my week with "the boys"

About a month ago I headed out to Utah to hang out with my brother's four boys while my brother and his wife went to Mexico. I'm pretty sure one of us had a much more relaxing trip than the other. :) It was a fun week, minus a nasty bug some of the younger kiddos got, and the kids were all good. Tatum even cooperated and slept pretty well the whole week, which was an awesome surprise. Looking back on the trip, it definitely doesn't seem like I did a whole lot of cool, crazy, fun things with the boys. They were probably pretty bored. But while I was there it sure felt like I was doing everything I could to make it fun. But keeping all five kids alive was my priority and seemed to take a great deal of time and effort! :)

Tatum and Wyatt enjoyed mornings together just the two of them while Finn slept and the older boys were at school. They played remarkably well together.

My cousin, Alex, came for dinner and to hang out one evening. The boys loved building domino towers with him, since "he was the best at it!".

 Bathing the three youngest was an interesting endeavor without a tub. They got to bathe in this inflatable pool. The only trouble was that if I was trying to bathe someone other than Tatum she would insistently try to get in too and there was nothing to keep her out.

 Tatum was slightly obsessed with baby Finn. She loved giving him hugs and kisses. But they look a little more like choke holds and I'm not sure how much he enjoyed them but he was generally a good sport about it.

Caleb has a lot of Science magazines around the house and it became Tatum's favorite thing to do. She would frequently sit on the fireplace ledge and thumb through them for quite a long time.

 Being a stinker.

It wasn't terribly nice the week I was there which was unfortunate. But one day it was finally a bit warmer and so the boys flew their kite after school. 

My mom was in Utah at the same time babysitting my other brother's 5 kids about a half hour away from where I was. We might have been slightly crazy to do this, but we decided to get together and join forces over the weekend. Ten kids, 11 and under, and some nasty bugs being passed around made for quite a weekend. It really was fun and I think I'm still glad we did it. The kids are definitely glad we did, they like playing with their cousins.

Jaren and Wyatt, the best of friends one minute and bitter enemies the next. You really have to watch these two. But they sure looked cute matching for church on Sunday.

 We took the whole crew to Wheeler Farm. Tatum was in heaven.

 Grandma told Jaren to stand really close to the goose. (or is it a duck? I must admit I really don't know how to identify them. Is that pathetic?) Jaren is always happy to be the daredevil.

 The whole gang. It was amazing how often grandma was the hardest person to get to look at the camera.

Wheeler Farm was definitely a hit. Saturday was a day to go down in history. :) Mom and I tried to make a pancake breakfast for all the kids but (sorry if this is too graphic) two of the diapered kiddos were having the runs just about every time we turned around. It was quite a circus. We burned quite a few pancakes, shouted lots of things at each other, disinfected what felt like the whole kitchen, bathed both kids at least once and all 8 of the others were completely oblivious through the whole ordeal. It was quite stressful in the moment but by that evening we were getting quite a laugh just thinking about it.  The rest of the day was spent taking many kids to many soccer games and freezing our tails off. Sunday I stayed home with the sickies (somehow the runs morphed into the barfs with some of the older kids) while mom trucked it to church with 7 kids.

I was there for one more day after Caleb and Marci got home. It was fun to be able to spend some time with them. Marci and I took the younger kids on a walk to get Henry from school. Tatum passed out. She was definitely tuckered out by the end of our week. I was too!

It was a fun week and definitely a learning experience. Suffice it to say I am glad kids come one at a time! (for the most part anyway) Because I'm pretty sure I couldn't go from one to five very smoothly. All the kids were alive and had relatively few bumps and bruises so I would call the week a success! Hopefully Caleb and Marci and Nathan and Stacy were able to have fun in Mexico and not worry too much about their kids with crazy grandma and crazy aunt Rachel.

wheelbarrows, duke and studying

Long time, no blog post eh? It has been a busy month for us. Mostly consisting of Tatum and I being gone and lonely old Brennan holding down the fort. I'm going to ease myself into this whole blogging thing though and just do a brief post of a few happenings before my 2 big trips.

