The Johnson Clan

Cora and Ruby were so excited for school to start today. They woke up extra early thing morning and came into my room with their uniforms already on. We made German pancakes for breakfast, during which Cora spilled some syrup on her shirt and had to change it, and rode bikes outside to burn off some extra energy.  I just dropped them off at the school! The high school football team was waiting outside the elementary school (the high school, middle school, and elementary school are all on the same campus and share a parking lot) and formed a human tunnel for the kids to run through while they shouted “welcome to school!” It was cute. Ruby and Cora both ran through went straight to class without a single tear or complaint. In fact they didn’t even turn around to wave goodbye 😢. Now it’s just Darcy and me at home all afternoon. 

This past week has been full of summer time shenanigans. We’ve been going to library activities, parks, play dates, etc.  Cora and Ruby love all crafting opportunities, so it’s been a major theme lately.  The library started a program called “Messy Monday”, where they set up a messy activity at the park next door. That had our names written all over it. This week was painting. We painted rocks, banners, and our faces.  This pretty rose garden for some reason is also a big hit for my girls. They always want to walk through it when we have the chance.  Darcy loves having her big sisters around 24/7. She follows them everywhere and tries to do everything they’re doing. Sometimes they let her.  Today she came up to me with a very concerned face and sat on my lap. I asked her what was wrong and she pointed to her nose. I felt her nose, and could tell that one side was hard. Great. I was just telling Clayton the other day that she was going to be our kid that gets something stuck up there, b

It was Chance’s birthday yesterday and he didn’t have any plans. He says that in Africa they don’t really celebrate birthdays. So we invited him over for the evening and made his favorite foods. Meat (apparently the best is some kind of piece of a cows head but I wasn’t feeling that adventurous), potatoes, homemade bread sans butter or any kind of spread, vegetables, and a coconut dessert. Cora and Ruby generously let him borrow their 5 candle. He loved it. Happy birthday Chance!  Also, Darcy looked so cute and big with her pigtails. 

They started today and will continue every morning for the rest of the week. Both girls say they don’t like swimming lessons, to which I just keep reminding them that learning to swim is really important and they can do hard things. Today they just worked on putting their heads underwater. Maybe tomorrow they’ll leave the step? 

On Thursday Cora came up with this great idea to plan a party. She got out her paper and pen and started writing a guest list that included her cousins, aunts, uncles, Mimi, and Batman. She wanted to make a cake, play Spot It and Scary Bingo, have an Easter egg hunt, dress up in Halloween costumes, and put out our Christmas tree for decorations. And so Chrismeasterween was created. And I said yes, we should have this fabulous party! So Friday night everyone came over and we followed Cora’s plan. She was over the moon. I just love that she planned the whole thing and was so excited about it. Now Ruby wants to plan a party, but this time it will be for her neighborhood friends and spooky themed. 

Our ward was planning the annual father and sons camp out, and Clayton felt excluded so he planned an annual father and daughters camp out for him and the girls. This year they camped out in Scott’s backyard up in Salt Lake.  Before leaving Cora and Ruby made a list of all the things they wanted to do on the camp out.  1. Swim 2. Hike to a waterfall 3. Play with dolls 4. Bake a pie 5. Play games 6. Pull Batman’s teeth  7. Visit Becky 8. Pull one of Batman’s hair 9. Break Batman’s stuff 10. Eat breakfast with Batman 11. Wake Batman up 12. Watch a show 13. Play on his playground  I think they were able to do everything except for break his stuff.  Tommy and Ruby were about to race, and Ruby told Tommy that the secret to why she was going to win is because she has “girl speed” 💪 Darcy and I stayed home together. It was crazy how quiet our house was with just the two of us. I kept thinking this is how it’s going to be when the twins are in school and it’s just me and Darcy all day long.

Headed to Barcelona! brb

Time feels like it speeds up when the weather warms up. This week has been busy busy, but not as busy as the next few will be. We spent time with our cutie cousins.  We babysat our neighbor friend Cooper. Also a cutie. Every day we found time to go to a park, usually with friends.  The girls did their second to last ballet class of the year. They’re excited for the recital in May.  Clayton and I ran the Tulip festival 5k. I got 13th place in my division (not too shabby for me), and he placed 5th in his. It was a beautiful morning running by the waterfalls and flowers.  We also had preschool, a field trip, family dinner at Val’s, housework, yard work, a hiking date with Sierra,  deacons, doctors appointments, and prepping for the next couple of weeks that will be full of travel. Not to mention trying to get all the girls to bed in time, which has been a real struggle lately 🙃.

Our friends Kennedy, Wyatt, and their two kiddos came to visit. They might be moving here next year, and I really hope that they do. We met in Ohio when they were there for the summer for an internship, and we’ve been close friends ever since.  We also met their friends Lindsay and Alex. Lindsay and I found out that we lived in the same dorm building in summer semester 2011 at BYU. Funny.  Now years later we have 5 kids between us. Crazy. We spent the weekend skiing, swimming, going to the aquarium, and catching up. Hopefully they pick Spanish Fork when moving to Utah! 

Just a cute picture from our park play date this morning with our twin friends.  Cora, Ruby, Lydia, and Marlow. Also, at that park play date Darcy was dropped by one of her sisters face first onto a slide and chipped her front tooth. 

