Our Visit to Kansas

Last week, Lydia and I flew out to KS to visit the family again. We usually don't go too long between visits. Lydia just grows so fast that I try and get her out there a couple times a year. Our first day there my mom had to work so Lyd's and I just hung out at home. Because we were in Kansas, Lydia missed her Joy school class so we had a little class of our own and learned about the letter F. Here is one of Lydia's pieces of artwork! While in KC, we did A LOT of shopping. We went to the Legends and Lydia just fell in love with the Old Navy dog. She didn't want to leave the store. She kept hugging him and telling him good bye when we had to leave. So cute. Lydia taking a rest with Grandma Frandsen. They had a really cool dinosaur cafe. We didn't eat there, we just took pics.
See, lots of shopping!
On Sunday the 29th we celebrated my grandparents 60th wedding anniversary. We went to dinner at the Corner Cafe...my grandpa's favorite.
My cousin Scott, Stephanie and Rylan.
My brother David, Nora, Levi and Cabot.
My amazing grandparents RG and Betty Seymour cutting the cake.
My family is pretty small. This is almost everyone (and I mean everyone...aunts, cousins, etc...)
On Monday we went to the KC zoo. I'm not a huge zoo fan due to the tiny cages these poor animals are forced to live in. But I have to say, this zoo was AMAZING. I was blown away. I haven't been since I was a kid. If you've ever been to the Wildlife Animal Park in San Diego, it reminded me of that. They have a new section, Africa, and it's just a big open area where the animals run wild. Well, there are fences separating the cheetahs from the zebras, but they have huge areas to run around in. I LOVED it!!!!

The proud G-ma with all of her grand kids.
Cute little Cabot, my nephew.
Nora and Levi on the Carousel.
We also went to Auntie Becky and Uncle Bob's house. Lydia loved feeding Mattie and Mac doggie treats
and feeding the birdie crackers! I tried to get her on Great Uncle Bob's Harley but I think she was too scared to be that close to a motorcycle after the months of me telling her that cars (and other vehicles) can really hurt you if you get too close. Whoops! I guess I hammered that info a little too hard. If you didn't know, Lyd's is obsessed with motorcycles so I was excited for her to sit on one, but she just couldn't handle it :)
On Wednesday Great Aunt Becky took us to Oak Park Mall (my old stomping grounds in high school) to meet the Easter Bunny. As soon as she saw him, she went nuts and wanted to go up to him immediately. I thought she'd be a little leery (like with Santa) but she wasn't. When it was her turn to meet him, she walked up to his lap and sat right on it and started touching his face and giving him a high 5. I loved seeing that. She didn't want to leave him. When she got off his lap she waved good-bye until he was no longer in her line of sight. Some of you may know, her favorite toy is her bunny, so I think that helped her instant connection with the Easter Bunny.

Once again we had to ride yet another carousel and once again, she loved it.

When she got off, she found another one of her favorite things, cars to play on.
Here is our 4 generation picture. We take one every time we're together.
Here's Lyd's with her Great Auntie Becky. Thanks Auntie for all you did for us. We had a great time. Thanks for lunch and for making a lot of time for us this trip. You truly are the best and we love you.
The night before we left KS, we spent the evening with my brother and his fam. Lydia just loves babies and really enjoyed holding her little baby cousin Cabot.
And here's how Lydia looked most of the long car rides we went on. She loved to sleep, snuggling with her little Bunny! Thanks mom for all you did for us on this trip. You're the best and we love you so much. I couldn't ask for a better mama!!!

There was only one bad thing about this trip...here's the story:

My mom took us to the airport on April 2nd and we check in and the flight was 15 minutes behind schedule. Ok, that's fine. We said our good-bye's and we loaded on the plane after our short wait. The flight attendants did their whole safety talk and as we we're getting ready to pull away from the gate, the captain came on and said that he was sorry but Air Traffic Control stopped our flight and we're going to have a 3 1/2 hour wait.

WHAT???!!!!!

So they approve us to get back off the plane and they explain that ATC lets 150 planes land per hour at Dallas but they're only allowing 30 per hour due to VERY strong winds. I couldn't believe it. 3 1/2 hours? Are you kidding me? They, of course cancelled my connecting flight and the only flight that was left that day was a 9:30pm flight that flew into SLC at 11:30pm (at this point, it's about 11am...uh, that's a 12 hour flight day. No thanks). They had a 6pm flight out of Dallas but it was WAY overbooked. I just started crying because I was so stressed with Lydia. Most of you don't believe me, but she can really be a terror. At two points in our wait at the KC airport, she screamed bloody murder due to me not letting her do something she wanted; in front of everyone.

How embarrassing.

So after 2 1/2 hours and almost pulling my hair out because Lydia was being such a B.R.A.T. we loaded back on the plane. We landed in Dallas and just waited. I was put on the wait list for the 6pm flight but knew it was pretty much the longest shot ever! We got to Dallas at 3pm so we knew we had another 3 hour wait. UGGHHH! Fortunately, Lydia was pretty well behaved. At 5pm I went to the 6pm flight counter and looked at the standby list. There were literally 61 people on that list due to flights that were cancelled all over the country that were flying into Dallas. My hopes of getting on that flight were dashed.

