Turks and Caicos

Last week we went on Christopher's much debated management retreat for work.  I say "much debated" because we knew about this trip before we knew when Jasmine would arrive, if she would be healthy enough to travel, and if we could get her a passport in time.  Most days I thought this might be a very bad idea, to be honest.  Who takes a seven week old baby on a Caribbean trip?  But the opposite question was, who turns down a free Caribbean vacation?  Christopher had to go on his work trip whether I went or not, so in the end, we ditched our older kids at Grandma Skarda's house and took the baby with us.

Now, normally I am happy to leave the kids at home for these trips.  Each time we have gone, I have thought about how much our (at the time, 3 year old or so) kids would have hated getting off their nap schedule and having nothing to do where we went.  They would have been miserable, and we wouldn't have been able to do what we wanted to do.  Our kids LOVE staying at Grandma's house, and Kaitlyn was asking if it was time to stay there yet for weeks.  So usually it is better to leave them behind for these trips.

This was not that trip.

We went to Beaches resort, and it was an honest to goodness five year old HEAVEN.

There were Sesame Street characters wandering around to greet kids, tuck them in at night, and perform in shows with the kids.

All you can eat treats, with little people sized beach chairs to enjoy them in.

An entire waterpark, in addition to the pools and beach.

Not to mention our room had awesome bunk beds all ready for them.

And instead, we brought the one kid that wouldn't enjoy a second of it.  But hey, it was intended to be a management retreat for couples so that we could all spend time together.  And I have seen in the past that when families come, they spend time as a family and not doing things with other couples.  So there was a reason we all left our preschoolers at home.

And Jasmine did enjoy the trip, I think.  Her favorite part was the ceiling fan in our room.  She would lie on our bed and watch that thing spin like it was the most awesome object she had ever seen.  In fact, she usually kept smiling at it until she drifted off to sleep.

And she sort-of liked swimming.

She even had a friend.

While Tabitha is only twelve days younger, she was born a couple of pounds smaller and is barely up to Jasmine's birth weight.  She looked so dainty to me!  Meanwhile, lots of people would ask me how many months old Jasmine is, and when I replied "seven weeks" I usually had to follow up their dropped jaw with "She likes food.  A lot."

Of the eleven couples, seven had kids under two years old.  Nursing babies were allowed to come, and we ended up with the two newborns and two 1 1/2 year olds.  Since they were planning events for the couples to do together, two teenage daughters came along to babysit as well.  So it all worked out great!  Jasmine was quite happy to take a (pumped) bottle, and she had a great time with her new friends a few times.

We played in the water park . . .

(We laugh at this picture a lot, actually,  See how he looks like he has a huge gut?  In reality, the shorts are barely held up by his hips because he has lost weight training for the IronMan.  Ironic, no?)

We went snorkeling . . .

Took the Hobie Cats out for a spin . . .

And even got some spray art "tattoos".  (And apparently I was paying so little attention to my photography that I made an orange tree grow out of Ken's head.  Ta Da!)

See, I told ya my husband is fit.  Hot stuff, babe.

One of the teenagers talked her mom into "I get to pick yours and you get to pick mine" deal.  I think the mom got the short end of that stick, but she was a fantastic sport about it.

It says "bad girl", if you can't see it too well.  The girls got Buddas in blue sparkle.  Mom swore it would be gone by work this morning, no matter how much she had to scrub.  But as the artist pointed out, "if you can't have fun on vacation, you shouldn't be here!"

One of my favorite things that we did I left my camera behind for, unfortunately.  Each resort on the island adopts a school, and provides them with lunches and computer labs, etc.  So we got to take a trip over to the local elementary school and read to the kids.  It was so awesome!  They were adorable kids who loved to hug and play with the newcomers, and it was great to see the real island instead of the pristine resort for a while.

It is good to be home, though.  The funny part was that just a couple of days before we left, Kaitlyn asked me what we were going to do at home while she was  playing at Grandma's house.  She looked a bit less excited when I told her we were going to a hotel.  Near a beach.  When we got there, we saw Elmo walking around and I told Christopher sarcastically that we should get our picture taken with him so we could ruin Kaitlyn's entire week in one go.  Poor girl.  Thankfully, our kids really did have a blast with Grandma and their cousins all week.  Now we just have three days to get all the laundry done and head down for the IronMan!

