I say Springtime Festivities, but it was more like Extended Winter Festivities. It has been so cold. The last few months have been really busy with the kids wrapping up school and all their lessons and sports and what have you. The following is going to be a pretty long post capping what we have been up to for the past few months.
You can tell spring is here when the dandelions start coming out. They are bad this year and they are everywhere on the lawn. The kids were super excited to pick me some beautiful flowers. It was a nice thought, they didn't know they were nasty, noxious, weeds.
Ally and Ashlynn had a couple dance recitals. They performed once at the Royal Review and then their spring recital. Ally really enjoyed her dance class. They were called the Tiny Tapz. She did a great job.
We got this really fun box in the mail. It kept Javan and the kids entertained for over an hour. They slid in and out, stood up, laid down, cut some eye holes...
....then some arm holes too. It was really fun until one of them tripped and fell flat on their face cause they didn't have arms to catch themselves. We even put Ryan all the way down in the box, he didn't like the box at all.
We took an afternoon and headed up to the Fourth Reservoir to go fishing. But the kids had more fun catching lady bugs and throwing rocks in the water. Ryan was a big helper with the fishing pole. We did catch one fish at least.
We took the training wheels off Ally's bike and Javan helped her practice riding. She thinks it's too hard and still doesn't have it figured out yet. (And I don't know why she's wearing her jacket backwards.)
Ethan caught a couple new pets. First, we caught a horny toad in our drive way. We kept it for a few days. Ethan even caught some ants to feed him but he wouldn't eat them and we finally talked him into letting the poor thing go. He also found this salamander in our backyard. We only had him for 1 day before he escaped.
Ethan and Ally started tumbling in the fall. They had a little program to show off what they had learned. Ethan wasn't really a fan of the class but he did great and it got him out of the house during the cold winter months.
Getting ready for a round-off.
Handstand.
Ally loved gymnastics. She especially loves doing back bends, and handstands.
Balance beam. Concentrating hard.
Somersault.
Javan bought Ethan tickets to the Motocross races for his birthday. So on May 1st Javan, Ethan, and I went up to Rice Eccles Stadium to watch the race. It was a cold and rainy day. It was pretty calm when we first got there but right as the races were about to start it started raining. After the first race Ethan was ready to go, he would whine and pout until the next race started and then he was all excited and all smiles. It was really cool to see, we were on the 4th row so we were really close to the bikes.
They were going so fast when they went by I couldn't get a decent picture. It was fun, and we were glad we had our ponchos to keep us dry.
One Saturday morning when we were excited to sleep in, we were rudely awakened by a bird flapping around in the attic. When we added the garage on last year one of the eaves was still open on the end and this bird decided to investigate the hole. It went the whole length of the house and was making a ruckus right above our bedroom. So Javan crawled up in the attic with his flashlight and pellet gun and took care of the problem.
The poor little bird covered in insulation.
We went down to the Bluff Fort to have a cookout with Grandpa Glade's sisters that were there volunteering. The kids had a great time pulling each other around in the little handcarts. And it was fun to look through the little cabins and see all my ancestors that came through Hole-in-the-Rock.
Ryan is absolutely in love with the outdoors. He would spend all day, every day outside playing if I would let him. I have to trick him to get him to come inside to eat and play. I told him we had to leave the stroller in the house, but he snuck it out the first chance he got. Little stinker.
Ally got to play T-ball this year. She started out a little shy, but got a hang of it really quick and had a good time. She could really smack the ball off the tee too. She did great.
Running fast around the bases.
Ally and her T-Ball team.
Ethan got to play machine pitch this year. Javan practiced pitching the ball to him and he was doing great hitting in the backyard. When we got to his first game and I saw how fast the ball was coming out of the machine I was a little nervous for Ethan. He did well though. He didn't get a hit every game but he enjoyed playing.
Ethan and his Machine Pitch Baseball team.
Ryan playing and getting dirty at the park.
We got to have a few of our cousins come and stay at our house for a few days. The kids all had a great time together. They were some dirty, stinky kids at the end of the day. Look at that brown bath water. Nasty. Don't think we could fit anyone else? We even squeezed one more in there with them.
After a long, hard day of playing outside I found Ethan, Ally, and Carter asleep like this. All 3 totally sideways in the bed.
