Spring Break & Home

I've written this post 3 times and for some reason it's not publishing... So it's getting more condensed every time. These three kids love each other so much! It has nothing to do with the post, but I found this picture with the trip pictures, and just had to include it.

A few weeks ago we went on a long weekend vacation to visit my Grandma Yoder in Hurricane! The weather was in the high 70 to low 80s, so before we left we made sure we had great bathing suits for everyone.

On our way south we always stop in Bever and visit the cheese factory, but this trip we also added a hike in Kolob to the list of things to do. It was not crowded and the perfect weather for a hike.

About .02 miles into the hike we ran into a river! And there, our hiking ended. The boys played in the water for about an hour (starting out in their clothes, finishing in their underwear since we forgot to bring their suits on the hike). It was beautiful, and they had a blast exploring.

While visiting Grandma, she took us to the Dinosaur Muesum. It consisted of tons of dinosaur footprints and some bones. The boys were fascinated! The favorite was the dinosaur bum prints. If the sign didn't tell us it was a butt mark, we wouldn't have known. That's what we get for reading the signs.

They also had a play area outside where you can dig up bones and these head signs. The kids thought it was hilarious to see Brooklyn peeking out of one!

Dustin and Grandma Yoder "went on a hike" while I fead Brooklyn some baby food and they found a Dinosaur Egg (small rock that is egg shaped). Logan was so impressed he requested Papa Mike find a dino egg for him as well. Papa mailed a dino egg and rino egg for Logan and Dustin this week, so now everyone is happy.

This is Chester, Grandma's neigbor's cat. Every time we visit Grandma we hope we will get a visit from Chester. He's the nicest cat in the world and the boys just LOVE him. They pray for him and have been playing Chester and Shadow (Grandma's cat) since we got home.

Since the weather was so nice we made a few trips to the park. It was beautiful and the kids all loved swinging, sliding and playing!

On the way home we stopped by Kolob again and did the Overlook hike. It's only 1 mile round trip, which was perfect for our little legs.

The boys climbed up anything they could get their hands on and had so much fun exploring together!

The mountain range was beautiful and the weather was again perfect for a hike! We ate some fruit snacks at the top.

Dustin has become camera shy of anyone other than family taking his picture. So this is the best family picture we could get (you can see his feet behind Dave).

But he's always such a happy, goofy boy! We just love him. He never was a hard 2 year old, but over the past 6 months (since he turned 3) he has become pretty obstinate. He won't do what I ask until the last possible moment before negative consequences take place. But eventually we can get him to do what has to get done. And he grins at you like he knows he's going to get in trouble but just watch this!

Brooklyn has been growing like a weed lately. She's so big and has such an opinion! A few days ago I introduced her to avocado and she refused to eat anything else for the rest of the day. She would cry and refuse to open her mouth until I got out the good stuff. Oh we're in for some trouble when she's a teenager.

Logan is just the best big brother! He loves his siblings so much! When he comes home from school with candy, cookies or cupcakes he always shares with Dustin. Even if he only gets one of something he breaks it in half because "Dustin doesn't go to school so he doesn't get treats."

We are working on expressing our negative feelings and accepting that sometimes you might want something but the answer is no. It's been rough, but he's getting the hang of things and if he gets really upset he chooses to go into his room and have some quiet time until he can calm down. He's not in time out, he just needs to decompress and realizes that. 

Last week Dave worked late every night! He was at work by 8am and wouldn't get home until 9 or 10pm. On Thursday Logan was in bed trying to stay up until Dad got home so he could be awake for his goodnight kiss and he just started crying "I haven't seen my Dad in 4 days! I miss him so bad!" So I made sure Dave woke up Logan for kisses that night. But the deadline was Friday, so I'm really hoping things will slow down at work again.

Friday we went on a walk and visited our neighbor down the street Maurine. She was asking what Dave did for work, and I explained. Logan must have heard because when we got home, he insisted on drawing. He said he was drawing a house. He would show Dad how to draw buildings faster so he didn't have to spend so much time drawing at work and could come home on time.

Since Dave was working late, I got to work on some of my projects when the kids were sleeping. I finished our Easter scene! I thought since the boys love our Nativities at Christmas, I would put up Easter scenes at Easter time to remind us of the Resurrection. They have loved playing with this one so far, and I can't wait to use it in our Resurrection FHE the week before Easter. I think I'll make a few more kid friendly scenes in future years. Maybe something sewn.

