Catching Up

The past few weekends have been pretty busy.  I guess that's normal as your children grow older.

We've had Tball games, birthday parties, campouts, and more.

Here's some pictures from the past few weeks:

Marcus took Kyle to the ward Father and Sons campout.  I'm not sure which Kyle was more excited about- sleeping in a tent,

or riding on jet-skis.

Emma's had a birthday party to go to every Saturday for a month, I swear.  The last one we had was for triplets at her school.  They had a carnival theme, and had a slip n slide for the kids at the end.  They had a blast!  But of course, their favorite part was eating the cake.

Kyle has been playing Tball for a while now.  For this spring session, Marcus was the assistant coach and I was the team mom, so we were actively involved in everything.  Here's some pictures of Kyle and his team.

His last game is tomorrow, so we had our end of the year party last night.  Kyle will miss his friends this summer.

So, we have another busy weekend ahead, with a tball game, a Primary activity, a date (!), and my birthday to celebrate.  That is, if Judgment Day and the Rapture doesn't occur tomorrow....

The Tooth Fairy Pays a visit....twice

In just one short week, Emma lost her first two teeth.  Can you see where they were?  Her new teeth are already growing in.

The first one fell out at the end of swim class.  It was a terrible time for the first tooth to fall out.  Emma had just finished her lesson, I was holding a grumpy, crying Drew in my arms, I was trying to fix Kyle's swim class schedule, and Emma was dripping water all over the floor.  Suddenly there was blood and a tooth.  Somewhere between the crying baby, the schedule papers, and the gauze pad wrapper, I lost the tooth.  Possibly even threw it away.  Way to mark the milestone, Mom.

Luckily, the tooth fairy accepts drawings of teeth.  Did you know that?  Emma was happy that she came anyway.

Then the following week, she lost her second tooth- this time at dance class.  I wasn't there when it happened, as  I usually drop her off and run errands.  Ms. Rosemary, her teacher, did an excellent job helping her and actually keeping the tooth safe for us.

Hopefully, the next tooth lost will be lost at home.

Go Dbacks!

On Saturday we went to the Dbacks game.  Marcus' company has season tickets right over the Dbacks bullpen, so we took the kids with us.  We got there early to play- they have a great kids area called the Sandlot, and a Wiffle Ball field for the kids too.

Once the game began, the fun ended.  Drew absolutely hated being confined to a 4-seat section.  He doesn't just squirm or whine when he's unhappy.  He wails, screams and hits.  I'm really struggling with him lately.  He is super grumpy at home, cries when we go to stores, and screams the second we enter the nursery at church and doesn't stop.  Sigh.....  Anyway, I ended up spending most of the game either walking around the stadium with him, or playing at the play place with him.  Since we didn't actually pay for the tickets, I wasn't too mad- just frustrated.

And, true to form, the Dbacks lost the game.  They always lose when I go to a game.

I guess we'll wait to take the kids again until Drew is older.

The Kids Went Camping....

....in the backyard.

The father and sons campout is coming up this weekend, so Marcus set up the tent to test it out.  The kids had such fun playing in it they asked if they could sleep in it that night.

*Time out*  I have a hard time finding that balance between keeping my children safe and letting them go to experience life (and its possible hurts) on their own.  It seems all around me, parents are one extreme or the other.  Either they hover incessantly over their children, or they don't care at all what they do.  But on this journey of motherhood, I don't know when the right time is to do things.  When do you let them walk to their friend's house by themselves?  When are they old enough to have a sleepover?  When is it ok to not watch them every second at the playground (or is it?  Creepy weirdos abound in this world.....)  I have a million questions like these, and since everyone has their own way of doing things, I guess I just have to figure it out as I go.  That's motherhood right there.

To me, six and four just seem SO YOUNG to be sleeping outside at night.  What if they needed something and I couldn't hear them?  What if they woke up early and started running around and waking up the neighbors with their noise (despite my stern warnings). What if someone came in the backyard while they were out there?    I wish I could say our neighborhood is perfectly safe, but the fact is, we've had several burglaries on our street, our neighbor kids are punks, and from time to time, police helicopters circle over the nearby subdivisions.

Marcus looked at me, probably reading the unspoken worry on my face, and said, "They'll be fine".  We got their sleeping bags, blankets, and pillows, and read them the riot act about how to behave.  Just to pacify our paranoia  we did put the garbage can by the gate to the backyard, just in case anyone got any ideas about coming in. At least we'd have some warning...

They got into bed, we zipped up the door, and off we went.  They didn't last long before they were asleep.

They did just fine, sleeping until Marcus woke them up to go to Kyle's Tball game.    I wish I could say I went to sleep and didn't even worry, but I did have dreams of them running around at dawn and waking up all the neighbors.  Thankfully, that was one dream that didn't come true.

Easter

Easter has been a mixed basket, if you will.

On the one hand, we had great fun finding eggs full of candy and enjoying treats from the "Easter Bunny", including much needed dance and sports bags in lieu of baskets!

We had cute new clothes to wear.

And had fun with Mommy before church.

