Spring Break--Part 3, the Finale!

If you missed them, check out Part 1 and Part 2 of our Spring Break Adventure.

Thursday was St. Patrick's Day, so of course I woke up early to prepare a fabulous green breakfast for the family and prepare lots of fun Irish games for the day...NOT REALLY--actually I completely forgot about the holiday until my mom reminded me (which Riley and Kaiya were only too happy about, since it meant that they got to pinch me). My mom made Riley some green eggs for a snack and that was about as festive as we got (sorry kids, I'll make it up to you on April Fool's day---promise!)

Riley with his green eggs and no ham

Thursday afternoon Dr. Candice Park (now known as Dr. Candice Wood) with her mom and her new little baby for a visit. Candice was the resident doctor who took care of me during my pregnancy and who delivered the quints. It was so fun to see her! The quints especially loved the baby :-) (notice that she and her baby are wearing green and she even brought us green cookies---there is one mom who didn't drop the ball for St. Patrick's day!)

Kassidy, Ryder, Kyndall, Kaydence and Rustin look at baby Lauren while Candice snaps a photo.

After our visit with Candice, we headed out to the farm. My cousin's husband, Steve, is a dairy farmer and owns a small dairy farm out in Florence, AZ. I am not much of an animal person, so I really respect anyone that can do that for a living---especially in the Arizona heat! Steve and Kiera were great to give us a tour of the farm and let us help feed the baby calves.

Kaydence, Kassidy, Ryder, Kyndall, Riley, Rustin and Kaiya come face-to-face with the cows.

My cousin, Kiera, and her little boy Ledger

Kaydence, Ryder, Riley, Kyndall, Kassidy, Rustin and Kaiya

Filling the bottles for the baby calves....brought back memories of the early days when I used a similar process to fill bottles for the quints :-)

Heading out to the calf stalls

My cousin says that this little cow is considered "perfect": black face, white stripe and pink nose.

This little guy was born only a few hours before we got there.

Feeding the calves (Note: this is a rare sight---my MOM is feeding the calves. If there is anyone who is less of an animal person than me, it is my mom!)

Front: Kaydence, Ryder, Kyndall, Rustin and Kassidy, Back: Riley and Kaiya, Driver way in the back: Dylan (Kiera's son and second cousin to my kiddos)

Friday was our last day in AZ and we went to "Makutu's Island", a big indoor playplace with crazy slides, tunnels, fireman poles, etc. The kids thought it was super fun, but some of the less adventurous ones wanted me to go with them on everything. That was when I realized I am not as young as I used to be :-) My cousins, BrieAnne and Kiera, met us there.

Makutu's Island: Kyndall, Kaiya, Kaydence, Ryder, Rachelle, Rustin, Kiera, Dylan, Ledger, and BrieAnne

Friday night we had dinner outside on the patio

Papa, Riley, BrieAnne, Kaiya and Mimi

The "Goodbye" picture---it is tradition at my parent's house to take a picture in this spot before leaving

Ready for the trip home.

The drive home went fairly smoothly. I came up with a new plan for rest stops and actually managed to shave 5 minutes off our stopping time!! (It's the little things that make life exciting.) At our first rest stop, the kids were happy and well-behaved. As we paraded in, I could hear comments like "Oh, how cute!" and "That is so adorable!". By the time we got to our second rest stop, the kids were tired and ready to be done with traveling---they were not happy or well-behaved. The only comments I got were "Oh, you poor thing!" and "I'll pray for you!"

All in all, the trip was a lot of work, but a lot of fun! Crazy or not, I am glad that we did it!

Spring Break--Part 3, the Finale!

Spring Break--Part 2

If you missed the "Part 1" to our spring break adventure, click HERE.

One of the most anticipated activities of our spring break trip was swimming in Mimi's pool. This was the third time we have visited my parents since they moved into this house, but because of some issues with the county, the pool was not finished on our previous trips. Despite my mom's best efforts at pushing things along, the pool was finished just two days AFTER we left last summer. This time the pool was finished, but COLD! Only Riley was brave enough to go in the main pool, the rest of us wimps had fun swimming in the heated hot tub instead!

Ready to swim: Ryder, Rustin, Kaydence, Kyndall and Kassidy

Kaiya

Riley braving the big pool, despite the 54 degree water

Swimming in the hot tub

Tuesday was dollar day at the movie theater, so we decided to go see "Tangled". I think everyone in Mesa had the same idea---the theater was packed. With the high price of movies these days, we don't take the family very often. In fact, this was only the second time that I have taken the quints to the movie theater. (The first was last summer when we saw Toy Story 3 on our last trip to Arizona) We all loved it---definitely my favorite Disney movie. Ryder thought it was pretty cool that the main guy character's name was "Flynn RYDER"---a fact that he kept announcing to everyone around us.

