Spring Break

Spring break is here. The kids are so excited. They have runny noses so I kept them in yesterday, but today they HAD to be outside! We had our first picnic of the year. I was a little cold but the kids insisted they were hot. Jacob made everyone lunch. He is getting so old.

What dad lets the kids do

I left the house for a couple of hours today. When I got home I decided to blog about Alison's birthday. Look what I found on my camera. This is what dad lets the kids do when I am not home. At least Rylie and Emily were not jumping from the stairs. I was also happy it was cleaned up when I got home. I wonder how often they do this?

Alison's 7th Birthday

Alison had a great birthday. She knows exactly how she wants her birthday to go down and warns me in plenty of time to make it happen. She requested roses, donuts for breakfast, the house decorated when she woke up (we do that anyway), dinner out with mom, shopping afterwards, and then a party with the family with presents and cheesecake. She also had a friend from church sleepover the day after her birthday. This was her first friend sleepover and she LOVED it.




Alison appreciated all the presents, cards, and phone calls from all. She was a very happy 7 year old!

Outside

The girls are so happy to be able to go outside. This year is so much easier for me to take them out. Rylie is out of the running, eating dirt/rocks stage. They have so much fun being out. Emily loves this little bike we have. She goes up and down the driveway. Rylie loves the watering can. She will walk around pretend watering everything.

Saint Patrick's Day

I didn't do too much for St. Patrick's Day this year. We had green Jello and green salad and green pop for dinner and green vanilla pudding for desert. Jacob asked why I didn't make the baked fish green. I had to explain some things you will not eat if they were green.

Ali came home from school and said her teacher leaves notes for the leprechauns and also water and they will leave a note for her. So of course she wanted to do that. She wrote this note saying she loved him and not to take her special green rock she got but wanted to show him.

This is what the leprechaun left her. She giggled all morning and took it to school to show everyone.

At the Park

On Monday, we took the kids to the park in our neighborhood as the family night activity. This is the first time this year. The kids were so excited. It was cold because of the wind. The kids didn't care, but I did. We only stayed 20 minutes.

Rylie, Alison and Joshua

Joshua

Ali

Me and Emily

Darren and Emily

Jacob

Sunday March 14th

Darren's birthday was Sunday. I feel bad because he didn't have that great of a day. With day light savings it really effected our schedule. I have Ward Counsel at 7:30 am so Darren had to get all the kids ready for church. Then, he didn't even get to relax in priesthood because he had Emily (I substituted in Ali's class). I did make him a nice steak dinner. It was also really good weather so we went for a walk. He just didn't get to relax as much as he should have. There's always next year.
Ali made Darren this crown for his birthday. Darren had donuts instead of cake. Big surprise there.
Day light savings really did havoc on Emily. She fell asleep during church for a few minutes. Then fell asleep on the drive home. She woke up as soon as we took her out of the van. Then wouldn't take her nap. I put her in her highchair with a snack so I could make dinner and she fell asleep for half an hour. Then wouldn't go to sleep that night. She still isn't back on a regular schedule. I wish they would just do away with changing the clock!

"Who are you people?"

That is one of my favorite quotes from Spongebob. It is the episode when Patrick's parents come to visit and they spend all day. Then they just happen to call each other by name and he realizes that they are not his parents and has no idea who they are. This is how I felt yesterday about my kids. Darren and I had places to be that overlapped times. I took Emily with me. We thought Jacob would only have to babysit for 15 minutes but it ended up being about an hour and a half. When I walked in the door, they were circuit cleaning. They had already done their rooms and the bathroom and was just finishing up the family room. I was SHOCKED. I rewarded them by letting them watch a movie and have a picnic lunch on the family room floor. They were awesome all day yesterday. I still think "Who are you people?"

climbing already?

Finding Emily doing this was not good. I am not ready for her to be in the climbing stage already. It seems like Rylie just got out of this stage. Now I cannot let her play in the playroom and think she is safe! Can they just stop learning and growing so I can take a breather?

Hired help?

Emily is in the phase where she keeps herself very busy. Here she is cleaning the front of the stove while sitting in the warming drawer.
Here she is unloading the dirty dishes faster than I can load them. At least she is stacking them neatly.
She enjoys helping me with my housework. You can't get cheaper labor than this! I now need to teach her how to do the laundry and I will be set.

Yummy Ice Cream

For Valentines Day my mom sent us money to get ice cream cones. The family voted on spending that money buying the makings for Ice Cream Sundays. I know the kids just thought they would get more for their money (they are my children). I also know Darren could have taken a picture of all of us at once, but he didn't and I won't complain (anymore). So I included several pictures to show Grandma how much we enjoyed it. I also excluded the picture he took of me. It was awful and since I am doing the blog, I get to do what I want! Thanks Grandma Burgess for the ice cream!

Laundry Fun

Is that an oxymoron or what? I have a basket for each family member, so on laundry day the kids spend as much time as possible playing with the empty baskets before I fill them up. I don't know why we spend money on toys!

Joshua emerging from his cave.
Rylie likes to play like they are boats or planes and wants me to pull her around. This gets old real fast.
Joshua is the king of the castle.
Rylie playing she is a puppy dog in a cage. She pretends she is a dog several times a day.