A Table For {Seven}: March, St. Patrick's Day, and Other Shenanigans

March! March was a good month. I accomplished a whole lot plus it was beautiful and everything bloomed all of the sudden and it was simply lovely!

Now, to get down to business...

I work at the salon every Tuesday, all day long. I have a class right after until 10 PM. Andy usually works Tuesday nights, so my mom will come over every Tuesday (after watching Magnus all day) and help my kids with homework, take them to their various activities, and bring us dinner. Seriously. Every Tuesday. What an angel of a mother I have, am I right? I don't know if I could do this crazy work/school thing without her help as well as the help of my sister Rachel. They watch Magnus for me all of the time.

Anyway, after a particularly harrowing day full of midterms and a completely full book at the salon, I came home exhausted to this:

(Well, the coke came home with me.... I needed it to do homework that night ;) But this simple meal-- a salad, cornbread with honey butter, and chicken chili was like manna to my mouth! So good.

Laylah and Daphne got the stomach bug for the second time after we got home from Disney. UGH! It went through all of us twice. It was completely awful. So glad we made it through that alive.

Magnus started preschool through our community preschool program. They evaluated him for 60 days to see if he qualified for their Special Needs program since he is considered to have a TBI (traumatic brain injury) from his resection surgery. I'll talk more about that later. But he has absolutely loved preschool.

My dad and I took my cute older kiddos skiing. I haven't been skiing in years. I LOVED it! I forgot how dang fun it is. I made myself a promise that I will go way more next year. And I told Andy that he needs to learn so we can go together. It was such a beautifully perfect day.

The Utah State Aggies had their last home game and Laylah was able to go with Andy. All of my kids got a turn to go and had so much fun. They love watching their Uncle David play ball.

I had an MRI to check on my pituitary tumor. It is stable and looking fine. I only have to take meds for it once a week to keep it stable and my meds also regulate my hormone imbalance caused from the tiny tumor. I am so grateful for modern medicine. I avoided an MRI for about 5 years but my endocrinologist said I can't go that long again, haha. He said we will check it again next year.

Laylah gets her braces tightened once a month. It really hurt her the first couple times, but she is an old pro now. She only has top braces right now but later this week she will get her bottom braces on as well. Lucky girl!

My amazing aunt and uncle sent us such a wonderful Christmas gift.... a new tramp! Our old one had a decent frame, but the mat was falling apart. We tried twice to order a new one but it didn't fit either time. We are so thankful to have a brand new one. We put it together in March. The kids have really missed jumping and it keeps them busy for hours. Literally. Trampolines are the greatest invention ever.

Daphne was able to participate in the Biography Fair at school. Daphne has a slight fascination (okay, full blown obsession) with Laura Ingalls Wilder and anything to do with her. She owns all of her books. But she didn't stop there. She found out Laura's daughter, Rose, was also an author and she has read all of her books as well. Then she found books written by Laura's mother, Caroline, as well as Caroline's mother (whose name I don't recall). She has read every single book about that pioneer family that she could get her hands on. She chose Rose Wilder to do her report on and portray. She liked her the best because they had some similarities. Rose was a tomboy and she loved to write and draw. Daphne loves those things too.

How it works is, the kids all have a "button" on their desk and when someone "pushes" the button they act like their person and give a little speech about their life. It is darling. I loved it, and Daphne did such a great job.

This March I really took spring cleaning to heart. We switched all of our rooms around. We moved our office downstairs, moved Laylah into the office, Andy and I moved into the girl's room, the boys moved into our room, and Daphne moved into the boy's room. It just worked better with our furniture and Laylah was getting old enough to have her own room, and the boys ended up with their own bathroom. Win, win, win!

I cleaned as I went and got rid of so much stuff. It felt so great! I still have my kitchen and basement to do, but I will definitely have more time this summer.

St. Patrick's Day came, my least favorite "holiday" (that isn't really a holiday ;) Everyone wore green and we ate a green breakfast.

The Leprechaun brought us treats. And that was that.

I have taken to trying on every shade of lipstick at work so I can see if I like it or not. This dark purple was just a biiiit much. Haha.

I went down to Salina to see my best friend, Cristan, for a couple days. I love her.

I took the kids skiing by myself one day. Jonah's friend came with us. We had a blast and skied into the night. The resort had a fireworks show that night, not sure what the occasion was. But it was really fun. And that concluded our ski season for the year. I hope to go much more next year!

The girls and I went to our annual Sperry/Hyde ladies luncheon. It is a lunch we do with distant relatives at the Lion House every March to celebrate my great, great, great, great (I think?) Grandfather and his legacy. It is fun. I mostly go for the rolls. My girls have been old enough to come the past few times and I love it.

This is my very good and obedient children walking to church one day. I had worked a graveyard shift at my rehab job and then had to go to my salon job for a mandatory meeting one Sunday morning. My husband went to work that morning as well, which left our kids the responsibility of getting ready for church and getting over there on their own. As I was driving home from my meeting I saw them walking and was just so grateful that I have such responsible and wonderful children. I really love them so much.

Here;s my cute baby boy at one of his many doctor check-ups. Just because he's cute.

Kaylie and I making hideous faces. She's the best.

Laylah went to the State Science Fair with her two best friends from school. They didn't win anything but they were able to miss school for the day and they had a blast together.

Andy got a new motorcycle. All of his dreams have come true.

Spring exploded in March and these BEAUTIFUL blossoms were everywhere. And I loved it.

We had spring break in March and the first order of business was to match all of the socks that had been sitting in two giant laundry baskets. I threw away all of the ones that were mateless. Stupid socks.