New Camera!!!!

When Brandon and I got married his parents gave us a camera for our wedding present.  That camera went with us on every vacation and every move.  Almost every picture on this blog and www.51centadventures.com was taken with that camera.  During our time in Yellowstone the camera started to show signs of its 10 years of age.  It had a harder time turning on and the zoom focus didn't work any more.  I actually dropped it on Mt Washburn and it started taking fuzzy pictures.  Thankfully that only lasted an hour, but I knew the camera was on it's last legs. 

The camera lasted through the rest of our summer in Yellowstone.  But on August 21st, about an hour before the solar eclipse the camera took it's last picture and then died. I thanked it for it's faithful service.  

Of course I wanted to buy a new camera right away, but there were more pressing financial needs to take care of. I've been using Brandon's camera and my phone for the past six months. They've been okay, but neither one took photos like my old camera.  I kept telling myself that if we got a decent tax refund I would buy a camera.  So I was pretty happy when I did our taxes and found that we had a good amount of money coming to us. Most of the money went into savings (it's how we'll pay the monthly student loan payments this year.) but I kept a portion out for things we needed to buy.  And one of those things was a camera. 

My last camera was a canon and so I wanted another canon.  I prefer point and shoot cameras over DSLR's because I know I'm not a professional photographer. I have my hands full enough with 4 kids, I don't need to be worrying about a fancy camera.  I like something I can just pull out of a bag and grab a candid shot. Plus I saw a tourist in Yellowstone use this camera to zoom in on an owls nest and take a super clear picture.  That made me want this camera.  

I was so happy when I opened the box.  This is my Christmas, Birthday, and Mother's Day present combined.  

 It's been fun to have my own camera again.  In some ways I've kind of felt reluctant to go on any adventures during the past 6 months because I knew I didn't have a camera that would take good enough pictures.  Now that I have a good camera again we can go on adventures again!

And that means I have TONS of pictures for this post. 

Two Saturday's ago I had fun taking random pictures of the kids.  Here's Lydia and her guitar.

 This was supposed to be of just Veronica, but nearly everyone else photobombed it.

 Charlotte.

 And Derrick. 

 And we tested out the macro settings on Derrick's CTR ring.

 Then we had fun making the kids look like they can fly.

 It's so nice to have a camera that can take clear pictures again.

 Well at least most of the time.

 Anyway, after goofing off with that for a while it was time to get going with what we really had planned for the day.  We were going to a "Teddy Bear Clinic" at the hospital.  The kids each picked out one of their stuffed animals to take.  The idea was that if the kids could see their stuffed animals getting help from the doctors and nurses the kids wouldn't be so scared if they ever had to go.

 I thought if we went there right on time we'd beat the crowds, but everyone else must have had that idea because we stood in line for 20 minutes before we even made it into the hospital.  It's kind of good that we did that because Derrick was used to the big group of people before we went inside.  So he actually had a really good time.  The kids got nurse and doctors hats.

 Here's Veronica pretending to put her bear, Lucky, under for a surgery.

 Derrick was so cute with his little Hulk doll.  He wanted to do everything the other kids did.

 This machine demonstrated how well you washed your hands.  Derrick just liked seeing himself glow.

 There was a CPR demo area.

 The animals all got weighed.

 And stitches.

 We learned about tooth brushing. 

 The animals got X-rays.

 Here are Antler, Milky, Lucky, and Hulk after their long morning at the hospital.  The kids said it had been really fun.

 But we weren't done with our adventures for the day yet.  From the hospital parking lot we could look down on Pocatello and see our next destination.

 In the middle of this picture you can barely see some white pillars on top of a hill.  They are kind of hard to see because there is snow behind them.  These pillars are above the ISU campus and I've wanted to hike to them ever since we first visited Pocatello last year.

 The hill is called Red Hill and the trail head is across from the student center.

 It felt good to be hiking again.  We haven't done this in over 6 months.

 One of the booths at the clinic had given out sun glasses.  Derrick was really proud of his pair.

The trail isn't long, but we still felt pretty victorious when we reached the pillars. 

 Here's Lydia celebrating.

 Here's ISU's campus.

 Charlotte celebrating. 

 We had a picnic lunch up on the top.  Even though we haven't done this for 6 months it felt very normal.

 Charlotte and Lydia posing.

 Going down we took a slightly different trail and walked through some snow.

 When we made it back to campus we didn't feel like getting in the car yet.  So we walked around a bit.  Here's the obligatory picture of the Bengal. 