After the movie we went over to a friend's house to pick citrus. My family lived in Arizona when I was in high school, and one of my favorite things about living there was the citrus. We had orange and grapefruit trees in our yard---there is nothing like fruit right off the tree! The kids had a blast! (except for Kassidy, who fell asleep in the car on the way over and slept through the whole thing...)

Rustin, Kyndall and Kaydence pick some oranges

Kaiya's "prize" grapefruit

The Pickin' Crew

Wednesday was Kids Day at the Rainforest Cafe---all kid's meals were $2.99. Usually when restaurants advertise "Kid's Eat Free" or similar deals, the fine print reads one free kid meal PER adult meal. With two adults and seven kids, it isn't such a great deal. At Rainforest, we could get as many kids meals as we wanted for $2.99. We took the kids to Rainforest Cafe when they were barely two-years-old and they were scared of all the animated gorillas and elephants. We have a picture of Kyndall eating with her head down on the table so she wouldn't have to look at anything. This time they loved it! In fact, at the end of the trip when we asked them what their favorite part was, this was it!

Looking at the big fish tank on the way in.

Kaiya, Riley and Papa

Kassidy, Kaydence, Ryder, Rustin and Kyndall

Mimi and Rachelle

Cute barstools! Riley, Kaiya, Kassidy, Kaydence, Kyndall, Rustin and Ryder

We tried to take a picture of all the kids in front of the elephant podium at the entrance to the restaurant. I tried to narrow it down to one to put on the blog, but Rustin was so funny in all three, that I had to put all of them. I have no idea what he is doing....maybe I should have left him there---he looks like he would fit in great with the monkeys!

Arizona has some of the most amazing sunsets! This was what the sky looked like when we came out of Rainforest Cafe.

............Stay tuned for the third, and final Spring Break post!

Spring Break--Part 2

Spring Break--Part 1

When people find out that I have quintuplets plus two older kids, I often get comments like "I don't know how you do it...if I was in your shoes I would go CRAZY!" They say it in a way that assumes that I haven't gone crazy, which makes me want to laugh, because I think being a little crazy is one of the survival skills of having quintuplets, or even having a lot of kids. For example, Riley and Kaiya (and me) had the week of of school for spring break. Jayson is trying to save up vacation days for a family reunion this summer, so he couldn't take any time off of work. A normal, sane person would have found some fun things to do with the kids around town and called it good. Not me---my "little bit of crazy" kicked in and I thought why let seven kids and a home-bound hubby stop me from going on vacation for spring break? I carried five babies to 34 weeks gestation, I survived an entire year with five two-year-olds who had to skip their nap to attend 1 pm church, I potty-trained five kiddos all at once (ok, mostly potty-trained), I CAN DO HARD THINGS! So why not take five three-year-olds and two older kids on a 16-hour road trip by myself? In fact, why stop there, why not throw in an extra kid just to make it a REAL challenge?? Yep, it's true...having seven kids really DOES make you crazy.

We left bright and early on Friday morning (the kids missed one day of school so we could be in Arizona for the weekend). In addition to my seven kids, I also took Roger, one of Riley's friends, who wanted to hitch a ride to Arizona to visit his cousins. I made sure he knew ahead of time that he would have to work to earn his way, but I don't think he was quite prepared for how demanding the job would be!

We're off! Sleepy, but excited for the trip!

The drive there actually went pretty smoothly. Riley and Roger changed out movies and passed out snacks while I drove. We made three stops for potty and gas. This was the first road trip we have taken with the quints since they were potty trained, and I worried that it would take forever to take everyone to the bathroom at each rest stop. To help, I brought three little pottys in the car, along with some sanitizing wipes (to clean the pottys) so all the girls could go potty at the same time. It definitely helped, but it still took a minimum of 30 minutes each time we stopped.

By our last stop, the kids were going crazy being cooped up in the car, so I let them get out to eat and play in the playplace for a few minutes. We were soooo happy to get to Mimi's house!

The next day, Saturday, we must have REALLY been crazy because we decided to take seven over-tired children to Kohl's. (We had a 30% off coupon and it's hard to pass up a good deal!) The demographics of Mesa, Arizona are a lot different from the demographics in Austin, Texas. In Austin, having a big family is kind of a novelty. In Mesa, there are a lot more big families, and at this time of year there are a lot of "snowbirds" (retired couples who live in Arizona during the winter). In Austin, when we go places, we tend to stand out and people look at us with awe...in Mesa, we are just another large family and I am pretty sure (given the looks we got) that we were a big annoyance to many of the snowbirds shopping in Kohl's that day. On the upside, I did find some great deals!

