The cabin

 One of the best things about the cabin was this air hockey table.  Jason made us a sweet tournament chart - we first had a round robin and then a championship.  No surprise to anyone the championship game was between Brock and Jason and Jason won.  But we all enjoyed plying.

We also had a fire pit and had smores almost every night for dessert.

We also had a hot tub!  The kids spent a lot of time in there - mostly reading, or being read too.

I thought the hot tub might be a fight with Dane, like he would want to be in it the whole time.  But he really didn't.  He saw the older kids in, but usually just happily said hi, and walked by, sometime wanting to stick his hand in.

On the last day we got him in.  He loved it.

I came out one day and all 4 had their feet in the hot tub reading a book.  I didn't take a picture and I regret it - it was a perfect representation of my kids.

 

Here is one I did get of all of them reading.  I LOVE my readers.

We played some board games.

Glamping - Day 1

 We took a poll mid spring of what our children's vacations desires were.  There were 7 options and they had to rate them 1 through 7 and say if they wanted it to be with the babies or without the babies.  The one with the highest rating was "glamping" - camping but in a cabin and with the babies.  The hardest thing about vacations is planning them and every week went by and I had done nothing.  I knew cabins were getting booked and I needed to find the time to look for cabins... but I just couldn't.  I complained on facebook about how I had FOMO for everyone elses vacations and that I just didn't have time to PLAN it.  My ministering sister called and said she loved planning vacations - so off she went.  She found us the most perfect cabin in Estes Park.  It was a wonderful week.

Our babies are pure Covid babies.  They have only ever really slept in their beds, in their house, on their schedule.  They rarely get woken up and are always "on schedule".  They eat in their high chair at their house with their food.  They really hadn't been in a car for more than 20 minutes in a long time.  So we were all a little unsure about how they would do.  Memories of Dane's first trip to Utah and crying for 5 hours straight kept running through our mind.  Well, let's just say the babies were the winner of the trip.  They were AMAZING.  They were always off schedule and didn't care.  They were happy and wonderful.  They slept amazing at the cabin - even with all the noise and chaos.  The whole week was a delight.  Our cabin was about 800 sq feet, 3 bedrooms and 2 bathroom.  Jason and I decided we could live like that.  It wasn't hard at all.  

When we got to Estes Park our cabin wasn't ready yet so we went fishing at a trout pond and caught our dinner.

When we got to Estes Park our cabin wasn't ready yet so we went fishing at a trout pond and caught our dinner.

Dane loved watching everyone catch fish.  In fact during the next few days when everyone was hanging out around the cabin reading Dane would ask to go fishing, I drove out to the pond and we just watched people catch fish.  He loved it .   Megan was our "net girl"  she actually caught a fish with just the net and Brock caught one with his bare hands.  They said there are 6,000 fish in that pond!

Jason made us the most delicious fish that night for dinner!

