  This did not bode well for how Blackhawk training would go.    

March 2017 - Brandon is out of the Army. We are all living with Brandon's parents in Utah, I work in the accounting office at a Ski Resort, and we are preparing for a summer living in Yellowstone followed by Brandon going to school in Pocatello, Idaho for his A&P License in the Fall.

If I had made a seven year plan back in 2010 it wouldn't have looked anything like the synopsis I just gave you. 

But really I've quite enjoyed the twists and turns of our lives these past few years.  Even if some of the plot twists have scared me while I was living them. 

So let's talk about this month.  

First up.  It's SPRING.  We made it through the winter! Part of me is so happy that it's finally spring.  And part of me is kind of depressed that it's spring and yet we are still living here.  I really thought we would have moved by now.  But I didn't anticipate the Federal Hiring Freeze, and so here we still are. But at least it's stopped snowing. 

We went out looking for RV's the Saturday after I found out I had the yellowstone job.  The first one on our list was in Pleasant Grove which is in Utah County.  It was a good RV, but a little squishy feeling in the back area.  So we didn't get it.  After looking at the RV we took the kids to Cabella's near the point of the mountain.  They loved looking at the fish. 

And all the stuffed animals.

This store as some really cool displays.

They also liked looking the fish in this pond.

After we looked around the store we had  little picnic on some tables outside the store.

The kids ran around and collected rocks and sticks and had a great time.  Brandon and I were like, "yeah, our kids will do just fine living in Yellowstone all summer."  Lydia is sad in this picture because we told her she couldn't take the stuff home with her.

Here's Charlotte with her stick.

After that we drove to see our next RV which was in Eagle Mountain.  This was was okay, but a little trashy.  Then we went to the third one in Tooele.  We went around the back way and it was fun to drive on roads that neither of us had ever traveled on. The third RV was just about perfect, but slightly out of our price range.  Still I wanted to buy it.  I told the guy we would let him know the next day.

Brandons' sister Shannon lives in Tooele so we went to her house for dinner and hanging out.  Charlotte wasn't feeling well and Shannon put in Frozen to help her feel better.  Charlotte wanted me to sit with her so I sat and watched the whole movie.  It was the most fun I've ever had with that movie.  Now that all the hype has faded I could watch the movie a lot more objectively.  Anna and Olaf made me laugh so much.  And Veronica loves the songs.  She can sing every word of Let it Go.

The next day I showed her this dress and told her that Lydia used to call it her "Anna Dress."  That made Veronica want to wear it to church.  She calls it her "Anna Dress" too.

Charlotte and Lydia made this tower thing with all their animals and they wanted me to take a picture with it.

Brandon still wasn't sure we had found the RV for us and so he looked at KSL classifieds one last time and found one advertised for $1900.  Plus it was a class C which is the model that we wanted.  (The one on tooele was a class A)  He decided to take our brother in law, Justin, to go look at both RVs to help him make the decision.  So on Monday afternoon Brandon and Justin went on a RV shopping road-trip.  

Justin was a great second opinion and was totally awesome to sacrifice his time to help us out.  He and Brandon ended up deciding on the other RV.  Brandon called me and told me about it and I trusted him and Justin enough to give them a go ahead even though I hadn't seen it. 

They helped the owner clean out the RV and he knocked another $100 off the price.  So we became home owners for $1800. 

Brandon drove the RV and Justin followed him in the Jeep.  The RV made it all the way from the Southern end of the Salt Lake Valley to the Maverick 1/2 mile away from our house before it died.  Fortunately a nice man with a huge truck and a tow strap just happened to stop and help tow the RV to the house.  I'll admit I was a little worried when I saw the RV get towed to the house, but the guys assured me that it ran well - it just needed a tune up.

It was about 10:00 pm by the time the guys showed up, and so it was super dark outside.  But Brandon took me out to the RV and gave me a tour with a flashlight.  I could see that this was going to work perfectly.  

The next morning we took the kids out to see the RV before we took them to school.  They were so excited.  Derrick immediately said, "I want to go faster."  Which meant he wanted to drive in it.  Veronica kept calling it the RB.

Over the next few days Brandon was able to get it running again and we moved the RV to a spot next to the garage.  If you want to see pictures of the inside you can visit my travel blog here.

