Parade Fun

Last weekend we headed down to Southern UT for Patrick's work and some fun for me. I met up with my friend Lisa in St. George and we continued our tradition of visiting the Parade of Homes. We had a blast just talking, shopping, eating, and critiquing homes. Patrick was great to watch my kids and keep them entertained.
Some of our favorite homes were a Frank Lloyd Wright inspired home, a smaller retirement home, and a home that was in the Parade last year and this year was up for sale. Also, there was a huge (over 15,000 sq. feet) mansion that had a basketball, and racquetball court, golf green, and climbing wall in the "basement." Not to mention the swimming pool that had a cave which contained a hot tub and room to watch movies. For sale for only $3 million, $4 million if you want the furniture.

Outside living room...we all need one of these.

Bathroom fit for a queen

Clean and modern

(Lisa W. I posted the bread recipe on my food blog.)

Bribery .....I mean motivation....

I've been trying to find ways to gently nudge Austin to stop sucking his thumb. It's getting in the way of his speech development and just isn't clean. I tried telling him that big boys don't suck their thumbs, I tried saying I would let him pick out movies to watch, but nothing was making ANY headway. Until I suggested Thomas the Train. Since Christmas he has been completely fascinated with Thomas and when I heard that the live show was coming to Salt Lake I thought I could try to bride him one more time.

To my surprise it worked. I said do you want to go to Salt Lake and watch a show about Thomas, he said "Yes!" and I told him he had to stop sucking his thumb. That's all it took, I haven't seen his thumb in his mouth since. I know it's been hard because I've caught him sitting on his hands, having his pointer finger in the corner of his mouth, and putting his blanket up to his mouth. I couldn't be prouder.

P.S. I was bribed when I was four by my parents to stop sucking my thumb with a frilly purple dress.

Ice Skating-Falling

Tonight was our Ward ice skating party and Sivai had been begging to go since he heard it announced in church about 3 weeks ago. (What? He listens in church?) I wasn't too excited for the challenge of taking all three of them to the rink, Pat was at work, but I figured there would be plenty of friends there to help. As soon as we got there Sivai took one look at the rink and everyone falling down and didn't want anything to do with it. I convinced him to put the skates on and then let him figure it out. He wouldn't venture out on the ice until he saw one of his good friends and then he didn't want any help. He spent more time falling and getting up than skating, but by the end of the evening he was doing pretty well, although he did complain of a headache...
Austin had no preconceptions of skating and was game. He walked around in the skates for a while and had perfect balance off the ice. I helped him go around the rink a couple of times and he did pretty well, he was cold by the end of the evening and I think he enjoyed the cookie free-for-all more than anything.
Lily wanted on the ice, but didn't want any help...so she only got about 2 minutes of me bent over trying to hold her. Patrick came after work and helped so that I was able to skate some. It was only my third time but I didn't fall and I could actually turn and stop. I'm just thankful we came away with no broken bones or bloody noses :)

Swimming

I hesitate to post this because it's just embarrassing to myself, but Patrick got such a kick out of it I thought I would share.
Last night we decided to head to the Rec. center and go swimming. We don't go swimming very often because it costs a lot ($20) for our whole family to swim for 2 hours, so we're going to get a pass soon. Anyhow... I went and got my bathing suit on which happens to be 7 years old and completely stretched out from wearing it for 2 pregnancies and is really ugly. I came out from getting changed and Patrick told the boys to come see what Mom is wearing, I guess that was his way of telling them we were going swimming. Austin came running in and came to a dead stop when he saw me and with a scrunched up face said, "EEEEEEEUUUUUWWWWWWW!" Patrick burst out in laughter and I retreated to my room thinking maybe going out in pubic might not be a good idea. But we went anyway....and I think I saw people wearing a lot worse bathing suits than I was.
P.S. NO, there will not be a picture for this post :)