MARCH

March was the complete opposite of February.  Where February was Ugh feeling, March was more like Ahh.  It just flew by!  The sun did come out (I never knew Boise had such bad inversions) and the weather started feeling like spring which always makes things better.  I think looking forward to spring break gave me the motivation to be positive!  I hadn't had a break from weekly piano lessons since January and I REALLY needed that week break from teaching! :)  And it was nice starting into my third trimester of pregnancy and I could see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Jed got his first bonus check of 2016 at the end of February which was more than he was anticipating and we met with an accountant who gave us a plan for the year to help us save money from taxes which always makes you feel good!  March was definitely a breath of fresh air for me and it seems weird to say, but it seemed like the mood changed in our house and everyone was a lot happier.  Like the saying goes, "When momma ain't happy ain't nobody happy."  The opposite is true too!

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BOYS STATE BASKETBALL - The first weekend in March was Boys State and we went to a few games.  We went and watched my cousin Melissa's boy, Hayden, play for Rigby.  It was nice to see the Fosters and we always like watching Rigby play.  Their game was at Borah HS and my kids thought all the lion statues were so cool there.  Jake and Megan's family came over and stayed with us.  They were basketball maniacs and went to at least 2-3 games a day.  We actually didn't see them that much but it was fun when we did.  That weekend we went over to see Jeff's new baby lambs too.  They were so cute and soft.  The kids loved and were terrified of them at the same time ("because they run so fast it makes you nervous and their moms acted like they were going to charge us" according to Kasen.) 

SHOOTERS BASKETBALL - Ava finished up her 2nd basketball season the first weekend of March as well.  This season was a little rougher for her than last year.  Her age group was able to steal the ball this year as soon as they crossed the half court line so it was more aggressive all around.  Ava got really frustrated quite a few times during the season thinking girls were being really mean when they were just playing aggressively.  I have to admit that I could see where she was coming from at times because if I had someone in my face that intensely I would probably haul off and just punch them 9 times out of 10.  She is a good little ball player, but she likes to win and she likes to not ever make mistakes so even though she had fun it was hard to tell if she was enjoying most of her games or not.  Jed coached her team again and even though he is an excellent coach I sometimes wonder if Ava would do better on a team without her dad as the coach.  They are both a little intense. :) Of course she didn't get any of that intensity from me though.:)  However, I know that if she had a different coach she wouldn't learn how to play as well.  I also felt bad for Jed sometimes, because kids aren't as sassy to other people as they are to their parents who are trying to teach them.  The only thing that was comforting to all of us was that without fail every game there was some player who broke down in tears over something either from our team or the opposing team (sometimes both.) 

One thing Ava got pretty good at by the end of the season was running layups and switching her dribbling from one hand to the other as she was in motion.

AVA JUMP ROPE - The PE teacher at the school announced back in January that she would be having tryouts for speed jump ropers to compete for the school.  Ava mentioned it to me, but then said she didn't think she would do it because she wasn't that good.  Some of her friends decided to try out and talked her into trying out too.  They would practise during one recess and during a part of PE.  There were four groups to tryout for: girls forward jog-step, girls backward jog-step, boys forward jog-step, and boys backward jog-step.  Ava decided to try-out for backward jog-step.  She bought a speed jump rope at school and started practicing.  At first she could only get about 60-70 jumps per minute - which we all thought was amazing!  The PE teacher had a series of tryouts over the course of a few weeks at the end of February.  Because Ava had built up her endurance she was jumping about 120 jumps per minute by the time tryouts came along and she made the backward jump-step team.  There were 3 girls chosen out of all the 4th/5th graders.  There were about 10 girls that tried out for backwards & 20 that tried out for forwards.  Each group took the top 3 jumpers.  Ava told us they would compete at districts next.  We had no idea what to expect and when the teacher sent home a letter saying that districts would be about 3 hours we thought for sure it was a typo.  Well we showed up at Centennial HS on a Friday night and the entire parking lot was packed.  When we got inside to the gym there were jumpers everywhere.  One side of the gym was bleachers just for the jumpers and the other side was for spectators.  The bottom level was completely packed!  The upper bleachers were about 1/3 full.  We definitely didn't realize it would be such a big deal.  They had 3 rounds and all the kids in each group would go at once.  Each jumper had 4 judges watching only them with counters.  Ava's first round she jumped the entire minute without stopping or messing up and jumped over 150 jumps!  Her second jump was the semi-final round and she still did awesome and got about 140 jumps.  She didn't make it to the final round though and was pretty disappointed. Her best friend made it to the finals and so she had to learn the hard lesson of being happy for someone else even though you wish it would have been you.  The winner from the girls backward jog-step averaged about 200 jumps p/min over her 3 rounds so she was an animal.  We were so proud of Ava because she had worked so hard for 3 months and had improved so much.  Everyone in our family tried doing the backward jog-step for a minute multiple times and none of us could do it!  In the school newsletter for March there was a picture and write-up on the Willow Creek jump rope team which Ava thought was pretty cool!

SUR LA TABLE - For Christmas, Jed's boss gave him a gift certificate for cooking classes.  Jed was thrilled (haha).  He was about as far from thrilled as you can imagine and thought it was the dumbest gift ever.  I thought it sounded pretty fun.  We looked at the schedule and finally found a class and time that would work.  We signed up for the Modern Steakhouse class.  Neither Jed nor I are very daring in our food so that seemed like the safest option for us!  There were about 5 couples in our class and the teacher paired up groups.  So we ended up with another couple that we didn't know who were probably in their late 40's early 50's and were seriously the dumbest people we've ever met.  I'm pretty sure neither had ever cooked anything ever.  So that wasn't the funnest part, but they were nice.  Jed thought for sure they were drunk because of the way they were acting.  The instructor was pretty good and we learned a few pointers.  Overall, it was a fun experience because we would have never done it otherwise.  Later that night we had just finished scriptures/prayers and Jed noticed that Kasen's front tooth was really loose.  So he started wiggling it.  Kasen has the lowest pain tolerance of anyone I've ever met and started hyperventilating.  To make a long story short, it was about another 45 minutes before the tooth came out because of all the crying breaks Kasen had to take.  Jed had tied dental floss around the tooth so Kasen could pull it out himself but it wasn't working.  So as I was "untying" the floss (i.e. twisting the tooth) it finally came out.  After I showed Kasen it came out he went full speed towards Jed swinging saying, "Thanks a lot!  This is all your fault."  Let's hope Kasen never gets seriously injured because he doesn't handle pain well.  Meanwhile during all of this Ava says off to the side, "I think I have a wiggly tooth too."  She twists for a minute and pops out her tooth on the bottom.  It was pretty funny.  Jed started calling them jack-o-latern faces after that.  Especially Kasen with that big front tooth missing.

ST. PATRICK'S DAY - I am really boring when it comes to celebrating this holiday.  My mom would always cook corned beef and cabbage growing up on St. Patrick's day.  (Which I thought was gross so I've never done that.)  My sister always makes leprechaun traps with her kids and then leaves them a note from the leprechauns with treats they find in the morning.  I do nothing besides help them find green shirts they can wear to school.  I tell them they basically live with the leprechaun queen (me) so everyday is like St. Patrick's day at our house. Before school, Kasen and Kinsley drew pictures of leprechauns.  Kasen said to me secretly, "Mom, no offense but Kinsley's leprechaun is kinda' something you'd see in your nightmares." :)

SPRING BREAK - 
Monday: Of course the week of Spring Break was cold, rainy, and windy.  I gave the kids a list of ideas/activities we could do during the week and let them choose one outing a day.  Monday they chose the library.  My kids love the library so much.  Usually I'm rushing them so we are only there 15 minutes or so, but this day I let them stay as long as they wanted.  We ended up staying about 1.5 hrs.  Ava found books the entire time.  She is really proficient at the library system and can look up a book she wants and go find it on the shelves.  Kasen & Kinsley like finding their own books too by just going to their sections.  They push around these little carts and load them up.  I read them quite a few books on the couch and then they both played on the computers for awhile.  Also on Monday we practiced with Kinsley riding her bike up and down the sidewalk.  The day before Jed took off her training wheels for the first time.  She picked it up after about 20 minutes.  She is still pretty timid, but she can ride on two wheels!  Most of the day was rainy and after one break Ava took a pretty picture of a rainbow out our front door.  We also decided to make Easter sugar cookies for FHE.

Tuesday: I gave the kids lots of options between museums, movie theater, bowling, etc for the week.  The two places they chose though was the World Center for Birds of Prey and the zoo.  Tuesday and Wednesday were looking like our best weather days so we decided to hit those then.  I had to laugh to myself about their choices.  I'm not sure where they get their deep love for animals. ??  The girls even both got dressed in bird shirts that morning.  So the World Center for Birds of Prey is in South Boise in a pretty cool area up on a big hill.  The wind was really strong up there and so it ended up being pretty chilly.  The outside area wasn't too big so we didn't have to stay outside too long.  Inside there was a small museum and two rooms for animal encounters.  The workers brought in hawks and owls.  The kids thought it was awesome.  There favorite part was seeing real California Condors outside though.

