Easter 2015

For lunch a few days before Easter, I surprised the kids with an egg carton lunch. When they came to the table and saw a closed egg carton on their plates they were so confused. ha! Amanda did this for them last year and I thought it was such a fun idea. They loved it, even though it was all the same simple foods I normally feed them! ;)

 On the saturday morning before Easter, Ryan and I hid candy-(and penny)-filled eggs in the backyard. They know that that's just for fun and not done by the Easter Bunny. It was very cold that morning so they were in boots and winter coats. 

 We came inside and spent some time together dying our real eggs. This year I bought two different kits and boiled more eggs than last year. I'm glad I did too! It's much more fun when everyone gets several to work on and there are extra shades of colors. :)

Both sets of grandparents sent the kids Easter packages. They always love getting mail just for them! Thank you for thinking of us. :) 

Some reading time with Daddy and the new Bunny books.

 On the morning of Easter sunday, the Easter Bunny was successful in finding our dyed eggs, and hiding them around the kitchen and living room. He also hid the kids' baskets. ;)

He was so clever hiding a pink egg in the pink flowers!! ;)

 For breakfast we ate some of our eggs, some gooey sticky buns, and fruit. Mmm!!

Aside from the "Easter Bunny" portion of the day, we also watched some Bible videos on the church website about the Savior and His Resurrection. It was a very nice morning, all together, and Ryan took the kids on a walk outside while I got things ready for general conference to start. Being able to celebrate a holiday as a family, focus on the Savior, AND listen to our church leaders made the day so wonderful. I'm grateful for Jesus Christ and that He lives! I'm so thankful to know that because of Him my family will be together forever, and that I can start over each new day to try and be better. I want to give them the very best of myself, and I work on that goal (and continue to fail at it) daily. But because of the Savior, I CAN try again each day and strive to be like Him in all I do.

Kites & Bikes

Spring has sprung here finally! We have had lots of windy days which make for great kite flying. Our backyard is a pretty good size with no trees nearby. Logan is terrified of holding the kite while it's in the air but Grace LOVES it!

I love this beautiful girl!!

Logan thought his job was to grab the tail. It had them both rolling with laughter to watch him try to follow and catch it! 

Swing break.

We recently had the Coon kiddos over to play as well. They're always so imaginative and inclusive. I love watching them play and create with my kids! We will sure miss them. :'(

We were finally able to afford good bikes for our kids this year! I am thankful everyday that we could buy them, and the kids are on them literally every day that isn't raining or a sunday. Grace got a real, big-girl bike since she was in between the small size and the next size up. Ryan got her the bigger size with a set of training wheels. Logan got a Stryder "balance bike" so he can learn to balance before he learn to pedal. They have both learned so quickly (of course, with practice) and love their bikes! 

After all of the practicing Grace has done on the training wheels, I have been noticing that she very rarely leans to the side to rest on the training wheel anymore. She is great at keeping herself balanced right in the middle. So last wednesday Ryan took them off and tried Grace out on the 2 wheels. She got it right away! I could hardly believe it. She is a natural! She beams from ear to ear and giggles while she goes rushing past me now. Today we worked specifically on starting by herself without anyone helping her balance, and soon we need to take her to a big space where she can work on turning. 

Logan is slower on his balance bike but is a little trooper trying to keep up. He can keep his feet from touching the ground for quite awhile now and is going to be awesome on a regular 2-wheeler when he's big enough for that.

...Aaaand then he didn't listen to instructions to get out of the road as a car was coming, so Daddy had to take away his bike for a bit.

March from my iPhone

Grace announced to me one afternoon that she wanted to make a picture for her teacher, Miss Lindsey. She had an idea in her head and I watched her put it all together with so much purpose! It was impressive. She got out the clown stencils, put a bunch of things on the paper, and then asked me to help her write a message (word for word... from her brain!) for her teacher. Clever, right?! I love her themed tag line/message to go with the pictures. Ever since I organized our craft supplies and made them easily accessible for the kids, nearly everyday now they are drawing, stenciling, cutting, pasting, and making love notes. 

 A park play date with Ava, Owen and Beckett.

 Silly faces to send to dad.

 Leprechauns visited us and left our favorite things: a necklace craft, Lucky Charms, and gold coins!

