April Randomness

Here are some of the highlights from this past week.

A girls' night out with some friends to celebrate Katie's birthday.
Kathryn, me, Katie (Happy Birthday!), Sheryl, and Rhonda


Dave was so sweet to take the kids out for lunch last weekend, so I could stay home and get a much needed nap. He even loaded up their scooters and helmets, and let them ride around the courtyard of the shopping plaza. He got these cute pictures of them.
They (more specifically, Collin) are obsessed with wearing their helmets. They wouldn't even take them off for the car ride back home. It's Collin's new favorite accessory. (And everytime I see him wearing it, I think of the short Darth Vader character in Space Balls).


On Monday, Dave's friend Nate was in town. While the boys did the real estate thing, Nate's wife Rori and I took her 2 kids and my 2 to the zoo.

Collin and Brynn in the petting zoo...They LOVED getting to brush the animals!

After Brynn kept yelling "That guy is sweeping up poop!" really loud in front of a zookeeper, the nice WOMAN zookeeper came over to "introduce the kids to the goats.
Collin noticed that a goat was nibbling on our diaper bag, and was yelling for him to stop. Brynn, on the other hand, proclaimed the goat eating my bag to be the best part of the zoo.

Having fun in the splash pad...
Brynn and Collin...
Rori's cute little boy Brayden...
Once the temperature got a little too close to 100, we decided to head back home. We all went to dinner together, and then Dave had to introduce them to his newest addiction of gelato. Somehow during the day, I missed getting a picture of their son Joey, but Brynn and Collin loved playing with him. They are still asking me when he can come over again. In fact, on the drive from dinner to gelato, Brynn thought she wouldn't get to see Joey again. She kept telling us how much she already missed him, and how she "wanted to keep him." We had a fun time with their family, and are looking forward to another visit from them in the future.

HeeHeeHee

I am married to a genius. Really. G.e.n.i.u.s. Dave took the kids out by himself this past Friday, so that I could have a girls' night out to celebrate my friend's birthday. It was a fun night, and when I got home, the kids were sleeping soundly. I asked Dave how it had gone with the kids, and he told me about a little trick, I mean parenting tip, he had come up with. Brynn was acting up a bit, and he told her that whoever was the most well-behaved during the day would get to go to bed first. She got all excited, and when bedtime came around, she "won". She was so excited the next morning, as she told me how good her behavior had been, and how she got to go to bed first. I did so good keeping a straight face, while she told me how she was going to do her best again, so she could go to bed first again. This is the same girl who quit napping when she was barely 2. The same girl who has had sedation 2 times for dental work and hasn't taken a single nap afterwards (despite the dentist's insistence that EVERY kid takes a nap the day they had sedation). The same girl who is often up until 9 or 10 pm every night and still wakes up before most kids her age. I know she will catch on to Dave's little contest soon, but I have to admit it has been nice for the few days it has lasted. And Collin has been going to bed better too, because now he feels like he has gotten to stay up late. (Really we have been putting him to bed at his usual time or earlier, but since he's going to bed after his sister, he assumes its late). Love it!

While I'm on the topic of Brynn, I have to share a few more funny things she's been saying. A few phrases we've heard lately: "What in tarnation?" (no idea where she heard that one. It wasn't from me, that's for sure. I don't even know what "tarnation" is, so I'm pretty sure she doesn't either.), "It's all part of the plan", "Dolts (adults) have to keep trying" (she was watching me do a project and it wasn't going how I was wanting) and "This is the best day of life". The last one I have heard alot lately. All day on Easter, she would repeat it. Candy and bubbles seem to precede that sentence. It is cute, and I love it each time she says it. Of course, I also hear alot of "I'm having a really bad day" plenty as well. I guess everyone does have their good and bad days. One of her favorite things to play/pretend lately is gardening. Her and her friend were burying pinecones in the sand at the park last week, and then "watering" them and digging them up (harvesting their veggies). Since we planted our little grow box (which is actually still alive and green!), she thinks she is a master gardener. She informed me a few weeks ago, that I did the garden wrong, because you are supposed to plant seeds, and we planted plants. She has been saving seeds from her apples and different nuts/seeds that she's found off of different plants, so that we could put them in the garden. I love seeing her learn and absorb information, and even use what she has learned in her playtime. That, to me, is one of the best parts about having kids. Getting to see the world all over again through their eyes.

Easter

OK, I am cheating and backdating this, since I am slightly embarrassed that it is the end of April and Easter seems like forever ago now. Oops. I am definitely not a very good blogger. I also realize that I have become a very lazy photographer, and am always disgusted with the pictures I've been taking lately. Oh well, I have been trying to be more "in the moment" than all about the pictures, so you will just have to overlook their terrible quality.

This year, we celebrated Easter with Dave's family the Friday before Easter Sunday. We had a delicious dinner of tilapia and lots of yummy fruits and veggies. Nice and light and healthy. The kids on the other hand left their Grandma Cheryl and Grandpa Jerry's in a near sugar-coma. They hardly ate any dinner, but when Grandpa Jerry busted out the cake with a 1 to 1 ratio of cake and frosting, the kids were suddenly starving. Brynn requested the piece with the purple frosting flower, and Grandpa obliged. Not to be left out, Collin got the yellow flower.


