Riverview Park

I officially have a new favorite park-probably replacing Tumbleweed Park, and it is probably a smidge closer as well, which is nice.  We were able to hit up Riverview Park twice this week, and it was love at first sight.  I love the fact that this park has a great splash pad along with several other features-that way, we can get wet when it gets hot run off and play, and then come right back to the splash pad when needed.  The climbing features are unbelievable...freaky too, but overall, great activities for the kids.  The zipline is popular of course-the kids loved that!  The playground equipment is great as well, and there's tons of grass around the area to lounge on. Overall-just a great park. The second time around, I went with Becca, taking all six kids--they did great, which I was worried about being a single parent for the morning.  3 hours passed really fast, rain and all! True photo bomb coming up with a few captions tossed in....I don't have a ton of pics of Karianna as she mostly ran off to do her own thing with cousins!

The Zipline

 One of the climbing structures-this is my favorite as its more like an obstacle course and a really good workout!

 The splash pad-James surprised me by getting totally soaked both times we went, and he only tried to drink the water a little bit!  He was super cute, getting close enough to only get certain parts of his body wet.

 LOVE the fact that I caught a rainbow with Sara!

 The freaky climbing structure....All the kids tried it of course with varying degrees of ability.  Karianna went to the top with no problem, as did JD--but JD is the one that scares me.  He is so adept and quick at climbing and the top gets kind of hazardous! He's in the yellow shirt, purposeful so i could always find him quickly.

 Built in seats to give you a break...

 Karianna heading up in purple

 The littles trying out the obstacle course!

 Day #2 with the Mantanonas!  James absolutely loves to climb every part of this playground, and I know he's capable, but not fully careful-so I still had to race around and spot him on every ladder/net, etc.  He especially loved this sideways ladder-of course, the most dangerous one.

 JD and Jordan liked being monkeys on these things...

 Sara had a funky encounter with a bee-she somehow managed to step on it while going down the purple slide seen in some of the above pics.  It stung her on the bottom of her foot-you can see it surrounded by white in this shot.  She cried a bit, but didn't seem bothered much by it.  I had to sweep the bee off the slide.

 IT started to rain while we were there, and was actually kind of cool...didn't stop some of the kids from getting wet, most notably James and Jordan. James kept giving dragon and tiger baths...

Just a super fun park and I am excited to go back!

Easter Pageant

As is tradition, we headed to the Easter Pagaent tonight.  Unfortunately, Jared came down with a migraine, so stayed home while I headed out with the 4 older kids.  The pageant was great as always.  Jordan and Sara sat on my knees the entire time (ow for me), asking me questions.  I annotated the entire thing for them in language they could understand, and they were enthralled (the people behind us might not have been).  Karianna asked some pretty deep questions, and JD-bless his heart-was annoyed he couldn't see and was restless the entire time.  We had a great time though and enjoyed feeling the real meaning of Easter.

 We managed to get a shot with a Roman soldier! Woohoo!  JD has his sword and Jordan has his dagger.

A Scary Story

The following is a scary, sad story.  I don't like it and it irritates me as well as scares me, but here we go.  

By the way, no one is hurt, nor scarred, nor worse for the wear long term.

 The kids and I headed out the door today to pick the big kids up from school at 2:50, as normal.  Sara had just woken up from a nap, having had a fever and throwing up that morning; she was carrying a throw up bucket.  James was relatively happy, and Jackson had also just woken up from a nap and was on the verge of being somewhat fussy.  As such, I bundled him up in a blanket as that usually calms him, and since he was in a onesie, he gets pretty cold in the car with the AC on.

The car was warmer than I expected, so upon opening the doors, I turned on the ignition to cool the inside off.  I got the three little kids buckled in, climbed out the passenger door, and shut in in order to walk around to the driver's side.  The second the passenger door closed, I heard the locks engage.  I tried all the doors, and sure enough, they were locked.  I called to Sara to take her buckle off and come unlock a door.  She got her clip off with no problem, but couldn't get the buckle part off, and of course, today was the day I had readjusted the straps so they were nice and tight against her body as they should be.  She kept trying while I peered through the window to see if the AC was on. Thankfully it was on high, and while the front thermostat was set to a warmer temp, the ceiling vents always blast cold air, so I knew the kids were okay air wise.

