The Great Grandparenting Adventure: By Grandma Baker

First, I have to say, Grandma Baker is THE BEST! Not only did she and grandpa fly all the way out here from Missouri to watch our 3 little handfuls, but she also documented it all for me! I asked her if she would piece together a blog post of their 7 day adventure and she did, along with pictures! I sure love her! Here is their week back in Utah while Rich and I were on our cruise:

The Great Grandparenting Adventure

We had a wonderful “grandparenting adventure” last month when Jessica and Rich went on their cruise! I must say we were a little apprehensive…what would we do for a whole week with three grandkids ages 3, 4 and 5? Well, we found plenty to do!

Mornings were a sleepytime…

Climbing in bed with grandma and grandpa.

We were slow to get up and around…but that was ok!

It took a long time to put together a giant puzzle one morning and then we found it had 1 piece missing. We found that all three kids are masterful at puzzles! (Side note: I was told that they later found the missing piece but by then Arabella had destroyed the puzzle.)

On Sunday it was a beautiful sunny day to go to church together.

We discovered a park up the hill from home and took a hike up to play in the sand.

We brought the kids bubble blowers so we spent one morning blowing bubbles and catching them!

The kids loved to bicycle and ride their scooters anytime of the day!

We discovered a great bowling alley on base and they had slides for the kids to roll their balls down…perfect!!

Oh there was so much to do! The kids loved being outside so we spent one morning playing baseball! Aidan was quite the hitter!

And Maya was quite the gymnast on her jungle gym!

Later we washed the windows to get ready to celebrate spring.

We hiked to the splash pad a block away and though the water wasn’t turned on yet, we pretended it was!

Later on, Maya wanted to plant pretty flowers so she picked out her favorites and we brought them home to plant.

Making Rice Krispie treats was a real “treat” for Arabella!

We made cookies too.

When our week was up we were sad to leave our Utah family but knew it wouldn’t be too long before we would have another adventure together!!

The End

Aren’t they the greatest? I know that there was so much more to be written about their adventures but here we got a little glimps into the great fun they had. Our kids had so much fun and still tell me all about the fun stuff that Grandma let them do. I don’t know if I can live up to her! We are so blessed to have the world’s best grandparents for our kids!

Easter 2013

We had a FUN, FUN, FUN Easter this year! No, we didn’t do anything spectacular but we did have fun! Our first Easter activity was egg dying.

 

Then, Saturday morning we went to an on base Easter egg hunt. All of the kids 3-5 years old, were corralled onto a baseball field and lined up against the fence to wait for the go ahead.

There weren’t supposed to be any parents so that it would be fair for all of the kids.

As you can see, that didn’t quite work out the way they planned it. Darn, sneaky parents! When we went in to find our kids Arabella was crying. We had watched her pick up 2 eggs at the beginning of the hunt but when we found her she was empty handed. Apparently, she dropped her eggs or they were snatched from her. Poor thing! Maya and Aidan shared with her. We weren’t too concerned because we live in the most awesome culdesac that arranged an egg hunt just for the kids in our culdesac. It was AWESOME!

The kids, including Arabella, got tons of eggs filled with candy!

Afterwards, we all got together and had a BBQ. I love where we live! We have the best neighbors!

Sunday morning we went to church:)

Ok, now I have to share my most awesome discovery! As much as I love taking pictures of my kids and they should be used to it, it is always soooo stressful trying to get one of them all looking at me and smiling(nicely). They just WILL NOT do it! It drives me mad! So, I was thinking, “How on earth am I going to get a decent Easter picture of them?”. When it came to me! I pulled out a whoopie cushion! It worked like a charm! So, now I have to share the pics of them cracking up because they are so cute!

What a great Easter it was. Then, just to top it all off, my sister-in-law, Amy(my brother’s wife) and 2 of her 4 boys, happened to be in town and came over for Easter dinner and to spend the night. It gave us an excuse to make a feast and I baked my very first ham ever. It came out delish! It was quite the treat to have family over for the holiday. Grateful for an incredible weekend!

The Easter Center

Today was our ward Easter Egg Hunt. Explanation for the title? I don’t know where he got the idea but Aidan kept calling the Easter egg hunt the Easter center. I don’t get it. There was no school for Aidan today so I wanted to make it a fun filled morning before the Easter egg hunt at 1:00. Woke up this morning to a house in complete shambles because I’ve been a wee bit out of commission…long, embarrassing story short, I sprained my ankle during Zumba on Tuesday. Who does that? Me! It’s the same ankle that I injured badly a little over a year ago but luckily this time there are no torn ligaments, just a sprain. Anyway, I’ve been trying to take care of it by resting and icing it so my house has suffered. Back to my story…the house was in shambles and I had so much to do to prepare for our fun day. I fed and bathed the kids, packed a lunch did the girls’ hair and made myself look presentable in a matter of a couple of hours. That’s a lot of work!!! By the time I got the kids loaded into the car I was completely frazzled. I was shaking from the frustration of the kids not making it easy on me but we were gonna have a good day darn it! We finally made it to the park where we had a little picnic (totally into picnics lately) and the kids played with a bunch of friends that showed up unexpectedly! It was totally worth the stress of the morning.

From the park we went to the Easter egg hunt at the church. It was a gorgeous day!

80% of the eggs were gone and Aidan still only had 1 egg in his basket. Once he realized all of the eggs were empty he was pretty annoyed. After I told him he got to keep the eggs he went wild hunting his little heart out for eggs:)

“What the heck! This egg is empty!”

Just double checking to make sure there are no hidden treasures.

Arabella was having a crazy hair day. I just can’t believe how LONG it has gotten!

 

Finally, after they completed their hunt for eggs they did one final sit down to trade eggs.

The day started out stressful but we ended up having a really great time. I love this time of year!

Random Happenings

     

Did you know that you can give your kids a cup and a pile of rocks and they’ll be entertained for a really long time?

It’s true. Try it!

We initially went out to release a baby lizard that had been starved. I saw it in one of the kids toy bins a few days ago and just ignored it because that’s what you do when you live in Florida. They are harmless and don’t bother me as long as they are little. Anyway, I saw it again in the same bin days later. It was so skinny so I put it in a cup and released it into the wild in front of my house.

Can you see it? It’s to the left of the raisin I also put out there for it to attract ants for it to eat. Clever, I know ;) Poor little guy.

In other news, we got another table for the kids from Ikea. Their table only seats 2 and Arabella was feeling left out. They were so excited. They just HAD to eat breakfast there.

I couldn’t handle how cute it was that Maya’s feet didn’t reach the ground.

Can she stay little forever? Please!