Whhaat?

So Sarah watched M for me while I went to my super special Mother's Day luncheon and J's preschool. But right before we walked out the door to drop her off, she got into my lip gloss and schmeared it in her hair! I tried to wash it our real quick, but it was time to go, so I just spiked it up a bit. So I take M to Sarah, and when I got back this is what she looked like.





Punk hair, and makeup ta-boot.

Mother's Day

Nathan worked and had school on Mother's Day so I wasn't expecting much out of they day, but I got a nice surprise. J's preschool had a Mother's Day luncheon and it was completely adorably cute! They had tables set up in the backyard with a flower pot they painted, a picture frame of each kid, and a place mat made out of questions about Mom they had asked the kids. Questions like:

How old is your mom? 10
What is your mom's favorite movie? The one with the men on it.
What special message to you have for your mom? Hey, you forgot to put the toilet seat down!

So each of our kids found their picture frame and set the moms down at the table.


Then they sang us a few songs.


Then the kids brought us some yummy food!


And after brought us homemade ice cream sandwiches. Yummy!!!


It was super cute and J was so proud to help. Mrs. Greene and the other teachers do such an awesome job! I love this preschool.

Ash

Our poor dog Ash hasn't gotten a lot of attention since we've had kids. It's not like we put her out back and only see her to give her some food or anything like that, but the kids seem to make more noise and just draw our attention away. A few weeks ago I started jogging with a friend and Ash comes along. She could outrun us all 5x over, but even at our slow pace I think she is feeling like part of the group again. The kids are even starting to play with her. One of J's new jobs is to feed her and they both try to make her do tricks. She even listens to them when they bribe her with food. Here she is, in all her graying glory.

I hear it's your birthday!

I CANNOT believe J is four! How did this happen? I swear he was a little baby like two days ago. And now he's got a crazy big vocabulary and is jumping off retaining walls taller than he is. (sigh) So we had a little family party and will have a friends party with M next month when Nathan is out of school and can be there for sure.

We started off with a soothing activity to kids and adults alike.






J decided on a pajama/apron wearing party. Yep, he dressed himself.


Presents!


Sarah catching up on her Book of Mormon stories.




He looks like he's getting away with something...


He requested ice cream cake. That's my boy!




Behold, J's future.

Fieldtrip!

Remember when you were little and you got a chance to go on a field trip and it was the coolest thing in the whole wide world?!? I got to go on one with J and that was his totally innocent enthusiastic attitude. We packed a lot into a few short hours starting at the police department. We started inside where the kids got to sit and sit and check out the strange contrast between the cement building and the lush green foliage.

Then we walked around the back of the building where a very nice police lady pulled up in her police car and told the kids all about it. She showed them where the bad guys sit, the radar that catches speeders, where she keeps her gun, and of course the siren. Yep, it was loud.


And then they got to climb through the back seat. J, if you're ever in the back seat of a police car again...


Afterwards we headed to the grocery store where we say behind the scenes and got a snack, then to the bowling ally. Fun, fun, fun!

Blond Moment

Ok, did you notice that my last 30-something photos are all pixely and funny looking? I've been totally skipping a step in my photo editing/posting process without even realizing it. See, I usually resize the pictures smaller myself instead of letting the blogging program do it. If I skip that simple to do but apparently forgetful step, the pictures turn a little funky. Oops!

In other news, the Moon/Twohy family invited us over for enchiladas yesterday and they were magically delicious.

Now off to decide if I should repost all 30+ pics...

Down to less than a month behind!

April was a very mellow month and I don't think we did a whole lot of anything. Wait! Did I say mellow? What I meant to say was the kids tried to throw a rebellion and it was all I could do to keep them under control so we didn't go out and do a whole lot of anything. I say I because Nathan had tons going on at work and school and we didn't see a whole lot of him this month. M is almost two now and her independent colors are showing through. Don't get me wrong...she's a sweety, but when she's in a mood, she's in a mood! J is usually a really good kid, but entered into a see how much I can sneak into things and still get away with it phase. I had this strange suspicion that J must have been sneaking the string cheese out of the fridge, but he helped me to understand that it was Mr. Nobody taking it out, eating it on the couch and leaving the wrappers strewn about. I told J that maybe he should at least help Mr. Nobody hide the evidence deep in the garbage can. He thought that was a good idea.

Here's the kids with Grandpa Jim. M was in one of her moods.




And we did venture out to the zoo with our friends Sammy and Shaunika.


