Spring Joy

 Adrian

He wants to go outside so often, and luckily, most of the time we can go outside and enjoy the beautiful weather. He was even the first person in the driver's seat of our new side-by-side! He has his moments when he wants to cuddle, usually right after waking up, and I get to enjoy the short time of him sitting calmly instead of jumping on me or play-hitting me. He also took a nap on me in church today during the 2nd hour, and I was surprised because that doesn't happen often. I wasn't able to enjoy it as much as I would have if I had been comfortable at home. Out of nowhere, he learned how to kiss! It is the sound and not when we do kisses at night, but now that he mimics the sound, I've had him start kissing back when he gets kisses from the girls or daddy. I also get free time during the day when he is playing with his toys or exploring, and have been able to design and finish a project for the girls' teachers as gifts for their wonderful job. I hope they like it since it's the first full project I've designed and framed.

Claire

We had a pretty normal week, and something in her brain has clicked during homework this week that made her so much better at spelling words. Daddy did it with her one night, and all of a sudden, she is able to remember her spelling words this week! I guess changing things up helps, and we have new strategies to help her, and I've been looking for workbooks to use over the summer. I don't know if she feels the end of school coming and will be emotional about not seeing her teacher and friends anymore. I remember last year it hit her hard the last day of school, and she was sad off and on throughout the summer. Chris's old friend visited this weekend with his dog and brought presents for the girls that blew their minds! They both got a digital Bluey camera and already went through the first set of batteries I gave them, so now I have to limit how many they get because it takes 3 AA batteries, and we will run out so fast. They are pretty good at turning them off when they aren't using the camera, but there are games on it, and they've made videos of themselves that they want to watch over and over. 

Shay

In my backyard garden, I arranged some rocks into the start of a fairy garden, and when the girls got home, they were so excited and wanted to add to it. Claire had gems, and I shared shells with Shay so they could decorate and make it pretty for the fairies that will visit. I want to make little houses for them to paint instead of the sand castle molds, but that will probably be during the summertime. For now, they like it and ask if it can be bigger, and I tell them we will work on it, but the Tooth Fairy liked it when she came to get Shay's tooth! This is her 2nd tooth that she lost, and the girls left her a note to make sure she went to look at the fairy garden. She loves her class count down to the end of school and got to have a flashlight for "Dark Day", dress up as Elsa for "Favorite Book Day".

Hoppy Easter!

Easter

I should talk about the rest of the week first because this was the last day of the week, but it is also the most important! We read our countdown Easter eggs all week so the girls could remember all the things our Savior did the last week of his life, then had the special empty white egg hidden among the rest of the eggs. It was hidden too well, apparently, because I had to suggest they look harder in certain areas to find it, and then there were at least 10 eggs the girls found later in the day. Since we had early morning church, all the hunting, opening, and being excited was cut a little short by my nagging to eat breakfast so they could wear their beautiful new dresses. We were early enough to church to get our normal seat, and Chris enjoyed hearing all of his girls sing because the primary sang our closing hymn, and I sang a duet. It was a beautiful day as well, and we had fun relaxing, playing with the eggs, and recreating the excitement of hunting for eggs. 

Visitors

We were lucky to have some friends come visit for the weekend to celebrate Easter. It was hard to get the girls asleep on Friday night after they arrived after bedtime because they were all so excited. Then we caught the visiting kids trying to sneak into the girls' room to have a sleepover instead of going to bed! Apparently, the promise of playing all day on Saturday just wasn't enough, and then my girls slept in more than normal because they stayed up late, and it drove our guests crazy. I was very close to letting them go wake them up, but they woke up just in time to eat pancakes for breakfast. Most of the day was spent letting them find fun ways to play together, like hide and seek, puzzles, and board/card games. At 1pm, we went to the big Eggstravaganza at our town park to jump on bouncy houses and be a part of the egg race. Then our dinner was a BBQ in the backyard with elk burgers and hot dogs that were delicious! 

Children

It seems like Adrian has become a pro at walking in just a few days and walks everywhere he goes. He had a lot of fun showing off for Daddy and only crawls when he is after one of us and has already fallen over. He also loves our toy mower when we play outside, and looks so perfectly happy when he learned how to push it. Our backyard is becoming a beautiful haven for all of us, and I don't think I'll be able to stop the girls from climbing on my retaining wall...Hopefully, I did it correctly! They don't go in the dirt anymore now that I've put some flowers in, so the small fence is just for keeping Adrian and Buttercup out. The rest of the week was good at school, and we are hoping Shay will act better on the bus this week so she won't be kicked off again. Maybe next year we will have a less grumpy bus driver and she will mature a little bit so she can control her actions.

Visitors and beginning Easter Celebrations

Easter

No, I'm not crazy, we had an amazing Easter activity on Saturday by walking through the Savior's last week. Our church building was transformed into a magical world where we learned about Jesus's life and the week before His Resurrection. There were a lot of activities for kids to be involved with, and it was beautifully decorated and well thought out. We entered the church and got a passport to fill with stamps of everything we visited, so we started at Palm Sunday and followed the path of palms to a recreation of the temple scene and another stamp of a temple. We then learned of the miracles of his life, and the girls colored a fish that they could put in a bag for Jesus to multiply and feed the multitude. Continuing to the Last Supper to learn about the implementation of the sacrament, and then a dark hall where we saw Christ suffering for our sins in Gethsemane. The next room had explanations of his trial and crucifixion, and we added our names to a board to show all the people whom Jesus atoned for. Next, we briefly journeyed to the spirit world before visiting the Nephites in America. We then saw an empty tomb and ended with his return to Jerusalem in the gym, and we got to experience a little of that life with snacks and activities. The girls, of course, didn't want to miss anything, so we waited in line for all the activities and loved sharing what they did with Daddy when we got back home. 

Visitors

We had some family visiting this week for the vintage market days for their business, and Adrian had a great time playing with his similarly aged cousin! They got into all my cabinets in the kitchen, played with the dog bowls, explored the house, ate as many snacks as they could, and played with the baby toys a little bit. They were even on the same nap schedule, so while I was watching them, there were even movements of peace, and they also played independently really well, so it really wasn't too stressful. I even had a chance to finish my cross-stitch project way earlier than planned; it's for Claire's baptism. The girls even had some fun time on Friday since they didn't have school and were excited to come up with games to play in the morning. We had a game night so the girls could show one of their new favorite games, enjoyed the backyard and great weather this week, and enjoyed the company.

Conference Weekend

General Conference

It was a wonderful weekend listening to the messages and trying to help the girls practice sitting and listening. Their primary leadership dropped off a huge coloring page that distracted them for the first session, but they were rushing and trying to finish as fast as possible, so I helped so they would take their time and fill in the scribbling. It turned out really pretty at the end, and we put it up on the wall, which made Adrian start growling at the poster that is now just in his reach. Adrian really enjoyed the music during conference and would stare at the TV when there was a choir song and he wasn't in the middle of a nap. After sitting and watching TV for so long on both days, we went to the park to get some sun because the weather was really beautiful. 

Kids

We have a new friend in our neighborhood who they met at the bus stop. They moved in last week, and she is right between the girls' ages and very friendly. She came over to play one day, and then the next free day, Claire and Shay did all their homework so they could go play after dinner and before bedtime. We've been starting and finishing some projects in the backyard with the good weather, and the girls wanted to help with the digging and transporting the dirt. It was nice that they wanted to help, but the best help was playing with Adrian, so he didn't get in the dirt! He wants to be wherever I am, no matter what I'm doing, so he gets in the way more, but he is walking around with his cute little waddle, mostly next to things while holding on, but bridges gaps when necessary.