Easter Fun!

I try to take fancy pictures every Spring and Fall. In the Spring I focus on the kids, in the Fall we try to get a great family shot. Well, this year the kids gave me such a rough time and I'm still not satisfied with what I got. I might try yet again, but after taking over 100 pictures already I might just call it a year.

 

The funny thing is Brooklyn was smiling in almost every picture! She looked great (my little model). Logan was throwing a fit because he didn't want to wear shoes. I let him take them off but then his toes were cold so he wanted to wrap them in a blanket. It went on and on with him.

Dustin's problem came when he smashed his finger. There were tears and then he didn't want to take any more pictures. And nobody wanted to take pictures with the flowers in the front yard! Cars would drive by and look at us! Clearly that's not a good idea.

But even if the pictures didn't turn out perfect, I've gotta admit they sure look fancy in their Easter clothes! Grandma Sheila made Brooklyn's dress. I made the boy's ties, and the both already had everything else in their closet.

I was complaining that nobody was smiling in the pictures so Logan made sure Brooklyn was smiling in the next one. Little stinker!

Well, we tried! I sure do love these little people. Even if they give me a rough time!

The past week has been busy for us. Logan has a summer birthday, but REALLY wanted to celebrate his birthday with his class. So we just picked a random day this week to bring in treats and have a party. His teacher was very understanding and he was happy to finally get a party too. Although he did also ask if we could do a splash pad day with friends on his actual birthday.

Logan wanted to bring in Twinkies and Hostess cupcakes for his birthday because "I've never had one and they LOOK so good!" Who could say no to that? Especially since the school insists on store bought treats rather than home made. I don't know if my kids are spoiled or deprived since they've never tried most of the store bought stuff.

The boys have been playing dress up a lot lately and they realized Brooklyn might want to play too. So whenever they dress up they now insist she has to wear the Unicorn costume (the only costume we have that fits her currently). So she'll be in this get up regularly at our house.

We've been getting ready for Easter around here! The boys decorated picture frames Sunday to give to Grandparents, and had a blast with the stickers and trash. We are easily entertained.

I spent my free time last week sewing a few dresses for Brooklyn. I got the material from a lady that lives down the street. She was cleaning out her garage and realized she doesn't sew any more, so hoped I could put it to good use. The patterns were free from the internet. Which mostly worked out well. The first one I sewed (a pink one) ended up probably big enough for a 2 year old. So we'll have to wait for her to fit into that.

Brooklyn is such a happy little girl! She LOVES Dave and her brothers and me too. And we just love her. I mean, come on, do you see that face?

Last Saturday there was an Easter brunch and egg hunt at the church. The boys had a blast playing with their friends! We really need to do play dates more often.

Monday we had our Resurrection FHE and it went well. We also discussed Holy Week and what happened each day. This spawned a need to build several buildings to reenact holy week and the request for more figures. They built out of Duplos a jail for the soldiers to take Jesus to, Mary and Martha's house, and a more fancy tomb for Jesus. They wanted me to paint Martha, Lazarus, and more soldiers. Because they're pretty fancy and Brooklyn will probably want one next year.

Spring Break & Home

I've written this post 3 times and for some reason it's not publishing... So it's getting more condensed every time. These three kids love each other so much! It has nothing to do with the post, but I found this picture with the trip pictures, and just had to include it.

A few weeks ago we went on a long weekend vacation to visit my Grandma Yoder in Hurricane! The weather was in the high 70 to low 80s, so before we left we made sure we had great bathing suits for everyone.

On our way south we always stop in Bever and visit the cheese factory, but this trip we also added a hike in Kolob to the list of things to do. It was not crowded and the perfect weather for a hike.

About .02 miles into the hike we ran into a river! And there, our hiking ended. The boys played in the water for about an hour (starting out in their clothes, finishing in their underwear since we forgot to bring their suits on the hike). It was beautiful, and they had a blast exploring.

While visiting Grandma, she took us to the Dinosaur Muesum. It consisted of tons of dinosaur footprints and some bones. The boys were fascinated! The favorite was the dinosaur bum prints. If the sign didn't tell us it was a butt mark, we wouldn't have known. That's what we get for reading the signs.

They also had a play area outside where you can dig up bones and these head signs. The kids thought it was hilarious to see Brooklyn peeking out of one!

