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!