Happy Easter!

Lots of colorful Easter Eggs

I love that we have finally lived somewhere long enough to have traditions. It's so much fun to me. One of my kids favorites is dying Easter Eggs with The Osmonds. I think this is our third (maybe fourth) year doing this together. Between us we had probably 6 dozen eggs, which surprisingly was too many even for our kids. They did dye quite a few of them, but the last dozen Becky and I did. And might I add that they were VERY colorful, since we forgot about them and they sat in the dye for a good 30 minutes or more. 

Afterward, the kids decorated leftover Easter egg sugar cookies I had made earlier this week for Leah's class party. I think everyone had a really great time. 

Tomorrow is our ward Pancake Breakfast and Easter Egg hunt and for the first time since moving into Mint Canyon Ward(four years ago), I am not involved in helping with it. So what did they do? They asked Paul to come early to flip pancakes. It figures. Oh well....such is life sometimes. Hopefully he won't be busy the entire morning. After that we get to go to the Temple to see a couple in our ward get sealed together. So even though we probably won't be in the Temple too long, I'm grateful to get to spend some time there this Easter weekend. Hoping to have a little time to sit and relax while we are there, and reflect on this wonderful Holiday we get to celebrate.

Prepping the eggs!

Carter and Baylee didn't get in on the egg dying action. Maybe next year!

I think Brandon wins the prize for dying the most eggs though. The boy just kept dumping more and more into the dye. Before we knew it, I think he did over a dozen just by himself.

Becky's awesome Pinterest find. Putting pins in a foam board to allow the eggs to dry! 

The kids decided cookie sandwiches were way cooler than just eating one cookie at a time. Man, that's a lot of sugar!

I can't believe it's almost APRIL!

Getting ready for Spring Break around here. Where is the year going? Ashlyn had her last ballet class of the winter session last Thursday so they do a mini recital for all the parents. I don't typically come and watch her every week because there is no where to sit with my three other kids except inside the room and her teacher (of course) expects it to be quiet. Well you know how well my kids are at being quiet, so that is why we don't stay too often. But it is fun on the last day to come in and watch her. She really enjoys it and works hard. Her teacher is nice but strict (as most ballet teachers are). She expects a lot from them, but she isn't mean or bossy. I like her style of teaching. 

There's usually a few weeks of a break in between sessions, but not this time. So she starts back up again today. Lucky Ashlyn. Here she is in her new ballet leotard that she just loves and I think she looks beautiful!

These are my spoiled boys! Each one with their own iPad to play with while I was getting ready for the day (And no this doesn't always happen, but I will say I'm not sure I actually use my iPad anywhere near as much as my kids do.)

Last Saturday Paul took the younger three to a birthday party for a two year old. Ashlyn didn't want to go and I had a few errands to run, so she got to pal around with me. It was so fun. I find I often go out with both my girls, but not as often one on one. So it was fun to just get to talk to Ashlyn and hear what she has to say. More than anything I want my kids to feel comfortable talking to me as they get older. About anything. Whether it's a weird topic or not. So I'm trying really hard (the best I know how) to foster a good relationship with them early on. Sure I still get mad from time to time and sure they get in trouble, but I still hope they know they can always come to me. 

Spring is DEFINITELY in the air. The weather has been beautiful and I hope it stays that way for Spring break. We need some nice fresh air to run around and play in. Working on some fun outings.

It finally happened

Spring is upon us. The sun is shining bright and the weather is warming up. It's quite beautiful outside actually. So of course it would make sense that "IT" finally happened. Yup...Brandon got sick. My swim short wearing, flip flop sporting boy doesn't get sick all winter, but as soon as Spring hits, he goes down.

But really it wasn't too bad. Either he has an incredible immune system or he is just building up for the worst sickness EVER, but he's not too hard of a sick kid. He woke up at 1 am on Friday morning and threw up (in the toilet) while trying to go to the bathroom. I think he thought he had to go because his stomach must have been hurting. So it was kind of convenient that "some" of it actually got in the toilet (I know...TMI). Me and Paul cleaned him up and put him in our bed with a trash can next to him. He threw up two more times that night and then laid around and slept most of the next day. He didn't eat anything, but I was able to get him to take sips of water from time to time. By that evening he was up and wanting to play with his siblings and by Saturday he seemed pretty back to normal. So that was a quick sickness. And one that I was very grateful for after the hard month of everyone else being sick. Miraculously Paul and I have stayed well. I should knock on wood every time I see it, because seriously this has been a KILLER sick season. Everyone I know has been sick and has had sick kids. And not just colds. We're talking about REALLY sick. Like down and out for a week or more. It's been bad. I think we're all ready for it to be over with. I for one am anyway. I'm ready to go out and enjoy this beautiful weather we are having. Spring Break is next week and while I have no amazing plans, I do intend on being outside with the kids and going and doing as much as we can. Lots of park days and picnics. Maybe a swim in our pool if it's not too chilly still. A trip down to the Aquarium? Not totally sure. But I'll come up with something!

Card Club

This month's card for card club. I have to say I'm really enjoying it still. So what if I copy every card idea off of the internet? I don't care. If I do it long enough, I just might come up with an idea all on my own....maybe! In the meantime, I'm having fun slowly collecting card making supplies (because darn it, if it isn't expensive to be a crafty person) and I'm learning fun new techniques too. So thank you to all you crafty people out there who love to post your ideas and even give step by step youtube videos for me to follow. You sure make my life easier!

AR Awards

Ashlyn's been working hard on her AR goal (accelerated reading). Every school trimester her teacher gives her a goal to meet and if she meets that goal, she gets to go to a pancake breakfast. If she exceeds that goal by 150%, than she gets a bigger award. The first time you do, you get a medal. The second time, you get a pin for that medal. And the third time you do, you get a trophy. Well, Ashlyn should have gotten it the first trimester, but kind of got robbed of it by her stinky teacher who had imposed all these extra "rules", but whatever. She earned it again this time and I was so happy for her. She wanted that medal SO bad and she did it. Even after her new teacher wasn't able to fix a glitch in the computer testing program and she missed out on a taking a test on a book worth A LOT of points. She had to kick it into high gear and read another big book in less than two weeks. So she definitely earned that award. 

Her and her friend Dalia, were the only two in her class to get the 150% Award. 

Isn't she the cutest thing? I'm so proud of her!

And not to leave sweet little Leah out. She definitely does not love to read as much as Ashlyn does. And she is still working on learning to read. But she just got into the AR program this new trimester and has really impressed me with how much she is working on getting her AR books done and tests taken. She has to take two tests a week to get 150% of her goal, but so far she's on track. I'm really grateful for this program at their school. I wish I had something like that as a kid. I was not much of a motivated reader and it's something I wish I would have developed more in grade school. So I'm proud of my girls for working so hard.

A little bit of Brandon

Funny that I don't even remember taking this picture it was only from a few days ago. I don't even recall him falling asleep on the couch like that. I must be losing it.

  

I posted this on Instagram, but I thought it was blog worthy too.

See these cute little monkeys all lined up in a nice little row in "rainbow" order even. Yeah...they're pretty cute huh? I thought so anyway, so I told Brandon how much I liked his little row of monkeys. And you know what he said to me, "Yeah, I'm gonna shoot them".  I was like...uh....okay?! And he did. He got his little nerf gun and cocked it and shot those poor little monkeys. Luckily they all survived his brutal execution. Thank goodness for rubber tipped foam bullets. 

Boys....they're crazy I tell ya!

I didn't even know what to say to him.