Easter joys - 2011

We had a great Easter weekend. The kids and I started off Saturday morning with a fun activity at the church which included a program, brunch and Easter egg hunt. (Geo went snorkeling at Shark's Cove with Chris and his buddies). The program included some beautiful songs about the Savior and I thought that was a great way to start the weekend.
After the brunch, the kids decorated their bags for the hunt. Austin drew a space shuttle and trucks and such. When we got outside, he was a bit confused... now why are we picking these up?

"Oh... there are treats inside!"

Elise taking a peak at Austin's treasures

Good friends: Cambrie, Elise, Austin, Lucy, Havyn, Kya

We went to a great 1st birthday party in the afternoon (that explains the fancy butterfly faces) and came home to dye eggs. It was fun to have Chris around. Its been a LONG time since we've had a family member to celebrate Easter with.

Austin pretty much just poured vinegar from cup to cup.

Elise liked to tell Chris what color to do. "How 'bout... that blue one?" (or the pink). I don't think another color was ever suggested.

On Sunday morning, the kids were sent on a photo treasure hunt to find their baskets. This was prepared by Mr. Bunny. Lucy and Elise screamed as they tore through the house finding the next clues. Austin sort of ran behind the girls but was easily distracted by the wheel in the playhouse or whatever other fun thing he found along the way.

Austin's favorite things: candy (that's a given), On the Launch Pad space shuttle book and a wooden engine for his train track.

Elise's favorite things: "my headband!!!" but I think Going on a Bear Hunt book was definitely on the favorite list

Lucy's favorite things: "my Hawaiian outfit for my doll" But from the reaction as she pulled out things, I'd say the egg with the dollar bill in it and the couple eggs with the quarters were the real favorites. Chris pulled out her tooth about an hour or two afterwards and the next day Lucy said, "I got TWO dollars and I didn't have to do ANYTHING to get them!"

The crew playing "toss the squiggly worm" with some gifts from uncle Chris. I made Easter candy leis (with some plastic eggs in them too) for the visitors and George. They turned out cute but I forgot to get a photo.

Fam after church

George was asked to speak so that is why he is wearing a lei. Of course, I think the "Lei Lady" likes him - he's collected at least six for random things. She is the cutest old lady and makes leis for the visitors, speakers, or whomever she thinks needs one.

We finished off the day with the traditional meal of chicken cordon bleu, mashed potatoes and jello eggs. We make Resurrection Rolls for FHE earlier in the week and the kids were pretty impressed. So those were added to the Sunday meal as well. I think they'll become tradition.

Afterwards I took the visitors for a Sunday drive up to the Pali Lookout. The last time we were here was with my other brother in November. I remember him pacing up and down the ramp as he learned the news of Benji getting stabbed. Luckily, there were no scary phone calls this time.

HAPPY EASTER!!!

Luce Tooth

Lucy's had a very loose tooth for a while. Every week she comes home exited with stories of how/where classmates have lost their teeth. For the past two weeks, I've come upstairs in the mornings only to see her still in her PJ's with an unmade bed. When I ask what she's been doing for the past 15 minutes, she says, "I've been wiggling my tooth, mom. Don't you remember how exciting that is for a kid?!?"

Uncle Chris and his buddies have been visiting so I told her to ask him to pull it out for her. She said, "No. I think he'd want to keep the tooth fairy money. I mean, who wouldn't want that?" Chris assured her she could have it so she walked right over to him.

He had it out in a minute and surprisingly, Lucy was really tough during the whole thing. Even when she saw her bloody mouth. This is particularly remarkable because on Friday she fell and scraped up her knee and foot and ended up with some good size bruises on both. I found her on the ground, crying like her arm was cut off, and she has been limping for three days straight.

But for a little tooth money, she was much tougher.
This morning she woke up to a "WHOLE dollar" in her little tooth pillow. She said, "I KNEW it would be worth more than a quarter!" What a lucky kid!

Now she's been doing all sorts of "tricks" with the hole in her mouth. After thinking for a while, she said, "I think the tooth fairy must be invisible because I only heard the FLUTTER of wings, but I didn't SEE anything." Ah, the fun times of a Kindergartener!

