No More Diapers for Finn

 Exciting times at our house this week. For the fourth time I went through one of my most unpleasant times in parenting, and potty trained Finn. This time I totally lucked out. I had set myself up for a few days of frustration and cleaning up messes and Finn didn't put me through any of that... well mostly. 

He did awesome. He figured things out quickly in the first 24 hours and only had issues when there were tons of distractions from having his brothers around. 

He was so excited to finally be big enough for this and for "underwear pants." Giving his double thumbs up.

And showing off his favorite potty treats- a dum dum. He was surprisingly not that interested in having a treat every time he used the bathroom, so we had plenty of candy left over. 

We did have one incident that was pretty traumatic for me on the 4th morning... to avoid too graphic of a description, I will just say that it involved me jumping out in the middle of my shower to help him with an explosive issues that ended up being left in a huge trail from the basement all the way upstairs. Nothing like scrubbing up poop while in a wet bathroom with conditioner still in your wet hair. Motherhood- there is nothing like it.

A whole lot of Crazy

Finn seriously loves to wear other people's shoes, though usually they are his dad's. The other day I came home from work and left my shoes by the couch, and then went to my room to change. Wyatt and Finn were being silly and I kept hearing a loud pounding noise, so I stuck me head into the hall to tell them to stop banging and I see Finn walking down the hall in my heels. Of course, he was making quite the racket trying to walk in them, but he managed to stay standing and keep them on. Impressive.

Lately, this guy keeps catching every little sickness that goes around, and with his last bad one he ran a fever for a day and would walk around the house and just fall asleep wherever he was. Since that time when he gets really tired he will go make himself comfortable and just take a nap. Catching him asleep are some of my favorite sweet moments with him. Sleeping on his side on my bed makes him look so big and yet so little at the same time.

 These two have really become such good friends and tormentors all at the same time. They love to argue about whose Mom I am, and trying to punch or bite each other when they think they can get away with it. They also love to gang up on their older brothers and tattle about Gavin reading a book at the breakfast table, or what Henry might be packing in his lunch that they don't think he should have. They definetely keep me on the verge of insanity some day, but other days they have me just laughing my head off. They tell the best jokes about bologna sandwiches and all kinds of animals crossing the road, and they each love to make the other one laugh.

 Wyatt is so ready to take on the world and do it all while posing for his photo of choice, especially if he is wearing neon green. Sometimes I just don't know what to do with his creative little constantly working mind. He is full of back talk and attitude, and I am always grateful that he loves preschool as much as he does. He and I both need a little time apart to really appreciate each other. He talks non-stop about turing 5 this summer, but he prefers to act like he is turning 15. 

Gavin Turns !0!

This March marked the 10 year anniversary of Caleb and I becoming parents. Our first child is now a double digit. It felt big. One of those moments when you look back at all of the time that has passed and wonder how it went so quickly. Gavin has becomes such a grown up kid, and such a tween. What an interesting and strange phase of life, but he seems to be loving it. We celebrated parts of his birthday over several days because of our hectic tax season schedule. 

Sunday night we had a family dinner and presents. Gavin requested mulligatawny, and he even helped out Caleb in the kitchen to make it... chopping and blending away. 

He also requested mint chocolate chip cookies for dessert.

On Monday, for his actual birthday, I was able to score some great Jazz tickets from my boss, so Gavin and I headed to the Jazz game that night. He had a fun day at school taking treats and some things to show the class that told things about him.

This year he also got to have a friend party, and what he wanted was to take some of his friends to a trampoline park.  I loaded up my van with six 10 year olds and Henry and we headed off for some fun. It turned out to be the perfect party for this crowd. They are all active and a bit competitive even if it was only with themselves. It was also my first time going to a trampoline park and I loved playing with the kids. It was also 2 hours for the price of 1 that night, so we jumped for about 2hr and 15 minutes and we were all whooped at the end.

There was a slack line, which everyone tried.

Pits for flips.

Suspension ladder which only Henry and I made it to the end of.

And tons of trampolines all over the place to play dodgeball, dunk ball and just jump like crazy.