As soon as they stuffed their little bodies with as much sugar and food coloring as they could take, it was time for the Easter egg hunt. Grandma Cheryl helped them find all the jelly bean-filled eggs that had been left around her house.
Their buckets were full, and somehow they still had room to consume some of the jelly beans right then and there (I guess all that frosting had provided a soft place in their tummies for the jelly beans to land. Mmm.)

Sunday morning they awoke to their baskets filled with goodies from the Easter Bunny.

Brynn's favorites (besides the candy--yes, my kids both have a serious sweet tooth) were the collection of lipglosses and the bubbles.

Collin was excited for another basketball to add to his collection.

And of course there were Peeps.

Collin was not a Peeps fan.

The Easter Bunny thought that since the kids loved making gingerbread houses at Christmas, that they would love these little candy castles as well. Too bad the castle walls were more like thin sheets of styrofoam. Nasty. And they didn't seem to fit together right, so they weren't too kid-friendly. This was about as far as Collin got with his castle building.

Brynn's castle came together a little better.
This was Collin's expression after tasting his candy castle (he's saying "nasty" as he's making this face). I would have to agree.

After church, we headed over to my parents' house for dinner with my family. The cousins loved seeing each other.

MaJesta and Brynn
Bubbles...
It was another nice Easter, and I was thankful for the extra reflection on Christ. It is so humbling to think about all the blessings that I have in my life, and the sacrifices that He has made for each of us.

Babies!

There's one more thing I wanted to blog about from March. I had the opportunity to photograph my friend Kelly's babies. Yes, babies. She has 4 month old twin girls, Charli and Luci. They are absolutely adorable! I don't know how she manages to be such an amazing mom, while still having time for her friends, cooking, keeping up her house, etc, but she does it. She came over a few weeks ago with the twins and her older daughter Quinci (Brynn's best friend), so we could visit and get some pictures of the babies.

Luci and Charli:
Charli:
Love those big blue eyes!
Luci:
Does this girl have the best lips or what?!
Thanks Kelly for hauling all the kids, and all the gear that goes with newborns, over for a little photo shoot. I just love your sweet family!

The rest of March

The rest of March seemed to fly by as well. With our kids still being little, Spring Break isn't as big for us as it is for alot of families. However, this year it was a little more exciting than previous years. We went to the park a few times, celebrated St. Patrick's Day with friends, and had a few sleepovers.

On St. Patrick's Day, a friend of ours organized a "treasure hunt" for several kids. They searched some nearby "hills" for gold candy and green necklaces that the leprechauns had left. Getting ready for the hunt (Collin wasn't up for pictures, but he was there):

Always the protective big sister:

Brynn takes off in search of candy:
I guess it just wasn't Collin's day. He fell in some rocks as soon as we got there, and scratched up his arm pretty good. Then, he was upset because he wanted to eat every piece of candy, rather than putting it in his sack. This was his reaction when I told him to slow down on the candy consumption:
Brynn was in a better mood:
After the candy and necklaces had all been found, the kids got to play a game where they tossed tokens into a bucket, and then choose a candy when the token made it in. My kids both have a serious sweet tooth, so I practically had to tear Brynn away from this one.

During Spring Break, Brynn's friend Quinci also had the week off of preschool. Since Quinci and Brynn live 30 minutes away, they were excited to get to see each other more often that week. In fact, they each took a turn having a sleepover at the other one's house. When we were waiting for Quinci to come over to our house, I stumbled across this treat Brynn had made for her and her friend (and she even included one for Collin). They are 3 faces Brynn made out of Fruit Loops:
While Quinci was over, we made homemade wheat flour tortillas. The kids helped grind the wheat, mix the tortilla dough, form them into balls, and roll them out. They had fun helping in the kitchen, and were so proud of their finished products. Here they are eating the tortillas they helped make:
And what else says Spring like a ladybug? (What, that isn't the first thing everyone thinks of when they think of Spring?!). Brynn found a ladybug that had flown into the car, and the kids were completely fascinated by it. This is the girl who has a near-phobia of flies, spiders, and bugs, but somehow a ladybug just isn't the same to her. I guess I would have to agree. She was so gentle with it, and let it crawl all over her hands and arms. Look at that smile:
Collin was just as fascinated as Brynn, but luckily he left the ladybug-handling to his sister:
After they had played with the ladybug for 15 minutes or so, I told them that they needed to let it go in the grass, so it could go back home. Brynn gently set it in the grass, and they went outside several times that afternoon to check if it was still there. So cute!

This month, Brynn and I also took on a new project. I had been reading up on raised gardens, and came across a grow box kit at a local nursery. Brynn has been talking about wanting a garden, and she had so much fun at my Grandpa L and Grandma Bertha's backyard garden, that I decided to try it out. Brynn helped me set up the box, mix the soil, and put in the plants (well, she only helped for about 5 minutes before she got bored, but she did stick around while I did it all). Here is my little goofball with our little garden:We planted tomatoes and zucchini. I really don't know if it will work, since I have no experience and limited knowledge with gardening. I figure the experience will be worth it either way, and we will have a better idea of what works or doesn't work for next time.

So that was our March.