Favorite Easter Decorations

Ten years ago, George gave me an Easter Lily. We had been dating a few months and I was pretty giddy at this gift. He hasn't missed a year since. They smell divine! We plant them in our yard but haven't stayed anywhere longer than 4 years so I don't get to enjoy much time with the Lily garden. I'd love to see them now. The first Easter lily came with a bunny card that is also a traditional Easter decoration around here. It still makes me smile. I love that it is written on lined notebook paper and in his own handwriting. Here's a sample of Geo's creative (and romantic - woo, woo!) side:

Top Ten reasons why you're better than a chocolate bunny:

10) No need for fancy packaging to make you look good!

9) No need to "exercise off" the time I spend with you.

8) Don't have to hunt for you (most of the time).

7) You have cuter ears.

6) You're easier to talk to... less judgmental.

5) You - solid; Bunny - hollow.

4) Much less messy to kiss

3) Red hair looks beautiful on you but looks disgusting when matted on to the head of the chocolate bunny.

2) You remain humble and unassuming even while dominating the bunny in desirable characteristics.

1) You're happy instead of hoppy.

Easter activities?

Thanks for your words of sympathy over our stupidity of not backing up our computer. I appreciate it. I realize I am sort of dramatic. This is especially true when you compare me to my level-headed husband :) = very good for his profession, not as good when you have a wife that needs validation for "freaking out". In fact, his "down-to-earth" comment was, "I'm not sure why you are so upset. Why don't you cry if this 'last resort' doesn't work out?" And there you have it. I'll let you know if/when I REALLY have a reason to cry. Should be about a week...

For now, I have been staying away from my computer as much as possible. I guess I am mad at it. Like it is "its fault" or something. This has been good in that I've worked on some other stuff that I've had on the "bonus project list" for a while. I fixed a boring lamp in the girls' room and hung some pictures that have been sitting in the closet since July. I've been working on a quilt and some "I Spy" bags. And I organized some closets. It made me feel much better.

I've also thought about doing some Easter craftiness with the kiddos. I've been emailing one of my sweet SA friends and we were "talking" about how it seems like we did more crafty or educational projects and stuff with our oldest children. And then I wondered, "did I REALLY? Or do I THINK I did?" Now days most of my "educational" stuff is free play or helping me with something around the house, like grocery shopping, cleaning bathrooms, cooking, yard work, etc. They LOVE to make cookie dough... Elise asks for this activity daily. Sometimes we actually cook it. Sometimes we just eat. :) We watched the cement truck pour cement outside our house for at least a half hour the other day. That's educational, right?

Anyway, the girls do love art projects so I thought I'd do an Easter craft on Friday. My inspiration came from this website, but I wasn't in the mood to get the paints out, so we cut our hand prints out of paper. My favorite thing was that none of them looked like the original "handprint chick". Each one had their own style.

Austin drew lots of different letters, a space shuttle, a whale, a train on a track, etc. etc. etc. Both front and back sides of the paper.

I helped Elise the most in assembling her chicken. She did all the gluing and a little bit of cutting. Can you tell this girl likes stickers? :) Elise has really good fine motor skills. She reminds me of her cousin Gracie in a lot of ways.

I'm really glad I didn't show Lu the "inspiration" or I think she would have just tried to copy it. Her "flying chicken" is a bit odd, but whatever. She added in a "palm tree" and a "regular tree" at the bottom.

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Saturday afternoon I had grand plans of taking the kids to the bookstore while George was working. They had a big Easter craft/games/food thing going on. When I knocked on the door to get to tell the kids to put their shoes on, I found this:

Apparently this is "playing school".

Nap time? Not sure.

Anyway, they didn't want to stop... so school continued to be in session and we bagged the mall activity.

Elise has been calling Lucy the "teacher mommy" all weekend.

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I try to get a "bunny ear" photo of my kids each year and this is what I got when I said, "everyone look at me." Pretty typical.

A picture is worth... a thousand dollars?

A thousand tears? For sure.