I also was able to start and finish a quilt for a nephew to be born soon. The boys helped me lay out the colors and pin them together. I guess Dustin didn't understand this wasn't for US and when I finished and started wrapping it up he was pretty upset! "The green and white match my jammies! And the black and blue ones match Logan's jammies! This is for our family!" I guess this summer we'll need to make a quilt together for our family to keep.

These ties for the boys for Easter have been cut out for a few weeks but I was a little intimidated by the idea of finishing them. But with so much extra time on my hands, I couldn't help but complete them (come on, sewing, or cleaning the house? no contest). My mom sewed a dress for Brooklyn, so hopefully we can get some cute pictures of the three of them soon. Everyone has to be in the right mood for that to happen. But the ties turned out well and we're looking forward to wearing our cool new clothes soon.

For Logan, this will be the year of the bike! Last year he tried so hard to learn, but really couldn't figure out how to even peddle. This year we got him a new bike off KSL and he has really picked it up! Our goal is to take him on a bike ride once a week and hopefully have him riding without training wheels by the end of the summer. We'll see how that goes though. He's so proud of himself though!

Fun Times Among the Hard Times.

It's been a rough week in the Plastow home.  But we managed to fit in some fun too.

We walked down the street to visit our neighbor Maurine. She's a sweet little widow that lives on the corner of our block. We visited with her  and she had picked up magnifying glasses when she was at the store earlier in the day for the boys! Oh man they had a blast looking up close at everything from the material on the couches to the grains of snow (it looks like little crystals!). It was fun to see them discover things close up.

Saturday we went to the Kids Building class at Home Depot. It's a free class they do for kids once a month. Since we spend much of January and February in the hard ware store, we had MANY opportunities to sign up for classes. The boys built and painted rain gauges. They look like little bird houses, but have a cup to measure the precipitation.

 The boys loved that they got to do their own hammering and painting. It was fun! We'll have to sign up to do it again later in the year. Brooklyn spent the duration of the class sleeping in her car seat, which was perfect for us.

It's been very nice temperature wise around here so Saturday we also put the trampoline back up. All the kids had a blast jumping on it. Even Brooklyn (who loves to bounce in her jump-a-roo) enjoyed being held while Dave or I jumped around with her (she would giggle uncontrollably). But Sunday night it started snowing again and sadly we haven't been back on the trampoline since.

Saturday Dave, his Dad and brother Jon all went out to dinner at Zupas and to a hockey game! They had a great time, and the kids and I had a movie night and I watched a chick flick and did some crocheting until Dave got home at 10:30. It was a great night out for Dave and a relaxing evening for the kids and I.

Sunday we had home teachers and a generally relaxing day at church and at home. We decided to make some chocolate covered peanut butter rice krispy treats (they were for FHE on Monday but we just had to try them Sunday too). Dustin also tried to bear his testimony on Sunday. He has been wanting to so bad and practiced all last month and practiced 3 times on Sunday but when he got up front he froze. So he said maybe he will try again another day.

Monday Logan asked if he could be in charge of the FHE Lesson. He decided to teach about kindness. He told us being kind is being nice to others and we practiced with dinosaur toys different difficult situations that might require kindness. Dustin wanted to be in charge of the treat, prayers and everything else. So we helped him with all of the above. Over all it was a successful FHE.

Tuesday the highlight of the day was painting. We got out the watercolors and made several masterpieces. They are "still drying on the kitchen table so don't move them MOM!"

Basement Bathroom is DONE! And other projects

We bought a quarter of a cow a few weeks ago. You  might ask what does this picture of kids and fish have to to with buying a portion of a cow? Well, we met my friend RiKelle at Scheels to pick up our frozen cuts of meat. Since we were there anyway, we went inside, visited the fish, played in the play place and generally had a fun time catching up! They moved to Logan about a year ago and we sure have missed our friends! It was nice to catch up and we have been loving having a freezer full of beef.

Some time in the past few weeks Dustin also climbed up on the bathroom sink, ate 5 Pseudoephedrines (30 ml) and about gave me a heart attack. He was fine (poison control told me not to even worry about taking him to get pumped), but it was scary. That punk can climb anywhere! For now the only safe place is on top of the fridge... He can get everywhere else in the house.

We really enjoyed the 50-60 degree weather while it lasted. We went to the school playground, the park and played in the sandbox. It's good we got it in, because this week it's been snowing again. I'm so ready for spring. I'm so done shoveling.

We had a lot of fun this weekend! We were ALMOST done with the basement bathroom, so we made time to have a bonfire in the back yard and roast marshmallows. It was freezing out, so we came inside and made s'mores in the toaster oven too (our chocolate and mallows froze outside. We still ate them (of course), but we wanted good ones too.