At this point, Sara is freaking out because she can't get out of her buckle. She is holding her hand to her mouth like she is going to throw up, screaming at the top of her lungs, and throwing her arms about in a true fit.  I calm her down and try without much hope to get James to climb out.  He just turned his head away from me, little stinker!  He didn't even want to give me the time of day.  Jackson was bundled up in his seat with his carseat cover on, but i could see his AC vent blowing the edge of his blanket around, so I knew he was okay.

I didn't have many options.  The house was locked, my keys were in the car, and the cell was in the house charging.  I opted to sprint to my mom's house a few blocks down the road to get help. Thankfully Stephen was home, and I immediately sent him to pick up the big kids from school while I hurriedly called Jared.  Jared ensured he was leaving immediately to come unlock the doors.  He and I agreed if I had any instinct to do so, that I should just break the window, but if the AC was blasting, then they shoudl be okay waiting.  I sprinted back to the house, almost had an asthma attack, and just talked to Sara through the window to keep her calm while we waited.

Stephen brought the boys to our house, brought us water and snacks, and made sure we were okay.  Sara told me through the window that Jackson was crying, and although I didn't want him to be sad, it was actually a sign that he was okay.  We waited for 25 agonizing minutes before Jared's car came careening into the neighborhood.  About 2 minutes before that, Sara told me Jackson had stopped crying, and I just got a sick feeling in my stomach.  I was just about ready to break a window when we saw his car pull up.

Jared immediately clicked the doors open and I jumped into the car.  A quick glance told me Sara and James were just fine.  I flipped the covers off of Jackson and found him wide awake and shooting me a huge smile--but his eyes were lethargic, he was beet red, and covered in sweat.  I yanked him out of his carseat and rushed him into the house where I stripped him down and began running water over his body.  He didn't like the feeling so I drenched a light blanket in water and draped it over him;  then I filled up cupfuls of water and poured it over the towel to keep his body wet and cool.  His body cooled off quickly, and I had Jared bring me a bottle of formula that we had on hand  just in case.  Jackson guzzled that down, and then drank half a bottle of water as well (he's never had water before, but my only concern was rehydrating him).  At that point, his color had returned to normal and his body was cool.  I nursed him at that point, and we watched him very carefuly for the next hour to make sure things were okay.  He eventually fell asleep in the crook of Jared's arm, just snuggled in for comfort.  The other two kids of course were just fine, and Sara didn't even throw up.

I am just sick about this whole thing.  I had no idea the doors were going to lock--that has never happened before, and there is ZERO safety feature that would necessitate that.  Obviously I am kicking myself a bit for not being more careful, yet at the same time, I don't know what I did wrong other than not knowing our dumb van would do that.  We have since researched the automatic locks and disengaged this feature so this never happens again.  Of course, I won't be turning on the car without being in it for a long time.  Just some very scary moments for me as a mom and for Jared as a dad.  One of my worst fears is forgetting a kid in the car in the AZ heat...this wasn't that, but it was too close for comfort.  I'm so glad Stephen was able to jump in and help, and that Jared was able to get home so fast to help.  I have to get my mom a key for emergencies just like this.

Feeling very grateful that everyone is okay tonight.

Captions

I Don't Know Why.

 He Wanted to Show Off His Ribs By Sucking It In.

 He Just Wanted to Disrobe.

 Trying to Sit = Constipation?

The Bees Move Out (By Force)

**This happened in March, but I'll change the date around later.

The Before Picture

 Watching the "Bee Guy" cutting into the wall and removing the honeycomb piece by piece.  The bees were in there for 17 days total, and wow, did they accomplish a lot!

 Not sure why JD chose to present himself in this manner....

 The bee guy let us keep one of the pieces of honeycomb.  The upclose pic is both revolting and intriguing--you can see the white grubs, even the little stingers developing.  The yellow cells are either honey or pollen. Just awesomely gross!

The bee guy took this pic on his phone before he started removing--we were just disgusted looking at this picture, which was taken inside the wall, and again-how awesome is it to see how they built their honeycombs?????

So the bees are officially gone, and we no longer have to dash to the car in fear of getting stung as we have for the last 2 1/2 weeks!