Fun story: I may have oversold the wonderfulness a bit.  In the end it was all wonderful.  But the first day was awful.  As mentioned the babies hadn't traveled that far in a long time so I didn't know what to expect, but I HOPED  they would nap in the car.  So we left at naptime - but.... they didn't nap.  When we got there at 2 the babies were still awake and tired and cranky.  We couldn't get into our cabin until 4 and I had planned for us to go fishing, but no one really wanted too.  Plus it was HOT.  Eve had pooed so we needed to find somewhere to change her.  I googled a play ground and it was the stupidest little playground in a small patch of grass with busy streets all around.  We got out and found out that it was flooded and if you stepped in the wood chips you sank about 5 inches down.  But we had already gotten Dane out and he wanted to play and NOT get back in the car.  I changed Eve's diaper, we sort of walked around the play ground and then I convinced everyone to actually go fishing.  Actually... before this we drove by the cabin to see if we could get in early (we couldn't) but we saw the cabin and it looked... not promising.  We were all mostly excited for the cabin - we knew we wouldn't be there a lot becasue of early bedtimes and naps - so we spent a lot on it - to make sure we got a "nice" one (not old and dingy) and a hot tub, air hockey table, etc.  We all had high expectations and when we saw the outside we all felt defeated.  I felt especially so, since I am the one that booked it.  So at this point, it was 100 degrees, 2:00 in the afternoon, no where to go, 2 cranky, tired babies, and now we also didn't really want to go to the cabin.  Hope was a little lost.  So I convinced everyone to try fishing.  We got there and found that there was no shade (fine), and way more expensive than expected.  You had to pay for every fish you caught - no matter how big.  The point of the fishing was supposed to be so everyone could catch lots of fish and throw them back (not allowed). So everyone got to catch ONE fish - and it cost us over 60 dollars!  Everyone left a little irritated they only got to catch one fish - because the pond was so full it took about 15 minutes to catch all our fish.  Luckily I got a text from the cabin owner that it was ready.  We raced to the cabin, we rushed to unpack and get the babies pack and plays out and set up so they could nap (at 3:30 pm).  Instead of bringing food I scheduled a pick up time for our groceries at Safeway (best decision ever), as soon as I got the babies down I left everyone at the cabin (a little grumpy) and Jason trying to make dinner (he was supposed to figure out how to make the fish for dinner we just caught - he did a tremendous job!), and I got in the van feeling dejected and defeated.  I thought, why did we even do this?  We are happy at home, why did we leave?  For my drive I put on my usual conference playlist, and with a prayer in my heart I said, "please let a talk come on that brings me peace and perspective", with that I pushed "shuffle".  Sister Stephens talk came on and the first, opening, line of her talk she says, "There is no greater blessing in this life than traveling together."  I couldn't believe it!!  Seriously?!  How perfectly obvious - he was talking to me - in that moment.  The holy ghost lives in my phone and leads and guides it!  I shook of my selfishness and pity and came back to my family feeling refreshed and ready.  And from that moment on... it was a great trip.

Eve - old post

I just posted cute picture of Eve in the summer.  I just found this draft of an old post of Eve in the winter.   So here are a few fun facts about ever from 6-9 months.

She is the cutest and best spoon eater.  She is so clean - we don't even use a bib or need to wipe her up.  She opens her mouth so big, eats it, and swallows it so happily.  We laugh at her all the time because she looks like a little baby bird.  She is a rock star!

She has been getting sick a lot.  Mostly because her and Dane have terrible immune systems from Covid restrictions and now that things are lifting they are catching everything.  Most Sunday's I miss church.  Pre-covid I would have taken them because they are typical baby runny noses that last for months.  But in this covid environment I don't dare take a baby with a cough or runny nose to church - if feels like we may never go to church again!  I hope soon people will be more tolerant.

But it does give me some more snuggle time.

She loves the bath and is pretty dang cute.

"fun" story - Dane had never pooed or peed in the bath.  Not as a baby or as a toddler.  It was amazing.  And up to this point neither had Eve.  I thought "maybe I will be spared this in my old age and they will be perfect bath children" - well... I will never say anything like that again.... because then we went on a 3 or 4 week streak of both of them pooing in the bath tub EVERYTIME they were in.  It was awful.  Awful for several reasons.  One - such a mess to clean up.  The isolating of everything and everyone, trying to clean things off in order - the babies, the tub, the toys, the rags, the things the babies touched or sat on while i cleaned the other one up - then what do you do with them while you clean the toys and the tub???  It is all such a mess and no good way to do it.  THEN after all that they still need a bath (it usually happens before hair is washed). Two - I am usually busy and barley have time to give them a bath so now this took 4 times longer than expected (and they still haven't had a good bath) and now I am late to what ever it was I was going too.  Three - as a mother of 6 I multi task baths.  I do things while they bathe (in the same room of course) - but I blog, work on blog book, family history, read scriptures, dry my hair, put on make up etc WHILE they bathe.  I NEED this time as well.  And now I am dirty, late to what ever, and didn't get my thing done.  grrr.  And this happened about 10 times in a row.  Eventually I just stopped bathing them for about 2 weeks out of pure immature protest.  

This was post learning to sit but pre-learning to crawl.  We love the library.

She is our only one that does this adorable nose scrunch.  We love it.

Eve really shows us that babies have their own personalities and that it isn't all nurture, but nature plays a big part.  Books is a good example.  We are a book family.  And Dane took to that.  From 4 months old he liked looking at books - especially novels and chapter books.  It was almost an obsession.   I thought, maybe it was just becasue of his examples and environment.  He was mimicking, or loved what he saw and had access too.  But with Eve she has the same examples and environment as Dane (even more so because she sees Dane LOVING books) but she likes books about as much as any other 9-12 month old - just moderately.