Spring Break

Well like I mentioned last week we went down to Salt Lake for little Atlas' baby blessing. It was also the beginning of Spring Break. On Sunday Janet made a fantastic brunch for the blessing, the food was amazing. Later that night Scott and I quickly shoved our mouths with some Sunday dinner and left. We decided to celebrate Scott actually making some money last month and take advantage of some willing babysitters. Staying in a hotel on a Sunday night is not ideal but it's the only night that would work so that's what we did. Scott surprised me on the hotel and location. We went to the Zermatt Resort in Heber, UT and I loved it. It was a Swiss theme resort and Heber just feels like being somewhere far, far away. It was perfect. We had a great time hanging out without kids or responsibilities for a few hours. Loved it! He did good. Thanks so much to Jeff and Janet for watching our gremlins. Some of the highlights were the pool, hot tub, fitness center, and pastry shop. We headed back to Salt Lake around 12:00 pm on Monday. That night we celebrated cousin Greta's second birthday. We went to Hires and then came home and had cake and ice cream and opened presents. Later that night Scott got to go with Clark and do one of his favorite things...Karaoke. I opted to go to bed. 

The next day Scott's parents were leaving to go on a trip and we were planning on maybe hanging around for another day, but we didn't really see the point so we headed home as well. That is a long drive with kids my friends. Corbin may or may not have peed in a cup on the way home. 

On Wednesday night we had our first girls night in months. It was great. The rest of the week we met friends at the park several times and went to the library craft and I even took the kids to PoJo's by myself. That was a little crazy trying to wrangle and keep safe my 4 kids in a place like that by myself. Phew, we survived. There was also a picnic and ice cream excursion and the kids built a fort in the front room and got to sleep in it Friday night. That's big time. The Hunters were over and we were crammed talking in Scott's office for several hours because our kids were having their sleep over in the front. Now I am most ready for school to start again.

I went ahead and signed up for 3 more months of boot camp. 5:15 in the morning is my new routine my friends. Oh man! The exercise class is super hard but luckily it's only 45 minutes and they only do one hard exercise for a minute or two before they switch. It helps with the surviving. Already after two weeks I have muscles in my arms that I've never had before. I just hope they become thin and toned like Kelly Ripa. I do not want manly arms, shoulders, back, and chest. I think that is gross!

I taught my first primary lesson today. It was alright. I've never taught primary kids before so I think I need to adjust some of my expectations and modify some things. It's a class of all girls but don't let that fool you they are pretty rowdy. Seriously you're 10, get your bottoms in the chair! Good times!

Flying Kites with Papa.

Zermatt lobby

Delicious Breakfast

A picture from the resort website.

Goofball 

Piper's smile face. Oh my!

The girls anxiously waiting for their pictures to print.

Ryan learned how to climb on the table. He's so proud!

Ryan fell at church and landed on the corner of the pew book holder. Seriously boy I need to keep you alive and safe, stop being so wild. I had to take down all of the ladders on the kid's fort because he could climb all the way to  the top and he loved it! He was spin circles on the top. OY!!!

Update

I continued with the boot camp this last week. I got a few more free classes and then I bought a groupon to get 10 more classes. It was a super good deal and then the gym people emailed me with a great deal to sign up for 3 months so I think I am going to do their 3 month program. It's intense. It's super hard and it's so early in the morning. I'm kind of excited to challenge myself. I think getting up at 5:15, 5 days a week will be as much of a challenge for me as the workouts. So we'll see how this pans out. I really hate getting up that early. Haha.

On Monday Corbin had his spring choir concert. The choir teacher does a great job of keeping the program short and sweet. Plus he always has the kids do cute stuff so its' fun.

Ryan always wants to play in the toilet so we try our best to keep the bathroom door closed. Of course with 3 other children around this doesn't always happen. On Saturday morning Scott and I were  lounging in bed not wanting to get up yet. When Scott got up he discovered Ryan using the toilet plunger as a sieve to drink toilet water with pee in it. Gross! Best parenting moment ever.

Gabby had Kindergarten registration on Friday. Crazy. She was too shy to sign her name for the teacher. No worries, next year they will know pretty quickly that she's a smarty pants.

