Hidden Message

While cleaning up after Carson's birthday party, I found a hidden message for me.  It was tucked away in a corner that usually holds an end table and lamp.  The person who had written the message had crawled under the table and carefully scrawled it so it was almost behind the couch.  Here's what it said:

It melted my heart.  And yes, it is staying there on my baseboard forever. As much as I love a clean house, I could never have the heart to erase it!  I love you too, little man!

Army Birthday

Last Wednesday we celebrated Carson's birthday with 16 of his closest friends.  Our guests were greeted at the door as they arrived at "Fort Carson".

 They were then asked to sign in as "new recruits" and write their name on a dog tag.

The recruits were told to report immediately to their first lesson at Fort Carson: Flight School.  At Flight School, Jeff helped them make paper airplanes, then they were directed to the backyard to get some flight practice.

After Flight School, it was time for their first lesson in becoming a good soldier.  The new recruits were told that 50 men from their unit were MIA, and needed to be recovered from the front yard before the enemy captured them.  In the end only 49 of the 50 plastic soldiers were recovered, but we counted it as a success.

Then it was onto Target Practice: a version of pin-the-tail-on-donkey that included trying to correctly place a tank in the middle of a target.

Next it was time for them to learn how to care for and transport a wounded soldier. We had the two smallest boys at the party lay down on beach towels, while their teams raced to see who could bandage them up the fastest (wrap a roll of toilet paper around them) and then safely transport them back (on the beach towel) to the base camp.

After all their training it was time for some relaxation and cake before it was time for the "war" (aka water fight) to begin.  My SIL made Carson this awesome cake.

The ammo for the war...

Here are some of the kids who came to Carson's party.  We will never invite that many again...it was a little crazy.  Since our yard has no shade, the kids opted to open presents under the trampoline.

After two hours of fun, the Drill Sergeants were glad it was time for all of the soldiers to head home!  Carson had so much fun and was totally spoiled.

Clark Planetarium

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Yesterday we took our boys to the Clark Planetarium in Salt Lake.  They had an absolute blast looking at all of the exhibits.  What Mom and Dad liked best about it is that its FREE, well, if you just want to see the exhibits, the shows do cost money. 

They have some pretty amazing things there.  The boys loved walking on Mars...

and on the Moon (sorry about the blurry pictures, all I had was my phone with me).

Carson liked looking at a rock from the moon.  They also had a showcase full of meteorites, a giant globe, and a huge pendulum that knocks over little levers as the earth rotates.

We will definitely be going there again, and next time we'll be sure to plan on a show!

Freezer Jam

Last week our Walmart had strawberries on sale for $0.98 and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to make some jam!  Normally I can my jam doing the hot water bath method, but this time I decided to try freezer jam.  I had done it only once before, with my friend Alisha when we lived in Rexburg.  I had forgotten how absolutely simple it is!  Normally when I do jam it is something I plan on doing after the boys are to bed so they aren't around the boiling jam and jars...plus three little boys are such a handful anyways.  I whipped this up right before dinner time and let them sneak tastes of it before it set up.  I think I may do all my jam this way this year!  In March we purchased a deep freeze for our basement, so I will have plenty of room to store it.  The only thing I regret is that I didn't have time to make some bread...because what's better than fresh jam on homemade bread?

Flooding, Round Two

A week ago today, we had a huge down pour that left our yard (and most of our neighborhood) flooded.  As you may remember I had posted about this happening to us last year. At that time the city had said it was a "once in a hundred year storm" and we wouldn't need to worry about it happening again.  Apparently they were wrong.  We were very lucky this time and were able to get the extra water away from our house before it came in our basement.  A lot of our problem is the way our builder sank our house down, so we have a hill that allows all the water to drain straight towards our window wells.

 This sand box is actually two feet lower than the yard because we had taken dirt out of it to level out our yard before laying sod.  So what you see is more than two feet of water in there.

Jeff and our neighbors bailed out the water by our window wells.  Luckily another neighbor brought over a pump and it cleared the water away pretty fast.  Since I was trying to keep my curious little guys out of all that water, I offered my support by snapping pictures with my phone :).

Jordanelle

Last weekend we spent some time up by Jordanelle hiking and biking around.  The boys just loved throwing rocks in the lake...especially Mason, whose face lit up everytime a rock plopped in.

Carson loved riding his bike up and down the hills and was really good at it!

Birch Family Stay-cation

As the Fourth of July weekend was approaching I knew I wanted to do something different.  Jeff has been working so many hours that he is completely worn out.  And I have been getting very little sleep because Mason has been suffering from chronic ear infections and hasn't been sleeping well at all.  It was no secret that we needed a break.  That week we were getting a 5th (and extra!) paycheck for the month and it was loaded with overtime.  I immediately started looking online for vacation packages to Southern California and Las Vegas.  I was ready to get far, far, away from the Utah/Idaho area.  The more I began to price out a vacation, the more uneasy I began to feel about spending that much money...especially with a new baby on the way (which means we are saving to buy a car with third row seating). So the solution?  A stay-cation!  I was not too excited about the idea, but it made sense to save our extra money. So why didn't we go to Idaho?  Its not exactly the most relaxing thing for us since we spend most of our time bouncing from house to house and making sure we see everyone.  What we needed was R & R.  Jeff's brother, Jason, works at the Hyatt in downtown Salt Lake and was able to get us an amazing rate. Thank you Jason! It definitely pays to have connections because it was $60 (per night) cheaper than the cheapest rate for that hotel that I could find online.

Friday afternoon I met Jeff at the hotel and after grabbing some dinner we decided to go relax at the hotel's pool.  Carson is a lot like me and loves to swim so we had a blast together!

We kept the rest of our weekend's activities to a minimum, only visiting the zoo and Discovery Gateway Children's Museum.  The goal for us was to kick back and relax together as a family.  The boys thoroughly enjoyed staying at a hotel and riding the train around downtown.

We ended our stay-cation by watching fireworks in Salt Lake with Jeff's family.  A perfect end to a fun weekend. Even though we didn't go far, it was still nice to get away from our normal routine for a few days and most importantly we spent time together!  Besides relaxing, sleeping in, and swimming with my guys, one of the best parts was being able to put a big chunk of cash away in savings and know I'm that much closer to a newer vehicle! We've decided not to borrow money anymore, so its definitely been a challenge for me to say no to some things that we really can afford and want, so I can put the extra money away for something that we need. Its hard...especially when all I want to do is go far away on a vacation, but I know if we make the sacrifices now, we will be a lot better off later on.