They all decided that they wanted to work there when they grew up and probably become falconers in a few years.

There was another museum that was a library with only falconry books and a wing dedicated to falconry.  It had a lot of information and displays about falconry in the Middle East which is where it was started.  It was pretty cool. When we were done they wanted to go on this hike down to a cabana where you can bird watch.  It was so windy and cold that the kids would yell and I couldn't even hear them because of the wind blowing so hard.  It was like living in Rigby again!  The view looking out over Boise was really pretty from there.  You could see rain coming down in random sections all over the valley.  One big storm looked like a tornado and I said that to the kids as I was taking their picture.  Immediately they all just started running back up the trail as fast as they could.  I couldn't run without having an accident being almost 8 months pregnant so I had to walk behind.  By the time we got back to the car our hands were frozen and we had to stop and get hot chocolate on the way home.

Wednesday:  Zoo Day!  This was the only "sunny" day of the week and the zoo was packed.  The giraffe slide was finally done and that was the best part of the day.  The zoo here is not that great compared to the other zoos we've been to. :(  I'm surprised the kids want to come here as much as they do because the animals are never out and they always mention how there aren't any cool animals.

Thursday & Friday: Both these days were bad weather so we were mostly home.  The kids played a million games together.  There were a few fights, but they really do play well together.  One thing I do love about my kids is their great imaginations!  They are always thinking up some game with each other and their toys.  One morning both Kasen & Kinsley were invited to a neighbors house so Ava and I went and did some Easter shopping.  Ava was a great helper to the "Easter Bunny." (This picture of Jed/Kasen was from earlier in the month watching Peyton Manning's retirement speech.  Midway through Kasen ran upstairs where I was and said he wasn't even sure he ever wanted to watch the NFL again without Peyton Manning.  He was trying hard not to cry as he said it. haha)

Friday I found some egg dyeing kits from last Easter that I forgot about so the kids had some fun with them.  I never really did this growing up so I always forget that this is a fun tradition to do.  The kids really liked it.

Saturday: The neighborhood Easter egg hunt was Saturday morning.  The weather was cold but at least it was dry.  Because Easter fell at the end of spring break there must have been a lot of people out of town because the Easter egg hunt was a lot less crowded than last year.  There are some things I really like about living in a subdivision community and these types of activities are one of them.  I also like the fact that we walked a few blocks down the road to get to it.  The trees that line all the roads in our subdivision were in full bloom.  I'm not sure what kind of trees they are, but we call them plum trees because they drop these plum looking fruit.  For a few weeks each spring they bloom this beautiful pink color.  Afterward they turn a maroon-ish color and I don't think they are that pretty anymore, but I do love the way they look those few weeks.

Later that day we went over to see Tresa, Jeff, & Tyler.  We had decided to get together on Saturday rather than Easter Sunday.  I can't really remember why now.  We hadn't seen the baby lambs for a few weeks and they were already so much bigger.  Uncle Jeff corralled them up for the kids so they could pet them which they love.  They think Jeff is the sheep whisperer and can get sheep to do whatever he wants.  :)  We also had an Easter egg hunt and Jeff & Jed hid the eggs so great.  We had pizza and hung out for awhile.  It was a fun Saturday.

EASTER - Easter Sunday the kids woke up and found their Easter baskets.  Again this year the Easter Bunny left riddles the kids had to solve to find their baskets.  He had good help this year again by someone (Ava).  We don't have church until 1pm so we watched some scripture movies about Jesus' resurrection.  I usually take a picture of the kids in their Easter clothes, but I didn't get them any special outfits this year so I forgot.  I took a picture of Kasen and Kinsley after church in the car though.  For the last week we had talked every night about what had happened to Jesus that day.  So on Monday we talked about what he did on Monday that last week.  It made the whole week a lot more meaningful for me especially as I contemplated so many things about the Savior.  During Sacrament mtg we had a special Easter program that was mostly music.  The primary kids sang a song called "Gethsemane" which is so powerful.  I cannot hear it without crying.  The whole meeting was so spiritual and I felt an overwhelming love for the Savior and what He did for us. 