Amid all the RV stuff we realized it was almost St Patrick's Day.  I kind of regret doing big things in the past because now the kids expect something fun, even though I'm not in the mood.  Thankfully Brandon was in the mood to be the leprechaun this year.

He helped the kids set traps for the Leprechaun.  And then, after they had gone to bed, he had fun springing them.  This one was a snare trap that was supposed to catch the leprechaun's leg (this is what happens when you put a SEER graduate in charge of setting traps), but the leprechaun got out of it by taking off his boot.

And in this one the leprichuan cut his way out of the box.  The girls were so surprised to see this.  One of them asked me, "how did he know what his shape looked like?"  Lydia ended up taking the cut out shape to school for show and tell.

As always the leprechaun left green pee in the toilet.  But this year there were no green foot prints.

And he left Lucky Charms for the kids to eat for breakfast.

There was one thing I was excited about.  I wanted to try out this thing I saw on pinterest. It said we could use food spray paint on oreos to turn them gold.  In reality they were more yellowish colored, but they still tasted good. 

On Saturday we spent a lot of the day working in the RV.  The kids helped wash walls, but they also spent a lot of time watching netflix. 

Derrick found one of his train brochures.  He wanted to look at certain pictures, but they were on separate pages.  So we ended up cutting them out.  He helped cut a few of the papers.  Then we glued them to a paper.  He was so excited about this project and ended up adding about 5 more pictures to the paper after I took the picture. This was his first art project that he ever initiated.

Meanwhile, Lydia did her own impressive thing.  She learned how to ride a bike without training wheels.  She is so proud of herself.

Here's Derrick pushing Veronica around.

And all the kids playing in the driveway. 

I've been doing a few projects in the RV and apparently I keep handing my camera to Veronica because I have several pictures that look like this.

Here's Veronica and Derrick hanging out in the RV while we work on some project or other.

On Friday night we went to the Tree House Museum in Odgen because that's when they have a discounted price.  I met Brandon and the kids there after work.  We had a lot of fun.  However, I took pictures with Brandon's camera and I don't know where I put it so those pictures will have to wait. 

Ever since we moved here I've felt like we were missing some of our clothes.  And on Saturday we found the box with the wayward clothes.  Lydia's bat costume was there.  She has been so sad and now she is so happy again.  

We also found a box of clothes that had lots of dresses that I was saving for Veronica to grow into. When Charlotte and Lydia were Veronica age/size they LOVED dresses.  So we have a lot.  But Veronica doesn't really care for them as much.  She had about 3 or 4 dresses that she likes to wear to church, and usually she just wants to wear the black one which she calls her "fancy dress."  But I hung up all the dresses in the hopes that she'll show interest.

On Saturday afternoon I took the kids down to visit my sister Hillary while Brandon stayed home and had some quality time with the RV.  (He was so happy to have time to work on projects without kids underfoot - I can totally relate.)  Derrick had been asking all week to "see Hillary's Kitty Cat" so he was happy to go there.  I was hoping to take the kids to play in Liberty Park, but it ended up raining.  Still we had a great time at Hillary's.  The kids love watching America's Funniest Home Videos every time we visit her.  And she taught them how to play mario cart and the Wii bowling game.  

On Monday I was able to work on curtains for the RV all day.  I'm going to put an in-depth post about all of our projects up on the travel blog, but here is a little sneak peak of the curtains and the white boards and cork boards that Brandon put up.  (Ignore all the tools and other junk)

Charlotte started drawing a picture on Monday night and by Tuesday night it had turned into a 14 foot story board.

It's all about two cats named Pearl and Bug.  (She thinks purring is called pearling, and I really don't feel like correcting something so cute.)

All the pictures show the cats celebrating different holiday's.  Thesse two of Pearl eating the Thanksgiving Turkey down to just bones are probably my favorite.

And that pretty much sums up our March.

It's kind of interesting to think about what life will be like in March of 2018.  We'll be living in Pocatello, Brandon will be in school, I'll be working somewhere, Charlotte and Lydia will be in first grade, Derrick will be in Kindergarten, and Veronica will probably be in Head Start.  Its going to be very different from this year.

If there'e one thing I know for sure, its that life is always changing and that it can change fast.  So enjoy what you are doing now because you never know what things will change in the future.