Temple Trip

Spring is here! Sigh of relief! We made it through another winter. I am sure there will be more days of winter weather but on the whole the weather is warmer with large doses of sunshine. One afternoon this week Evelyn, Everett and I were on a walk. Our shadow looked so cute with a pig-tailed girl on my shoulders and a cute bear coated boy. Another day we took four turns around the block in the wagon. That was a good exercise choice, my arms were on fire.

I earned a mom of the year award Tuesday afternoon. I was focused on editing the last batch of photos from the week before. My phone was charging with the sound off. Everett was playing iPad and kept flicking the texts and phone calls to the side before they made a ding. Turns out I moseyed on down to the school at 3 only to find the school deserted. School had let out at 1:40 instead of 3 pm. How embarrassing! Justin finally got a hold of me once I was on my way. The schedule was all messed up this week because the boys went to state basketball, so school was cancelled on Thursday. That pushed back P/T conferences and early releases. In my defense I never saw a note reminder about early release on Tuesday. Over 30 children also had parents who were late. Amelia was happy she got an hour of unsolicited iPad time at the school.

Tuesday the whole family went to Amelia's parent-teacher conference. We feel like stellar parents at her conferences. She amused the boys while we chatted. Evelyn emptied my wallet. She loves to rearrange my wallet whenever I allow her. Amelia earned all Outstanding scores this report card. She is bringing home the best little stories this term. She is a cute little smarty pants! Phillip fed Amelia's unicorn some mustard in a sea shell. I happened on the event after the fact. He managed to get mustard on the table, benches, chairs, floor, cupboards, and counter tops as well.

Wednesday I was so cautious about picking up Amelia. We arrived at the school 20 minutes early. Everett and Evelyn had a great time running around the school yard while we waited. Amelia was able to bring home her friend Kalynn for the afternoon. All the kids came with me to YW that night since Justin went to Scottsbluff to help a ward with accounting stuff. I had a whopping two girls that night. We wrote out D&C 4 on poster board with plenty of cute decorative elements. The girls had a blast writing out D&C 4 afterwards completely with pictures.

Thursday I was determined to go shopping in Cheyenne for summer clothes and supplies to make a flower crown. Amelia was quite excited to help choose flowers for her birthday flower crown. Her baptism dress came in the mail! We are looking forward to the end of April!! We met up with Michelle Rognon at Once Upon a Child. I picked up mostly shorts and shirts for the boys. We spent a lovely hour at the Discovery Garden together. Evelyn was enthralled with the water. Everett fell in the water so walked around the rest of the day with cold, squishy feet. I whipped up a Shamrock shirt for Everett the night before, he was quite pleased I made him something! Then we headed over to Target for a spell. I was also looking for Easter outfits, not one store had what I was looking for. We decided to try the mall as a last resort. The kids played at the little indoor play area while I looked at Gymboree. Yes! Total score. I am very pleased with the outfits this year. Can't wait! I enjoyed spending the day with Michelle and her kids. We sure had a fun time.

Justin took the day off work on Friday so we could enjoy some family time down in Denver. We spent the morning hurriedly packing up and cleaning off all the carpeted areas. I hired a carpet cleaner to come clean while we were gone. I think the last time the carpets were cleaned was before Evelyn was born, almost two years ago. Gross. We took the kids to the Butterfly Pavilion down in Denver. The museum was pretty small and kind of lack-luster. I was really surprised our kids lasted almost 2 hours. Everett was the brave kid this time, he held a tarantula with no qualms at all. Phillip and Amelia were covering their eyes and hiding! Everett proudly wore his "I Held Rosie the Tarantula" sticker the rest of the day. We all loved the Butterfly room. It is a semi-tropical room with gorgeous flowers and plants. Every 30 minutes warm mist would float down making the space a lovely shrouded area. Over 1,200 butterflies floated around the room. It was quite magical. A large butterfly landed on Amelia's arm. Later a different butterfly landed on Everett. Evelyn almost killed on with her pointer finger. Phillip was too fast for the butterflies! Evelyn's favorite part was licking pooled water off the concrete. Yum. The kids enjoyed the play area, especially the butterfly air tunnel. We went back to the pavilion at 3:30 for a short show. The keepers let go the butterflies that had hatched and hardened their wings. One butterfly had eyes on its wings. The keeper asked what the kids thought the butterfly was named. Our Phillip yelled out "eyeballs!" Soon after the kids melted into small little puddles of whiny misery. We considered leaving them but decided that would not be responsible.

Justin found a little Middle Eastern dive of a restaurant across from Denver University. We walked around part of the campus first. The campus is really gorgeous, reminded us of our BYU days. The kids loved the restaurant. We ordered saffron rice, chicken kabobs, shawarmah, and a sampler platter with kabob meat, kifta, gyro meats, hummus, baba ghanouj, fatouch, tabbouleh, falafel, and grape leaves. All the kids danced in their seats to the Middle Eastern tunes. We left a fabulous mess of rice and food on the floor and table. What a fun experience. Since it was still early evening I convinced Justin to take us to Ikea a couple miles from our hotel. We tried to send the kids to the daycare area but they were filled up. Instead Justin pulled out the rest of his hair while I thoroughly enjoyed myself shopping and browsing. The kids seemed to enjoy trying out all the furniture and exploring the house designs. I purchased several items for my studio and props.

Our hotel room was also fabulous! Justin scored a lovely suite of rooms, two king beds, and three rooms. It had two bathrooms, a kitchenette, and three TVs. The arrangement of rooms was quite handy the next morning when we watched the Rognon kids while Jim and Michelle went to the temple. Evelyn decided sleep was for the dogs. The forgotten item this trip was the Benedryl, or night-night juice. Instead, she practiced her new trick: "Ready! Set! Goooooo!" several times for the night staff. They were highly entertained with her antics. She was up racing around the lobby until 3 am when she collapsed into a tired pile. I crawled into bed hoping for 4 hours of sleep. Nope, little booger was up at 5 am ready to roam the halls.

Our morning was quite relaxing considering we had 7 kids crammed into the rooms. Little Annabelle was a super star baby. She crawled around all morning happy as a clam. We traded places at the temple. The Rognons fed the kids pizza, let them play at the park, and explore the temple. I was all shades of exhausted and a little upset over a mis-communication event that caused us to miss the 11:30 session. We waited in the chapel for 45 minutes. What did I do? Brood? Read scriptures? Nope! The calm church music sent me right into la-la land. I even snorted a little, maybe snored, probably drooled, all while in the chapel. My nice temple nap continued through the session as well. I tried so hard to stay awake. I felt so bad wasting the trip with a great nap. I was thrilled to "watch" one of the newer films, now we've seen 2 of the 3 new films. I enjoyed the calmness of the Celestial Room with my sweetie for a few moments. Justin drove the long path back home. Phillip and Everett filled the new "Little John" several times on the way home. Amelia and Evelyn slept more than half the time. Our house smelled nice and fresh with the newly cleaned carpets. I swear the carpet is at least 4 shades lighter.

**Did you notice Evelyn's hair is curling a little at the nape of her neck? I am completely thrilled!
***We love how Evelyn snuggles her favorite toy elephant. It is about as sweet as her tongue smacking technique for giving kisses.
****I about died laughing this evening. Everett yelled to me from the bathroom that something was wrong with his pee-pee. I ran in to find him staring at his penis, indeed, there was a small sticker stuck on his private part. The sticker read" Made in China!"