Saturday morning we asked the boys what they wanted to do that was fun. They decided a trip to the Dollar Store to spend their allowance and a dollar they got for Valentines Day. Dustin almost always picks out one of these squishy guys with a strobe light inside and it always pops before we get home. But this one lasted 24 hours! That's a pretty big deal. Logan picked some dinosaur toys which are still hanging around.

For FHE on Monday we had a lesson on testimonies, then we all practiced sharing our testimonies. We're hoping to be able to share our testimonies by our selves at church on Sunday. After we had Dirt Dessert for our treat! The boys never had it before and were quite impressed that it looked like dirt but tasted delicious!

The boys have been fascinated with the completion of the bathroom downstairs! They helped me hook up the toilet and were fascinated with the inner mechanisms. They also both had to test out the toilet several times to make sure it worked. They will announce to everyone that asks about the toilet that it "works for both poop and pee. I have tested it." In case you were worried.

The mirror is a built in medicine cabinet too!

Yesterday I touched up the paint again and Dave screwed the medicine cabinet in place! Saturday we finished calking, installed towel and hand racks, attached the shower curtain rod and cut out the hole for the medicine cabinet. And I whipped out a cute soap dispenser. So now we just need to install trim around the door and we're done!!! WOO HOO!!! Well, and Dave left a hole in the wall above the towel rack that he's going to make a built in shelf for decorations. He is still deciding how to finish that.  And I guess the calk is curing until tonight at 9, but all we have to do is wait for that time to pass so we can use the tub. I'm so glad! I'll probably clean out the tub one more time too (it keeps getting dirty), and we have to clean up all the tools and put the exercise/spare room back together, but that's just minor compared to what we have done.

It feels like everything that could have gone done with this project did (redo electric, plumbing, replace toilet flange... the list goes on and on). But the end results look fabulous! We love the more open space. It used to be the shape of a triangle so opening the door almost grazed the toilet and completely blocked the tiny sink. So I guess I should decorate... maybe in a few months... I'm exhausted now!

Sink before (see the triangle shape?)

Tub before

Other than that the at home phone survey lady called me again so I've been making political calls a few hours a week again. They're not half as bad as the ones I did right before the November elections (those were so intense). But every once in a while someone will go off for or against Trump (which these surveys aren't even about). It's an easy way to make some cash on the side, so I tolerate the crazies. The best was a deep manly voice asked after my intro "are you going to ask if I'm a Lesbian?" me: no. "well ok, as long as you don't ask that or if I'm a black woman I'll answer your questions"... I had to contain my laughter until the end of the 40 questions! What the heck kind of surveys has he taken in the past?!?

Work Work and Partying

February has been busy but more fun. For the first two weeks of the month we did a Love Challenge for Family Home Evening. Each day we had a way to show love like show patience. Logan would wake up and ask "how are we going to show our love today Mom?" and we would discuss. Some of the ideas were more advanced than our boys, but we adapted them.

We've been done for a few days now and every once in a while I will hear the boys discussing what they learned. For example today at church Dustin's granola bar broke in half (this is devastating, one simply can't eat a broken granola bar). Logan turns to Dustin "you need to look beyond looks Dustin. The bar tastes just as good as it did before, it's just in two pieces." Dustin was not convinced.

Logan loved celebrating Valentines Day at school! He was excited to write his classmate's names on all their valentines, attach the tattoos, and try out a few to make sure they worked. He had fun making his box and partying the day of. For Dave and I Valentines is always low key, but this year more so than ever. We didn't make a fancy dinner, dessert or anything (constructions is still consuming all my free time) but we did get frosties and fries after the boys went to bed.

The weather has been in the 50's to 60's over the past few weeks. It's been wonderful, but especially for us doing construction. It warmed up the week we did tile. It was a little blessing in the nightmare of never ending construction that has been our lives recently. As of this weekend the tile is in and grouted! On Monday the grout will be cured and we're hoping to get the fixtures in so we have a second bathroom again. Or I'm at least hoping for the toilet to be in. We still need to touch up some paint, finish putting the trim around the door (and put it back on it's hinges), install the vanity and sink, the bathtub fixtures, the toilet, toilet paper roll holder & towel rack, medicine cabinet, and Dave is making some kind of built in shelf that needs to be finished. But the hard part is done.

We also celebrated Dave's birthday this week. The boys and I have been preparing all week for the big day. They helped me pick out gifts. Dustin got a bag of Peanut Butter cups "and maybe Dad will share with me". Logan picked out Spicy Cheetos for Dave "I don't like these, but I know Dad will." They helped wrap all the gifts then hid them under the bed in the basement so Dave wouldn't be tempted to open them early. When the boys woke up they rushed to the basement, got the gifts and before I was done feeding Brooklyn they had helped him open them all!