Our computer crashed. I am so sad about it. It was getting slower and slower starting up. I wish I would have followed my intuition to have a specialist computer repair guy come look at it before it completely died. Now we are trying to recover our hard drive (which {very foolishly} has not been backed up since 2008). First it was $75 to try to transfer the data... that didn't work. Then it was $250 to run diagnostics on it to see if it was a software problem and it could still be recovered. Nope. Now our only option is to send it to one of those "white coat - sterile environment" places to see if they can recover our pictures. If anyone knows of a good one, please comment. I've cried off and on all morning. All my pictures/videos of my babies... gone. Boo hoo! The only ones that are saved are the ones that I put on my blog. I know its not the end of the world, but I think its definitely a "cry-worthy" issue. We bought a new computer. I downloaded the new version of Picasa photo software. I opened it up and saw a completely empty picture file. And I started bawling. Cross your fingers... we have ONE more (expensive) shot to get it back.

National No Housework Day

So, I was doing a little internet shopping tonight and stumbled on to a page that said April 7 was "National 'No Housework Day'" Ha! Do you believe it? Sounds fabulous and like a great excuse to take a day off! Now the question is... what should I do instead? One of the things on my ever-growing project list? Sounds great!

Speaking of projects... my latest has been compiling blog books. I've been using Blurb. Man, what a job! Like most of my "Oh-this-won't-take-long" projects, I have been working on it FOREVER! This is partly due to my perfectionist side and partly because of Blurb's crappy booksmart software. My sis-in-law gave me the motivation to finish 2008 up... I started on it over a year ago and didn't make it past March because it was taking SO long. But, now 2008 is done. And it was really fun remembering all the things that happened in that year... that one was a big year for us. We started out with one child and ended with three! :) When my 2008 book arrived, I loved looking through it. So did the kids. Lucy asked so many questions I about went crazy. 2009 is now finished too, just waiting to be ordered. And now I am to March 2010 but I am so sick of spending my nights (from 9ish-12ish) looking at a computer screen, that it might have to sit on the backburner for a while. When George calls to me from the other room and asks me what I am working on, I now say "Family History." For some reason, it makes me feel more productive. :) {Btw, I got the idea from him. When I ask that same question, he replies "Writing to missionaries" which is a code for "playing video games."}

Other news... George is in San Antonio for training. I'm pretty jealous. Not only does he get to see some of my good buddies, but his visit overlaps my sister and her hubby's visit. (He's down there for work too). Eat some good mexican food for me, Geo! Oh, and some good Rudy's BBQ too. Oh, and take a trip to HEB too and use that drink holder in the shopping cart and eat their fresh tortillas and smile as you push your cart down the nice, wide aisles noticing the low prices of produce and milk. Oh, and drive by all those fields of beautiful bluebonnets and Texas Mountain Laurel and Crape Myrtle. And the list goes on...

More Foolin' around

Lucy's two week spring break is at an end tonight. Boo. The first week was filled with fun activities with the Tripp's and the second week has been just hanging around. Both weeks have been wonderful. Here's the recap on week one. I always love when Geo blogs... its nice to have a different perspective on our vacations. I think the last time he did it was when Austin was born. And he told me he hates blogger so much that it will be 3 years before he does it again.

Anyway, the theme of "Spring Break: Week 2" was "Don't get out of your PJ's until after lunch... or later." Most days we achieved the goal.

Although, Elise was a little fancier than the rest of us.

One morning, Lucy and Elise climbed in bed with me and started fighting over who got to put their hand on my shoulder, who was falling off the bed, who was talking too loud, etc. Both of these things are normal occurrences (the climbing in bed AND the fighting over very important things). I just pretended I was asleep and ignored all of it. Lucy said, "Elise, mom is not listening anyway." Then she started to shake me and said, "MMMMMoooommmm, wake up! EVERYONE on this WHOLE ISLAND is awake already!!!" It was 7 am and I couldn't help burst out laughing (although she's probably right... in general, Hawaiians seem to be early risers).

Love notes on my dresser

For part of the week, we had "spring break" visitors. They were known as "the college girls" and were nice to read 40 books to my children as well let a 5 yr old listen in on their conversations. :) Austin really worked some magic with his "shy, flirty smile" and Elise cried and threw herself on the floor when I told her they had to go back to college.

