The Pyper Family: Visiting Family....TOFW & Gymnastics

This week was pretty run of the mill. Nothing too exciting, but the whole point of this blog is for my kids, to remind them one day that we had a great little life and to remind them of the fun things we did, even if they were mundane sometimes.

Monday night started with Family Home Evening. Since it is Leap Year, I decided it would be fun to do a little Leap Year time capsule thing. Not a total time capsule, but just like some questions and answers from our kids and put them in an envelope. It was pretty fun.

Here's is Ben helping Jackson fill out his form.

And we had to take a family selfie to put in there, too! :)

After that, and dinner, we roasted some marshmallows. I love hanging out with my little family. I want them to remember that we had fun together as a family.

This week at school was Dr. Seuss week to celebrate his birthday. The kids were encouraged to bring all their Dr. Seuss books to school and we realized that we have a lot of Dr. Seuss books, and I don't even think that this is all of them. I want them to remember that we loved to read together.

Tuesday was crazy socks day and we tried to get a shot before school.

Jackson always likes to help me get ready in the mornings...

I want them to remember we enjoyed the little things.

Tuesday night Ben and I went to the Dave Ramsey seminar and it was pretty good. I really enjoyed it more than I thought I would. We went with Kirt and Emily, and that is always a treat. :) Emily really enjoyed herself that night. Dave Ramsey was really good, I thought. And I want to remember a funny story. Dave was so inspiring that night that at the end of it, I was telling Ben that we should pay off our house soon. It is our only debt that we have left, and I asked Ben if he thought we could pay off our house in 5 years and be debt free. And he was like, YEA, we totally could, and I was like, ok, what do we have to do? All excited. And he said, well, the kids would have stop all of their extracurricular activities, like sports and piano etc... And I immediately responded, nope. no. not happening. He immediately started laughing at me and my response to that. We will one day be debt free and hopefully it will be soon.

I want my kids to know that we tried to be good with money and worked really hard to create a stable financial home for them.

Wednesday was Wacky Wednesday. We tried our best to make them as wacky as possible.

Jackson, of course, had to have her picture taken, too.

I love this stage with the kids where they enjoy doing the fun things like this. I want them to remember that I was a fun mom that encouraged things like this.

Wednesday night was Young Women's. Woo-Hoo! :) They made modest dresses out of random things. Tin Foil, Newspapers, Tissue Paper, etc... Kylah was the beautiful tin foil model.

The tin foil dress unfortunately ripped before the picture, but you can see it in the big ball there, but here were the others. I was so impressed with some of them, they were all beautiful!

I want them to remember that I magnified my callings, and worked hard at them.

Ben had had the Young Men at our house for their activity and I came home and casually went to work on something on my computer, and found this guy just hanging out right in front of me. I screamed so loud! It was a prank by my wonderful husband! He has to always keep me on my toes.

Thursday morning Papa stopped by to say hi and hang with Jacksy and I. We always love it when Papa comes to play. I want the kids to remember how fun it was to live close to Papa and the great time we always had when he visited and how lucky we are to have him close.

Then I tried to get things done around the house. Like fold laundry. But this little turd is my anti-helper. He is such a little stinker and purposefully gets in my way to impede my work. Sometimes I just have to stop and nibble on him he's so cute!

I want my kids to remember that I atleast TRIED to keep the house clean and the household chores done. It might not always happen, but by golly, I try! :)

Sunrise had a guest author come in and read to them. I didn't even know who the guy was, or his books, but it inspired Taylor to come home and write her own book. No, we don't have a dog named Max, but this sure was a cute book. Tucker helped her with the words on each page. I just love my little creative girl.

Thursday night my mom got in town and we went to Kjersti's baby shower. She is having a little girl in May, I believe. She looked so cute pregnant, she is glowing. I just love the round pregnancy glow.

Cousins and aunts. Rachel came in for it, and Josett flew up all the way from Texas. All of us were going to Time Out for Women the next day, too! Taylor sure did love hanging out with the big girls all night. We stayed out way to late chatting. But it's just too fun to have fun cousins in town.

The Maughan ladies. All pregnant right now. KJ is 27 weeks, Josett is 17 weeks and Rachel announced that she was 7 weeks! :) So fun! I want my kids to remember what a wonderful family we have. Even extended family. And that I love them so very much!

Friday was Sunrise day and the kids were supposed to wear their sunrise gear. They looked too cute together to pass up a photo op.

Of course, Tucker always teasing Taylor...

And her just loving on him...

I love it when my mom is in town because I get to go into the kids school and I have someone to watch Jackson. I went to help in Tucker's class that morning, but also stopped into Taylor's class on my way to say hi. Her and Giles. Cute little buddies...

