Mom & Gavin's Date

Our new family tradition is still going - two months straight (that's a good sign, right?). Gavin and I went out tonight for our monthly date. Gavin chose to go to dinner. He picked his favorite restaurant, Arctic Circle. We split an order of chicken tenders and fries and talked about his latest school project. He is learning about mythology and his class is throwing a star party for their families. Gavin was chosen as an 'expert' for his class; he had to learn everyone parts and myths in case someone wasn't able to make it to the party. He really loved it and thought the gory myths were the best.
Instead of getting shakes at Arctic Circle, we visited the new restaurant in town, Emmett's & Ethel's. They have awesome ice cream! We split a Black & While sundae (vanilla and chocolate ice cream with hot fudge and marshmallow creme toppings). We ate only half and took the rest home for Dad and Enoch. It was a fun evening and I loved being able to talk to Gavin. He is quite a conversationalist and very funny. I love him!

Treehouse Museum

We had a great day in Ogden today. Our family, along with the Fords, Kellys and Jarom, went up to visit Aunt Cleone, Aunt Elaine and Uncle Max. We had a great lunch of pizza, salad, fruit and chocolate cake at Aunt Cleone's and visited a bit before going to the museum.
I think the Treehouse Museum is one of the best interactive children's museums I've been too (and we have visited a lot). It is right across the street from the Temple in downtown Ogden. It is so much fun and very reasonable priced. If you are in Ogden, I highly recommend you go.
We managed to keep track of all the kids, and only lost Enoch a few times. Kate loved wandering and Greg was assigned Kate duty after we lost her once too. Luckily, I don't worry so much anymore about losing Gavin, he can always find his way back to us.
Gavin's favorite thing to do was play with the giant chess set, putting on a puppet show for Kate and building an arch. Enoch loved looking through the huge microscope and playing on the fire engine. Kate enjoyed coloring (Aunt Michelle let her color with markers, washable thank goodness!) and running all over the map of the USA.

Kate and Brynnley in the China Room.

Kate and Mrs. Nesbitt having a spot of tea in the Great Britian Room.

The family in the Kenya Room (and wishing we were there!).

Louis & Clark Expedition Room.

The Engineering and Invention Room.

The Oval Office.

The Art Garden.

The Knight Room.

What a fun place. There were a bunch more room; these were our favorites. It was a fantastic day and I'm so glad to took time to go.

Farm Friends

For our monthly preschool field trip, we visited Thanksgiving Point Farm. We were supposed to go yesterday, but because of lovely Utah springs we delayed it until today. Enoch was so excited to go and Kate loved being outside. We saw all the animals and fed the goats, chickens and ducks. Enoch and Kate loved riding in the wagon (we passed on riding the ponies today). Enoch's favorite activity was watching the ducks and Kate was fascinated with the cows. It was a beautiful spring day and it was so much fun to spend it at the farm.

You gotta right

Today Enoch brought me this lid and asked me to read the sticker to him. I asked him what he thought it said. Enoch read, "Big brothers should not put their baby Kates in the box and put the lid on and shut it because then their moms will get mad." "Yep, that's exactly right," I told him.

Seeing Double

I think I'm seeing double! (Kate on the left, Enoch on the right; both at 13 months.) In four different conversations this past week, people have mentioned how much Kate still looks like Enoch, only girlier (gosh, I hope so!). Kate has started to thin out and her features are becoming more delicate. What cuties! If they are going to look so much alike, I'm glad they are so stinkin' adorable!

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How many of you out there realized that today is Pi day? Since I live in a family of geeks, not only did I know that it was Pi day, but we celebrated by discussing the concept of Pi (I'm still confused, too many math terms) and eating chocolate cream pie. It was a fun excuse to make pie (since I really don't make it that often) and to do something out of the ordinary on a Saturday night. As you can see, the kids loved their pie and hopefully they understood pi better than I did!

Eat, Sleep & Breath Cougars!