 We found a picnic table and Brandon pulled Nutty Bars out of his bag.  We "toasted" to a new year full of more adventures.

 Obligatory picture with the Buffalo.

 The weather was so perfect.  The kids found a snowball and destroyed it. 

 They all posed on these cement barriers.  I told Brandon that we would recreate this picture after all the kids graduate from ISU.

 Veronica had to use the bathroom so Brandon found an unlocked door at one of the science buildings.  When they came back out Brandon told us that there were fish inside.  So we went to the building to see those.  Veronica darted in ahead of everyone else which was fine, until we realized that the door locked behind her!  All five of us were knocking at the door trying to get Veronica's attention so she could let us in. It was really funny.  Finally she noticed us and came back and opened the door.  We went in and looked at the fish. 

 Then it was back outside to conquer the snow again.

 We went back home and I turned on a movie for the kids while Brandon went grocery shopping.  We'd got Coco from Redbox for movie night the night before and the kids wanted to watch it again before we took it back. I'd been really surprised by how good the movie was.  Derrick had seen it at the ISU movie theature with his learning center class and he'd been telling me that he wanted to watch it again.  All he could tell me was that it had a boy, a "ti-tar" (guitar), a dog, and skeletons.  I really liked the movie and so did all the kids.  Brandon and I may or may not have been crying by the end.

Anyway, part of me wanted to sit and watch the movie with the kids again, but part of me wanted to work in my garden.  And that's the part that won out.  Last fall we'd raked all the leafs into a pile by the garage to let them decompose.  I decided it was time to move the pile into the garden beds.  So I did that.  I listened to Baconsale podcasts while I worked and had a great time.  (By the way, Baconsale is probably the best podcast I listen to and I HIGHLY recommend it to anyone who has even a passing interest in popculture trivia.)

When the movie ended the kids came out and joined me.  They had fun riding bikes on the patio.

 Brandon came home from the store and the kids talked us into having a picnic in the back yard. We have really missed being outside.

 Derrick was still full of energy so I decided that he and I should walk our DVD back to Redbox.  He likes going on the overpass and looking down at all the trains.  Veronica came along too.  It was a fun walk and a good end to a wonderful day.

 Now that I have a good camera again I can take pictures of my kids sleeping.  Here are Charlotte and Lydia cuddled up together as usual.  I thought that they'd be happy to have separate beds after sharing one when we lived in Utah and sharing the loft in the RV.  But instead they have shared the top bunk ever since we moved into this house.

 Recently we realized that Veronica could just have the bottom bunk and so we moved her over there and took down her little bed.  Their room feel a lot less crowded these days.

 We had some green fabric paint left over from a project so I decided we should make St Patrick's day shirts.  We planned to do them on Saturday, but then spent the whole day outside.  So we did them as a Family Home Evening Activity on Monday instead.

 Brandon cut out the template and I helped the kids paint their shirts.

 Then we wrote cute sayings on the shirts with a fabric marker.

 We love doing family crafts like this.

 I gave Derrick a list of suggestions, but he insisted I just write "Leaf" on his shirt.  It made me laugh every time I saw it.  We let the shirts dry over night and then the kids proudly wore them to school on Tuesday.

This week was a little rough because of the whole daylight savings thing.  In years past I've been a bit of a daylight savings time apologist. But getting kids ready for the bus that comes before 7:30 is hard enough without springing forward an hour so I wasn't so forgiving of daylight savings time this year. I think it was Thursday before I fully work up this week.

On Friday night the kids set traps for the leprechauns. Here they are laying out a net with Brandon.  When your Daddy went to SERE school he knows a thing or two about setting traps. 

 Charlotte also set this one up with a towel over the heater vent.  The leprechaun would fall through and get caught.

In the morning she was sad to see that the leprechaun had somehow climbed out. 

But he'd left gold and Lucky Charms so things were that sad. 

On Tuesday I'd naively declared winter over for the year and moved all the snowpants, gloves, and big coats to the closet.  Mother Nature rewarded my efforts with a snowstorm on Wednesday. That snow melted and was replaced by another snow storm on Saturday.  I told the kids that this was a bad trick by the leprechaun. 

 Veronica and I made rainbow fruit kabobs together.  When I bought the fruit for these I imagined putting them together with Charlotte and Lydia.  But Veronica was the one who wanted to help.  I like that she is old enough to do things like this.

 Here she is posing with our creations.

 Don't they look yummy? Almost makes you forget about the snow storm outside.

