Warm and Windy days

Kids in cowboy hats are my weakness

I have been debating (and by debating I mean drooling) over all the different doll houses for Alex's birthday.  At first I had decided we were going to just get her a sleeping bag.  She loves sleeping bags for some reason and we plan on doing plenty of camping this summer. 2 birds with 1 stone right?
Well, maybe not the most exciting gift for a preschooler.  Then out of thin air I got the idea to buy a dollhouse.  At first I was going to have Tyler make one, but the little furniture, and the wallpaper on these modern things is just....Wow.  So now I'm scouring the internet looking for dollhouses and deals and dreaming.

I feel almost guilty.  We had decided that for birthdays we were going to just have a great day with the kids.  Go to the zoo, or a kids museum, buy them a single moderate gift from their parents and then have a family party.  Oh how easily I cave.  Alex and I have already begun planning a birthday party for her and her friends, we have chosen a cake to make and I'm trying to convince her to choose a "dress up" party instead of 'Lighting McQueen'.  I figure this year will be the exception, since her birthday is the day before mine, and mine is on Sunday.  We will throw her friends party on Friday, share our amazing day on Saturday and relax Sunday.  I thought I'd be bugged by having to share my birthday week, but I've found that it gives me an excuse to go over the top on everything.  Twice the decorations, twice the fun.

 My cousin Alyson came over to visit us the other day.  She played barbies with the girls for nearly 4 hours straight and Alex didn't stop laughing the entire time.  If that wasn't great enough, she brought the ingredients to make sinfully delicious brownies with cookie dough frosting.  Yes they were as amazing as they sound.

 She asked "So do you really get to do this every day! " referring to playing with them for hours at a time.  It put me in my place.  I'll admit that I don't always feel so lucky to "get" to be their CONSTANT companion.  But I also decided that was a FANTASTIC attitude to have and in another few years I'll wish they would talk to me, let alone play barbies with me.

 I've caved and joined Pinterest.  Turns out it was a better way to do what I've been doing for years- hoarding crafty ideas under my bookmark tabs and then forgetting they were there.  I swore I wouldn't just "collect" ideas, and I would implement the great ones I found.

 Hence the crayon board.  Alex and Heidi helped me hot glue a ton of crayons and then we melted them with a blow dryer. The girls were a bit perturbed that their blowdryer didn't seem to have an effect on the crayons.

 The final product is fantastic, and watching the colors pour down the board was weirdly wonderful.

Alex and Heidi have also decided they love going on walks.  So rain or wind or shine we try to go for a walk every day now.  These walks are best when the girls insist on dressing like cowboys, or hauling along purses full of jewelry and cars.

Today our walk was accomplished a bit differently.  Ben and Kate had free tickets to the last BYU basketball at the Marriot center for the season.  We all decided to go and take Grandma, Grandpa and Aunt Danielle, the women agreed our backup plan would be to take the kids to the Bean Museum when the kids got bored after 5 minutes.  They actually lasted the whole first half!  It was fun to be there and watch the excitement live, but I was excited to let the kids just run without worrying about falling down 50 flights of stairs.
   We left the game and walked over to the Museum in the freezing wind only to find that it was closed. We hurried up to the little creamery to warm up, buy a treat and plan our next step.  It was decided that we would send Grandma back to the game to get all the car keys, while the rest of us "hurried" back past the Marriot center and down towards campus to the cars.  It seemed to take an eternity, and the kids were frozen by the time we made it, but they had a blast running and stuffing themselves full of M&M's, Skittles, and sour watermelons.  We warmed up and drove to Kate's for pizza, so happy to be home.  Not 20 seconds after we got there, the boys walked in! They had stayed and watched the game, and probably made it to the cars minutes after we had finally buckled the kids up and driven off.
The best part was watching Alex run through the grass yelling "I LOVE Basketball games!!" And squeezing both Annie and Bridger into the same carseat stroller thing, and watching 7 month old Annie steal 7 week old Bridgers pacifier.