This was the week of Mariah's Hershey Track Meet!  It was also the first year since Savannah was a fourth grader that I have only had one Hershey Track Meet to attend.  I calculated that this was my 15th Hershey Track Meet.  Wow!  I am a seasoned veteran.  Does this mean that I no longer miss events because I am late?  Unfortunately, no.  :)  I did pretty good this year, though.  Mariah did fabulous.  The kids can only compete in two events.  Mariah chose the 800m and the 400m -- the two longest events -- and she placed in both!  She came in third in the 800m, and she won her heat of the 400m with an incredible dash past the leader in the last stretch to place second overall.

The girl is fast!  It was fun to see her have such fun with those races.  We love that speedy girl!

Otherwise we had a pretty uneventful week.  Savannah did have choir festival on Wednesday and she had fun wearing her lovely choir dress and singing.  She has also joined Springville's Youth City Council (YCC).  That is a group of about 40 teens who work with the city council to accomplish projects, learn about government, and do volunteer work.  This Saturday they had a breakfast with the city council and then mulched trees in one of our city parks.  She had to be sworn in at a city council meeting with the other teens earlier this month.  It was pretty cool! 

On Saturday, we did some chores.  The younger girls wanted to earn some money so I had some hard workers!

Ben washed the cars with just his hands -- no rag.  I didn't even offer him money and he so wanted to work!  Beth also worked for free.  She sang while she worked:

The most exciting thing of the day (or of their very lives if you ask Megan her opinion) was when Dad took our three older girls to the T-Mobile store and got them their very own phones!

Can you believe I wanted to interrupt to take a picture???

Savannah, of course, is hesitant to embrace anything that could be considered pop culture.  Fortunately, I convinced her to get one for my own convenience.  So, she now carries a phone to humor her mother.  Yay, me!  She might decide she likes it, but she may never admit it!

Savannah will be paying for her own phone, and Megan and Sarah earning theirs, but their lines were actually only $5/month after the expensive lines Kevin needs for work.  So . . . for the added convenience (and the happiness it would bring) we decided, why not?

The other really fun thing on Saturday was that we got to see Grandma Mary!  She stopped on her way back from a visit to St. George.  She stayed for a few hours and it was so fun to visit with her and get caught up on her life.  We were glad she came!

Ben has been learning a lot more words.  He can say all his sister's names.  The cutest mispronunication is "Gagen."  He sure loves her and calls her name frequently!  He also says "Sor-ry!" really sweetly -- but don't be taken in because he doesn't stop whatever misdemenor in which he is engaged even when he charms you with that sweet apology!  Lol!  He says, "outside," and "porch," and "ride," and "cars,"  (he loves cars!), and "dog," and "cat," and "horse," he also says "fowie" for "flower."  Isn't that funny?  That's because he decimated my tulips this week, which wasn't bad considering how long they lasted before he took an interest in them.  My little girls never let them last that long at that age!  He says "owie," and "hurts," and "bottle," and "blankie," and "baby," and "ball."  His cutest phrases are, "Whatcha doin'?" and "Where going?"  Which reminds me that he also says, "bye!" "see you!" and "love you!" and often yells them until one of us is pretty significantly far down the street.  He does not like being left behind.  But then, none of us really do, do we?

This is Ben making sure we all know that he is not a girl -- possibly a dinosaur -- but not a girl.  He is so boy.  It is really fun to see these differences and have a chance to raise a boy.  We are loving this growling kid!

He cleans up well, too!  This was his birthday present
from G&G Gazdik.  Doesn't he look GQ? 

Our neighbors gave us their little tikes car.  Words cannot describe my jubilation!
Nor Ben's!  The first day we had it, he stayed in the backyard with it ALL DAY!
I love little tikes cars.  I love free little tikes cars even. more!

Now Bethany is free to ride the balance bike we got him for his birthday
 in which he was not at all interested!

Cali wanted to make snickerdoodles for mom and me time this week.  They are her favorite cookies.  She says that making them into ballls and then rolling them in cinnamon and sugar make them more fun than other cookies.  For other people, that makes them too much work.  For Cali, that makes them more fun!  What a good perspective.

Sarah had choir festival this week.  It was held at her own junior high, but she still got to be released from several classes to hang out with friends and sing songs.  She had great fun.

Plus, she got to look stunning in her choir dress all day!

Thursday night of this week our stake held a "Time out for Families" where they had a speaker on families and relationships and then had several break-out classes on different topics which we could attend.  Kevin was one of the teachers and I heard he did a fabulous job.  He has a real talent for teaching.  I am happy for him when he gets a chance to share what he knows with people.  He enjoys the opportunities as well!  The break-out class I went to was really good, too.  Kevin taught on marriages and I went to a class on parenting.  I figured Kevin could help me work on my marriage skills back at home.  :)

Saturday morning Kevin and I went to the temple.  Later in the morning Savannah, Sarah, and Megan had a "Personal Progress PowWow" that our ward put together.  They got a lot of their stuff signed off and had a good time together.

The day was beautiful and we got a lot of yard work done that afternoon.  We even turned on the sprinklers and my under-ten crowd was quickly in their swimsuits!

I forgot to mention that my second-graders had to turn in their animal reports this week and got to display them with their animal habitats on Friday.  I think you may have already figured out that Cheyenne did Zebras and Calianne reported on Cheetahs.  They made pretty cute salt-dough replicas.  What a fun project for them!

