We will start our March post with an update on Lou. Somehow our baby has disappeared and we now have a very talkative toddler. She loves school. She especially loves Miss Lindsey.
Lou celebrated Dr. Seuss week with a Cat in the Hat hat.
She also loved their "Teddy Bear" picnic and took her Minnie Mouse along with her for the day.
Lou has one little bestie at school and I love seeing them together. Here they are pretending to sleep.
The warmer weather has been an absolute dream and Lou has loved playing in the sand at school.
Lou found Millie's vest and insisted on wearing it around the house for days.
We attended Salt Con the first weekend of March. Seth was able to go three days and Millie, Phin, Silas and I joined him for two days.
Forest Shuffle was the first game we played. Seth had read the rules before we arrived and had the game all set up. He had started to play so we jumped in where he was. This was a beautiful game where we competed to gather the most valuable trees and then attract species to the trees.
Next we played Quacks & Co. We were basically racing donkeys through a city. The kids seemed to enjoy the game.
Millie was excited to check Haba's Unicorn Glitterluck out from the lending library. She has played this game at Salt Con for years.
Next we played Blue Lagoon which is an area control and set collection game. I thought the theme was beautiful and Millie loved playing a "Moana" game.
Saturday we started the day off playing Dream Home. We drafted "rooms" to build our "dream homes." Different rooms and room combinations had different values.
We played Juicy Fruits where we each had small island paradise that required us to supply ships and attract the most profitable businesses.
We also played Grandpa Beck's Reign of Dragoness. This is a quick card game where you are trying to discard 13 of your cards first.
We also played Silver Coin which is a different version of our favorite game from the last convention. The new cards changed the game quite a bit. Seth, Phin and I ended up playing in the tournament and Seth and I made it to one of the final rounds.
Grandma Jo and Grandad were very generous to come down on Friday afternoon and to shuttle Silas to a birthday party. My mom was sweet and watched Lou on Saturday. It was really fun to have some time with just the older kids. I have a feeling conventions will just get better from here. They did a great job entertaining themselves and playing games with us too. Phin got really into Dungeons and Dragons this convention and played a couple of games. Silas and Millie were happy to just play with parts from games...like these little tweezers.
Silas' teacher is very generous with band aids. One day he came to the car after school with two band aids on his head. He wasn't much of a fan when we had to take them off.
Phin had a very big March. He competed in our school's Book Battles. He read all 15 books and passed tests on all of them. Here he is holding his favorite book...upside down. The librarian had a lanyard for each child that competed and they had buttons for each book they read.
Phin had his last basketball game of the season. He had so much fun playing on this team.
He also performed at Federation. In addition to memorizing two piano pieces he did the theory test. His teacher, Miss Natalie planned a fun Friday afternoon for a Pizza Party and theory review. He performed very well and received a Superior rating.
Seth helped the girls make paper Lilies from the Friend. They loved spraying them with perfume.
He also helped the kids do some Easter watercolor postcards that we sent to our favorite missionaries.
The kids had a couple of days off of school at the end of the term. We decided to visit the Museum of Natural Curiosity one day.
Millie's best friend from last year happened to be at the museum too and these two girls loved running around together.
My favorite thing was watching Phin look out for Lou. He went and caught balls at this new water cycle exhibit and brought them back for her.
This month also brought a visit from our favorite Arizona cousins. We had so much fun playing with Carver and Conrad.
Phin's new interest in Dungeons and Dragons also brought an interest in elves. So he naturally wanted his own Elf ears.
The first day of Spring finally came and we celebrated it with a free cone at Dairy Queen.
We also celebrated Silas' birthday. He had been counting down to his birthday for so long...I finally told him he needed to ask Alexsa how many days it was until his birthday rather than me. He loved opening presents and eating doughnuts for breakfast.
He chose the Peanut Butter Oreo cake from my Cake cookbook. I still have a lot of work to do to get the sides of my cake even...but this cake sure tasted good.
We decided to throw Silas a friend party as well. Since it was a few days after his birthday it gave me the excuse to make some cupcakes for the party. Lou helped me make Cake by Courtney's Peanut Butter S'more Cupcakes.
They were so delicious.
Millie volunteered to do face painting at the Silas' party. Lou was the first volunteer.
We set up an obstacle course for the kids.
Then we had a Nerf gun battle.
We woke up the kids around 5 AM the first Saturday of Spring Break and started the drive down to the cabin. We have found that if it is still dark when we leave that they fall back to sleep in the car. They all woke up around Beaver and we stopped for a quick breakfast.
They had so much fun at the cabin with cousins. Here they are after finding the geocache that we had hidden back in the Fall.
Easter Sunday in Escalante was beautiful.
Ben was more than willing to hide the eggs for an Easter Egg hunt and all of the cousins were more than willing to quickly gather those eggs.
Lou loved being doted on by her cousins.
Nona enjoyed some sleepy cuddles when Lou finally decided to take a nap.
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