Spring Break Simple

After taking a trip to Utah in February and then having the Ludlows visit for Easter, we were pretty happy that we didn't have to go anywhere for Spring Break.  We stayed home and planned just the right amount of diversions for the week off of school!

First things first: getting the discounted candy from Target on the day after Easter!  Somehow the boys had managed to eat most of their loot by Sunday night, so they were feeling pretty worried about it and wanted to use their own money to stock up.  After all, Peeps only come once a year!  Oh, wait, that's not true anymore...

We had some time for play dates with the Severson boys, which is pretty much everyone's favorite thing to do.  Archer even got in on the fun!

Ellis got invited to visit Sam's preschool as a special alumni guest at Miss Nancy's!

So Henry and I decided we needed a trip to the Botanic Garden while they were at preschool.  Unfortunately, it was still a little cold and there wasn't much growing outside.  So we enjoyed the indoor gardens, which had some pretty blooms.  

Henry was pretty interested in the corpse flower, which apparently smelled really, really bad when it first bloomed, but now it's in a less smelly phase, thank goodness.

Here are some of the pretty flowers in the greenhouses.  When it's "spring break" and doesn't feel very springy, it really helps to see color like this!

Oh yeah, Archie was with us too.  He was being cute, as usual.

I have been dreaming of eating in the beautiful setting of the Garden Café for quite some time.  Unfortunately, Ben's schedule has never allowed him to join me for this dream.  So Henry got to be my date!  This challah French toast was truly to die for, and the setting did not disappoint!

Archer got to sample the strawberry-rhubarb compote from Henry's French toast.  He was a fan!

More lazy, happy, book-sharing time.  They spent a lot of time reading the blog book this week!

Friday was April Fool's Day, so I took the opportunity to make some cotton ball truffles for the boys.  They were very disappointed!

Ben took the day off, and we were going to go bowling, but the lanes were all full.  So we tried our hand at Bocce ball.  It was really fun!

The boys turned out to be good little Bocce players.  

And this is the "winning team" picture!

We had wanted to take a little overnight trip somewhere close by, but when we realized it was Conference weekend, we decided to stay REALLY close by.  We figured the boys just cared about the hotel anyway!  We enjoyed swimming, happy hour snacks, cable TV, and yummy breakfast, all for less than we pay for 1 hour of swim lessons for 3 boys.  

In short, Embassy Suites is our fave!  

And to end our Spring Break, we had a lovely little snow fall.

April Fool's Day for the Books

I can't tell you how excited we were to find out that our Spring Break trip overlapped with my favorite holiday, April Fool's Day!  

This is what I wore on the plane on the day we arrived to visit our families.  Fun surprise, right?

  What our families didn't know is that I had a belly like this one above at 11 weeks, and with friends who saw me on a regular basis, the fact that I was pregnant was quite obvious from about 8 weeks.  I would have loved to tell our families, but who can resist the chance to tell them in person, at 16 weeks, and on April Fool's Day, no less?!?

The day before we flew to Utah, we had an ultrasound, during which we found out that we are expecting a baby boy.  Boy #4 for the Iversons!  But we thought it would be more fun to tell our families that we are expecting TWIN boys, and it was a fun little joke as they tried to figure out if this could in fact be an April Fool's joke, and if it was, which part of it was a joke.  Was I actually pregnant?  Was it one boy or two boys?  Or was it a girl?  Or did I not even know?  These questions and the accompanying torment filled my parents' kitchen for a painful 2 hours.  I kind of wanted to tell everyone the truth, but I honestly couldn't figure out how to tell them in a way that would make them believe me.  No matter what I said, it sounded like another addition to my April Fool's Joke.  "It's a girl - April Fool's!"  "It's a boy - April Fool's!"  "I'm not actually pregnant - April Fool's!"  It got painfully annoying after a while.  My mom just wanted to go to bed, so she could wake up and have it not be April Fool's Day anymore . . . but she knew she would not be able to sleep!  

Brady saved the day with some April Fool's entertainment of his own.

Finally, I pulled out the ultrasound prints and let them see the single, adorable baby boy for themselves.