At 530pm I noticed that my name wasn't on the standby list. Oh Crap!!! I went to the counter once again and asked why my name wasn't there. She looked Lyd's and I up and she said, "Well, I'm not sure how, but someone is looking out for you. You're confirmed on this flight." Oh my gosh!!! Thank Goodness. It's a miracle! I was put on the wait list in Kansas City but hadn't heard anything since, but I wasn't asking questions. I was just grateful I didn't have to wait 3 1/2 more hours for the 9:30 flight. So instead of landing in SLC at 4pm on my original flight, we flew into SLC at 9pm. That's a 5 hour wait in total. That made for a VERY long day. But I can't complain much. At least we made it home in one piece and Lydia was an angel on every flight she was one to and from KC. I just hope that never happens again.

When we got home from our trip Daddy surprised us by getting Lydia a trampoline. One of Lydia's most favorite things to do is jump on trampolines. We tried not to let her see it outside because she couldn't jump on it due to the horrible weather (rain and snow). But she was looking out the window the day after we got home and she got all excited, turned and looked at me and said, "That's MY trampoline!!!" She was so happy. So what do you do? Let her jump in the rain I guess. She loved every second of it. Thanks daddy for the great gift!

It's Madness in March!!!

Every year, Jake manages to talk me into hanging this giant size March Madness bracket in my livingroom and as tacky as it may be, it makes Jake very happy. So I let basketball take over my livingroom for a few weeks. This is the one time of year that I actually become a sports fan, so Jake takes full advantage of it! He makes one of these lifesize brackets every year and he keeps all of them. So I store these huge posterboards from all the way back to 2003. Why is he keeping these? I have no idea. He's a guy; there's no explaining it!

It's been fun so far hanging out with Jake, watching the games, ordering pizza and having friends over. I love watching it with Lydia because every time a new game comes on she says, "Go Utes" not knowing that Utah sports isn't the only thing around; there actually are other teams in this country. She's been brainwashed at a very young age and there was no stopping it with Jake as the father :)

Well, to show my roots I thought I'd post some pics of Lyd's that I took last October. It also shows who we're rooting for!

ROCK CHALK JAYHAWK!

MWC tournament in Las Vegas!

Jake and I decided that we both needed a vacation and since the Mountain West Conference Tournament was coming up, we decided to go there. It's in Las Vegas so we thought it would be fun to drive down and stay at the South Point Hotel for a few days. We met Bones and Darcie down there and while the boys were at the games, Darcie and I went shopping and went to one of the Vegas shows.

The first couple hours of our trip (the drive to St. George) were great and this was Lydia's face for those two hours...

Well, we never saw that face again. The rest of the trip, she was pretty much the naughtiest she's ever been. I know that's hard for some of you to believe but it's true. She threw some of the biggest fits I've ever seen from her. At first she was so happy and proud of herself that she made up the game "Where's Bunny?" which consisted of her hiding her bunny behind her head every time and saying "Where's Bunny?" while laughing and thinking that she's tricked us once again (hence the pic above). I mean, Lydia had her good moments, don't get me wrong, but man she tried my patience this trip.

Lydia's favorite part of the trip was the swimming. The second she woke up in the morning she'd go the window and say, "Go swimming Daddy!" So we went swimming every full day we were there.

I just love that the round belly is still there...adorable in a two piece!

Here's Bones and Darcie with Lyd's (Jake's bro and sis-in-law).

Well, the whole point of going to Las Vegas was to see the Utes become the MWC champs and that's what we saw! Needless to say, Jake and Bones were very happy campers. Here we all are at the game.

Lydia sat on my lap the WHOLE time and laid her head on my chest. Oh, didn't I mention that aside from her being naughty, she also never left my side and wanted me to hold her ALL the time. Good times! Although, I have to say, I do love those big blue eyes! What a doll.

Of course Jake and Bones had to rush down on the court as soon as the Utes won. Many people called Jake to let him know they saw him and Bones on tv! I'm so glad they won. My husband is ecstatic that the Utes are a 5 seed in the NCAA tourney because of it! GO UTES!

The night before we left, Darcie and I had a girls' night out and went to the 10:30pm showing of

"O" by Cirque de Soleil.

It was pretty good. I was a tad disappointed because it was basically just like their other show "Mystere" except you just add water to this one. They had some pretty cool water scenes and diving but overall I felt like I had already seen it. We had pretty good seats though, so that was nice.

Overall, it was a pretty good trip. We were supposed to be home Sunday evening around 5pm but due to another one fo Lydia's major meltdowns we decided to hang out in St. George for a while to let her run around (Jake's parents have a condo down there). The reason for her crankiness...lack of sleep. She didn't take one nap the whole trip and she also went to bed late and woke up early every day. Hopefully now that we're home, she'll get back to her usual, sweet self.