We also spent tons of time racing and climbing through the ninja course. There were a few of the kids that amazed me how hard they worked to get past some of the obstacles. They just refused to skip the ones that were hardest for them and go around. It was impressive. Henry had that kind of fight with the rings. He wasn't the only one that couldn't reach them, and most of the kids would just jump down and crawl through the phone, but he was So determined to do it.
He would be up and balance in the middle of the ladder, he was at least 18 inches short than the rings and they were probably that same distance forward from the ladder. He would jump for a ring and fall over and over, and then climb back up and do it again. Sometimes getting ahold of one or two.

I watch him do this for about 15 minutes and he was getting so frustrated and pretty close to tears several time, but totally ignoring anyone that would tell him to just crawl through the foam pit. And wouldn't you know, he showed us all. He finally got ahold and made it to the 4th ring before falling, and by the end of our time he made it all the way through the rings the last two times without hesitation. I was quite proud of him.

The fun and crazy birthday group of friends.

We finished off that fun night with frosties and fries and a lot of bad 4th grader jokes in the car, most of them starting with the phrase "Your Mama...". Though they all explained to me that not of these insults were about it. :-)

Lego creations and curious fun

With some of the Cardon family staying around town for a week after the baptism we got out for a few adventures at the end of the week. We went to check out the Lego National Monuments at the mall... not the National Mall, but the Fashion Place Mall. It was still pretty cool. The lego creations were pretty impressive, even down to the details.

 Papa and Grandma went with us.

 Had to have a picture of this similar to one we took at the real Washington Memorial.

 Big muscles to crack that bell.

 At the end of the week, I let the boys take Friday off school to go to the Curiosity Museum with cousins and Grandma and Papa. It was a warm spring day and we had tons of fun.

Rocking the sloth hang.

The favorite part is definetely the climbing and falling through this stretch of webbing.

 We got them all nice and worn out from running around for hours.

 Then we headed to a tasty lunch at Cubby's, a favorite spot of the other Cardons.

Henry's Baptism Day

Henry's baptism was such a special day. We started off with family and cousins arriving at our house, and then meeting up with more great family and friends at the church. Henry's friend, Skyler, also got baptized in the same service. They were excited to take this big step together and it was great to share the experience and the festivities after with good friends. We had so much love and support from family, friends and ward members. It was so nice to see so many come out to support Henry.
Henry asked his mom to give the talk on the Holy Ghost, and hopefully he will remember some of the things he was taught on his big day.

At church in their white clothes before the baptism.

Skyler and Henry

Brandon, Skyler, Henry and Caleb. Such a blessing for these boys to be baptized by their dads.

Group shot with the parents.

A couple of fun shots at the house before. The boys were all so excited for Henry and the fun day.
We had a great lunch/party after the baptism at the church. So much wonderful family and friends.

All the boys lined up by height, but Miran had other ideas as the only girl.

Henry's Birthday Party

Henry really lucked out on his birthday this year- it was a Friday with No school, so he got to have a friend party right on his very birthday. He was super excited. He had decided that he didn't really want to leave out any of his friends, and I had decided to reserve the church gym for the party, so I let him invite 20 friends. I thought that several wouldn't be able to come, but I was wrong, only 2 didn't make it. So it was a very full house with his brothers and also the brothers of a couple of friends who I had asked to come help with games. We partied hard.

 We had jars full of candy for the kids to guess how many were in each, and a place to make beaded bracelets. The first game was musical chairs and a riot, then we played a version on pin-the-tail on the donkey, but we used a giant poster size picture of Henry and we pinned party hats on him.

We split in some smaller groups to play more games, like paper airplane designing and flying.

 Ring toss with comes and pool rings.

 Bean bag toss into buckets.

 And some awesome limbo.

 We ended things with cupcakes and snacks and an awesome game of trying to pop a balloon tied to each person's foot. Which was hilarious. Since the church doesn't allow flames and we forgot the lighter anyway, Henry did a great job of trying to blow out his candle.

 He had a great time with his friends and loved his party. We finished off the night with some Smashburger and family dinner and an actually lit candle. Fun day for a fun kid.

Chinese New Year Celebrations

Chinese New Year is one of my favorite times to go to the school and watch the awesome program that the Chinese Immersion classes put together every year. It is awesome to see all of these classes of kids learning the language and culture and doing amazing things. 

The displays get better every year too. This year the 4th grade classes made home made firecrackers to decorate the school.

Henry was second row, so not the easiest to see, but he was great. This has been his most outgoing year so far.

 Gav was right on the end by his friends and they even still danced.

 The Firecrackers- each was decorated with Chinese characters by each student.