Easter & More Rain

This has been the rainiest spring in the whole world! Ever! Ok, maybe just the rainiest Taylorsville spring for the past 10 years. We play outside as much as we can but I'm a rain wimp. For the first year ever all the kids have rain coats so that's helped a little. The boys were given them and I bought one for Broonlyn since we'll be in rainy Oregon this summer. So they've been out dancing in the rain and jumping on the Trampoline in the rain (which still gets their bums wet).

Dave got this hammock for his birthday in February for camping. The kids love it and play in it all the time. I'm not sure why but they're convinced it works best when you are only in your underwear. I know where they are if I see a pile of clothes under the hammock.

We visited Grandma Linda & Papa Bill last week and Papa busted out his balloon making stuff and made swords, flowers, and crowns for the kids. They had a blast!  And were pretty sad when the balloons popped.

The Saturday before Easter was busy! We had a church egg hunt in the morning followed by a friend birthday party in the afternoon. Between that and trying to mow the lawn between rain storms, it was a wet, busy Saturday.

Easter Sunday we got baskets from the Easter bunny!!! Brooklyn was shocked and very happy such a little guy could bring so much candy. Dave decided next year we are going to ask the Easter bunny to bring no candy at all. Logan wasn't sure there was an Easter bunny but decided he must be real. We had our traditional funeral potatoes and ham for dinner with corn on the cob and apple pie for dessert. Brooklyn ate 3 ears of corn! The boys decided they would rather have banana cream pie next year.

The kids got a job this week! A neighbor asked we they could take their dog for a walk in the middle of the day while they're at work. They each get paid $1 per walk. They decided it's the best job ever!!!

For Activity Days this week we made a quilt top to donate to our Young Women's girls camp fund raiser auction! The girls were so proud of their sewing! I have until the 10th to pin it (tomorrow), quilt it, and bind it! Better get to work...

Dave and I got to go on a date to Avenger's Endgames this week. Dave got free tickets through a work event and Linda came to watch the kids. I was glad the movie didn't leave any cliff hangers this time you get all the closure you need! Dave loves the super hero movies so he was excited to see it.

Logan had his school fun run last Friday! He had a blast running with his friend Tyson. Logan got 6th place in his grade (he says there are 3 classes with 20ish kids each). He is so proud and got a blue ribbon!

Brooklyn has been doing a lot better with potty training and only had 1 accident all weekend! I put her back in diapers during night time last Monday and I think that shocked her into not being lazy. She has woken up dry ever since so last night I let her sleep in undies again.

Dustin has been a champ at his internet preschool this week! He can sound out words that are 5 letters long and can read a lot of smaller words. He's been fighting me on playing his game all year so it's nice to finally not have to battle with him 5 days a week.

Saturday we tore out all the grass in our front parking strips and are in the process of filling them with rocks. It will be more water efficient even with the desert plants Dave wants to add to make it look nicer. It was a TON of work and we are both still sore from all the work. Hopefully this will be our only big project this summer and hopefully we will be done after a few weekends.

April Showers Brings Painting & Flowers

It's finally spring!!! We had a ton of rain over the past few weeks. It's good but hard to keep the kids inside (it's warm so they want to be outside). Our flowers are finally blooming which means it's spring photo shoot time! The kids have been less than co-operative this year and every time I took pictures it's ended in tears. I'm afraid this is the best I'll be able to do this year.

Logan's looking at the camera but everyone's smiling! So this is probably the best picture. Last year I bought Easter clothes a size bigger then I hemmed up the boys pants. This year everyone still fits (now that the pants are un-hemmed). So I'll call this a win in the fancy clothing category.

This is a pretty decent picture too. So I have at least one to hang on the wall.

Here's Dustin's best shot! He hams it up in a lot of them, but this one turned out pretty sweet

And here's Logan's. He went down hill fast and ended up crying because pictures suck.

This little girl has given us a run for our money lately. She's so stinking cute but so stubborn! She wants what she wants and knows it!

An example? These are Brooklyn's first piggy tails. She refused to let me do her hair before this. Even as a baby she would immediately pull everything out of her hair.

And her hair is starting to be curly like Dustin's! When we bathe her if we do nothing to it she looks like this. But we usually brush it down after bath so she doesn't end up with wild hair the next morning. I think when it gets longer the curls will be subtle and cute. Or at least wavy.

One project that has been such a slow process is the fireplace. When we moved in we removed the wood paneling and painted. A few years ago Dave made a mantle for me. Now I've painted the gold a black which I like a lot better! 

The last thing I need to do in the house is paint the hallway/entryway/stairs. The woman that owned the house before us LOVED yellow. I hate yellow walls so we've been slowly painting everything. The hallway is the last yellow and I'm ready for a change. Although I don't know what color yet (maybe a grey, blue, or green shade). I've recently moved the kids bedroom laundry baskets to one big one in the hallway. I would prefer them have ones in their rooms but this one actually gets used so less cleaning up/nagging for me. 

Sadly Dave wants to replace the light in the hallway, patch up  and paint the ceiling before we tackle the walls. Which probably means we should replace the front entry light as well and redo the hallway wiring while we're at it. So it's going to be a little more work than me grabbing a can of paint at Lowe's.

We've decided to be scared of bugs lately. Brooklyn is now terrified of ants. It's pretty tough going outside when everything little and black makes her scream. Once she discovers it's not an ant she's fine but until then even a black fuzzy is pretty much the end of the world. Dustin read one of Logan's school library books on Spiders and has decided he is now terrified of spiders. The saddest thing is the book was supposed to help kids overcome fears of spiders. But Dustin didn't know there were poisonous spiders that could kill you until we read the book. Now he knows and is scared every spider is the poisonous kind. So one of our spring goals is to get over this. We've been collecting bugs in a bug box and observing them so maybe this will help.

Other than this I've been re-organizing all our photos. I took them all out and have gotten rid of quite a few (almost done sorting). Next I will put them all back in and print out the last year so we are up to date. The kids love looking at our pictures and it will be good to have this project done so they can enjoy them again.