Our family is big BYU fans. We love the Cougars and do not consider ourselves fair-weathered fans. Greg and I are thrilled that our children are developing a love for the Cougars as well. Of course, we encourage this whenever we can. We take our kids to BYU sporting events, BYU cultural events, they always get a BYU something (shirt, hat, sweatshirt, tickets. etc.) for Christmas, one of their favorite places in the whole world is the BYU Creamery (their mint cookies and cream is amazoing!). Our kids think that BYU is one of the greatest places ever.

When it came time for Gavin to move downstairs, there really was no other choice than to decorate his room in a BYU theme. It turned out great and Gavin loves it. His favorite thing is the BYU jersey signed by John Beck that his Uncle Jarom gave him. I love the giant calendar Greg installed. It is really helping Gavin become more responsible for his own schedule. He has a cork board full of his Cub Scout awards and shelves stack with book two deep. He has been in his room for awhile, but it took me this long to make the curtains and post the pictures. His room is awesome and he loves it. Please take note of how clean it is, you may never see this again!



Everyone in our extended families know we love the Cougars. We usually watch the football games with Greg's dad (when we are not attending). We talk sports with Uncle Jarom. My sister, Michelle, gave Kate this adorable shirt for her birthday. We are cheering for the basketball this week in their tournament and can't wait for football season. Go Cougars!!

We're a Mess!

It seems like everything in my life right now is messy, physically messy - sticky, crummy, dirty. Kate is constantly in a state of stickiness. Her face is never completely clean (except right after her bath) and her hair always had some sort of dried goop in it. Forget about using a washcloth for a quick wipe down; I literally hold her under the kitchen faucet while washing her off after feedings and I still can't get it all.
Enoch, I'm convinced, has a jar of dirt hidden in his room. He sprinkles dirt randomly around the house following his trail and then, for good measure, rubs his hands in it 2800 times a day. I'm sure this is only going to get better now that the weather is warming up and he can actually go outside. Dirt and mud aside, his room is always messy - toys and clothes everywhere. If there is a clean, organized gene, it completely passed over Enoch.
Gavin is quite clean (who wouldn't be after taking 30 minutes hot showers everyday). We are very blessed that our tween likes to shower and I hope that it continues. However, his room is another story. I helped him clean it out yesterday and we left with four large garbage bags full of junk. It always surprises me how messy he will let his room get; if Enoch missed out on the organized, clean gene, Gavin got two. He usually likes things in their place.
The house is still standing and hasn't been declared bio hazardous, yet. I'm finding it difficult to keep up with all the cleaning and also a bit (okay, a lot) unmotivated to clean something I know is only going to get dirty 6 seconds after I scrub it. I'm trying to get better with keeping up with housework, I just have two great helpers (Enoch and Kate) who love to do whatever Mom is doing. Kate always goes through my sweeping pile to make sure I'm not throwing away anything I shouldn't and always pulls out a few snacks, she loves to touch the vacuum while it is running and sits on it, Enoch likes to clean bathrooms, especially getting the sponge as wet as he can and then cleaning the whole house with it. He also likes to clean windows, getting a 6"X6" square of window very clean and using the entire bottle of cleaner for that one spot. We are haphazardly trying to keep things up.

Speaking of messy and sticky, Kate had her first chocolate chip cookie a few days ago. What a girl, she just picked out the chocolate chips! But, she got very messy in the process. Of course, she spilled her milk all over her tray, rubbed it in her hair and then dumped it on the floor. At this point, I just got her in the tub. I wish I could throw my whole house in the tub. Does this get any better?

Knowledge Bowl: The Arts

For the past three years Gavin has participated in Knowledge Bowl. Teams of five kids compete against each other in different areas of academia. Gavin's first year was history, followed by science (his favorite), and this year was Arts and Humanities. It was a brutal year for Gavin. He does not like this subject and there was an immense amount of information. Gavin didn't mind the literature section, but couldn't stand the theater part. He attended study sessions after school, three days a week and also studied at home.
The competition was today. Gavin's team did okay, just okay. They drew a very difficult bracket competing against schools who, in the past have done very well. Gavin's team had six members, so Gavin sat one round out. He kept score that round and had more fun doing that than participating in the competition. Like I said, it was a rough year for him. Next year is geography. Hopefully, things will be better then.