It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Get ready for picture overload. I for one did not take any pictures the entire time we were in St. George. Lucky for me Scott's family took tons of great pictures and were kind enough to share. On Tuesday morning on the 14th we got loaded up and headed down to St. George. We drove straight to Hires in SLC to meet Scott's family for lunch. We were there for quite a while and then we loaded up again, (this time with 3 less kids who rode with grandparents, SCORE) and started driving again toward St. George. We stopped in Beaver for awhile to get ice cream and get out. By the time we made it to St. George it was 12 hours  from when we left Boise. That's a long day folks!

On Wednesday night around midnight I heard some noises from Ryan's room (AKA, the pack in play in a spare bathroom) and sure enough my baby was covered in puke. Let me just say that was the beginning of puke fest 2015. Ha. Okay not really but sort of. Ryan was sick the rest of the time we were on vacation. Luckily he was a happy sick little guy. He was mostly very pleasant and would puke randomly. He was definitely more cuddly and he was much more calm than usual. He is usually running around getting into everything all the time. I'm sad he was sick but I was glad that if any of my kids had to be sick on vacation that it was him. At least he won't remember and he didn't know he was missing out on all the fun. I'm also very grateful that nobody else got sick while we were on vacation...more on that later.

We mostly spent the week eating, swimming, eating, watching movies, eating, playing games, eating. It was great! And despite dealing with a sick child Scott and I were still able to have a very relaxing, enjoyable time. We have had a very busy stressful year so it was really nice to just be shut up in a house with hardly any responsibilities. My big three pretty much fended for themselves the entire week. There were never too far from an iPad or a quick rummage through the snack pantry. It was just a really wonderful break. I've actually kind of had a hard time getting back in the swing of things since we've gotten back. I will say that I did break down and make a menu and grocery list and went shopping yesterday, so things are definitely getting better around here.

Ryan was sick for 7 days. We went to the doctor on Wednesday and he just said it was a virus that's rampant right now. He woke up basically normal Thursday and we had two puke free days and Piper starting throwing up yesterday. She has been sick all day today. I'm hoping that she will be better tomorrow. Usually my kids are sick with the pukes for 1 day NOT 7. I'm really hoping she will get over it soon. She has much more violent barfs and she also has a fever. We will see what the rest of this week brings. Wish us luck.

Here is a link to the house. It was really nice.

Pipes at Hires on our way down.

Ice cream stop in Beaver. Apparently this is the only shirt I own. (You'll see)

Cute happy bubba. The day before puke fest.

Pipes and Uncle Rustin

Matching jammies, and bed head.

Cannons and their macs. 

Why are they huddled around the iPad by the garage door? No one knows.

Papa and Gabby

Cute Pipes

Cute Gabs.

Sisters.

Carousel ride.

Sick Buddy. He laid on me like that during the entire movie Maleficent. He normally doesn't sit still for more than about 5 seconds. Baby cuddles is one upside to having sick kids for me.

Corbin at the Japanese Steak House

Ladies out for a little shopping and delicious lemonade concoction.  

Nana with baby Attie and Hannah. 

Aunt Colie.

Gabby lost her first tooth. She came running to me with her dollar in the morning and said, "I can't believe the tooth fairy is real!"

Papa and baby Hannah

Gordon giving me bunny ears. Come on! Ha. 

We were about 5 minutes from Snow Canyon. One night we went out for a very short hike to the above slot canyon. 

Update...

I'm on vacation. Check in next week.

Update

Not too much has happened this week.The kids had some play dates throughout the week. Corbin finished his second session of swim lessons. After his first session they had an opening in the second session so I decided to sign him up again. He moved from the intermediate group to advanced group for next year. Way to go Corb!

I did some carpet shopping last week and asked friends who recently got new carpet questions about theirs. Scott and I ended up going yesterday afternoon and finding the right carpet. I hope! All the carpet colors I liked didn't have the right feel for Scott and the soft carpets didn't have the right shade. But I think we were able to find a shade and feel we both like. Practically anything would be an improvement of our gross carpet right now so I just need to keep that in mind. We are going with a local guy who owns the business and lays the carpet himself so I think he's pretty busy. We will see when we can get it put in. Pretty excited and nervous.

Other than that I have been cooking and freezing food for our upcoming Cannon family vacation. Tomorrow I have to do laundry, pack, clean, do yard work, go grocery shopping, and do some more food prep. It's going to be a busy day.

Kid Quotes:
(Gabby wants and loves absolutely everything) "It's hard to stop wanting things." She said that after she was stopping herself from asking for yet another thing she wanted at the store. Ha. It's true Gabby, it is hard!

Piper after I was very mad at all of my children: "Mom, you breaked my heart."

Piper: "Mom, Ralph is a wreck it guy. And we don't wreck anything, cause we're just kids." Ha! If only that was true.

Piper was saying a word weird and I was kind of teasing her and she said, "mom, you need to teach me how to talk right." True, as soon as I learn myself. Ha.

Piper: "Mom, I gotted water all over my clothes (hysterically laughing) that is a big no, no. (More laughing).

Corbin had the idea of playing cards in the pool. We started a tournament, winner stays. Corbin beat me, Gabby, and Piper. 

I decided to buy a tiny blow up pool for the kids to play in. It rained HARD last week and the debris from our roof made it FILTHY. I will have to deal with that later.

Corbin's creation at the library.

Popcorn movie night. Ryan tries his best to fit in with the big kids.

Happy 4th of July

For the last couple of weeks I have been leading an exercise group in the park 3 days a week. It's been fun. I do workouts like we did at fitmania. As long as people keep coming with me I will probably continue to run those classes until the end of the summer.

On Friday we got a babysitter and Scott and I went out. We got some dinner and then we went to RC Willey and did a little window shopping. We are probably going to get new carpeting throughout our whole house since our carpet is totally gross. That is a really hard decision for me to make though. I'm scared I'm going to pick carpet that I think I will like and then get in installed and hate it. We are getting our measurements on Tuesday and then we will shop around before we make a decision. Hopefully we will have all new carpet soon. I'm excited and nervous about that.

We had a great 4th. Gabby said it was the best 4th of July ever and it was a really great day a few times. I think that's mostly because she has gotten more brave and she actually enjoyed the fireworks instead of being terrified of them. We went to our stake breakfast in the morning. After that we went and flew our drones in the park. Ryan loves Scott's drone so much. We had a lunch bbq at Gabe's house with Lance's family and Alex's family. That was a good time. All of our kids combined is a loud, crazy time. For dinner we hosted a bbq at our house with some friends in our ward. They have 3 kids ages 7 and under as well so that was a crazy, loud time as well. We were going to join some other families for their fireworks show but our next door neighbors starting lighting off a bazillion fireworks so we decided to just stay at our house. That worked out great because I ended up putting Ryan and Piper to bed before it was all said and done so it was nice to be at home. Our neighbors had enough fireworks to last for 2 hours. They had tons of huge, illegal fireworks so it was pretty awesome. They must have spent a fortune. That especially worked out for us because the pack of fireworks that I bought were in fact not fireworks. It was a huge pack full of snappers and poppers. For real! It was terrible. I hate poppers. Our neighbors had tons of sparklers and they shared with our kids so that was great. It was a really fun enjoyable night. 

Corbin's block creation

We had a cute sad dog for a day. The dog was lost. I think my neighbors may have taken him in? Not sure. My kids did love having a pet for a day.

The kids built a fort on Friday and we let them sleep in in Friday night. It was big time!

Watching the fireworks show.