We took Ruby and Cora to a BYU volleyball game. It went great at first. The girls were excited, we bought treats, it was packed… and then we sat through two hours of loud volleyball. Ruby looks happy in this picture, but both Coco and Ruby were very unhappy after about 20 minutes. BYU won, and the girls were totally exhausted by the time we left.  Clayton is still hoping that he can mold them to be an Olympic volleyball doubles team with a twin telepathy advantage. 

We have a tradition that we hide the Easter baskets around the house so that when Ruby and Cora wake up they have to find their basket. They love it almost as much as finding hidden Easter eggs in the yard.  Little girls are so easy to please. A couple of candies, sunglasses, and a new fuzzy purse made them go wild.  For dinner we went to Grandma and Papa’s house. Dani and fam, Sierra and Chris, Kenze and Brandon, Ethan, and Spencer were also there. We played games and listened to the Resurrection story with the 12 filled eggs.  We had a second week of spring break because the girls preschool teacher went on a trip. We went to the aquarium again, those passes already paid for themselves.  While Ruby was looking over the edge of one of the fish tanks her sunglasses fell off her head and right into the tank. She was devastated. Luckily we just had to track down an employee and they were able to fish out the glasses. We had a great time. Surprisingly, we’re liking having less scheduled we

This week has been an eventful one. Cora and Ruby love not going to school, and we’ve been able to fit in a lot of fun activities each day. We’ve had play dates with friends, a sledding day, swimming at the Springville Rec Center, hikes/bike rides, and many house projects.  When asked what her favorite part of the week was, Ruby said that one morning we went out and bought donuts. She’s easy to please.  Darcy has been practicing walking, and is getting really good at it. It’s slowly becoming her main mode of transportation. 

We play a game with Ruby and Cora during conference weekend. We tell them a list of key words (testimony, faith, repent, or whatever words we choose) and every time they hear one they get to pick a piece of candy. It’s been very effective at helping them to listen to a lot of conference.  It’s been a good weekend. We got a lot of house projects done while listening, we spent a lot of time outside in the nice 50 degree weather, and we’ve spent plenty of time together. I don’t have a traditional conference snack or meal that I make every time, mostly because I get tired of the things that I make over and over.  This next two weeks are spring break, which I actually don’t love. For one thing, Clayton doesn’t gets long breaks from work so it doesn’t feel like a vacation. School is out which means I don’t get to hand my kids off regularly for a couple hours (which I love doing). The parks and museum that we usually visit are packed with other kids that are also out for break, and it’s just

Today was Cora’s and Ruby’s 5th birthday. I can’t believe my little twinners are 5 years old. The day they were born feels like it was both yesterday and an entire lifetime ago. All three of us have done a lot of growing up since then. We started the day with their new favorite breakfast (cinnamon raisin oatmeal) and then went to preschool.  After school Darcy and I picked them up and we went to our friend Besan’s house for a play date. We came home and the girls wanted to play iPad games while they waited impatiently for Clayton to get off of work. As soon as he did we opened presents. The girls were completely spoiled this year between their birthday party and gifts from family.  We went to dinner at Costco (their current favorite place to eat haha). Really they do make a good pizza, so I’m not complaining. And then we ended the evening at Coin Crazy. Cora and Ruby played arcade games, slowly racked up points, and then I accidentally hit a jackpot in a game that requires zero skill

Always waiting for them to come back.

Cora and Ruby are turning 5 next week. I can’t believe it. Kids really do grow so fast. We had a party for them with their closest 20 friends today, and it was a blast.  The girls really wanted to have a bounce house, but it’s still freezing and snowing here in Utah. So we booked the churches gym and had a bounce house inside. We also did cupcake decorating, singing, opening presents, face painting, and of course had tons of snacks and drinks.  We had tons of friends from the neighborhood and lots of family members show up. I’m grateful that so many people came and celebrated Cora and Ruby with us. I love those girls! 

St Patrick’s Day this year was an eventful one for us. First, Ethan invited us to go to Kneaders for breakfast with him. I had the Greek omelet btw, 10/10 recommend. Then he can to ballet class with us. Then we went back to my house and hung out all afternoon. He needed to do laundry, and we pressured him into playing sneaky snacks squirrel and watching a movie about horses that don’t talk the entire time. Lol After the dryer was finished we went to Dani’s house for haircuts. Ethan got the usual, Ruby got a bang trim, and Cora cut off most of her hair. Now she’s sporting a very cute bob.  Clayton left on a trip to Las Vegas with his friend to run a tough mudder race, and I hired a sitter so I could go out on the town with Dani. We’ve been planning to go to this Irish pub in SLC called Piper Down Pub for a long time, and decided that St Patty's was the perfect day to check it out. We were right, it was very VERY festive. There was a band called Murph and the Giants that alternated I

Today we went to the Hive. It’s a trampoline park in Spanish Fork. The girls love it, and it’s a great way to get us out of the house for an afternoon.  Other than that, we’ve just been hanging out. Preschools been canceled for the next couple of days, and our library is closing for a month. They built a brand new one across the street from the current library, and they’re taking the next month to move everything over. At least we still have ballet. The twins are getting excited for their recital in May. Unfortunately I won’t be there! I’m really bummed that it’s been scheduled the weekend Clayton and I will be out of town. ☹️  Also, one of our chicks died from unknown causes. Now there’s only 3.