For General Conference we headed to Mt. Vernon to enjoy the broadcast with my family. The weather ended up being halfway decent on Sunday so we got to walk to the train bridge between sessions and Papa got to take Tatum for a ride in his new wheelbarrow.

Tatum is running from Papa in this picture.

She loved the ride at first.

But it didn't take long for her to get a little bit nervous about the whole thing.

My parents went to Utah for my nephew's baptism so we got to have Duke at our house for a few days. Tatum was in HEAVEN. She certainly loves that dog. And it was kind of nice to have a constant playmate for her.

Hugs and kisses.

 I would often find her just hanging out with Duke. One time I couldn't figure out where she might be and sure enough she there she was just keeping him company while he laid on his towel. She brought a few measuring cups to keep herself from getting bored though, no worries.

It's finals time around here. We are excited for the semester to be over and to find out what is going to happen next for us. But I'm not sure the timing of our trips was the greatest. We got back just in time for finals? Oops. Studying around us can't be the easiest.

I took this picture before we went out of town but it is just an example of why studying with the Tater Tot around might be a little distracting. She sits on top of his text book and steals his headphones. Sometimes she just wants to hang out with her dad and unless he hides downstairs there is really no stopping her.

That about covers the "excitement" in our lives a few weeks back. I'll try to tackle one of my trips in the next post.

a really long Easter post

Easter weekend was a busy one. First it was Brennan's birthday on Friday, then I had a church activity Saturday morning and we had a birthday party to go to Saturday afternoon. Brennan had a test to study for and we were planning on going out to eat Saturday night for his birthday. Add to all that trying to fit in Easter traditions and it felt like a whirlwind. 

Saturday night after we went out to Outback (It was delicious. Tatum was a pill though, next time we are leaving her at home. :)), we got busy dying eggs. We thought it would be fun to include Tatum in this tradition this year but it didn't work out so well. She colored on a couple eggs with crayons but when we tried to get her to put them in the dye she would just take the cup and try to drink it. Luckily we used Kool Aid for dye this year, but still she wasn't exactly 'getting' it. So we sent her to bed partway through. :)

Brennan's looking a bit tired in this picture. Like I said, it was a long weekend.

And I'm looking...I'm not sure how I'm looking, like a weirdo doing a weird pose. :)

Pictures of the two of us together don't seem to happen often these days.

What a guy...playing with fire.

We decided to head to Mt. Vernon Easter morning and go to church with my parents. It was nice but made for a busy morning. We got right to the traditional egg wars when we woke up.

Tatum did seem to grasp the concept of this tradition. She was more than happy to smack her egg against ours. It was pretty cute.

Then of course we all had to find our Easter baskets. I was surprised by how much Tatum loved this part. As you can see we  the Easter Bunny hid hers under her slide. She was pretty thrilled when she found it but instead of grabbing it she just decided to crawl under there with it.

Trying out her new water bottle. Now she doesn't always ask to drink from mine-yay!

Reading her new book, Dear Zoo. I really stressed about what book to get her. I choose to stress about the strangest things. I was quite relieved that she seemed to really like it!

And then there was the Easter dress fiasco. I tried to make her one. I was actually somewhat successful but it is a little large and once I realized that I lost motivation to finish up the last few things. So I grabbed a couple at Target for us to choose between. But I don't know what I was thinking because I grabbed them both in 24 months which she totally isn't in yet so she was drowning in them. Luckily we had a springy colored dress in the closet. It was 9 months but with some leggings underneath I think it worked. I'll do better next time. :)

All of our goods. Brennan surprised me and went way overboard with my Easter basket with tickets to see Mat Kearney when he comes to Iowa City. Once I got over the extra money he spent I was pretty excited!

So all of that happened before 9:30 in the morning. Then we were off to church in Mt. Vernon. After Church mom did a little Easter egg hunt in the yard for the kids. Once again Tatum surprised me with her interest.

And she's off!

Found an egg.

Enjoying her spoils.

We ate a delicious Easter feast and enjoyed time with family. It was a great day and we are grateful for our Savior who died for us and we know He lives again. And because He does, we will too. How wonderful!