Of course, the one morning that I get to work in the class room, they are having a Dr. Seuss assembly. And the School Superintendent was there. The kids had won a chance to cover him in a Chocolate Sundae. So, that is what I got to do for an hour. Attend this wonderful assembly! :) ha ha. Wish I would have planned that better, not that elementary assemblies are awful or anything! :)

I did get to go to recess with this guy, though. And that totally made up for it. I got to play wall ball with him and his buddies, Nico, Kaden and Noah. It was so much fun and I could tell Tucker was in heaven having me there. I want them to remember that I tried to get into the classrooms as much as I could, and that they went to a pretty great elementary school and had wonderful teachers.

After Taylor was done with school, I picked up grandma and Jackson and we headed to Subway and brought Tucker some lunch. I love being able to visit him at lunchtime. We are kind of like a circus when we do this, but I have to remember that it's worth the hassle and work.

That night my mother and I got to go to Time Out for Women. I was REALLY skeptical about it. And am still not a HUGE fan. I feel like it's a way for these people to sell their items, and I question their sincerity, ya know. But it was fun and it was great to be together with my mommy, auntie and cousins. I love these women.

TOFW...

Friday night there was this speaker named Tim, who runs the operation for saving children involved in sex trafficking. It was a really neat story and a really great thing that he is doing. So, that was really cool. Also, funny story on Friday night, I was taking a picture with my friends, and my mom was taking it, and this random girl walked up to her and asked if we could give her a ride back to her hotel after the session that night. My mom looked at me and said, well, she drove...and I was just stunned. I didn't know what to say. I'm sure I just looked stunned. That's when my mom finally offered up the info that this girl was from her ward in Milton-Freewater, and knew her. It was just a funny situation because we were all just stunned and even my friends didn't know what to say or think. Anyway, it all worked out and we gave her a ride to her hotel after the session. I felt bad that I had a bad attitude, and maybe that's way I needed to go more. But, I still just didn't LOVE the whole idea of the conference.

The next morning we went back, and I was really not looking forward to being there at 9am. But we went back anyway, and a lady named Lisa Valentine Clark was speaking and I was really excited to see her, too. She is really funny and a 'Mormon mommy blogger/comedian' So, it was really good to hear her.

I looked over at my mom and Aunt Lorraine and couldn't help but laugh. These mother and aunties that I have are just too funny. My mom is writing all of her notes and checking her march Madness scores on her phone and my aunt is crocheting. They are just themselves no matter what! :)

Me and my mom had to take a selfie on our way out. We had to leave earlier than everyone else because I volunteered to work at the gymnastics meet that was at Taylor's gym. And Amarae was coming up to compete in it.

{Mommy & Daughter Selfie}

That afternoon my mom and I and Taylor headed to the gymnastics meet. It was so much fun to be there watching the older girls compete. They are so good. Taylor was awe struck. This was the first time I've ever been to a competition and since I was volunteering, I got to really figure out how they are run.

Amarae did so well!

She got 4th place over all and it was fun to see how these cute little cousins just picked right back up even though they hadn't seen each other in a while. I didn't realize how long gymnastics meets are, we were there for 2 hours! And this was only the session for the level 8's. There are sessions all weekend for levels 3-10!

Amarae did so well though, and it was fun to see her in her element. She got 4th overall, and that's pretty dang good!

Oh. My. Gosh. Amelia is such a crack up. She has us all in tears this weekend. She is hilarious. Her and Jackson together were even better. She would just say and do the cutest things and it's obvious that she is used to ruling the roost wherever she goes.

We were going for a picture of all the kids after the meet, and Josh and Tucker had the same idea at the same time, totally separately to photobomb my photo! The punks!

And, of course,Tucker wouldn't cooperate for a photo. As per usual.

To say that these kids were loud and excited to be together on the drive home would be an understatement!

We came over to our house after the meet, and Kjersti and Josett and Rachel and Uncle Brent and Aunt Lorraine met us there. It was fun that we were all together for the same weekend in Spokane and got to hang out together. I'm super sad that I didn't get a photo of all of us cousins together, but I did get one of these cute girls. These girls got along so well, and it was so fun to watch them be such cute little friends. It totally reminded me of me and Alicia when we were their age!

And Jackson just fell in love with Josh. We all love Josh, and Josh was so sweet with Jackson.

Of course, a cousin dance party had to happen!

Sunday morning, Janell had to go compete, she's in level 3 and I was just exhausted, so Ben went to church and the kids and I stayed at home to hang with our cousins. It was a really nice relaxing day. We were ALL really sad when they left that afternoon.

Taylor & Janell: