Spring Break

This past week was Spring Break. I wish it had felt a little more "springy" outside. It was nice to be able to relax around the house though. We didn't do a ton of stuff. Monday we came back from camping; Tuesday we hung out at the house and Maggie went to her sewing class; Wednesday we went to the library and Target; Thursday we went to Deseret Book, out to eat at Chevy's and the mall. Friday Garrett took the day off and we took them to Out of this World Pizza. It's kind of like a Chuck E. Cheese's without the arcade games. This place had mostly tunnels, slides, jump house type things a rock wall and some of those wiggle cars to ride. They even had a little baby section. The kids loved it and had a blast. Paige, who takes a while to get into anything loved it too. Here's a few pictures from that:

I also just wanted to post a few random pictures, too. The girls dressed Bella up one day so that she was the Queen.

This is Bella playing the piano. Maybe she'll end up being the pianist in the family :)

Bella recently started holding her own cup to drink from! Yay! She also said her first word the other day--it was No! Not so yay! But it was really cute--I had to laugh, so she said it again. She's pulling herself up to stand on just about anything that she can hang on to. She also started climbing up the stairs, so Garrett spent part of Saturday putting up gates.

My baby is growing up!

Camping in Vernonia

Last Saturday we met up with some friends to go camping in a small town close by called Vernonia. I've never been there before, but a lot of people go camping there because it's close by. I guess they camped here last summer for our ward campout, but we missed that due to being over seas.

Anyways, our friends Terri and Aaron Nissinen started camping on Thursday, but due to Garrett working and me going to see Wicked on Friday, we could only go on Saturday til Monday. Since I am a complete procrastinator, I hadn't packed everything on Friday like I should have, so we didn't leave as early on Saturday as we had wanted. Plus I hurt my back somehow-probably by just sleeping on it weird-so I couldn't lift anything or hardly move, so that slowed us down also.

We finally got to Vernonia around 2ish I think and met up with the Nissinens. It was a fun place to camp with places for kids to ride their bikes, it had a great playground, a nice lake and a place to go shooting. So we had a good time hanging out and letting the kids play and letting our husbands shoot guns. Garrett now informs me that he will be buying a machine gun. No matter what. Great. Terri's brother in law brought one I guess and Garrett got to shoot it and loved it even more. We also played card games--they taught us a new fun one called Hand and Foot. If you ever need games to play--go to Terri--she is full of fun ideas! Both nights we were able to hang out by the campfire and talk. Campfires are my favorite part of camping!

So, since my back was hurting so bad--well not too bad since I was popping medicine the whole time, but still a nuisance--Terri told me about something called reflexology. I think the basic idea is that areas on the foot correspond to areas of the body, and that by manipulating these one can improve health or lessen the pain you are feeling. So, since I didn't want to continue taking medicine or feel the pain again, I went ahead and let her massage my foot. I have a "thing" with feet. I don't like touching any body else's feet or having people touch my feet. I know I'm strange, but I've been this way my whole life--ask anyone in my family. So, to let her do this was a big deal for me. But, I'm glad I let her do it because the pain totally went away. It was great! While she was massaging, it did hurt, but she wasn't applying a lot of pressure, so that was kind of odd. But it was well worth it.

We only took two pictures that whole weekend. I don't know why I never think about taking more pictures. Bella swung in a swing for her first time there and she loved it. Missed taking pictures of that one. Oh well. I did get a good shot of her with her two bottom teeth. I'll post that, just to post a picture.

WICKED

Kate, Jessie, Tonya and Mindy before....
This last weekend, I was able to go and see the Broadway Musical, "Wicked" with three friends from my ward. We made a whole night out of it--got dressed up and went to a nice dinner with authentic "Parisian" food. It was really yummy.
We got the cheapest tickets I could find and ended up sitting on the very last row in the highest balcony, but it was okay. You could still see what was going on, and we could definitely hear the music! My friends brought binoculars so that we could see the facial expressions on the actors and see the costumes a little better, so it worked out great.
Wicked itself was really awesome--what a fun storyline! It was funny and the music and singing was amazing! These people can really sing! I loved the songs, "Popular" and "Defying Gravity" and "Dancing Through Life". What I loved the most though was the friendship between Elphaba (the Wicked Witch of the West) and Galinda (The Good Witch of the North). Here are two people that are as different as can be and yet they can overlook their differences and become really good friends. They go through some tough things, but in the end--they remain good friends. I loved it.
I especially loved the one-liners that they took from "The Wizard of Oz". They were hilarious throughout the play! My favorite was when Elphaba (Wicked Witch) was supposed to be hiding from the guards, but came back to check on her sister, Nessa (Wicked witch of the East). Nessa asked her why she came back and Elphaba said,

"There really is no place like home!"

Jessie, Me, Tonya and Kate at Wicked.

Being silly...waiting for the show to start!

Quilts

I've made a quilt for each of my girls when they were babies and I just finally finished Bella's quilt last week. So, I thought I'd post pictures of them all.

First of all, Bella's:

Paige's:

Lydia's:

and Maggie's:
Garrett has informed me that it's his turn for a quilt. He wants me to make one for our bed, so that's my next big project. We'll see how long it takes! :)