Mother's Day 2022

I had such a good Mother's Day this year. Caulder used his own money to buy me truffles, flowers, and pot to put them in. He said, "I had to get the cheap ones, because I'm poor, and the dollar store didn't have a lot of options for vases, but at least it has a lid."

I loved it.

Rand painted rocks for me and planted a sunflower at school to give me.

Tukker gave me a hug and told me Happy Mother's Day with his creepy puppy dog eyes.

And Rand filled these out for me.

 I love being their momma.

First Grade Zoo Trip

Rand's first grade zoo trip was a few weeks ago. My mom's employee just quit, so she wasn't sure if she'd be able to come. I told her not to feel guilty about it and that we understand.

Rand, however, wanted her to feel VERY guilty about it and made me send her this picture of him begging her to come.

She came.

Sucker.

We had to head to the snake exhibit first. Dude loves the creepy crawlies.

Cole's favorite monkey.

Then we sprinted to a few more exhibits before we had to take our field trip buddy Damian back to the bus.

We saw the elephants, watched the sea lions swim right up the glass and flip upside down for us, saw the little grizzly bear cub play in his river, watched a leopard pacing around like he just couldn't wait to get free and eat us all, and, of course, hit up the gift shop.

Yaya bought Rand a lemur.

He was so happy.

Our last 1st grade field trip was a good one.

 

How to Get Extra Credit

 Tukk really knows how to work the system.

He's Official!

 After the longest process known to man, Caulder finally got his driver's license! Now we just have to teach him how to drive a stick shift so he can cruise around in the truck we bought from Grandpa Farney.

April 2022

This dude got a fancy new church shirt. 😍

We volunteered at the soup kitchen. We even convinced Fourth Son to come with us.

We hit up the Bott spring party. Caulder is not usually very excited about any even that might require him to face awkward socialization with extended family, but he makes an exception for this party because there are mountains of biscuits and gravy. He told me his plan was come in, answer all the awkward questions about what grade he's in and how big he's getting, eat biscuits and gravy, sneak off and find a piano play, then come back for round 2 of biscuits and gravy. His mission was successful.

We took a trip to Midway to soak in the Whitaker's hot springs.

There was a hostile takeover of Rand's castle tent.

This worthless mutt just laid back and let the takeover happen.

We finally got some beautiful sunshiny weather, and I went outside a billion times just to admire the Sasquatch weather vane Cole bought me for Christmas.

 

A Real Crappy Night

Rand was having stomach pain for a few days, and spent one night up until 2 am crying and writhing because it was hurting. He seemed to feel better the next day, but that night it started up again. By 2 in the morning he was out of his mind and started begging me to take him to a doctor. He HATES doctor visits and normally will try to do anything he can to get out of having to go, so that made me very nervous.

Cole and I decided we'd better take him in in case it was his appendix or something. Poor Cole was in the middle of hell week with recurrent training at work, so I told him to try to go back to sleep, then threw Rand in the car and drove him to the ER. 

They got him checked in and gave him an exam, then decided to take blood and a urine sample. Everything looked fine, so we have no idea what was going on. The doc said maybe his stomach lining was inflamed from an allergic reaction or something? 

Anyway, he was exhausted by the time we got home around 4 in the morning, so he finally zonked out and got a little sleep. We cut him off dairy, pink milk, and Easter candy to see if any of that was causing it. He also got a prescription to help, and I'm not sure what combo was the magic, but he hasn't had any major flareups since then. We're crossing our fingers that it doesn't come back.

Cavetown

When Caulder's London trip to see Cavetown was ruined by the Omicron Covid variant, June felt sorry for him and bought him a ticket to the SLC concert for Christmas. We finally made his dreams come true a few weeks ago when he got to see Cavetown live!

Of course we had dinner first. Pizza at Settebello, then gelato.

The gelato was the highlight of my night.

We had a little time to kill afterward, so we wandered around the Gateway mall.

Then we walked approximately 17 miles to get in the back of the line leading into The Complex, where the concert was scheduled. It was a smaller venue with no seating, but the teenagers loved being close to the stage and seeing the bands up close.

Jess and I sat on the floor in the back corner with the other old people who do not understand indy mellow garage leisure bedroom UK band music. 

But even though Jess and I are too old to party teenager style, it didn't even matter because they had a blast, and we bought them swag after. Caulder gave me a B- Mom grade afterward, so it was a win all the way around.

 

Hunting for the Goods

The Easter bunny was nice enough to make a special stop at our house on Saturday, since Cole had to work Easter Sunday. We were trying to let the big boys sleep in a little, so we kept the blinds shut and hoped Rand wouldn't notice the bunny droppings all over the lawn.

We finally had to let Soos out, and when Rand opened the door the jig was up. He started flipping out and yelling, "Caulder! You've gotta come see this! THERE'S AN EGG OUT HERE WITH YOUR NAME ON IT!!!!" 

Then he was running in and out of the house trying to decide if he should keep looking for candy or come back in every 30 seconds to yell an announcement of what he was finding.

Caulder and Tukk weren't quite as excited, but they humored us. 

Sunday we had an egg hunt at Yaya's with Benny and Daisy.

The littles had a blast finding treats and poppits eggs with money in them.

 

Easter Egging

Our favorite thing about dying Easter eggs is watching how it highlights each of our boys' personalities perfectly. 

Tukk took his egg allotment, immediately dropped them each in a different cup of dye, left them for about a minute, then pulled them out and declared that he was done, and could we have dessert now please.

Rand used the whipping cream egg dye to make a mucky, smeary mess, then yelled at Tukk for taking up all the room in the dye cups.

Caulder spent an hour painstakingly dying and drawing on each of his eggs until they were perfect.

I love these dudes and how different they each are.

Grandma and Grandpa even decorated an egg with us, so I made them show theirs off, too!