Easter with Grandma Nadine

My kids know Grandma Nadine by name and love her.  They remember how awesome her house and pool is and adore all the things she sends out to them via package, but I really want them to get to know the awesome person she is and spend quality time with her while we still have her. Plus, visiting Grandma Nadine is like an idealistic trip for my kids.  Wake-up...swim...eat...swim...basically swim swim swim for hours on end and only pause for food as needed.  I have been trying to find a time to get down to her house again and Easter posed the perfect opportunity this year.

We left on a Friday night and drove as far as St. George to stay with Babi and Papou.  Liv insisted on bring her violin on the trip and played for Babi as soon as we got there.  The next morning, we got up and drove to Las Vegas where we stopped to visit with Nathan and Benazir.  The kids were super thrilled to meet their two new hamsters and loved holding/torturing them.


We played a fun little game on Nathan's tv with our cell phones where you draw pictures and title the drawings and get points based on correct guessing.  And added element of difficulty with kid drawers.  Liv played her violin pieces for Nay and Benz and then we were off to Grandma Nadine's.

We got the kids a DVD of the Greatest Showman for the trip to AZ and the kids literally watched it on repeat the whole way day.  It would be silent and then all the sudden all 3 kids would be screaming the lyrics of their favorite songs and then silent again.  It was conference weekend, so Derek and I listened to General Conference talks.   I have to say that this Saturday session of conference, I heard more of the conference talks in entirety than I have since having kids.  That is the way to do conference--take a road trip.

 I bet you guess what the first item on the agenda was for the kids as soon as we pulled into Grandma Nadine's driveway.  They carried their suit cases in and were in their swimsuits in no time!  Grams said we were lucky that the week we decided to come they had an unseasonably hot spell because it is a little chilly for outdoor pool swimming generally that time of year.  Those kids swam for hours, then we made dinner, while they put together lego sets Grams had waiting for them, and then introduced Grams to The Greatest Showman.

The kids all went to sleep pretty easily after the excitement of the day.  Grams got the kids each a cute little Easter basket with some candy and a little stuffed bunny for each kid to put in it.  I brought a few non candy Easter activities that I added (activity books, painting sets...)

And, I brought plastic eggs from home and opted for money instead of candy due to the already large quantities of candy in their baskets.  Additionally, quarters don't melt in the sun!  In fact, Derek scattered all the eggs the night before Easter and then it was awfully magically for the kids to wake up on Easter morn to baskets and an Easter Egg hunt.  I gave each kid their own color egg to hunt for so it all divided up evenly---that really seems to work well.  The rest of the day consisted of attempting to watch conference with the kid interruptions, hours and hours of swimming, and a nice Easter ham dinner.  Grams taught me how to make her traditional Easter ambrosia.  In between conference sessions, we attempted to take the kids on what turned out to be a very hot hike.

 That cold pool waiting back at Grandma's for us never sounded so good.  During the last session of conference, Grams and I sat on the floor of her room with the tv on and we went through he box of old photos.  I found so many gems that I can't wait to hang in my house:
Great gamme and me:

Grandma and Grandpa Hartman:

Great Gamme and her siblings:

Grams and her brother Durwood:

My Dad and His Sister Kathy:

My awesome siblings and I in a Disney themed '90s family photo:

After Easter dinner, the kids wanted Grams to see Coco, another movie we bought for the kids for the trip down (basically they alternated between Greatest Showman and Coco the whole drive there and back).  Then, they all went to bed pretty easily again after another fun filled day.

The next morning, we left pretty early to go to the Wildlife Zoo and Aquarium with the kids in Glendale.  It was really neat basically an outdoor Zoo and Aquarium combined with rides (that you could pay an arm and a leg to go on).  The kids got to feed giraffes which was pretty cool, and they had a neat little animal show where we watched a little kid get to high five an otter.  And they had a petting zoo which Carter just loved and didn't want to leave.  That kiddo loves animals!




We had a great time walking around until it got pretty hot in the afternoon.  Grams deemed that the time to take a break and treated us all to a little indoor lunch.  Then, we ended the day with the indoor aquarium exhibits, and a water log ride with all the kids but Camden who had no desire to ride a log down a steep drop.  What Camden loved was the map of the zoo.  He walked around looking at the map.