Thanksgiving Point

My mother-in-law gave us all memberships to Thanksgiving Point for Christmas, but with winter weather and the new baby, I hadn't gotten to use it yet.  Thank goodness the weather was awesome this week!  On Monday, we went to the Children's Gardens with all of their cousins.  The kids loved all the stations there - there are things to climb on and through, a stage to pretend on, a tiny river to send plastic bits down, and they especially loved this jungle gym.

My kids are toward the top, if you were looking for them.

I knew we would need a second trip for the tulip festival though.  I love to wander around and take pictures, and that is a bit tough with toddlers.  But I didn't want to just leave them at home either, because they still enjoy it!  Luckily my usual babysitter said she was really bored this week, so she came with us.  So while the kids were off rolling down the hill and chasing her, I got to have my fun.

And of course, I made sure to get some pictures of my cuties with all the flowers while I was at it.

Jasmine slept through most of it and just made this brief appearance after she nursed.  But she decided she didn't care for the wind, sun, or inexperienced toddlers holding her, so back in the stroller she went.

I even got some cute shots with their "Mee Kenna", as Kaitlyn calls her.

When McKenna tried to pick up Tyler to sit on the bridge too, he screamed "NO!  I don't want to go in the water!!" and panicked.  It was hilarious!

Easter

I have to say, I am rather sick of plastic eggs.

First we had the neighborhood hunt a couple of weeks ago.

Then each of our kids hunted for eggs in their classes at school. (Ack! Both of my older kids.  I have to keep reminding myself: I have three kids, not just two now.  And Jasmine obviously does not attend school or hunt for eggs.)

On Saturday, BYU hosted an egg hunt.  It was free, the kids got to run around in the stadium, and there were prizes in the eggs ranging up to football season tickets, so why not?

We were not alone.

But it went really well.  There was so much candy that every kid left with a full basket.  None of our eggs had any prizes in them, though.

And then we went to the family egg hunt.

We brought 10 eggs per kid, but Grandma chipped in an extra 100 or so just in case.  I think the kids have more candy than they got from Halloween.

And we even lined up all the babies for a picture.  The oldest was born last September, and then Jasmine is the youngest.

And I got a better shot, but only when the sad one had already left.

By the time we got to Sunday, I decided that the Easter bunny did not need to visit our house.  Of course, I realized after church that I had already bought little toys to go in their baskets, and Grandma Jones even got me this cool edible grass to go in too.  So maybe I should have just taken the candy from their stash to fill the eggs.

Oh well.

We did have a great day at church - the program was awesome, as usual, and Jasmine was kind enough to sleep through almost all of her first church trip.  I didn't work too hard on Easter outfits this year.  But I was impressed when I figured out that Kaitlyn's first Easter dress fit Jasmine just fine, and that Kaitlyn had a matching white eyelet dress that I got from a garage sale a while ago.  Unfortunately, this was as cooperative as Kaitlyn would be for the pictures.

What do you think, do my girls look alike?  Kaitlyn was a few weeks older here, but this her in the Easter dress.

And here is Jasmine.

The poses might not be the same, but I think they are a lot alike.  Jasmine certainly has more hair though!

One month down, one month to go

I can't believe she is already getting bigger!  She has outgrown some clothes and the N diapers, and actually started smiling at me the last few days.  Nothing beats the first baby smile!  She has always been smiling with her little tummy bubbles, but three times now she has been fussy and bored laying somewhere, and when I pick her up and say "hi!" she just smiles right back at me with this big wide grin.

Hopefully soon I'll catch one on camera.  For now, we just have more sibling action.

I heard a lot of horror stories about siblings regressing and acting out when a new addition comes, but these guys have been great. 

In the meantime, we have one month to go . . . until Daddy's IronMan.  He has been putting in hours each and every day.  He even went down and biked the course last week, and he felt like it went really well.  The course is really long and really tough, but he did it with a good enough time that he could make the cut off on race day.

So we're just hanging in there until then.  About the only other news around here is that I just got a Kindle.  Anyone have any good book recommendations?  The great thing about an e-reader is that I can read while nursing or rocking her to sleep, when otherwise I would just be staring at the walls for 20 minutes.  Let me know if you have any good ones I should load on there!

And finally, my favorite picture of the day.  I never had a sister, but I'm glad that Kaitlyn got one to chat with!