Happy Mother's Day!

 

Grandma helped the children make Mother's Day gifts for Sam.

Sam had the children fill out their "ALL ABOUT GRANNY/GRANDMA" papers.

Sam, Kate, Clayton, and Jordan go to Washington D.C.

 Sam, Kate (Sam's sister), Clayton (Kate's husband), and Clayton's friend, Jordan, came out to Washington D.C. this week.

Kate and Clayton inside the U.S. Capitol Building. Sam arranged for them to tour the capitol building and the Library of Congress.

Inside Utah Senator Mike Lee's office.

Kate and Clayton wandering around the National Mall.

I took a little time off work to join them for some of their activities, including a visit to the open house of the recently-renovated Washington D.C. Temple.

Clayton, Kate, Sam, and Jordan at the U.S. Air Force Memorial.

Yesterday they went to George Washington's Mount Vernon.

And they went back to see some of the monuments at night.

They visited quite a few memorials, monuments, and museums, ate good food, and thoroughly enjoyed their time out here.

They sure picked a great time to be in the D.C. area. The weather was perfect throughout their visit and today, the day they left, it rained all day.

Douglas, Penny, and Diana spent the week at Grandma's house, which is why Douglas has a huge smile on his face.

We sent this video to our children halfway through the week. Douglas and Diana liked Mom's car. Penny liked Dad's car.

Professor Diana, Conference Nap, Trampoline Hair, Butterface, Ogden Rabbits, Illness and Pumpkin Spice Vomit, Wall Toothbrush, Trampoline Park with Grandma, Diana's lesson

 

Diana wearing Sam's glasses.

I told her to look serious, like a professor. This is what she did.

Penny (above) and Diana (below) taking naps during General Conference.

Maxwell, Diana, and Penny on the trampoline at the home of Granny and Grandpa Ogden.

Diana likes to help me make butter . . . or at least EAT the butter.

Grandma had a great idea for Easter. Her posterity would make little rabbits in our likenesses and we would have to guess who the rabbits resembled. This is my rabbit.

Sam

Douglas

Penny (she likes "Owlette," one of the PJ Masks characters)

Diana with her "foxy" and fingernail polish.

This month we had one of the worst periods of illness that we've ever experienced in our home. And it wasn't COVID! Lots of vomiting and diarrhea. The kids spent many, many hours staying down watching movies and sleeping.

The girls' condition got so bad that we finally had to take them into Urgent Care. They weren't keeping anything down, not even water, for days. They were losing weight and were barely responding to us. They tested negative for COVID and strep. Penny tested positive for Influenza A. We got some Zofran for them and as soon as they took a little of that stuff they were able to start keeping liquid and food in them. At one point during the days of illness, Douglas decided to drink the Gatorade out of Diana's bottle. The very next day he was vomiting. Unfortunately for our entire home, and especially our poor nostrils, Douglas ate chocolate chip pumpkin spice bread before the first time he threw up. He vomited onto Sam's new, white rug in the living room. The smell of vomited pumpkin spice bread is as bad or worse than any smell that has ever entered my nose. The next day, we paid $100 to have the rug cleaned. The color came out of the rug. The odor did not. Sam put baking soda on the rug overnight, twice, followed by a spray to remove pet odors, and she was finally able to get the rotten pumpkin spice smell out of the rug.

As the girls slowly began to improve, they broke out with rashes all over their poor little bodies. Fortunately, the rashes didn't do much other than make them somewhat uncomfortable, and the rashes went away within a few days. Douglas largely escaped the rash. It was a horrible week, but we made it!

Here's a video of Maxwell using his wall toothbrush. We hosted Gideon, Maxwell, and Denali for a few days during their spring break earlier this month. Youtube won't let me embed videos into my blog right now, so I'm simply going to include the link to the video here:

https://youtube.com/shorts/1W91flK7m-I?feature=share

Penny doing Diana's hair one morning. See, sisters don't fight all the time. They are nice to each other 25% of the time. 😁

Our cute daughters ready for church.

Grandma and Jori took the kids to the trampoline park while Sam and I were in San Francisco.

Schofield having fun in the pit.

Dodgeball with Grandma

Video of the kids at the trampoline park:

https://youtube.com/shorts/t8go-YmcYBI?feature=share

I guess Youtube will allow me to embed some videos, but not others. Strange.