Dustin and Grandma Yoder "went on a hike" while I fead Brooklyn some baby food and they found a Dinosaur Egg (small rock that is egg shaped). Logan was so impressed he requested Papa Mike find a dino egg for him as well. Papa mailed a dino egg and rino egg for Logan and Dustin this week, so now everyone is happy.

This is Chester, Grandma's neigbor's cat. Every time we visit Grandma we hope we will get a visit from Chester. He's the nicest cat in the world and the boys just LOVE him. They pray for him and have been playing Chester and Shadow (Grandma's cat) since we got home.

Since the weather was so nice we made a few trips to the park. It was beautiful and the kids all loved swinging, sliding and playing!

On the way home we stopped by Kolob again and did the Overlook hike. It's only 1 mile round trip, which was perfect for our little legs.

The boys climbed up anything they could get their hands on and had so much fun exploring together!

The mountain range was beautiful and the weather was again perfect for a hike! We ate some fruit snacks at the top.

Dustin has become camera shy of anyone other than family taking his picture. So this is the best family picture we could get (you can see his feet behind Dave).

But he's always such a happy, goofy boy! We just love him. He never was a hard 2 year old, but over the past 6 months (since he turned 3) he has become pretty obstinate. He won't do what I ask until the last possible moment before negative consequences take place. But eventually we can get him to do what has to get done. And he grins at you like he knows he's going to get in trouble but just watch this!

Brooklyn has been growing like a weed lately. She's so big and has such an opinion! A few days ago I introduced her to avocado and she refused to eat anything else for the rest of the day. She would cry and refuse to open her mouth until I got out the good stuff. Oh we're in for some trouble when she's a teenager.

Logan is just the best big brother! He loves his siblings so much! When he comes home from school with candy, cookies or cupcakes he always shares with Dustin. Even if he only gets one of something he breaks it in half because "Dustin doesn't go to school so he doesn't get treats."

We are working on expressing our negative feelings and accepting that sometimes you might want something but the answer is no. It's been rough, but he's getting the hang of things and if he gets really upset he chooses to go into his room and have some quiet time until he can calm down. He's not in time out, he just needs to decompress and realizes that. 

Last week Dave worked late every night! He was at work by 8am and wouldn't get home until 9 or 10pm. On Thursday Logan was in bed trying to stay up until Dad got home so he could be awake for his goodnight kiss and he just started crying "I haven't seen my Dad in 4 days! I miss him so bad!" So I made sure Dave woke up Logan for kisses that night. But the deadline was Friday, so I'm really hoping things will slow down at work again.

Friday we went on a walk and visited our neighbor down the street Maurine. She was asking what Dave did for work, and I explained. Logan must have heard because when we got home, he insisted on drawing. He said he was drawing a house. He would show Dad how to draw buildings faster so he didn't have to spend so much time drawing at work and could come home on time.

Since Dave was working late, I got to work on some of my projects when the kids were sleeping. I finished our Easter scene! I thought since the boys love our Nativities at Christmas, I would put up Easter scenes at Easter time to remind us of the Resurrection. They have loved playing with this one so far, and I can't wait to use it in our Resurrection FHE the week before Easter. I think I'll make a few more kid friendly scenes in future years. Maybe something sewn.

I also was able to start and finish a quilt for a nephew to be born soon. The boys helped me lay out the colors and pin them together. I guess Dustin didn't understand this wasn't for US and when I finished and started wrapping it up he was pretty upset! "The green and white match my jammies! And the black and blue ones match Logan's jammies! This is for our family!" I guess this summer we'll need to make a quilt together for our family to keep.

These ties for the boys for Easter have been cut out for a few weeks but I was a little intimidated by the idea of finishing them. But with so much extra time on my hands, I couldn't help but complete them (come on, sewing, or cleaning the house? no contest). My mom sewed a dress for Brooklyn, so hopefully we can get some cute pictures of the three of them soon. Everyone has to be in the right mood for that to happen. But the ties turned out well and we're looking forward to wearing our cool new clothes soon.

For Logan, this will be the year of the bike! Last year he tried so hard to learn, but really couldn't figure out how to even peddle. This year we got him a new bike off KSL and he has really picked it up! Our goal is to take him on a bike ride once a week and hopefully have him riding without training wheels by the end of the summer. We'll see how that goes though. He's so proud of himself though!