Muddy

Our kids are going to be so disappointed when we finally get a yard put in.  They LOVE playing in the mud.  The umbrellas are taken outside under the guise of keeping them dry.  Really, though, they just turn them upside down and fill them up with mud.  They have also dumped buckets full of dirt down into our air conditioning unit.  But we've started the process of picking a landscape design to use, so their muddy days are numbered!

First Swimming Lessons

Our new neighborhood has a pool for people who live here.  It opens up in a couple of  months for the summer and I wanted the kids to take some swimming lessons before that so they'd be a little more comfortable in the water.   Eliza isn't 3 yet so I knew she'd need a mommy-and-me type of class.  Isaiah said he didn't want to go by himself, and they wouldn't let him in the mommy-and-me class since he's older than 3, but we were lucky to get into one of the few "You and your preschooler" classes.  Their classes are at the same time on Friday evenings.  I go with one kid, Jerel goes with the other.  We knew Zay would be the one who would have a hard time because he often gets nervous about doing new things.  He was nervous, but he's actually done great!  Even when he's really scared he still tries everything they ask him to do--he's even gone all the way under the water a couple of times!  Miss 'Liza, on the other hand, has not been enjoying herself.  She is super cute in a bright pink tutu bathing suit (the one in this picture falls off of her, so I had to return it).  But she cries the whole time.  And by "the whole time" I mean the whole time.  Beginning of lesson to end.  Her class is bigger, probably about 20 kids.  Last week Zay was sick so I took Eliza by myself.  She was crying about going in again, so we started on the edge of the pool and I just splashed the water up on her feet (they didn't come close to reaching the water).  After a while we moved over to the steps and starting easing our way in.  I'd ask her to come down one more step, and she would say no, and I would say "Okay, you don't have to" and then she would do it.  It took 12 minutes (of a 30 minute class) to get her all the way into the water and (sort of) participating with the class.  Oh, and I had to bribe her with a new hot wheels.  But there were no tears the entire time and I consider that a major success!  So proud of my two little ones learning to swim in a freezing cold pool!

Easter 2013

First stop:  Easter Egg Hunt @ Gates home.  The Gates are good friends from our old ward and they usually host an Easter Egg Hunt at their home (because unlike the rest of us, they actually have land).  This year it was also an official ward activity.  I missed last year's hunt so I was extra happy to come this year.  And extra happy that in 2012 I had decided to make the kids' Easter shirts really big because that meant this year they already had cute ones and I didn't have to do any more work.

 Here's a picture of Eliza playing on the swings, courtesy of friends of ours who took pity on the poor little girl whose own parents wouldn't push her in the swing all day.

Here's Isaiah waiting in line for an Easter game

We missed the starting signal for Isaiah's age group egg hunt so he was the last one out.  He still found lots!

Here's Eliza's version of smiling.  She apparently thinks it is something you do with your nose rather than your lips.

This picture is on here not because of Eliza, but because if you look closely in the background you can see Jerel SMILING!

Isn't she cute out on our back deck?

This is Zay's way of saying "Mom, I'm tired of all these pictures!"

A Rare Success Story

 As it turns out, I really enjoy making things for my kids.  Especially things that are somewhat educational.  Usually what happens is I find a great idea online and copy their "cheap & easy" instructions to make something that is "expensive & hard", not to mention "doesn't even work" or "kids hate it."  But this time, magically, I got it right.  And I didn't even copy someone else's idea, just thought of it on my own.  When we were kids we used to have these marble tracks that I don't remember very well, but they had different paths the marble could go on and holes it could fall into and such.  Anyway, that was my inspiration.  It was even (sort of) free.  I already had that scrap of wood left over from Eliza's play kitchen, we already had the rubberbands, and we had the nails.  I only say "sort of free" to save Jerel the effort of commenting that the wood, rubberbands, and nails all did cost money, so it wasn't truly free, it just didn't require any additional purchases.  Big bonus:  the kids like it!

The Chef (and the two mini chefs*) *one chef not pictured

Jerel does most of the cooking at our house and the kids love to "help" him.