Spring Break 2014 Stay-cation

This week was Spring Break for my kids.  We started the week off with General Conference.  You may also notice that my family room is currently full of things, we demolished our storage room shelves and Zach is going to rebuild them to better suit our storage needs.

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On Monday I took a few kids with me to the library and then I took all the kids to the park afterwards:

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This is Ila laying on her shadow:

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Charlotte liked being a bridge.  Thomas had a pattern.  1.  Go up the stairs.  2.  Play with the clock.  3.  Go down the stairs.  4.  Repeat.

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Ila is my picky eater.  Here she is eating her “favorite chips.”  They’re actually the only chips she’ll eat at all.  One time her friends had her favorite chips when she went over.  She talked about it for weeks.  She’d say “Mom, remember when the Tanner girls had favorite chips?”

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Thomas played catch with a little boy he met at the park:

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Then Thomas kept trying to catch a ride with the kid:

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After the park, we had some kids over to play.  Isaac made fortifications for a Nerf War.

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Here are some of our favorite pit stops on a typical walk.  The girls swing in any front yard swings we see (there are two on our walk):

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This is the “bird tree.”  You can’t see the birds, but you know they’re in there because you can hear them chirping as you walk by.

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This dog loves to run up to the fence for a pet.  Nicole petted him and then exclaimed “Dogs like me now!”

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We always stop by to visit the chickens.  This time we got to pet some chicks:

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On Tuesday we took Grandma Cochran with us to IKEA for free kid’s meals.

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On the way home we stopped at the Lehi Family fun center.

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Thomas was really mad that he was too short to ride the airplanes so he had a little tantrum and I took a picture of it.

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Just before we left, we went back to the airplane ride and someone else was running it and Thomas managed to sneak on for a ride with Isaac.

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After we got home, the kids went back out to play:

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and water flowers,

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and water themselves.

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On Wednesday we stayed home so I could catch up on laundry and chores, but the kids still had lots of fun outside playing in the water:

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On Thursday we drove up to West Jordan and met up with some friends who I grew up with, but I didn’t bring my camera.  After visiting with them, we went to the fun center again.  Isaac and Charlotte tried out the climbing wall an

d each got scared before making it to the top.  They’re each ready to try again.

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Thomas got to ride the airplanes several times with Isaac.

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Thomas has been dragging his “car” up the the door a lot lately.  I keep telling him it’s an outside toy, but that didn’t stop him from dragging it up the stairs to each of our neighbors doors this week.  When I wasn’t looking, he managed to sneak it all the way in the door before I caught him.

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Thomas and Isaac have been riding toys outside together.  Thomas even lead Isaac on a two block ride on Friday morning.  They were gone so long that I almost got in my car to drive around and look for them, but they showed up just in time.

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My cousin Jeni came to visit us on Friday.  She brought her 5 kids, her husband, her Dad, and her nephew.  Jeni lives in Brigham City and her Dad lives in Texas.  We had pizza and a nice visit together.  Later the kids went over to Grandma and Grandpa’s yard for some spring sledding:

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On Saturday, Grandpa came over and mowed the front lawn and fixed our mower so that Zach could mow the back.  Thomas thought the mower looked like fun:

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Our friend invited us to a big Easter egg hunt and carnival.  The kids got way too much candy!

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The girls didn’t want to leave without getting their faces painted.

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Zach weeded one of the flower beds.  He did such a nice job that I took a picture:

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Our neighbors across the street had their grandchildren over and were driving around a little red car.  Thomas was very interested in the car.  He even sneaked across the street and climbed in while no one was looking.  When they came back out later, they gave him a ride:

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I even managed to sneak in a house project.  I have been wanting to build the kids rain gutter book shelves since before we moved here and I finally did it on Saturday:

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