Carter and Liv watching the seals:

Then once back at the house, you guessed it the kids swam for nearly 4 hours straight.  They loved all Grandma's pool floaties and Derek and I each took turns swimming with them.

The kids all drank way too much soda, but I didn't stop them.  I wanted them to experience the magic of Grandma Nadine's house as I remembered it with her magical fridge that as soon as you take a soda another one magically reappears in the appropriate perfect little row of soda.   I just adore my Grams and it was the best trip ever.  The kids are all asking when we can go visit Grandma Nadine again--soon I hope.  The next morning it was time to go home. We did the drive home in one long day, stopping in St. George to eat dinner at Babi and Papou's and pick up London who they graciously watched for us while we were away.  The sent us home with the left over spare ribs and Carter totally snacked on them on the drive home.

The Busiest Saturday and Olivia's Hale Center Audition

I saw that the Hale Center Orem was doing Annie this summer.  Liv, my little thespian, has been attending plays at the Hale Center with me since she was 3 or 4 years old and always tells me that some day she wants to be in a play there.  This was the first show I saw that she was actually old enough to audition for.  I hesitated about whether to even mention the audition because I knew she would of course want to audition, but if she happened to get a part this show ran every night of the summer Monday-Saturday with multiple shows on Saturday from June-August.  I wasn't sure I wanted to commit to that.  But, Derek and I discussed it, and agreed to let her decide.  Of course when I mentioned the audition, she excitedly decided that of course she really wanted to audition.  She decided to sing 16 bars of Put on a Happy Face (which I think was the perfect song).  We had Tyler Thorsted take a headshot picture and printed off an 8x10 size photo to attach to a typed up theater resume that Derek put together for her (all because they recommended that you come to the audition with all this stuff).   Good thing we did too, this place was crazy pants.  Every kid had a resume and headshot.  They took 10 kids back every 15 minutes all day long and had them sing their 16 bars in front of the group.  Liv loved it, and didn't seem mind singing in front of her competition at all.  I image with auditions like that all day long, they probably had over 200 people audition.  I was literally blown away by how intense it all was and sort of expected the audition to end there, but she got a call back.  She was so excited about it.

Unfortunately the call back audition landed on the busiest Saturday ever.  The call back audition was a 2.5 hour audition with a dance, vocal, and reading audition.  They had probably 50 girls there all auditioning for 12 or so parts as orphans.  She was expected to be able to read from any one of the orphan parts from a reading script they gave her, and sing on her own in front of the group and in a 3 part harmony with 3 people each taking a different note (she needed to be able to take any of the notes they asked her to sing).  We practiced and practiced and had everything down pat.  The morning of the audition, I dropped her off at the audition.  Then ran home and prepared fruit for our ward Easter Egg Hunt and breakfast.  Derek cooked all the pancakes for the ward and I was there long enough to get the hunt started for all the kids.

  Then, I had to go pick Liv up from her audition and we had to go straight over to the Hale Center Orem to catch The Little Mermaid which I had reserved tickets for she and I to see that day long before she decided to audition for Annie.  The Little Mermaid was amazing and we had a great little girl date together. 

Straight from that we went to an Olivia's soccer game and then Derek and I somehow still had the energy to plant our garden.  
Busy busy Saturday!!

In the end, she didn't end up getting cast in Annie which I thank my lucky stars about daily when I'm not running her off to play practice too in addition to show choir, basketball camp, her school choir, a violin lesson, piano recital, or soccer game.  Plus, we will have a summer that consists of more than just Annie performances every other night of the summer.  She didn't seem too disappointed herself, and loved the whole crazy intense process.  So overall, I think it was a good experience for her.

Winter Merriments

The last time I was on call.  I guess Carter decided being one parent down was time to strike.  He got into my lotion and plastered our dresser, bed posts, the carpet, everywhere.  I came home to find it and Derek didn't even know he had did it.  Well, he was so mad he pulled poor dead asleep Carter out of bed and made him clean it all up half asleep and charged him a whole dollar from his bank for the damages.  I must say, cross your fingers, he hasn't really pulled a Carter in a long while since.  Maybe we are finally on to something.

