Logan’s New Game

Usually while Bria and Max are at school in the afternoon, Logan takes naps. He’s been a great napper almost all year. It’s been nice for me. I get a couple of hours in the afternoon to get stuff done. But, lately he’s been napping less and less. Thankfully, though, he’s pretty good at entertaining himself. The other day, he really wanted to go play outside. I usually don’t let him unless someone older is watching. I had stuff to do in the kitchen, so I told him he had to stay in the backyard. I was watching him really close out the back window. I was laughing while watching him. I had to get some pictures. This is what I saw.

 

I love how he carefully pushes the sled waaaaay back and then moves it forward again.He probably went up and down the stairs 20 times before he got tired of it. Funny boy.

This week’s forecast

The weather has been crazy this week! We’ve all been so excited because it looked like we were getting an early spring. It’s been beautiful weather. On Monday, it was 85 degrees outside. I don’t remember the last time we had temps in the 80s in April. It was amazing. The kids asked if they could run through the sprinkler. Absolutely!! So, we put the sprinkler under the trampoline for the first time this year.

The kids had a blast! Everyone except Logan, I guess. He didn’t love the water.He’ll get used to it before too long, I’m sure.

 

It was nice almost all week. Hot enough to just about need an air conditioner.

So, it was a little bit of a surprise when Friday morning we woke up to this:

I think even Logan was surprised!

Playing with the Camera

Today I wanted to write a blog post on my new blog that included a picture of me and Bria. I dug and dug through my family photos and couldn’t find anything recent. I know why, too. I pretty much hate getting my picture taken. I love to take pictures of the kids. But I try really hard to avoid any kind of pictures of myself at all. So today I got brave. The kids and I had fun playing with the camera.

Happy Easter!

We had a fun Easter this year! Oh, man…the kids were so excited! Bria could hardly stand to sleep. She woke up at 5:00 am. You would think it was Christmas all over again. We made her go back downstairs. She was very patient and waited until 7:00 to finally drag us out of bed.

Bria and Max very quickly and ambitiously found all of the eggs. As soon as Logan found candy in the first egg, he was good to go.

We had the kids put all of the found eggs into the middle of the floor so we could evenly divide them up. Good thing the Easter Bunny left an equal amount for everyone! I don’t think he thought of that ahead of time.

The kids also got new Easter baskets this year. I forgot to leave their old one’s out, so the Easter Bunny left new ones.

After all the egg hunting fun, Dave and I went back to sleep. I very specifically instructed our kids to ONLY EAT 10 PIECES OF CANDY. When we woke up, almost ALL of the candy was gone. Needless to say, it was a really long morning!

I do have to say, though…I’m so grateful that Easter is on Sunday. We had Christmas on Sunday last year and I almost wish it was that way every year also. Going to church helps me feel the spirit and remember the importance of these sacred days.

I hope everyone had a Happy Easter!

Decorating Easter Eggs

The kids have been on Spring Break all week. We’ve been having lots of fun playing. Today, we decided to dye Easter eggs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The kids had fun experimenting with different color mixing. It was a fun project. Bria especially loved mixing the colors. If you look very closely you can see the different color swirls in the eggs:

We decided to try painting on the eggs with our paint pens. They are one of the kid’s favorite art supplies. They are watercolor paints put in a pen. We bought them for the kids for Christmas. You can find them at Wal-Mart. The colors are a lot more intense than regular water colors. Plus you don’t have to worry about a cup of paint water tipping over.

I was actually really surprised at how cool they turned out:

The colors painted on the eggs so well, that Bria even got the yellow to paint over her dark blue egg:

 

You can definitely tell that Bria is the artist in the family. She spent three times as long carefully painting her eggs.

Love and Laundry

I started a new blog. It’s really new….hardly anything is there yet. But, if you want to follow along I’d love to have you!

It’s going to be different that this blog. This is a blog about our family. The new blog is going to be public and is a mom blog. I’ll probably have lots of the same things, but also different things on each blog. I’ve thought about doing this for a LOOOOONG time and finally decided to take the plunge.

Here’s the link:

www.love-and-laundry.blogspot.com

Spring!

Spring is finally creeping it’s way into Idaho. I always feel like we’re a month or so behind everyone else in the country. I really don’t mind…except for springtime. And if it wasn’t for the darn internet, I wouldn’t even notice. Every year, people start posting pretty spring pictures. Here it still looks like the dead of winter. The other stinky thing about Idaho’s springs is the WIND. It is really non-stop. So, when we finally get a warm, non-windy day, we have no choice but to take full advantage.

And, that’s what we did! I rounded up two of my favorite friends: Melissa and Emily, and we all met up at the park with our kids. The weather was PERFECT!

As Bria’s gets older, she’s starting to like hanging out with the moms more than the kids. I was the same way when I was her age. She did play on the playground some, but not even long enough for me to get a playing picture. It makes me a little bit sad that she’s getting older!

After the park, we headed across the street to get some ice cream. Melissa and her kids had to leave, so they missed out. It was amazing ice cream! It’s actually a frozen custard and had a completely different texture than any ice cream I’ve ever had.

I forgot how good warm weather feels. It’s been windy and cold ever since we went. It makes me excited or even warmer weather.

Being Friends with the Tooth Fairy

Did you know that Bria is friends with the tooth fairy? It’s true! I’m pretty sure that’s the first thing she is going to tell her teacher after spring break. She first met the tooth fairy at the Women’s Expo last October.

She’s had a loose tooth for quite a while. When she first noticed, she begged her dad to yank it out for her. But it wasn’t ready yet. After weeks of trying to get it out, she finally lost her tooth on Sunday. She was so excited, she quickly wrote a note to the tooth fairy:

And she more or less asked the tooth fairy for TWENTY DOLLARS! Apparently there are kids in her class that insist the tooth fairy has left $20 for a single tooth. Either they have one rich tooth fairy visiting, or somebody is feeding my daughter with tall tales.

Anyhow…the tooth fairy very graciously answered back in tiny fairy letters:

And, she cleared up the misunderstanding. The tooth fairy will, apparently, leave $20 for a tooth, but only if the tooth is made of pure gold. Bria has since been scheming up ways to get herself a gold tooth. I’m pretty sure the dentist is going to have some pretty strange requests next time we go in. But more importantly, the tooth fairy agreed to be her friend.

April Foolery

At our house, April Fool’s Day is highly anticipated. A few years ago, I made a bowl of cereal for the kids. I poured the cereal and the milk and then put it in the freezer overnight. The next morning, I poured a little bit of fresh milk on top (to make it look more real) and served it up. Our kids were pretty little, too. But it made such an impression on Bria, that they haven’t forgotten and often ask when the Joke Day is.

This is what we did this year:

First, I snuck (sneaked?) into their rooms in the middle of the night to do this:

I didn’t get Bria. She is way too light of a sleeper! I tried but woke her up and pretended I was checking in on her. Max was furious with me for half the day. I really think it was more funny for me. I had a hard time controlling my laugh while I was painting his moustache on. I can’t believe I didn’t wake them up!

We had one more joke and missed getting pictures of Bria or Max. This is what I did. The night before, I put a tiny drop of food coloring inside the bristles of their toothbrushes. Bria had yellow and the boys got orange. They all, of course, thought it was so funny.

Bria even joined in on the fun this year. All day, she tried to pull pranks on me. Her best was when she pushed the ringer button on the phone and I actually came out looking to answer it. She laughed and laughed. That’s my girl.

April Fool’s Day is so fun! I’m just wondering what I’ll do when they get older. Any clever ideas?