The Water Slide

It was a beautiful day on Thursday. It wasn't too hot or too cold, there was no rain, and we had friends in the back yard out playing. I was just finishing cooking dinner when I asked Kenny to clean up the plastic under the sand and water table (due to all the rain we've gotten lately the plastic that catches the sand was really dirty.) Kenny took it to the small hill behind our house to hose it off. I should have recognized the equation that we were about to encounter.

Kenny + large sheet of plastic + hill + water = one dirty mess of fun.

Kenny told our kids to slide down the plastic. None of them were too sure about it that is until he tried it, then it was a constant stream of kids sliding. Luke and Taylor, two friends who live behind us asked their parents and then eagerly joined in the water sliding. It was a huge hit. How could it not be? We slid for about 45 minutes before the grass was too soggy and we needed to stop. (Thanks back yard neighbor Katie for letting us soak your lawn!) It was a lot of fun, even when Kenny tackled me onto the slide. :) Sometimes it's just fun to be a kid.

Sarah Kate after her first slide. She may have thought she was wet then. Good thing she didn't know just how wet she was going to get!

Ben surfing it! The water was a little chilly for him and he prefered to stay off his belly.

The water may have been cold, but the belly was the best and fastest way to go.

Ben even took to the belly a few times. Obviously it was worth it, look at his face!

Hannah on the other hand, just couldn't see the fun in getting in cold water to slide down a hill that you couldn't control yourself on. . .

Riding on Daddy's back, now that was a different story. This way she stayed dry and didn't have to worry about turning backwards.

Frying Pan Farm

The 3 youngest kids and I went to Frying Pan Farm on Tuesday with some friends. I must say I think Frying Pan Farm may be the strangest name I've ever heard for a farm, especially considering I didn't even see a single frying pan. Oh well! I was excited to see a farm out here, and the fact that it had baby animals made it even better. It ended up being one of those living historical farms and though it was cool I'd still have to say Jensen Historical Farm in Logan is cooler, especially during Baby Animal Days.

We started out by trying the farm equipment. It was kid sized which was way cool for the kids. Ben liked the tractors and Hannah just wanted to sit in the stroller (she was having one of those days.) She did, however, like looking at the big tractors. I think that was her favorite part of the entire farm.

After riding the tractors we headed over to see the animals. This is were I felt the farm lacked. They didn't have many animals, but the kids like it anyway and they thought it was cool to see what few animals they saw (except the pigs, they stunk!)

Next we went to the farm house. It was only opened from 10:00 until 12:00 so we had to take a break in the middle of seeing the animals to make it to the house. Oddly enough when we got inside the house we discovered 2 sister missionaries. Apparently the farm house is only open 2 hours a day because the sister missionaries volunteer time there. We were pleasantly surprised and were very happy they volunteered time there so we could see it.

Fighting with Lincoln Logs in the farmhouse.

Playing dress-up, with friend Audrey Hobbs, in the farmhouse.

Next we went to see more animals. We got to see ducks, bunnies, more goats, and chickens. For some reason Hannah was scared to death of everything except the chickens.

She loved the chickens and even got out of the stroller to stand next to them. This was the beginning of a happier Hannah.

Next we went to see the big pig. He was huge and so was his smell. Ben found some rye plants nearby that he thought were so cool and he just had to go tromping through them. Of course if one kid goes through the weeds they all have to. Soon we had 10 little kids tromping through rye plants. It was much better than smelling that stinky pig.

Hannah was still out of the stroller and she enjoyed the rye plants up until she stepped into a puddle of mud. This happened to be at the exact time I tried to take a picture of her. It soured her mood for awhile, but she got over it.

The last thing we did before lunch was take the wagon ride. This was something Ben really, really wanted to do, but they were having trouble with the preschool groups that were there. We lucked out on our walk back to have lunch when we heard the wagon driver announced that they would be doing their only none preschool wagon ride in 5 minutes. Ben was so excited. He loved the ride and talked none stop. Poor Mr. Steve, the wagon driver, had to answer all Ben's questions and listen to all his comments.

It was a great day at the farm. The kids got to see some animals, visit an old farmhouse where they played Lincoln Logs, and played dress-up, play in rye plants, and go for a wagon ride. Life on the farm is great.

Playing in the grass at lunchtime.

My Cute Kids

We haven't been up to much since returning from the cruise. It took me almost a week to get unpacked, get everything put away, and get laundry done. It didn't help that I decided to do some spring cleaning in the middle of unpacking. The weather here has been dreary, to say the least, (we got almost 6 inches of rain over the weekend) and we've spent a lot of time inside. Despite the boring week we've had, we did take some cute pictures of the kids that I wanted to share.

Bubble Princess

Hannah has discovered a love for bubble baths. She has always been a big fan of taking baths, but she never like bubble baths (she was afraid of the bubbles.) However, recently Ben's been asking for them and she's been OK with them. Maybe it's because she's finally feeling better. Whatever the reason, she enjoys them and I thought this picture was oftely cute.

Star Wars Lego Video Game

Need I say more. I bought this game for Kenny awhile ago, and the kids just love it. Ben wakes up in the morning and the first thing he asks is if he can play Star Wars Lego Video Game. I'm not a huge fan of video games (they're too easy to get addicted to) but I don't mind if the kids play them every now and then. Besides, they have to work together, and don't they look cute sitting there together.

Happy Mother's Day

The gifts Sarah Kate made for me at school. I'm so looking forward to the many years of handmade Mother's Day gifts. I just love them.

I hope all you Mother's out there had a wonderful Mother's Day. Mine was fairly uneventful, but that's not all together a bad thing. Uneventful is much better than a disaster. Some of the high points were the good morning hugs and "Happy Mother's Day" from my kids, making it to church on time (this is always a feet and no matter how hard we try, we always seem to be running late on Sunday's), calls home, and homemade gifts from the kids (I think this one was my favorite.)

The kids with the Mothers Day gifts they made in church. Flowers from the primary kids and a scribbled on picture from Hannah.

Magic on the Disney Magic

We just got back from the most wonderful family reunion ever. On April 26th Kenny's Mom's family, the Holderness', boarded the Disney Magic for a 7 night cruise through the Caribbean, 111 of us in all. It was amazing. We got to see so many family members including some we haven't seen in years and others we've never met. Despite Hannah still being sick, we got to do many fun things including meeting Mickey Mouse and a bunch of other characters, eating amazing meals, visiting with family, seeing really cool shows, a pirate party, and spending time on three different islands just to name a few. It was a very busy week that we'll never forget. Due to the fact that we have over 1,000 pictures and I could spend limitless hours writing about all that we did, I've chose to create condense it and create a slide show of some of a few of my favorites memories/pictures (Ok there's more than just a few.) I hope you enjoy. I must say I think my favorite part of the entire cruise was being able to walk around the ship and pretty much wherever you went there was another Holderness family member to run into. There's nothing better than being surrounded by family.



For anyone who is thinking of going on a cruise I feel the need to warn you that you do have to get off the ship and return to normal life. It's very hard, but they will not let you live on the ship. Now that I'm home I've realized there's no one here to make my bed, cook me dinner, and do my dishes, there's no late night pizza and ice cream runs, there's no family to bump into when you go out, it's kind of sad. At the same time I have all the memories, pictures and video's to look back on. Though I still have laundry to finish from the cruise and my house has yet to be put back together, the whole family can't stop singing 'Happy Working/Cruising Song' (that was the Newbry Talent) and 'Under the Sea' (another favorite Disney song) and I can't stop dreaming of when I get to see everyone again. Thanks again Bruce and Nancy for this amazing experience.