But there was the toddler who woke up with the blocked tear duct

who also cried through half of sacrament meeting and all of Sunday School, while refusing to go to nursery.


And to top it off, there was the vomiting 4 year old who didn't get the lid up on the toilet in time.  This isn't a candy-induced sickness either- rather something that has been building over the past two days.  My best eater has hardly touched a thing since Friday morning.

Then it was time to leave my family for a stake-sponsored Primary Easter program, of which 8 of my 25 Senior Primary children attended.  I understand trying to keep Easter Christ-centered, but the reality is, most families weren't going to forgo family gatherings, or interrupt them, for a Primary Program.  Sigh.... still-it was a lovely program, and I was there, supporting my eight!

I AM grateful for the opportunity to remember my Savior this day.  I was privileged to teach the Easter Sharing Time lesson in Primary today, and I felt the Spirit as I shared my testimony with the children.  Did Jesus really live again?  Yes, and so shall I!

By the way, these Resurrection Rolls that I made for the Primary are delicious!

 Bookmark it for next year- or just make them for fun!

We are missing our friends and family this Easter!  We hope yours was a special day too!

Egg-cellent!

Monday night was our 2nd annual Easter Egg Hunt/Dinner, put together by my friend Jen and family.  Itwas just a group of us friends, with all our kids, getting together for yummy sandwiches, chips, fruit, caramelitas, and cupcakes!

I didn't get any pictures of the food, which I'm sad about because the cupcakes were especially adorable!  One set were made into a "cupcake cake" in the shape of a bunny head- using marshmallows and rolled out candy to make him fluffy and cute.  The others were decorated with little eggs, like nests.

The kids were so excited to get started, it was impossible to get a great picture.

As soon, as we said go, they were running down the hill to the eggs!

Emma and Kyle were so excited to find the eggs with their name on them.

Drew wasn't quite sure what to do, 

but soon he figured out there was CANDY inside the eggs! 

 (It was really windy- his haid doesn't usually stick up QUITE that much!)

 It was a really fun party.

 My kids got in the car and said "That was the best day ever!"

The Party

We had Emma's birthday party yesterday.  She really wanted a Tinkerbell party, but then she chose to invite a few boys from church and school.  I thought they wouldn't appreciate being fairies, so we turned the party into a "Neverland" party.  I guess I tried to do too much for the party, though, because even though I worked like mad, I still didn't get everything done I wanted to, and I didn't get pictures before the party started.  My friend Anissa took the pictures we do have, so thanks to her for helping out.  You'll have to use your imagination for some of it.

As the guests arrived, they entered Pixie Hollow.  I hung a green sheets, a flower and a butterfly garland, tissue pom-pom balls, tulle, etc to try to create that fairy garden feel.  We also included the table for eating as part of Pixie Hollow.  There, the girls decorated a butterfly clip, while the boys made pirate spyglasses.

After the craft, I dressed everyone:  boys got bandannas and pirate eyepatches, and the girls got a fairy halo and fairy wings.

We made our way to the Mermaid Lagoon (our kiddie pool filled with blue and green balloons- no way was I doing water with 12 kids running around!  I also hung streamers like a waterfall and cut out some pictures of Disney mermaids to hang up).  There we played "Musical Fish"- like musical chairs.  Each child got a Pixie stick for playing, and the winner got some mermaid jewels (Ring Pop).

Then we went to the Pirate Cove (a blue tarp with fish taped on).  There they had to walk the plank- if they made it across they got some pirate booty- a gold chocolate coin.  After everyone had a turn, we put on pirate tattoos.

After that, they jumped around the Lost Boys Cave (trampoline) until lunch was ready.

 For lunch we had Hooks Hamburgers, Tinks Links (hot dogs), grapes, potato chips, strawberries (which were supposed to be cut up and decorated to look like ladybugs, but I ran out of time!), and magic pretzel wands (pretzel rods dipped in vanilla candy coating and covered in sprinkles).  I served Pixie Punch (pink lemondade) for a drink.

After eating and popping all the balloons in Mermaid Lagoon, Marcus was the hit of the party by spinning the kids around on our swing.  They loved it!

 Next, we opened presents!  Emma loved everything from her sweet friends.  Here's just a few of the pictures we took there.

We finished up by enjoying some cupcakes, and then the kids ran around until moms and dads picked them up!

On the way out, they got their goodie bags.  The girls got a pencil, an eraser, Tinkerbell stickers, more Pixie sticks, and a ribbon butterfly wand.  The boys got a pirate hook, pirate stickers, a compass, and more Pixie sticks.  Plus, everyone got to keep their dress up gear from the beginning of the party.

I think it went well- everyone seemed to have fun.  It was fun to get to know some of Emma's new friends from school, as well as enjoy time with some friends we've known for years!  At one point in Musical Fish it was just Emma, Kylie, and Taylor (all friends from church).   I realized those three had known each other since they were babies- I remember all of us moms being in THAT STAGE at church, where you end up sitting out in the foyer most of the time, talking about who was walking, and how they were growing, etc.  It's fun to see how much they've all grown up!  I'm glad they are still friends.


I am exhausted.  No more parties ever!  And if you believe that.....