The kids liked them, but were a little distrustful of the kiwis.

 Lydia wanted me to get a picture of Rose's St Patrick's Day outfit.

 We had planned to go visit Craters of the Moon National Monument today.  But Brandon had signed up for a volunteer shift at the Chrome in the Dome car show at ISU.  So we changed our plans and went to that.  (And the weather probably would have cancelled the trip anyway.)  We aren't really car people so we walked around for about 15 minutes and then left Brandon.

 The kids and I went to Fred Meyer to pick up some pictures that Derrick and I ordered. We also bought seeds and a few other things for the garden.  And we impulse bought some flowers because I forgot how hard it is to take 4 kids into a store.

Here's Derrick with the pictures we ordered.

 He's really interested in rockets right now so I showed him pictures of some of the rocket museums we've been to.  He wanted to hold the pictures so we printed some off.  Now he keeps asking to visit these places and I'm trying to explain that Kansas, Texas, and Alabama are all far away.

 Here are the girls posing in their St Patricks' Day shirts. 

 And Rose again.

 Derrick has a super loose tooth that is hanging by a thread. But he won't pull it out or let us try.  This is kid of ironic because this kid us usually fiddling with EVERYTHING.  Case in point, he pulled the FIRE ALARM at the Learning Center on Friday.  He was not happy when the loud alarm went off and everyone had to go outside. When I found out about it I was like, "you won't pull your tooth out, but you'll pull the fire alarm?"  We are hoping that this time he can loose a tooth without literally loosing the tooth.  We have no idea what happened to his two bottom teeth that have already come out.

 When we got back from the store the kids watched movies (oh yeah we'd stopped at the library for I-pad time and picked out some movies too) and I played with our new garden stuff.  I started some seeds in a seed tray.

 And I potted our impulse flowers and strawberries.

 I'm glad we bought these flowers. They make me happy.

 Today we did some little Easter crafts after church. We made these wash cloth bunnies.  Derrick's ended up looking like a bug.

 And we made this egg tree. It was fun to work together to create it. 

The kids and Brandon all have spring break this week so we are looking forward to a little bit of relaxation and a little bit of adventure.  And since I have a new camera I'm looking forward to taking lots of pictures and sharing them all with you.  It's good to feel complete again. 

Thanks for reading.

The First Month of March

I feel like my family runs a marathon every week.  Having a husband in school full time, two kids in elementary school every day, one kid bouncing back and forth between Kindergarten and daycare every other day, and one kid in pre-school/daycare four days a week, plus working nearly fulltime is quite the endeavor.   Last week felt especially long. Remembering back to last Tuesday is like remembering back a month.

Today is my day off and aside from the piles of laundry which are always there for me, I really don't have much to do today.  All I want to do right now is cuddle up with my laptop and write about last week.  (Actually all I really want to do right now is go back to bed, but I know I'll just lay there and mentally compose this post instead of falling asleep so I might as well write it for real.)  

The weather decided to give us winter after all this year and we've had a bunch of snowy days.  I'm just fine with that because I know spring is going to come soon anyway. The kids have had fun playing in the snow.  Here they all are enjoying icicles.  

On Tuesday Veronica and I went to Idaho Falls to visit with Sarah.  We hadn't got together since November which was a travesty because I always enjoy talking to Sarah.  We went to the new exhibit at the Museum of Idaho.  It's called: Dinosaurs in Motion: Where Art and Science Meet.  There are a bunch of metal statues of dinosaurs which you can move with levers and pulleys. 

Veronica was both intrigued and scared of the exhibit.  

 As we progressed through the displays the motion of the dinosaurs got more intricate.  This one was moved by levers.

 While these were moved by remote controls.

It was a really cool exhibit and I'm glad we were able to go.  It's definitely worth your time if you are in the area.

All morning on Tuesday I'd been trying to figure out our after school babysitter situation. When I started working in November I was lucky to find Monique to watch the kids after school.  She picked the kids up at the bus stop every Monday, Thursday, and Friday and hung out with them at home until Brandon came home.  She was super dependable and I never had to worry about her meeting the kids.  

However, I've known pretty much from the day she started that she wouldn't stick around forever. So I wasn't surprised when she told me that she had a job interview for a full time job.  And I wasn't surprised when she got the job. 

I tried to find somebody else who could watch the kids after school, but it's pretty hard to find people who are available every day at 2:30. Everyone I talked to had work or other commitments.  

