Monday Monday

Monday, the day to dig out from the weekend. Started the morning with a bike ride with Angela, Laundry, errands and getting back into some semblance of a routine. Finished preparations for co-op preschool I teach tomorrow and Kamri's tea party for her birthday. Kamri's excitement makes it so much fun!

A quote I liked that I forgot to share yesterday- from Elder O. Vincent Haleck of the Seventy during April 2012 General Conference:
"'Where there is no vision, the people perish.' (proverbs 29:18). If we are to prosper rather than perish, we must gain a vision of ourselves as the Savior sees us...
...Believe that He can bless you with vision in your life and the courage to act."

Happy Birthday Bracken!

Ready

 Set

 Blow! Before the kids get to it first.

A simple celebration.  Kamri gave him a picture she drew, Hayes some Lego Ninjago pictures he printed out (a bit of a "Homer gift"--a gift he wanted himself), and I surprised him with a Coconut Creme Pie instead of cake.  I think that will be the tradition on his birthday since he'd rather pie than cake.  We had Pot roast for his birthday dinner.  Although, I will take no credit in that, he made dinner himself and since he took a picture of his plate here it is.

Let's be honest here, I had to follow our dinner rule of one bite of everything and all of one thing. Sometimes being a parent is tough. (kidding...sorta) I just don't like roast and mashed potatoes. I'm a weirdo-- but a grateful weirdo that my husband will happily make his own.

I love you, Bracken. I've rewritten  an obligatory mushy paragraph four times already. I just can't be mushy in public so I'll tell him personally and you all should know I love him, I'm proud of his accomplishments, thankful for all he does for me and so grateful that I am his wife, he his my husband and the father to our amazing kids.  He's accomplished a lot in his 29 years of life, I'm looking forward to the next 29!

What are your birthday traditions?  We let the birthday person choose dinner but that's about all we have, I'd like to do something else special.

Motocross

Telly & Kristin were in town for the races so we joined them for a date night. Good times.

can you see the blurry motorcycle mid-air, in the middle of the picture?

Bracken spent the day watching the qualifying races and I came for the main event at the end.  

I was surprised by how strongly it smelled of gasoline. Really shouldn't have been surprising considering the place was full of bikes. It's amazing there aren't more wrecks with how many bikes are in each race. Also enjoyed the entertainment of cockroaches invading Kristin & Telly's space. Gross & funny at the same time. Funny because it wasn't me.  Sorry Kristin!

Flat Stanley

Bracken is DONE with Law School!  Graduation is next week so there will be more on that later.

When Bracken got home from his test we headed to Fremont Street. Hayes's friend, Mason, from northern Utah mailed him a Flat Stanley character for a school assignment so Flat Stanley could get pictures of  Las Vegas.  We had never gone down to Fremont Street so I decided this would be a good reason to get down there and see the light show above the street..  I wanted to avoid the strip since most of it isn't appropriate for a 1 grade classroom.  Turns out Fremont street is the same. We didn't get many pictures, just a bunch of telling the kids to look at the lights on the left in order to avoid them seeing what was to the right of them and going the long way around to avoid the women that were dressed up like showgirls with less clothing if that's possible. I know we can't shield them from things forever but....

We did get a picture in a Limo though.  Hayes was in awe and Kamri was eating it up.

 and a quick picture in front of the lights of a casino front on Fremont Street.

Didn't even stay for the light show.  Visiting Las Vegas when I was younger I was disgusted with the billboards, fliers and all the blatant objectifying of women that plays on men's lust and women's vanity.  I was naive to the fact that many of the people visiting were consumers of those products/services.  People come here to be surrounded by that, people live that everyday.  Not sure if it is living in Las Vegas and having to intentionally avoid those messages or the fact that I'm older and less naive but being in that kind of atmosphere the strip provides has no appeal to me. Some of my friends will read this and think I'm such a prude but they probably already knew that about me.

I think I'll take the kids to get a few more Flat Stanley pictures at other places, places that we love in Las Vegas, maybe we'll visit Fremont street on a weekday night when it'll probably be a little tamer.

Mopped the floor, with the table moved it was a perfect excuse reason to build a fort.

My friend Starr came over for a few minutes to borrow something while I was scrubbing the floor, having someone to chat with while doing housework made it more enjoyable! 

Later in the afternoon after Hayes & Kamri had come home from their friend's house I took the dining room chairs outside with a bucket & rags for them to clean. They "cleaned" the garden pavers, their toy house, the gate, a couple bugs and changed into their swim suits. Then they pretended they were on a farm for a half hour and set up a trough and stalls. The chairs stayed dry.  I should have made them do what I asked but it was so fun watching them play together.

Today I talked to two people going through similar situations I have already had in life. I remember feeling the same frustrations they were expressing to me. I wanted to tell them that they will make it through it and eventually life will get back to "normal". I remember people telling me that though and although it is true it drove me crazy.  Life is funny like that.  One of the situations was bedrest. I don't think I'll ever be on bedrest enthusiastically but I know it does end eventually and the payoff is sweet. Experience doesn't make everything easy, but it sure makes it easier the next time around.

and tomorrow is Bracken's. last. final.

: D

I'm tired so here are the two pictures from my phone today as my post.
Kamri labeling her b-day invites and Hayes deciding on a magazine at the library.

Experiment

If I say the words "Experiment" or "Project" my kids eyes light up.  We did an experiment today that I saw on Our Best bites called Soap Clouds.  

 It looks like he is eating the soap, awfully reminiscent of the picture I took of him yesterday eating pizza....

 Take a bar of Ivory soap & microwave it and this is what happens. Pretty cool!

 Then mix is with some water and food coloring, put it in a alphabet mold and you have homemade soap to play with in the bathtub.

Then on to chores, a word my kids (and truthfully, I) do not like to hear.   We went to the laundromat to wash the sleeping bags from our camping trip. Yep, our camping trip that we went on a month ago....I finally got sick of seeing them sitting in the bike trailer to remind me to clean them.

 Watching the spin cycle at the end.

Trying to keep her happy, a red vine worked wonders. She had a fever last night and wasn't feeling too great today--hopefully tonight she sleeps better.

Hayes asked if we could go to the laundromat again tomorrow. He heard a commercial on the TV announcing that Ninjago would be on tomorrow at 3.  Oh how exciting a laundromat can be when you don't have tv channels at home but no we will not be visiting tomorrow, or anytime soon I hope.