It was fun to get away but honestly, it's good to be home!

Dinosaur Museum!

For Joy school this week, we went on our very first field trip as a class. Last Wednesday (3/11), the letter of the week was "D" so we thought we'd take the kids to the "D"inosaur museum after a short lesson by Aimee. Let me tell you, I loved that place. It was amazing. I think I enjoyed it more than the kids did.

Here they are standing by a dino leg.

They got to play in the water and build dams.

They had these huge, life size dinosaurs all over the place. It was actually quite intimidating. I couldn't believe how big they were. This pic just doesn't do justice.
Here's Lyd's standing next to one (you can't see her that well). She was about as tall as the foot of this dino.

To get an idea of how big this guy was below, you can see Jules and Izzy in between the two back legs of this monster. HUMONGOUS!

They also got to dig in the sand for dinosaur bones. It was hilarious because Lydia has never put her feet in sand before so when she got in, she didn't move from this spot for about 10 minutes, literally. It was so funny to watch her spread her toes and feel the sand going between them. And she would not take her hand off of the rock. It was like she thought she'd fall if she let go because of the uneven ground beneath her. After a while she got used to it though. It sure was cute to watch.

We had a good time so that makes field trip #1 a success!!!

Surprise Sprinkle! Lydia Sings!

For the past few weeks Margo, Kristin and I have been planning a surprise "Sprinkle" for Lynette. What's a sprinkle you ask? Well, the invite read,

"A baby shower for the first,

a sprinkling for the second.

Come join us to sprinkle Lynette and Izabel...

A sprinkling-not as large as a shower

but just as much fun."

And fun we had. Lynette was totally surprised. She had no idea what was going on. I was sure that the secret would slip out but it didn't. Luckily it never came up in conversation because some of you how I can't lie to people's faces. I definitely do not have that poker face. If any of you watch "The Office", you should understand the sign I made for Lynette. That Dwight; what a character.

Anyway, we talked, ate, played a really fun game and opened presents. We invited Lynette's adorable mom Bonnie and can I just say she is one of the sweetest people I have ever met. Love her. I guess that's where Lynette gets it. Some of us chipped in together and got her a double stroller. She loved it!
Lynette is such a great person. I am so happy that we're friends and I'm glad she had a good time at the shower. The best part...she called me a few days before the party and asked if I wanted to go and get pedi's with her on Saturday (the day of the party). Does that work out any more perfectly? Nope! So I didn't have to make up a lie to get her to my house that morning.
Then a bit after the party we still went and got pedicure's together. And that night we went out to dinner with the husbands and kids. It was a fun day of the Watts family! Love you guys! On another note, I've been trying to get Lydia singing songs on camera FOREVER! For three reasons: 1) I LOVE her little girl voice and want to remember it always. 2) Everyone always asks me, "So, does Lydia talk much?" Uh, YES, that's all she does. She won't shut up actually. She's just so shy, she doesn't say much. And 3) My mom (and entire family) live in Kansas so my mom doesn't get the perks most other G-ma's get of hearing the voice of their sweet grandchildren every day. So I knew my mom would love to see these videos. So mom, these are for you. These are 3 of her favorite songs to sing (if you watch these, be sure to pause the music on the right).
1st song: I love to see the Temple.
I thought she'd be shy so I hid the camera from her at first (that's why the lighting stinks). But this time she was willing!

2nd song: I am a child of God


3rd song: ABC's


Ahh, I love this girl.

C is for Circus...

Today was my first day teaching Joy School and I can't believe how much I loved preparing for this day. Our curriculum is the alphabet so this week I had the letter C. So what better way to learn about the letter C than have a big Circus in my living room! Here is the Circus tent.We had a lesson about the letter C, sang songs, had dance time with songs that start with C, made 2 "C" crafts, baked Chocolate Chip Cookies shaped as C's, had Cotton candy and played musical instruments (Cymbals, Clapping toy and a Colorful maraca...hey, I know it's a stretch but it works ok)!

They each got to Choose the Character they wanted to be, so here is the little

Cowboy, Clown and Cheerleader. Adorable!
The last 10 minutes we played Circus games. The most popular was throwing the balls through the clowns mouth. It was so cute because every time the girls' threw their balls through, Brock would run after them to bring back to the girls' and the girls' would say, "Thank you Brock". It was adorable. They played so well together and that makes me so happy.

We tried to see how many kids we could fit in our Clown Car...Lydia didn't fit, hence the facial expression you see below!

I found this cute craft online and I just had to do it. We made little Caterpillars and taped them to our leaves. This has nothing to do with the Circus but I just had to make them.

What surprised me was that the kids were happiest when they were doing craft time. They loved it. They also got to tape Circles on the letter C. That was Brock's absolute fav. I think Lydia and I are going to have to start doing a daily craft. They were a hit. Yeah for Joy School!