 This week was Spring Break!!! Yay!! We started out by celebrating Benjamin's second birthday on Sunday over at Grandma and Grandpa Gazdik's house.

These are the blocks that he later found great fun
 in throwing over the balcony one by one!

He loved this little moving lion from
Grandma and Grandpa Elton!

G&G Gazdik bought this cute cake/cupcakes and wished
Savannah a happy birthday with it, too, since they weren't here
for her birthday!

Ben had no idea how to blow out those candles but he sure thought the
fire was worth a closer look.  Cool, guys!

On Monday, I put the kids to work.  I had the older girls help me clean out the shed (!!!) and put the younger girls to the task of cleaning out and washing the van.

This is after I had taken out some stuff so we could
take a picture.  Yes.  It was bad!

The yard looked bad in the middle of the process!

I think the other crew was having a lot more fun!

Ben even offered his blanket to use for such a good cause!

Not that I was there to notice what Ben was doing!

At long last, success!

Behold the conquering heroes!

Tuesday was a little more low-key.  I had promised Savannah, Megan, and Mariah that I would take them to see the Hunger Games movie over spring break (Sarah had already seen it, so she said she would babysit).  We ran out of time on Monday because Savannah had to work in the afternoon, so we went to see it Tuesday morning.  It was great fun!

We did go for a family bike ride in the afternoon,
because the twins told me we had to do something fun as a family everyday!

It was also Grandma Gazdik's birthday, so we bought her some
flowers and a present and mom and dad went out to dinner with her and Grandpa!

Wednesday was supposed to be our last day of good weather, so while the storm blew in, we decided to hike the Y.  We got a babysitter for Benjamin and Bethany because sometimes I show foresight like that.  I was so glad this was one of those times!  It was a hard hike!  Very steep!  Do you know that I had never hiked the Y before?  Crazy, I know.  Something that definitely needed remedying.

This is me and Cheyenne pulling up the rear.  It was nice of Cheyenne to stick with me.
She asked me, "Mom, why are you breathing like that?"  Have I mentioned that it was a hard hike?

Cheyenne took advantage of my slow pace to take copious notes.

Despite all my thoughts to the contrary . . . WE MADE IT!

Afterwards we went to the BYU Creamery for ice cream.
It was a perfect BYU event!

Thursday, I guess was our real low-key day.  It worked out better since everyone was sore from the day before.  Heh, heh.  Mariah, Cheyenne, Calianne, and Bethany had a sleep-over at Grandma's Thursday night, though, and you can bet they were looking forward to that!  Yay for sleep-overs at Grandma's!

On Friday we went up to Salt Lake City.  We heard it was going to rain so we tried to plan to do things indoors.  It ended up being kinda sunny, which was nice, but still pretty cold.  Grandma decided to come with us and we had a really nice day!  We walked around temple square, saw the new City Creek center, saw the movie in the JSM building, and went to the Church History Museum.

It was a beautiful time to visit temple square with all the spring flowers!

You always have to take a picture here!

We saw the visitor's centers, too.

. . . and saw the view . . .

and the reflection pool, too!

Ben and Beth liked the interactive part of the Museum best!
It was very kid-friendly!



We were sure tired by the end of the day -- and by the end of the week!


On Thursday night this week, Megan entertained us with another lovely orchestra concert.

They played some beautiful songs with just their orchestra, then we listened to The New Horizons orchestra which is comprised of people over 60 who are just learning to play or returning to instruments after several years.  Then they combined the orchestras and the young played next to the old.  It was cool.  It was moving.  Megan even played this time instead of just air bowing.  We really enjoyed it!

And did I make that adorable blouse that she is wearing?  Yes.  Yes, I did.

Friday was Good Friday, so that meant hot cross buns for tea . . . or for afterschool snack if you happen to live in Utah and not England.

We also invested in a bike trailer.  That way I can bring B&B with me when I train for the bicycle part of my triathlon.  Also, the bigger kids can take the same little people with them this summer when they need an adventure.  Win, win!  So far I can tell you that going 13 miles with no trailer is way easier than 6 miles pulling two preschoolers! 

Also, the trailer has a bit of a soporific effect.  (Isn't that a wonderful word?)

Calianne saw these hats on the front of Family Fun magazine and wanted to spend some Mom and Me time making them.  They turned out cute, huh?  We had fun doing it, too!

Mariah spent a lot of the warm days we had this week reading books.  She was still enjoying the turn in the weather, though, since her favorite spot to read was up in the tree!

The following pictures look like they were taken a few months back, but no, they are really from this week!  We woke up Friday to a raging snow storm.  The little people home with me thought it was pretty cool even though I think it was way too cold to be cool!

Luckily it didn't last long.  By Saturday when we colored eggs, it was all gone.

 

 

Where was Ben?  Well, he was playing outside, of course!  Have I mentioned that we can't get him to come inside?  Actually, we got him interested for about 30 seconds . . .

. . . then he took the project back outside.  The egg didn't last very long.

Here's all our beautiful eggs!  The two missing were Ben's.  Maybe next year!

Later that evening we had our annual Easter egg hunt!  We had our older kids do the hiding this year.  We even adopted an older brother for the occasion!

Here's our excited hunters!  The hunting was extra tricky this year since our hiders did an extra tricky job!  We thought there was one egg we might never find again, but it was located at long last!

Ben was just upset when the egg hunt was over and he couldn't have the jar of jelly beans all to himself anymore.  Ahh, the injustices of life.