J was totally upset he forgot his sunglasses, but Sammy was a sweety and let him borrow his.

You should have seen his gnarly teeth.


Can you find me?


At the end of the zoo loop there is a playground for the kids. Don't they look sweet? And by the beginning of July they should have baby #2. Yay!


M was basically uninterested in the playground. But who needs toys when you can explore nature's carefully manicured foliage?

Bu-By March

Here are the last pics I have from March of my fabulous kiddos, that is until I find the Easter egg dying pics.

M LOVES her backpack. J has one that he brings to preschool, and M clued in pretty quickly that taking your backpack with you is the big kid thing to do. She got this one for Christmas and it has hardly been left home alone since.

And that's a coin purse she's holding. But she just thinks it's a super-cool plastic butterfly.

Ok, J is a skinny little man. He is naturally a thin kid, plus he is totally obsessed with exercise and has a nice little boy six pac. But he is not a shortie, so when he wears pants that are long enough for him, they're too big in the waist. I finally found a belt for him, but on the last notch it's only as tight as his pants. I guess I need to feed him more ice cream and hope he gets fat enough for his pants to stay up.


I looked up from taking pics of the kids and this is what I saw.

Isn't he looking all sweet and sugaree? : )

And then the last member of our little family tried to charge me.

But I held my ground and she dodged away at the last second.

I don't know how anyone gets a nice picture of two year olds. They know you want something out of them, and being in the terrible-two state they are in, they rebel against you and secretly laugh behind your back.


But almost four year olds and somewhat well trained dogs, and sometimes even husbands usually cooperate pretty well and may even give you 5.3 seconds to take a couple of pictures.




Yay! March is done, and now I'm only 1.5 months behind. Coming soon...April.

More, more, more...

More long lost pics from March.


You should see the other guy. Arrrhhh!

Then we wiped away the fight and brewed up some home-made root beer, which happens to be just about the best tasting thing you could drink...ever. It reminds me of girls camp every summer. They always made us root beer. That's Aunt Jane to the left and Mom to the right and M stretching out after the brawl.




So back to Easter. Where in the world are my egg dying pics!?! It's like the Carmen San Diego game. They are lost in the abyss that is my computer. I am actually really meticulous about organizing my photos, but someone who was not me, that might live in the same house as me, and is over the age of 5 (but I'm not saying who), may have been really sweet and nice and downloaded the photos for me, and I'm not sure where they might have been put. I know they're there because I've seen them, I just didn't see where they got put. They'll show up one of these days.

But the good news is, I have my pics from Easter morning.
Here is Nathan really enjoying the moment.


He's hard to outdo, but here are the kids enjoying the moment even more.


...and their faces stuffed with Easter candy.


From there we got ready for church, went to church, came home, napped (except J, or course), then went to Grandma and Grandpa's house for an uber delicious ham dinner because there is no other dinner to eat on Easter than HAM. Yum. I love traditions.

March

Ok, forget February. I was good in February and can now move on to March. Spring weather arrived in March and the kids and I started spending a lot more time outside. Here are the crazy faces of my outdoorsey children.







And with spring comes spring flowers.


And then there was St. Patrick's Day, that wonderful Irish holiday when the leprechauns come out to play, little trouble makers that they are. One day we will catch one and convince it to share it's secrets, like how to get to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. We came close this year. It ran out so fast is spilled a trail of money from our trap clear out the front door.






And that's March.

Oh wait, wasn't Easter in March this year? Now were did those pictures wonder off to. I know we took a lot of them. I'll be back with colored eggs and purple-fingered children.

Here we go...

As promised...backposting...here is what I missed waaaaayyy back in January.

This was the morning Uncle Peter was going back to Louisiana after Christmas, which calls, of course, for last minute pictures. No, we did not procrastinate bath time so long that J was gooey enough for scraps of paper to stick, he saved his In 'N Out Burger stickers and went a little nuts with them on this morning.





And here is the ever so patient (snickering in sarcasm) Nathan holding my camera bag for me. But really, he was patient on this particular day.


I know we weren't cleaning the garage, but I think J might have been hinting that we should.


Ohhh, and bowling. We went bowling and J loved it and we had so much fun! We should join a bowling league. Do they have some kind of families with little kids who all really suck at bowling leagues?






And if you come to visit us and we all congregate at Grandma and Grandpas and the kids eat lots of sugar, this might happen to you... They love their Auntie Sarah!


Alrighty, there's January. Coming soon: February