I decided it was time to bite the bullet and enroll the kids in the after school care at the Learning Center where Veronica goes to Pre-school/daycare and Derrick goes when he isn't in Kindergarten. I'd put off enrolling Charlotte and Lydia here after school because I felt it was important for them to have a chance to go home and kick their shoes off and relax after school.  But without and adult babysitter that wasn't an option any more.   

So when Veronica and I came back from Idaho Falls we went to the Learning Center to talk to the front desk lady about what we needed to do in order to enroll Charlotte and Lydia.  The process turned out pretty simple since I'd already done the paperwork for them to go there this summer.  We just had to modify the start date on a few of the forms and fill out a bus transportation sheet. 

They could have started Wednesday, but for simplicity's sake we had them start on Thursday, March 1st. 

All week long the kids were celebrating Dr Seuss week at school. Our school is pretty laid back with these types of things (Thank Goodness) so most of the days were things like wear crazy socks, and wear red and blue. But Wednesday was crazy hair day. Charlotte and Lydia wanted me to curl their hair and make it all poofy, but we couldn't find the curlers. So instead I braided it the night before to make it looked crimped.  Then we put their hair up in high pony tails.  Here are the girls doing crazy hair day in the morning.

Lydia really got crazy after school and this is how she looked when I came home from work.

Lydia was really nervous about going to the Learning Center on Thursday.  Most of her anxiety revolved around the bus.  She was concerned about making sure Derrick got on the right bus.  I made sure to let Derrick's teachers know about the change and they assured me they would get him on the right bus.  But Lydia was still nervous.  So we made tags for the back packs that said which days they needed to ride the little bus.  That made her feel a little better.  We also talked through EVERY scenario of what to do if something went wrong. And I told her I would call the Learning Center to make sure she got there.  

She was still nervous so we had a big talk about how it's okay to feel scared before new things.  I told her that's how I feel every time I do something new.  That seemed to help her feel better, but she was still really concerned.  

Well I'm happy to say that nothing went wrong and Lydia and Charlotte both had a great time at the Learning Center.  

I'm so glad we have the Learning Center.  I'm not sure I could have a job without it.  And I'm also really thankful for the Idaho Child Care Program which pays a portion of our bill.  Our monthly budget would be in shambles without that assistance.

Thursday was a big day for another reason - it was the night of our Relief Society Birthday dinner and I'm on the Committee for those kinds of things.  Our theme was Fiesta and I was in charge of the decorations.  The committee chair wanted lots of tissue paper flowers.  I didn't know how to make those, but I knew pinterest would solve that problem.  

I actually ended up having a resource better than Pinterest - my mother in law Jacque.  When we were at her house two weekends ago she showed me how to make tissue paper flowers. 

When my mom came to visit for President's Day we went to Hobby Lobby and the Dollar Store and bought the tissue paper, crete paper, ribbon, and even a mini pinata.

At first I considered making all the flowers by myself.  But then I realized that was crazy talk. I knew I couldn't do them all on my own.  And I knew that many women would love to get together to do a simple craft.  And if there is one thing I love doing, it's inviting women over to my house for some girl time. 

We've had several new ladies move into our ward in the past few weeks and most of them don't have callings yet so I started out thinking that I would just invite them.  But if you've read this blog for a while then you know that I couldn't just stop there. I don't like making people feel left out.  I ended up inviting at least 20 women individually and then put a blanket invite up on the RS facebook page for good measure. 

I was inspired by this article that a friend posted on Facebook titled "Am I Invisible? The Pain-Relieving Response to Being Rejected or Excluded." The author, Rachel Macy Stafford, talked about how it only takes one person to make someone feel included.  I can relate.  Having lived in 5 states in the last 5 years I've been the "new girl" quite often.  I know how important those first invitations to be part of a group are.  Because of that I've taken the opportunity to befriend new people every chance I get. 

About 10 ladies said they could make it and Brandon and moved our dinning room table into the living room so we could have a large work space.  I have pictures on my phone, but for the life of me I can't get them onto this computer.  

Seven ladies came to my house and helped put together the flowers.  We had a lot of fun working and talking together.  One lady met her visiting teacher sisters for the first time (we just had some changes so it's not like she had been ignoring them for month.) And I think everyone left feeling like they had made a new friend.  Success!

That was the week before the dinner.  On the evening of the dinner I got off work an hour early so I could help set up.  Piper, one of the ladies who had come to my house to make flowers, had offered to help set up so I invited her along.  I'm so glad I did because Piper is great at decorating.  I gave her three things of crete paper and a few directions and she did the rest. 

