Easter

Sorry, this is late as usual. My card reader on my computer doesn't work and I'm kinda too attached to my computer to let go of it long enough to get it fixed. Jason's parents kindly got us a card reader but as luck would have it, it seems that the slot to read the card for my camera doesn't work. Freaking LAME. Anyway so it takes me effort to get pictures off of my memory card to blog. So please forgive me.

I will start by telling you, there are no pictures of the kids in their Easter Outfits. As life would have it, rather than taking pictures after church with the kids in their Easter outfits as planned, we spent the afternoon in the Emergency Room with Tab, which is another post for another day. I'll try to get pictures of them next Sunday.

The neighborhood we live in held a little Easter egg hunt. The boys had a blast. Paisley, well, she enjoyed playing with her one plastic egg and her bucket.
Sorry about the blur, you can't control what you get when some random person takes the picture for you.We, meaning mostly Jason, enjoyed dying eggs with the boys. To be honest, this is the first year that we actually got around to dying the eggs before Easter. Wahoo!
We bought a "marbling" kit which was a mistake because you have to swirl the egg in the dye. That was just asking for trouble. But the boys enjoyed it and we just did our best to regulate.Jason's family has a tradition that the Easter Bunny leaves a trail of Jelly Beans to where their Easter Baskets are hidden, so we have continued the tradition. Jason decided to be the goober that he is and pretend like they were rabbit droppings. Lucky for me I had the camera already in my hand!The boys thought that that was rockin'!They were ecstatic about the water guns. Can you tell that they already have a mouthful of jelly beans.Unfortunately our hunt had to be inside as it had rained all night.But they didn't care.
Tab was very proud to have found the last egg.

Spring Has Sprung!

I think that we may truly be into Spring! We have had some super nice weather intermixed with some rainy days. Sounds like Spring to me. So we have been taking every opportunity to get out and enjoy the sunshine. We kicked Jason out of the garage so that we could bring all of the "outside" toys out of the basement. Benton jumped on the trike for the first time this year and is figuring out the pedaling thing pretty quickly. The steering thing is another story.Pais has enjoyed the sunshine too. She however does NOT enjoy the breeze that we get.So we occasionally spend some of our time sitting on the garage steps.
Isn't she a doll?

Loves

I love how Tab and Benton are truly best friends. Don't get me wrong, they go at it plenty. But in the end, they really are best friends.

Here Tab had grandma's Ipod touch and was teaching Benton how to play one of the games.Occasionally I'll let the boys watch a cartoon on the Laptop that resides in the kitchen/dining room. They just pull couch cushions over and chill. It makes for good snuggle time.

At Last

Since moving to Michigan Tab had been a completely different child. Let's just say he was awful. We tried a lot of different things to make a change but nothing we were trying was working. We finally found something that worked and it was pretty much his idea!

I had purchased a pad of paper with days of the week on it that was magnetic and was just hanging on the fridge. Later Tab did something really noteworthy and GOOD! I was praising him for it and he asked me to write it down that I would remember to tell dad when he got home. So I grabbed the pad and wrote it down. And that is how it started. Every time he did something good he started asking me to write it down. Then he started trying extra hard to do things that would be worthy of writing down. After a while he asked what would happen when his list was full? So we told him he could pick out a new transformer when his list was full. After about a month and a half he had a full list and he couldn't have been prouder.

What a Goober

When Tab returns papers to school, he gets to pick something out of the "treasure box". He ALWAYS makes sure to pick something for Benton too! What a thoughtful brother. Well he recently brought these home. I think that Dad had more fun with them than the boys did.The boys sure got a kick out of it.

What a Ham!

This little girl loves to have her picture taken. If she sees the camera, she giggles and pops out a big ole smile. When the tongue comes out you know your in for a treat! And can I just say home much I love this stinking bib. My awesome friend Melanie made it for me. Thanks Mel!

The Current Fight in our House

Is over which boy is going to marry this sweet little girl. Both Tab and Benton are completely smitten with her.Jason was on call on a Wednesday night, so I had to bring the kids with me to Young Women's. Madison carried Benton around pretty much all night. She would go to put him down and he would cling to her. I seriously get asked about 20 times each week if they can go over to Madison's house. I'm sure this won't be the last girl they fight over.