We drove down to Utah yesterday in the late afternoon because Scott had to work at a home show that day. We got to Utah around 9:30 p,m. Ryan was a particular beast this time and screamed off and on most of the drive down. Good times. Scott's sister Mandy had her baby blessing today. She's a cutie. This week is spring break so we are going to stay here for a few days before we head back.

Piper quotes: "Mom, you are my best mom."
"Gabby don't be cray, cray." Haha. That is slang for crazy in case you didn't know.

Corbin's concert

Corbin's concert

Blurry picture of Corbin's concert

Ryan got into the marshmallow bags that the kids got out. Then I was laughing and so Piper took the popcorn bowl and dumped the whole thing out too. Big mess. That's all there is to say about that.

Ryan is so funny.

The girls asked if they cute paint their tree house and I said sure. They ended up painting it for 3 hours that day. Best time filler ever. It was really cute to keep looking out there and see them busily painting away.

Ryan snuggles and stupid headband. (They never stay in place, why even try).

Boot Camp

We had some record breaking warm days this week. It was wonderful. On Tuesday a bunch of moms met at the park and the kids played for an hour and a half. It was so nice. On Thursday my sister in law Anna called to see if I wanted to go shopping with her. I wanted to but I needed to find a babysitter because Scott is gone most nights. I couldn't find a sitter but luckily Scott's appointment had to be rescheduled so I got to go out with her for a few hours. It was fun but I was super sore and tired because I had gotten up at 5:15 which with daylights savings is really 4:15, am I right? Anyway I went with my friend to her Boot Camp class and it was HARD! I was super sore and needed to go to bed so I could get up and do it again. I went with her for 3 days and man I haven't been that sore or worked that hard in a long time. My good friend Jen has been going to a 6:00 am boot camp class six days a week for the last 10 weeks. That's intense. This week they could bring friends to the class for free. I wasn't particularly interested in going and I for sure didn't want to wake up early because I hate that, but I really wanted to hang out with my friend so I went and it was fun...and hard. Since she's joined this class I haven't gotten to hang out with her much so I loved talking with her in the car and dying with her in class. Good times! The class did make me want to work out more and get some toned muscles. On Saturday they did a 10 minute plank! 10 minutes. I lasted 1 minute. One of the instructors can hold a plank for an hour. An hour! Crazy. 

Lately the Friday night tradition with the kids has been popcorn and family movie night. It's fun. Kids love traditions and so do I. I wanted to go on a date last night but I couldn't find a sitter so instead we took the kids to Pizza Hut for dinner. The kids were loving it. We never eat out so it was a pretty special family time. I decided that we should spend out babysitting money on going out to celebrate Scott's success last month. Did I mention he was the number one salesman of the company last month? Can I get a woot woot?

Piper Quotes: "Mom I want to make this picture absolutely for you."

"I saw Ryan's butt." me: "you saw Ryan's bum?" P: "No, I saw Ryan's butt." Nice!

Cute!

Ryan has been a bit of a crabster lately. Boo to crabby babies. But he is still so, so, cute.

Corbin kept carrying Ryan around the park and taking him on all the slides.

Always finding trouble.

Beal Weekend

This week I painted my friends two side tables and now she is set. I also finished planning and executing my future sister in law's surprise bridal shower. That plus the usual taking care of the house and kids fills my week.

For the last couple of years the Beal sisters and sister in laws on the Beal side have gotten together for a girl's weekend. It's so fun to just get away from our kids and husbands for a few days and eat food and chat with all the ladies. This year it just wasn't working out for us to get together in Arco. So instead most of the Beal's gathered to Boise this weekend for a Beal weekend. Friday night we threw Keaton's fiance Amanda a surprise bridal shower. All of us gathered except for Kelsey and Rachel and had dinner and  a shower and lots of talking. We had a girls night instead of a weekend this year. On Saturday some people went to listen to Sherri Dew and shopping and to Brynn's rugby game. I hung out at home and Trisha and her family ended up coming over to play for a couple of hours. Then we all drove to Kuna for Mycah's baptism. Afterwards we had dinner and madness in a church gym.  

Scott and I are in charge of the ward party next month so we've starting working on that. Think "Spring Social." It should be fun.It's not official yet but I've been called to be the Valiant 9 Primary teacher. I'm pretty excited. I've never been in primary before actually so it should be good, plus compassionate service wasn't my favorite.

After a week of sales Scott had a week of reschedules. Such is the life of a salesman.