Each table center piece was made with a tin can that had colorful ribbon glued to it. (Piper took care of all the gluing).  I filled the cans with beans to hold the flowers in place.  I made little signs that said things like Dance, Sing, Party, Celebrate, and Fiesta. I also made table numbers because I have met some great ladies though randomly picking a table number out of a bowl.  (Hi Deb and Anna.)

My friend Robin is in the RS presidency and she brought some big paper balls so we found places for those. 

Here's the table with the bowl of table numbers.  Not everyone chose a table number, but several people did.  I got to know Emily better because she chose a number that put her at my table.  So it at least worked in that case.

Here's the buffet table.  I used #10 cans for the buffet peices.

Here's another view of the room.

Here's our cute pinata.  We also had a larger one that we broke open later in the night.

We had tacos for dinner.  This is my version of heaven.

Everyone enjoying good food and good conversation.

We had a little program and a sister from the ward talked to us about the founding of Relief Society. During her talk I looked up and realized that an original painting depicting the founding of Relief Society was hanging above us in the room. I've noticed this painting before, but it was cool to see it while we were celebrating the founding of Relief Society.

At the end of the night I was tired, but very happy.  This had been a great activity.  I'm looking forward to many more.

All week long Brandon and I had been planning to go down to Utah on Saturday for the model train show at the Ogden Union Station.  But the weather forecast had us worried.  Every time I thought about going to Utah I got a funny feeling in my stomach.  On Friday morning we were laying in bed talking about our options.  Brandon and I both decided that we wouldn't go down to Utah that weekend.  Immediately I felt so much better. I don't know what would have happened if we'd tried to brave the storm, but I'm guessing it probably wouldn't have been good. 

The snow started after I got to work and it snowed pretty much all day and most of the night.  On the way home from work I picked up the movie American Made at Red Box.  We watched our copy of Beauty and the Beast for family movie night. The kids haven't seen it for a long time because it didn't work in the computer DVD player.  Now that we have a real TV again we have our old DVD player hooked up and Beauty and the Beast works in that.  So the kids saw that movie for basically the first time.  They loved it. 

After the kids were in bed Brandon and I watched American Made on my laptop.  It was super good and we laughed a lot.  I highly recommend it - with the caveat that they say the F word A LOT, and it's about drug smuggling. So if those things offend you then that movie is not for you.

On Saturday Derrick forgot all about his disappointment about not going to the train show as soon as we told him that we were going sledding. We've wanted to go sledding as a family all winter long, but it hasn't snowed hard on a weekend until now.

We drove up to Bonneville park by the ISU Holt Arena. This is where Brandon took the kids sledding on the day after Christmas.  We were the only ones there and it was so fun to have the place to ourselves.

As soon as we got out of the car the kids jumped on the sleds and went down the hill.

We had so much fun with different combinations of people on our two sleds.

The kids also had fun going down by themselves.

Here are all four kids on the round sled.

And here is a video of all of them.  This sled would go forever.

Brandon found two pairs of adult snow pants at Goodwill earlier in the week and we were so excited to use them.  They made sledding super fun. 

Here are the kids bringing the sled back. They were so good about carrying it back up the hill every time.

At one point all three girls were in the blue sled and Derrick was hanging off the back.  We tried recreating the picture, but Derrick noticed the empty tube sled and jumped on that at the last minute. 

Brandon could slid without a sled.

And don't worry, I went down the hill a lot too.  Here's a video of one of my runs.

The snow was just about perfect for rolling snowballs so I took a break from climbing the hill to make a big snow ball.  Charlotte was so impressed by how big it was. 

With Brandon around to lift heavy snowballs we were able to make the tallest snowman I've ever made.

Charlotte loved it.

Here she is showing how tall it was.

We played in the snow for close to two hours.  Lydia was the first to get cold so I took her back to the car to change into dry clothes.

We went home and spent the rest of the day relaxing.  Brandon took Derrick to run some errands and go grocery shopping.  They ended up buying a model rocket at Hobby Lobby.  This is Derrick's new obsession.  He even slept with it at night.  Now he's gone from wanted snow so he can go sledding to wanting the snow to melt so he can shoot off his rocket.

Well that gets us caught up again. Veronica is asking me to spend time with her so I'll let her finish this up.  thanks for reading. 

vvvvvvveronica

derrick

lyddddddddia

ccharlotte