I tried to prep for Dave's birthday in advance, I bought the requested Ice Cream in advance, we ate half of it the day I brought it home, Dave decided on a different flavor ice cream and consumed half of that before the actual day of too. But we had enough left over for peanut butter chocolate chip ice cream sandwiches on his actual birthday. We also tag teamed dinner. I made red potato salad and Dave made some fancy burgers. Both were fabulous. I haven't had a good burger in a while.

When I asked what he wanted for his birthday Dave responded a date night. His parents were kind enough to watch the three while we went to see Dr Strange in 3D at the Dollar Theater. We didn't plan to see it in 3D, but the showing we wanted to go to was sold out (along with every other show at the same time we were even mildly interested in). So we wondered around the mall for an hour until the 3D showing. Now I'm not a fan of 3D, but this one was pretty cool with the special effects popping out at you. If you have to pay extra for 3D, this was a good one to do it for.

Also on Saturday I spent about 2 hours cleaning out the tub in the basement bathroom (per birthday boy request). We decided not to replace the tub, so it got pretty dirty in the process of tearing out and installing. But it looks great now. There is one chip and some scratches in it, but I'm imagining nobody but Dave and I will notice that. I can imagine how it will all look put together and am so glad we are almost done. The hard parts are done anyway.

In Which We Snort. A Lot.

January was a rough month for us! For the first two weeks I was sick with two different colds. For the last two weeks the kids alternated who was sick. So it all kind of went by in a blur. Somewhere in there we took the boys to the Lego Mini Build the set was an igloo with 2 penguins. It was really cute, we have one of them sitting by the kitchen sink and it makes me smile every time I wash dishes.

My parents came into town for my brother Mike's son Gideon's baby blessing. It was great to see everyone! We went sledding, had a dinner and went to the blessing. It was a very family filled weekend. The boys were devastated that Grandma & Papa weren't staying at our house! "It's no fair! They stayed at Max's house last time they came into town!" I can't believe they remember that, but they love their Grandparents. I promised them next time we would make sure our basement construction was done and Grandma & Papa could stay at our house the WHOLE time.

So other than sick, construction has taken over most of our spare time. Who knew it would take THIS long to remodel a bathroom? It's almost done. We plan to tile this weekend, install toilet and sink next week, and install a door sometime. Maybe next weekend. Then everything will finally be done! It will be a relief to have two bathrooms again. It's been a strain to only have one. I know people do it, but they must be hardcore. We have poop wars at least once a week (I REALLY NEED TO GO MOM AND MY BROTHER IS ALREADY IN THERE!!!) But the bathroom is looking great! We painted last weekend and we set the new vanity in the space to see if it matched and it's going to look fabulous. Dave installed the lights last night, and I'm going to do some touch ups on paint today.

I've also been working on sewing bags for the Young Men to carry their scriptures and Preach My Gospel in. There are 15 bags and Dave volunteered me to make 8. I designed them, cut out all 15, sewed the example bag, and am almost done mass producing the other 7 (hoping to finish today during nap time). It's been a ton of work, but hopefully it will help the boys remember to bring their stuff to Church and activities. It ended up costing them around $5 a bag. So not too shabby for a messenger style bag. I'll post a pic when it's done. Oh and I'm going to teach them to freezer paper paint so they can put some kind of design on the front flap. We'll see how that goes.

Brooklyn has been growing and learning like crazy! When she was sick she was so congested that she snorted a lot, and now she's learned to do it intentionally. When she is bored or wants attention she starts snorting repeatedly. It always gets a reaction, so she's learned to manipulate us for laughter. She is such a happy baby. She talks to us all the time. We say she takes after Grandma Sheila because she only has one volume, loud. She and I got kicked out of Relief Society several times for her being too happy and loud. The boys just love her and she loves them too.

In November I started and in December I completed the Beach Body Core De Force workout program with a group of 15 other women and men. It's a 30 day Mixed Martial Arts DVD series. They give you a schedule of which workouts to do each day, and eating guidelines to maximize your weight loss. It was a rough time of year to commit to working out every day, but it was good to have a reason to HAVE to exercise every day. I won the money prize for most consistent worker outer and lost all my baby weight (I'm actually back down to my High School weight now!).  Oh and they send you a tshirt when you complete the program, so I got that too. Now I just have to tone up my stomach more and get back to eating healthy. I really fell off that bandwagon while we were all sick.