Gabby quote: "Mom, can tarantulas eat unicorns?"

Finished entertainment center with drawers.

Side Tables. These little buggers were kind of beastly as well. The spray paint didn't have a nice finish so I roughed up the edges and added stain to make it look more antique like and detract from the spray paint finish.

Gabby made a paper doll house with paper dolls.

Gabby made me a crown.. I thought I should take a picture before I tossed it. Seriously she makes art things everyday. I can't keep them!

Ryan! This kid!

Surprise!

We played three games. We played a game to get to know the bride since most of us have never even met Amanda before. We played the toilet paper wedding dress game, and we played a candy matching game. I had prizes for each game. It thought it was fun. Hopefully Amanda did too!

Thanks to Christy and her magic fingers we had cute pom poms. I made one of those pom poms in the time she made the rest. No joke! She also added her cuteness and deliciousness to the left side of the table.

Success!

There were quite a few successful things happening at the Cannon household this week. For one thing Corbin finished all of his reading to earn his free roaring springs pass. He read to me for 600 minutes. I thought the sheet was due March 3, not March 31 so we busted it out. It was super hard. He doesn't love reading and he's not great at it so it's quite painful for both of us. I would have him read to me for 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes at night. Phew it's done. I do need to still have him read to me for 15 minutes a day but 30 was pretty intense. So hooray we are done early.

I was victorious on my painting project. That was so hard. Through a lot of hard work and some trial and error I figured it out. I found that I had to spray paint a few coats as well and then repaint it again with the latex paint for a few coats. All said and done I think I had to do 8 coats of paint. 8 coats! I think the reasons it was so difficult was because the entertainment center was cheap, shiny, laminate; I should have used tinted primer, and painting it the color red. These three things made for one dang hard project. I think on the 7th coat of paint I could see that it might actually work out and I sent my friend a text that we may in fact not need to burn this project to the ground. By the 8th coat of paint it looked pretty dang good and I stuck a fork in it. Victory.

The biggest Cannon victory this week was Scott. After 4 long months without one sale Scott made 4 sales in one week. 4 sales. The details may be a bit fuzzy and a couple of those deals might not go through until this week but still...4 sales! Amazing. Wow it was a really good feeling for both of us. Back in January he made a goal to make X amount of money by the end of February or he might have to consider getting a different job. Well the last week of February came and wow success, finally. Scott has come a long way since he started his job. He's turned a corner and has come into his own at being a salesman. I'm super proud of him. He's been working his butt off. We've hardly seen him the past several weeks. I feel a bit like a single parent but at least now it's worth it. YAY!!! And I'm not sure yet but he might even get a bonus for making that many sales in one month. Fingers crossed!

Piper quotes: "Sometimes I like my baby brother."
After watching The Princess and the Frog, "I will never ever kiss frogs."
"Mom, I miss my daddy."

Gabby: "I really want my daddy to come back."

The kids have been missing their daddy.

Before (I had no idea what I was in for).

This is after 4 coats of red paint. You could still see the wood grain, and it was pretty pinkish and uneven.

So I thought spray paint. I have never spray painted anything and had it finish like this. I'm telling you this thing was the devil. But luckily it really evened out the color and deepened it.

After the spray paint I repainted a few more coats and got it to look like this. Even the last coat was difficult to put on evenly. 

After all that I say this is a huge victory and success. Next week I'll post a picture with the drawers in the bottom.

I love when my kids all play together. It usually lasts about as long as it takes to take this picture.

Sun bathing?

Peek

A Boo

We had regional conference right after stake conference last week. Forget it, I didn't even try to have my kids sit. I went straight to the nursery and turned up the volume and listened while my kids played pretty quietly.

Piper and Gabby seem to have puzzle brains. Piper sat down at this spilled out box of puzzle pieces and started putting pieces together immediately. I don't get it!

I couldn't get the picture to turn. The latest puzzle project. The kids and I worked on this one. Gabby and I did most of it. This puzzle is more on my level. It has big pieces and lots of different pictures. It's still really hard for me though. I was holding a piece because I knew it fit in a certain spot but I couldn't figure out how and Gabby saw it and took it from my hand and flipped it and slapped it down. Crazy!

I love how Ryan gets right in the mix to play with his siblings and I love his big ol' belly. Love him!