  It never gets old to see my two twins entwined together on the couch.

 

I found these 2018 goals of Olivia’s posted in the hallway at her school.  I got a kick out of the fact that she wants to get betting at "speling."

This was at my Mom and George’s house on our way back from our Disneyland trip.  Liv got poxed with stickers.

 

We traded in the basic adult sized violin Babi gave Liv for Christmas for a super nice ¼ size violin and Liv has started violin lessons.  It has been fun to watch her learn this new instrument and her instructor seems to be quite impressed with her thus far.  She can play twinkle twinkle little star, but that’s about it so far.

I gave a little FHE lesson the other day on how the restored church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints that we belong to has temples and the priesthood, and baptism by immersion, and prophets, and revelation and scripture and such.  We talked about all the things that are part of our church and stacked cups for each one, then talked about apostasy and what happens was one or two or a few of those are lost (the church crumbles) then it was restored through Joseph Smith.  The kids learned all the important things that makes our church stand out from others and had so much fun doing it.  FHE win!

 

Carter my little sous chef picking up on all my little cooking tricks.  Goggles are a must if you are cutting a bunch of onions.

 

Super Bowl Sunday we spent at the Thorsteds eating smoked meat, watching the super bowl or in my case playing games with all the kids.  I made mozzarella sticks and baked beans for the occasion.  It was a fun little event and watching my kids spend hours on end playing game after game made my heart happy.

 

Liv’s school did a little reading competition where all the kids were supposed to log as many at home reading minutes as they could.  These are Liv’s two newest favorite books that she discovered through the process.  You could send in pics of your kids holding their favorite new books discovery and they posted the pictures on the TV in the hallway.  This is the pic we sent in.

Camden has been saving his pennies for all sorts of dollar store excitement, but one day we were at target and he found this umbrella for $3 and just had to have it, so I told him he could purchase it with his own money.  He did and from the way he carried it around for days I don’t think he has had buyers remorse at all.

 

The latest happy meal toy was actually these cute monster punch outs that you could color and decorate with stickers.  I took the kids there one night for dinner when Derek was at a jazz game and gone all night.  The kids left the monsters all over his bed to scare him when he got home.

Two school event for Olivia.  The 1st grade patriotic program where she got up and delivered a super lengthy address about Abraham Lincoln with a clear voice you could hear all the way to the back and sang a bunch of adorable song.  She also entered the 1st grade story telling competition.  She retold the story of the Berenstain Bears and the Missing Dinosaur.  Of course, our little performer won the 1st grade competition which won her the opportunity to present her story at a school assembly the next week.  She did awesome.  Seems to thrive on audiences.  In front of all those people, I swear she gave her best performance ever without seeming the least bit nervous.

Friday was so lovely (the calm before the storm apparently), so the boys and I (and Martha who is a permanent fixture in our hour it seems) walked to the bus with London to pick Liv up.  It was lovely and reminded me of walking to the bus every day when she was in kindergarten.

1st grade has been so busy!  By the time Liv walks home from the bus and does her homework, it's dinner time and almost bed time.  But, we finally had a lighter day and Liv had been wanting to have Leo over to play.  My favorite part of the play date was when Leo requested to read Dr. Seuss books, so Liv read him book after book.  Mr. Brown can Moo was adorable she would say "Mr. Brown can Buzz...Leo can you Buzz?" etc.

We are huge Greatest Showman Fans over here.  The kids ask Alexa to play the Greatest Showman Soundtrack all day long.  They have been wanting to go see it again for a second time.  Since, Aunt Kathy sent us out some movie gift certificate for Christmas, I deemed this the perfect opportunity and Friday night we all went to see it again.  Only problem was trying to keep the kids singing to a minimum so as not to be a distraction to the rest of the theater.  

Yesterday, Derek had a meeting in south Salt Lake, so the kids and I joined him for the drive up and hung out at Scheels while he was in his meeting.  I got each kid a littler treat.  Camden picked this huge rice krispie treat.