We took it easy and watched a few movies. Austin's pick was "Cars"... not sure what the bunny ears had to do with anything.
I also tried to throw in a few crafty projects that we never seem to have time/energy for. I wanted to do this yarn egg thing because my mom made one like this for my Easter basket when I was a kid. Its the first one I remember. I knew it would be a big fat mess, so I decided this was a "Lucy-only" project. The toddlers are hit or miss with the naps (especially Austin), but I usually put them in their rooms for an hour of quiet time and then open the doors. Elise was out cold, but Austin bounded out. I was pretty sure he was going to come downstairs and want to do it too. Then I'd REALLY have a mess. But, he took one look at Lucy crafting away and said, "Oh. I go-a outside and ride-a my bike!" and left. Cracked me up. So far he's not an "arts & crafts" kind of kid. Coloring is about his limit.

During this whole messy ordeal, I decided that the sentimental value was not worth it. It was too big of a pain. Mom, how did you make three of these without going insane?
However, I did show Lucy how fun it is to let glue dry on your hands and then pick it off. I loved doing that in elementary school, but this was Lucy's first try. Hmmm... wonder why? :) So we got in some nostalgia after all. Success!
We woke up the next morning to find the balloon inside had shrunk before the yarn dried. Ha, ha! Yeah, I'm definitely not doing it again.

We decorated for Easter. George nearly died when I bought the Easter tree. He pulled it out of the bag and said, "What?!? That is the most hideous thing I've ever seen. Why on earth would we want a yellow feathered Christmas tree?" Ha, ha! I laugh every time I see it.

Licking cupcake batter

While looking for paints in the art bin, we found these balloon birds I bought several years ago on clearance. You basically just slap the stickers on. Fun stuff!

Again, we had overnight balloon shrinkage problems but Austin didn't care at all. He said it was his "baby penguin" and I think he actually liked it better than the original.

This craft was definitely a favorite with Lucy. She begged to do more so we made another set of 3 at the end of the week.

Lunchtime with the birds

Flying birds

While making the birds, Elise said, "Ok. I the mama and you the baby." (She says this several times a day, but usually I am the kitty cat.) I like it when we play this game because it gives me a little reflection of my mothering. So naturally I agree to play along.

Elise: "Ok... whine." (I obeyed) "Now, now... stop whining. We don't whine around here, little honey."

Elise: "Now, let me get this hair out of your face. Ok, ok, much betta."

Elise: (puts her hands on my face and brings me close) "Now look at me like a normal child... because-a...because-a.... I am the mom. Okay. Good."

(Speaking of "looking normal", have you seen this clip with Martin Short? Cracks me up.)

Elise has also been known to say, "Ugh. All of you are giving me a headache!" (very dramatically as she holds her hand to her head or lays on the stairs with a rag over her eyes). Hmmm... wonder where she gets all this stuff? :)

Foolin' around

I think today has got to be one of my brother Chris's favorite holidays. He's good at it. He has a gift for story telling (polite way of saying "lying"). This year, he tricked me into believing he broke his ankle at basketball. How I would fall for the oldest joke in the book is a mystery, but I totally bought it. I talked to him at 9pm and he told me the story (I was the one who called him, btw. That is usually the best time for us to chat. :) And then I worked on my blog book and around 11pm, I thought to myself, "It is the last day of March." And then it clicked... it was April 1 in UT when we talked. Rascal.

I tried to pull a fast one on Geo (telling him I got in a fender bender while picking up something I was trying to buy from Craigslist. I ran out and called him as soon as I heard the ambulance going down the street). But, all I got was a "please tell me this is a joke." Lucy listened with a confused look on her face. So I tried to tell her about the April Fools holiday. Kind of tricky to explain, but she heard me telling Geo about Chris's joke and had lots of questions. Later, she washed her dress off with a pink washcloth and threw it in Geo's sink. She laughed her head off and said, "Dad will think it is so funny to come home to a pink washcloth in his sink. Ha, ha, ha. April Fool's!" Yeah...I don't think she has her uncle's gift.

I remembered an idea I saw on the Best Bites website and told Lucy we could make a silly dinner for Geo from cupcakes as a little joke. She thought it was the funniest thing ever. And just seeing her get into it so much was pretty fun for me too.

Everyone got personalized dinner plates.

We made cupcakes and then decorated them to look like spaghetti, mashed potatoes and peas and carrots. It was actually both fun and easy to put together (I thought the potatoes and veggies actually looked pretty real... spaghetti was a stretch). When Geo got home she gave him his "dinner plate" and could not stop laughing.