I quickly updated my shirt with the truth . . . to clarify everything on the morning after.  Anti-climactic?  Maybe.  But it was kind of an adventure.  

We spent the rest of the week laughing, crying a bit, and mostly celebrating all the really great boys in our family.  These are some of the boys in the Griffin family.  My parents have one adorable granddaughter - Sophie, who will be followed by TEN grandsons in a row!  Yes, it is true.  Time to restock the Nerf bullets.

We played with Iverson cousins and had a fun family night with cousin Zach.

Henry, Ellis, and Sam enjoyed getting dirty in the Ogden River with the Jackson cousins.  

Sam and Max threw at least 800 rocks in the river.

And Ellis and Henry stretched their normal levels of bravery and insanity to impress their cousins, by crossing slippery rock paths and dunking different clothing items in the water.  Yeah.

We enjoyed the annual Iverson egg hunt.

Sam got a golden money egg!

And Ellis scored the broccoli egg!

Ellis amused us all with his uncanny resemblance to Little Debbie.

We spent lots of lazy mornings sorting and eating Lucky Charms (especially me).

We had a fun visit to Ogden's Treehouse Museum.  Don't you love my little firemen?

And my cowboys?

And my brave and chivalrous knights?

And my talented calligraphers? 

I love them too.  I felt so lucky to get to bring these three boys (plus one little bump) home with me.  I'm a lucky lady.

Easter Saturday: a good excuse to consume lots and lots of sugar

Um, does this holiday involve candy?

I think I am going to like this! 

And Star Wars too?  This is too good to be true! 

Wait, that's not candy!  Silly Easter Bunny!  Wouldn't it be fun if there was a broccoli egg every year?  Beware the broccoli egg!

Dump into the communal candy jars.  Then no one will notice how much Mom and Dad actually eat!

 Let's get started on this sugar overload right away.  Only 12 handfuls before breakfast, kids! 

And maybe one or two of the big ones too . . .

Good Friday, Happy Saturday

After Henry had the day off of school for Good Friday (a novel luxury for us), we decided that if we have Good Friday and Easter Sunday, we had better call the day in between "Happy Saturday!" In our house, it's the day the Easter Bunny comes! The boys were excited about the baskets with candy and a few extra surprises.

Sam loved the punching balloons,

his new cell phone,

and his first sampling of jelly beans (which he was a little confused about. He sucked on them and spit them out -- but he loved them!).

Henry could hardly believe that the Easter Bunny got him something from the Fat Brain catalog: a mind-game called Perplexus.

Ben and Henry were very perplexed by the game. Actually, Henry has really enjoyed it, but Ben has been completely addicted to it!

Ellis was delighted to find an egg full of old men. Artist figurines, to be precise!

Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, and Vincent Van Gogh

He was pleased as punch to line them up with his scientists

I think we're going to have some exciting "Conferences" with these guys. Today I overheard him sustaining Salvador Dali as a prophet and Pablo Picasso as the "Relief Society Stake Presidency."

Ben died eggs with the boys while I attended a Relief Society meeting, and then when I returned, it just so happened to be the PERFECT kite-flying weather! Ben and I purchased a new kite several weeks ago, and we had been waiting for this exact moment to surprise the boys with it! So, we seized the day.

I actually think that kite-flying is one of the most wholesome and enlivening family activities in the universe. It combines so many good things: being outside, getting exercise, looking up at the sky, working together, laughing, and being far away from any sort of electronics or noise.

Yeah, that was me who landed the kite on the power line. Henry was freaking out. It was the end of the fun for him (but nothing actually happened - no sparks or anything! Just pulled the kite down).

We ended the afternoon by finishing up the sugar cookies Henry had been begging to make.

Fact: 90% of our family holiday traditions have something to do with baked goods.

We had a wonderful day, almost crammed with too many good things, but not quite. We got to babysit for our co-op that night, which turned out to be pretty fun. We played my all-time favorite childhood game: Colored Eggs. The kids LOVED it, and I was taken way back to good times with my Allred cousins playing on Grandma's front porch with the green stairs. And we also taught the kids The Bunny Hop. They were AWESOME at it. Aren't we cool?

It was a pretty happy Happy Saturday.