Plum Tuckered Out

On Monday, I had a day full of laundry and cleaning. Since it was nice outside, the girls and I took a walk around town in the stroller (oh, I love that stroller!). So, by the time it was all done, I was exhausted and crashed on the couch (see below). Elena was also so tired, she fell asleep on top of the ottoman. Becca was asleep in her crib. Jason got home from work to find us all sleeping and took pictures to remember it by. By the way, it doesn't happen very often that all three of us get to nap at the same time so this was a luxury.

Our New Baby, My New Guns

For those who didn’t know, Camille is pregnant and due in October. She had an ultra-sound yesterday and apparently I am still having problems donating a y-chromosome to any of my offspring. I’ve tried giving the swim team pep talks to get them to be less timid but unfortunately they are slow learners or maybe just slow swimmers. All that being said, we are having ANOTHER girl.
Yes, that makes 3 girls, 0 boys. Yes, that will make me out-numbered 4-1 in the Winward household. And yes, I assume my girls will be beautiful like their mother and will have all sorts of boys chasing them.
So I have decided, for every girl that comes into this family, I get/need to buy one gun; thankfully this will be a retro-active rule and therefore, I will quickly need to purchase 2 guns before the birth of Helga (and yes, I am calling this one Helga) and I will also need to purchase an additional gun within a few weeks after Helga is born. If this trend of girls continues, I expect to have an arsenal large enough to scare off any hormone-driven adolescent boys knocking on our door.

Strawberry pie

My mom makes the best pie in the whole world! I am working on my pie-making skills so one day I might make pie like her. My favorite kind is strawberry pie. Since the last week and a half has been rather uneventful around here, I decided that I was craving pie too much to wait anymore. So, I got out my recipes (or rather my mother's recipe) and tackled the job. I must say, it looks pretty darn good. Plus I did it all from scratch - the crust, the glaze, and the cutting up the strawberries (of course I didn't GROW them. I'm not that good!). So, not only did it look good, it TASTED delicious! Almost as good as my mom's! The truth be told, I've eaten just about the whole thing myself because I can't leave it alone! If any of you have never had strawberry pie, you are missing out on one of the most wonderful things in life!

Let's Talk about the Weather

Okay, I know we live in Idaho but this is getting ridiculous! 75 degrees one day and then snowing the next?!?! What is with that? You will not believe the difficulty I had trying to convince Elena that it was not a "shorts" day because it was freezing outside when just the day before, we were in t-shirts and shorts. I am so ready for it to warm up! I don't know about the rest of you but I'm just as anxious as my girls to get outside but I don't want to be there if it's cold! We need the moisture but I'm fine with rain. Warm rain is best, right? So there's my complaining about the weather. Take it for what it's worth.

Swimming in the Shower

Ever since we went swimming at the awesome Lehi pool (if you want to see pictures of it), Elena has been telling me that she needs to go swimming. Well, in case you didn't notice, it's still pretty cold outside and there aren't any indoor swimming pools nearby. We don't have a bathtub in our apartment. It's just a shower but I told the girls they could put on their swimming suits and go "swimming in the shower." They loved it! Unfortunately, this means I'll have to let them do it again.

Becca was a little more nervous about actually getting under the water.

This was the reaction when I turned the water off. They were just really getting into it but had been in there for almost 15 minutes. I had things I needed to do!

Spring Break

We have had a fun Spring Break thus far! It kicked off with Elena's 3rd birthday on Saturday. She was so excited that it was finally her birthday because she'd been talking about it for months. Here are some pictures from that day. Her present was a set of Little People that I got from eBay. She absolutely loves it (and so does Becca)!

Elena blowing out the candles. She didn't need any help at all this year.

On Monday we took off for Utah to spend time with my cousin Rachel and her husband Will and daughter Emily (same age as Becca). We met in Salt Lake at Hogle Zoo. We braved the freezing weather and snow on the ground but I had told Elena we were going to see the animals and she was not going to let us out of that promise! It really wasn't too bad because we bundled up and the sun came out and many of the exhibits were inside. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see the elephants and rhinos, but we had a really fun time anyway.

Looking at the bears (they were sleeping). See all the snow? Best part was there was hardly anyone else there so we had the park to ourselves.

The daddy orangatan (however you spell it) is in the background. He was huge and came over close to look at us like we were on display. The girls loved the monkeys!

My favorite was the giraffes. They are so tall! Elena thought they were pretty cool too and I think Becca did also. Emily is the "devil-horned" kid. (love ya Emily!)

This tiger was stalking some people walking on the path. It was cool to watch. Can you believe all that snow on March 31st?!?!

I think the girls' favorite were these baby meerkats. They were playing with each other and Becca and Elena kept going back to watch them.

After the zoo we went to the Gateway Mall to get some food (for me). Then we drove by the Energy Solutions Arena and there were guys standing out in front with some tickets. We stopped to see how much they were. We decided to be spontaneous and bought $10 tickets and went to the Jazz game on Monday night. It was really fun and the tickets weren't bad at all!

This is taken from our seats in the "half-way nosebleed" section. They really were pretty good.

Before the game Jason, Will, and Elena went down to see if they could get an autograph. Paul Millsap signed Elena's Preston Wrestling hat. He probably thought that was a little odd. But it might be worth something one day. =) You can see Jason standing in the gray t-shirt in the middle of the green section and Will trying to get an autograph in a blue Korver t-shirt.

On Tuesday we took the kids to this awesome swimming pool in Lehi. They loved it! It was so cool because the water was shallow so even Becca could walk around. There was a jungle gym and slides and a huge bucket that dumped every few minutes. It was a really fun thing to do. Sorry, no pictures though because we were having too much fun! After swimming we went to Chili's since Jason and I had a gift card and treated Will and Rachel to dinner. (You're welcome!) Then we stayed up late playing games and Jason's friend from the MTC came with his family and we had a great time! We came home Wednesday afternoon because, quite frankly, we were too exhausted to go anymore. We're just taking it easy today so we can rest from our vacation. But we had a blast and we're glad we did it. Again, thanks Will and Rachel for having us!