Saturday night we met up with aunts, uncles and cousins that all live in the area for a picnic at the park. We went to a park in Gilbert called Freestone Park. It was awesome! It is a beautiful park (and beautiful is not a word I use often when referring to Arizona!). There was a large pond with ducks, waterfalls, playground, a train and some kiddie carnival rides. The kids loved it! It was so much fun to watch their faces on the mini-Ferris wheel--pure joy!

Watching the ducks

Ryder & Rustin

Kassidy, Kaydence & Kyndall

Riding the train

Sunday we all went to church. The quints are in the "Sunbeams" class at church. When we showed up to my mom's ward, we doubled the size of their Sunbeam class (we did call ahead to warn them).

Ready for church: Kaydence, Rustin, Kassidy, Ryder and Kyndall

To be continued...

Spring Break--Part 1

Spring Break

Last week (or rather week before last, as it has taken me all week to finish this post!) was Spring Break for Riley and Kaiya. I started teaching again at Austin Community College this semester (just one night class) and it was spring break for me too. We didn't attempt a big family vacation, but we did try to do something fun every day. Here is a run down of the week:

Monday

Riley and Kaiya each made their own loaf of banana bread. They both love to cook and banana bread (no nuts) is one of their favorites. We always use applesauce instead of the shortening the recipe calls for, to make it a little bit healthier. Monday we also had a "High School Musical 3" movie night.

Happy Chefs: Kaiya and Riley

The finished product--yum!

Tuesday

Tuesday was St. Patrick's day. Riley and Kaiya insisted on having green eggs and ham for breakfast. We also had green rice, green jello, green broccoli and four-leaf clover rolls for dinner.

Green eggs and ham look very unappetizing to me, but Riley and Kaiya like them. They would eat them in a house and they would eat them with a mouse, they do so like green eggs and ham...

The thought of green eggs kind of turns my stomach, but green rice I have no problems with :-)

Kassidy

Kaydence

Rustin

Kyndall

Ryder

Wednesday

Virginia and another friend, Chris, came over to watch the babies so I could run errands with Riley and Kaiya. We met Jayson for lunch at Chili's and had an exciting visit to Costco :-)

Ryder, Kyndall and Rustin play in the boxes from Costco. Sometimes I wonder why we ever BUY them toys, when they get such joy out of free things!

Thursday

Thursday was our big outing for the week. We decided to take everyone to the Waco Zoo. My friend, Tammy, came along with her 12-year old twin boys Jackson and Jamison. We also took my friend Brenda's kids Joe and Luvinia, so in all there were 2 adults and 11 kids in our group. When we got to the zoo, we realized that everyone else in central Texas had the same brilliant idea to go to the zoo for spring break. It was pretty crowded, but we still had a great time.

The whole crew: Back: Riley, Luvinia, Jamison, Tammy, Jackson, Joe, Front: Kaiya, Kassidy, Ryder, Kaydence, Kyndall, Rustin. The parking lot was full, so we had to park in a grassy field nearby.

Checking out the elephants

Kaiya with the buffalo

Riley with the snakes

The Rhino was nice enough to pose for our picture

Rustin, Kyndall, Kassidy and Kaydence. The zoo has a little playground with a treehouse and slide that the kids all loved.

Joe with Rustin

Jackson with Kassidy

Kaiya

Riley and Kaydence

Luvinia and Kyndall

Ryder and Jackson

Tammy, Ryder and Jackson. Tammy's family has "adopted" Ryder. They always take him for me during church and they even come and get him for playdates! With his olive skin and dark hair, I think Ryder fits right in with their family! It is wonderful to have other people love your children almost as much as you do.

By the end of the day, Kassidy was worn out!

Riley and Kaiya pose by the waterfall.

Friday

On Friday, Riley, Kaiya, Kassidy and Kaydence went over to play at our friends, the Woods, house. They jumped on the trampoline and played with the puppies (the Woods breed labradoodles). Friday night Jayson and Riley went on a fathers and sons camping trip with some other families in the neighborhood. Riley had a great time, and I think Jayson did too. Kaiya and I took care of the babies and had some "girl time".

Kaydence makes friends with one of the puppies.

Kassidy and Kaydence jump on the trampoline.

Riley getting ready for his camping adventure

Riley on the campout

When I wasn't looking, Kassidy smeared her blackberries all over her head---except for the smile, she looked like she could have stepped out of a horror film!

Pre-Spring Break

I must admit that I started my spring break a little early by going to a David Archuleta concert in San Antonio. I went with my friend Natalie and her two daughters Holly and Andrea. The concert was awesome and we had lots of fun!

Rachelle, Holly, Natalie, and Andrea. Doesn't this picture make you want to sing, "One of these things is not like the other...."?

David Archuleta

Spring Break