Sunday we had soup and rolls.  I knew my kids wouldn't eat a big traditional Easter dinner so I didn't want to spend time making one.  We did make deviled eggs though.  Jed taught the kids how to prepare them.  When church ends at 4 and by the time you eat dinner you don't have a lot of time left in the day.  It wasn't a warm day so we stayed inside.  It was a good day and a good way to end spring break.

SCHOOL - School this month was really busy for everyone.  Kinsley worked on lots of projects at preschool.  She brought lots of art work home.  This was one of her favorites.  She also got to go to lunch with Ava one day.

Both Ava & Kasen had big presentations due in March.  Kasen had been working on his since the beginning of February and Ava since the beginning of January.  The thing I liked most about their projects was that 95% of it was done at school!  They were both famous people projects.  Kasen chose Peyton Manning.  He had to list his top 3 choices so he wrote down Peyton Manning, Abraham Lincoln, & Martin Luther King Jr.  Then his teacher made the final choice.  She told Kasen she chose Peyton Manning because she didn't know who he was.  Kasen thought that was hilarious.  He had to research Manning, make a lap book about him, and give an oral report to his class.  He also got extra points for dressing up and pretending to be his famous person during the presentation.  Ava's famous person was Jacques Cousteau.  She really wanted to get Marie Curie, but another girl picked her first.  Jacques Cousteau ended up being a great fit for Ava though since she loves the ocean and ocean animals.  She also had to do a lot of mini projects each week.  Since this was in her GT class it was pretty intense.  In March they had a "Festival of the Famous" and families could go walk around and meet all the famous people.  I was really impressed with both of their work because like I said before they really did it all by themselves!

In March the school had Read Across America week.  Leading up to this Ava & her friend Jill had an idea to do some sort of fundraiser.  First their idea was they could form a book club and have people donate books to the school and they would give half to the library and keep half for their book club.  Then they decided they should donate all the books to the library.  Then they decided they should give books to kids who don't have any.  Finally they went and talked to the librarian about their ideas.  Together they approached the principal with a plan to do a book drive and gather gently used/new books and take them to local charities for kids.  Jill and Ava plus three other girls got together and handmade posters they hung up around the school talking about the Book Drive.  During the week they announced it each day during morning announcements and the school sent home flyers to the parents.  By the end of the week 1345 books had been donated!  It was so amazing.  Again I was so impressed because I literally did nothing to help and neither did the other moms.  These girls did it all on their own with the help of the librarian.  For the next week they had to spend their recess time sorting through the books and getting them ready to take to the charities.  Overall they ended up taking books to 7 different charities in the area.

Another fun thing that happened in March for Kasen was he got awarded for being the most engaged student in his class for February.  He was able to have a pizza lunch with the principal!  There were two students from each class that were chosen.  The picture below is all the 1st grade students who were chosen.  During Read Across America week the school also had spirit week.  One day was dress up like your favorite book character.  Kasen chose Jack from the Magic Tree House book series. 

MISC - Here are some random photos from the month.  These were during FHE or scripture study.  The top two are Jed teaching the kids about the plan of salvation and then playing Monkey in the Middle with them for the activity during a different FHE.  Jed is such a good dad.  He always spends so much time interacting with the kids even if he gets home late or is really tired.  I couldn't have married a better guy.  The bottom picture is of the kids watching a scripture video from the LDS website one night. 

BABIES - March was also a busy month for babies!  Jed's sister Susan had her baby boy on St. Patrick's Day.  They named him Mason and he is such a cutie pie.  My sister Abby had her 1st baby on March 23rd.  They named him Jaxon.  He is a squishy cutie pie too.  Our baby will have fun with these two! Seeing pictures of the babies made me really excited and also gave me a minor panic attack!  I'm not sure I'm ready for labor and delivery again.  I have such bad memories from Kinsley's.  I know the baby at the end is worth it, but I can't think about it very much or I get really anxious.  On March 6th I hit the 30 week mark.  I have felt so stretched out this pregnancy.  I'm not sure how I can go another 10 weeks!  Each of my pregnancies have been different as far as how I carry, but I definitely feel like this one is just going straight out front.  I am still feeling pretty good other than by night I am pretty tired.  My heartburn is still really bad, but it is fun to feel the baby moving so much.  The kids and Jed all think it is hilarious how much he kicks me and like to feel it.  One morning Jed told me he couldn't sleep so he was laying next to me with his arm wrapped around my stomach and he said he had no idea how I could even sleep because the baby was moving like crazy.  He definitely is an active one!