A Visit

As I mentioned, Jason's parents came for a visit recently. We always love a visit from grandparents. Benton has become particularly attached to Grandpa. It has been about 2 weeks since their visit I believe and Benton still asks if he can go wake grandpa up when he gets up in the morning. No one else is important when grandpa is around.And as usual the boys were spoiled rotten by grandma. They each got a HUGE stuffed animal. Benton got "Brown Bear" and Tab got Harry the Duck. He is carried absolutely everywhere. Here is Benton when he was protesting naptime at the base of the door.I had to push him over with the door to get in the room. What a silly kid.

"When your the best of friends...."

..do do de do de do... (You know that song from the Fox and the Hound right?)

A few weekends ago we went to spend the weekend with some of our best friends. It was a blast. We started out by feeding our kids and putting them to bed. Then Sarah and I made a yummy dinner just for the adults. We had Fusilli a la Caprese, Spinach Salad, Honey Glazed Carrots and Parsnips, with some yummy bread and Carrabba's Bread Dipping spices. It was fabulous. We just chatted and enjoyed our meal without having to mess with the kids. (Isn't is rude that Sarah doesn't even look pregnant in this picture.) The next day we took the kids sledding.Shortly after this picture was taken, Tab and I were bucked off of the tube. We learned that the best route was to go down the side of the hill, not the middle where it was like moguls.Tab and Alex really enjoyed goofing off together.Sarah and BekahAgain. I just love this picture.Matt and Alex
It isn't playing in the snow unless you make snow angels.Benton just being Benton.
Poor kid doesn't have snow boots so he just had his rain boots on with an extra pair of socks. When we got back to the car and removed his boots, his feet were soaked and freezing. So we put daddy's gloves on them to try to warm them up.Holy brrrrr, it was cold.Paisley miraculously doesn't remember any of it because she somehow managed to fall asleep!

Getting My Craft on

I've had a few people ask what projects I've been working on lately. I honestly don't feel like I have been getting a very good crafting fix lately, but I do have a few finished projects to share.

I saw this cute felt watch cuff on some random crafty blog recently, and can't seem to find it to link you up, sorry. I just knew that I had to make one for the boys. The boys both LOVE wearing some sort of a bracelet at all times and Tab has really really really been wanting a watch. So in about 30 minutes I whipped up this super cute watch cuff for him. The one I saw used a velcro closure, but I used snaps. I presented it to Tab and he took one look at it and said he didn't want it because he wanted a watch that ticked. Lucky for me Benton wasn't so picky. I was sad though. I've made a lot of things for my kids and they have always loved them. This was the first time Tab has turned up his nose at something I made him.
I finally got around to making a cover for the changing table pad. It was in pretty bad shape. You can see how cracked and torn the plastic was. There were several spots that were cracked.I took it apart and trimmed the cracked plastic. Then I sewed some plastic that I had leftover from a different craft over top of the holes. I also added an additional layer of batting as the mat was getting kind of flat. Then I sewed it back together.Then I sewed a cover out of some yummy brown corduroy that I had sitting around. The best part is that it matches both the girl and boy crib bedding that we have, so we're set either way if we have another kid. I also made these with my fellow Young Women leaders for the girls to take home from New Beginnings. Again, I found the idea from some random blog but don't remember where. But we changed it a little by adding the wires to the top with the ribbons so that they could hang them if they want to. They have this year's theme on them, "Be strong and of a good courage..."Um, did I mention that we made 50 of them!I have a few other done that I just don't have pictures of yet and others that have yet to be finished. I'm sure that I'll post them soon.

Hockey!

Hockey seems to be a big thing here in Michigan. The boys got free tickets to the Grand Rapids Griffins for participating in the libraries summer reading program, so we finally got around to going. We left Paisley with a babysitter so that we could really enjoy the time with the boys.The game started out with the mascots driving out on the ice. That got the boys attention.They did really good. They enjoyed watching for a bit. Mostly Tab thought it was awesome when the fights would break out.The boys really had fun. We enjoyed spending the time together.
They loved it so much that when Jason's parents were in town recently, they took us to another game.Much better seats this time.
It just so happened to be Star Wars Night. Tab was quite intrigued by the guy in the red cloak. He wanted to know who he was and I couldn't help him out with that one.The boys loved their light sabers. Benton spent some time riding it like a horse.
They enjoyed the mascot too.I thought I got a picture of the little kids that came out and scrimmaged between periods. Alas. I think that this may have been Tab's favorite part. He was like, "why do those kids get to play?" He has told me several times that he wants skates and to play ice hockey. Perhaps we'll enroll him in floor hockey at the Y and see what he thinks.