 Ryan had a day off mid-week so Grace and I went to lunch at Panera and to see Cinderella together. Such a fun movie!! We both loved it and had a great Girls' date.

 While we went to lunch, Ryan took Logan out as well. Logan picked Waffle House... haha. We pass it everyday taking Grace to school and I guess he has always wanted to check it out.

 I took this and sent it to my parents ... avid Utah fans. I think Ryan is rubbing off on this girl.

 Our Columbus Mission put on a special music fireside a couple weeks before Easter. I went so I could see some of my favorite past Sisters perform and it was such a wonderful meeting! What a great and powerful group those 18-21 year olds are. I got to visit with two of my favorites: Sister Bradford

 And Sister Austin!! Ahh, I love this girl. She just got home from her mission a couple days ago actually and now we can keep in touch via FB and text. I'm so happy!

 Just for fun, I bought little cups of dip-n-dots for an FHE treat. I haven't had them since I was probably 13 at a Utes Gymnastics meet. Memories! The kids tried them and were amazed by the little tiny balls of ice cream. 

 We love hanging out with the Goates kiddos. Sweet Beckett loves being surrounded by other little people to look up to!

 I made Chocolate Revel Bars (a family fave!) recently and Grace renamed them "Rubble Bars". She actually explained that she always thought that's what I called them (revel... rubble... sounds the same) and she thought it was because they look like dirt and rocks. Hm... Well either way, we love 'em!

 These cuties can be the best of friends sometimes. I hope they always will be.

I know I'm going to miss these days so much. Dropping Grace and preschool with Logan in tow to give her hugs and kisses and tickles while we wait at preschool line-up. These two mean the whole world to me!

 We skyped with Thomas and Whitney and asked for a performance. We love hearing Uncle Tom sing and play! I love Logan's whiney face in the corner...

 It feels like our moving day is coming so quickly (two months away, to be exact) and even though they'll be doing the packing, I still feel like I need to get myself organized. For at least 2 years I have been meaning to clean out and organize my "busy bag" box, craft supplies, and preschool supplies/ideas box. They have been a horrible mess in our front closet. So I finally dumped it all out, made a massive mess (this is only the half of it) and got it all nicely organized.

 What a relief!

 This boy is always cracking me up! (when he isn't causing me to pull my hair out)

Some of my favorite things  he has said lately:

-"Chick-a-way" is how he says ChickFilA

-"slinking about it" is how he says "thinking about it"

-"slersty" for "thirsty"

-Logan hates having his hair done. I pretty much never do it... maybe once a month if we're lucky. I had done his hair in a faux-hawk yesterday and at one point I accidentally bumped his hair. He said "Don't mess up my beautiful hair!"

 Last week, at 7am, I was just rolling out of bed when I heard a thump in the dark hallway outside my room. Logan comes half crawling/falling, half running into my room crying for me. I asked him what's wrong and is he ok? He says his tummy hurts and is really really hungry. I think "Oh he's just being whiney, no big deal" so I tell him I need to say my morning prayer first, so just wait for a minute. He notice briefly that he tries to stand against the bed but then slumps to the ground next to me to wait. I take him into the kitchen and sit him on his chair so I can grab cereal. He is still whimpering and complaining about his hungry tummy and as I look over he is barely able to hold himself upright in his chair. His face is completely ashen with dark circles under his eyes. The thought pops into my head that he is going to faint so I grab him and sit on the floor. He mumbles "I'm hot" and he falls back in my arms unresponsive for a few seconds. I wasn't nervous because I knew that he was either experiencing low blood sugar or dehydration, so as soon as he was responding and opening his eyes I had him drink some orange juice. I've had this happen to me before after I had the stomach bug and passed out on my parents' kitchen floor. Plus Grace had a weird morning last year where she was shaky, could hardly stand up/walk and had the same sick/hungry stomach. I blame myself for feeding them by 5:30pm and then not again until 7am. I know that's a long time... but I have such good sleepers who stay in their beds for 12 full hours! So I know I should probably have them eat snacks before bed and drink more water in the daytime. Poor Logan! I'm glad it wasn't anything more. 

This was him right afterwards, while he ate THREE (kid-sized) bowls of cereal and half a banana!

 It's fun to have a daughter who has long hair and will sit still for a cute new "do" (as long as the TV is on). ;) I tried a cute, twisty, side-pony and she calls it her "Elsa Hair".