Easter

Sunday was Easter. Lucy was really nice and wrote all the Easter Bunny notes since I was out the night before. She even wrote her own but I went in and changed it. I didn't want her to already know where her basket was hidden. She hid Ruby's in the bathroom since we talk about potty training Ruby(although I have made zero efforts to do so). Penny's was hidden by the couch where she is always reading. Ben's was hidden behind the dining room bench where he is always gaming. Steven's was hidden by the cereal since he only leaves his room for snacks and meals. 

For Easter Ruby got a Jesus Tonie (I painted a creative tonie and added some christian kids music on it), a couple books and dvds I had thrifted, and magnetic tiles.

For Easter Penny got a lanyard for her temple recommend, a Christian shirt ("let your light shine"), a small rabbit lego set, a house for her fairy garden, a cheesy mormon movie and "Lilo and Stitch" dvd.

For Easter Ben got more cards for our Dixit Game, a new card game, a small chick lego set, a Christian shirt (Bacon is another reason I know Jesus loves me) and the "Sons of Provo" DVD (the one I bought last year didn't work and this one also didn't work, I quit!)

For Easter Lucy got an Easter Lego set, houses for her fairy garden, a Christian shirt (Jesus Math), a cheesy Mormon movie and Zootopia.

For Easter Steven got a funny shirt (Jesus took naps, be like Jesus), an Easter Lego set, a fancy pencil and various treats.

For Easter I got 2 lego sets (an Italy postcard and a cactus), a drawing book, and various treats.

For Easter Tlyer got a Harry Potter Sorting Hat Lego Set, a DND book, an extended dvd of the 2nd Lord of the Rings movie and some treats.

For breakfast I made bacon and monkey bread. The monkey bread was a hit for everyone but Penny. The minute she heard bread in the title she decided she was unwilling to try it. It's silly because she eats things very similary to it.

We had a pretty relaxed Easter Sunday. The kids watched their new Mormon movies and we watched Conference. We had our traditional Easter meal for dinner- pita bread, ground turkey, fish sticks, fruit and grape juice. I did forget the fig newtons though and Steven was sad about that- he is probably my only kid that likes them. I don't love when we have conference on Easter Sunday because conference falls during dinner time so it makes cooking a special easter meal awkward in timing. I ended up cooking it during the first half of conference and then we paused conference so we could eat. The food hit the spot though and made for good leftovers the rest of the week.

Monday I took Ruby to Grace's salon for a little trim. Ruby is always so cooperative for her. Grace definitely does a better job of shaping Ruby's hair than I do. It looks good. It was fun to watch Ruby clip clop in her little heels through the salon. She got a lot of admiring looks.

Tuesday Ruby and I went to storytime.  We happened to sit by friendly people again. I learned that the lady on one side of me is the nanny. I always thought she was the grandma because of how much she seems to love the little girl she watches. The mom on the other side of me was a young mom of two. Her little boy was very sweet and gave me lots of smiles. We talked about my kids age gap and how she has a sister who is much younger than her and is her best friend. Then I met a grandma, she was next to the young mom. She seemed genuinely interested in learning about me. Nice people. I know I will see the nanny again because she is pretty much always there but who knows if I will see the other 2.

Tuesday night I went to Grace's. It was one of those nights where neither of us had much to say so it was a quieter night. I notice that we just have those kinds of nights sometimes and that's ok.

Wednesday morning I took Penny in to get her braces. Originally she was really excited to get them, but every time she expressed her enthusiasm to others, they felt it was their job to tell her how much it would hurt to have braces. People can be frustrating. So instead of being excited, she went in nervous. The process was long so I left for an hour and when I came back, they were finishing up. They did things weird. She has brackets on all her teeth, but only wires in the bottom teeth because they put an expander on the Roof of her mouth. I don't know why they couldn't have done the expander first and then put brackets on afterwards. I probably should have asked more questions about their exact process because this way seems unefficient and makes her top teeth look really awkward. It's going to be a lot of awkward pictures for the next few years for sure. 

Wednesday evening Penny started soccer practice again. I decided to take Ruby along and we dropped off Penny and then went to Milford Central Park. We ended up spending the whole 2 hours there. It was a little on the cool side weather wise, but Ruby really loves being outside and climbing and playing on things. She was funny because she wasn't scared of climbing up tricky ladders but she was terrified of going down some of the bigger slides at first. Ruby also saw a grandma playing peekabo with her granddaughter and Ruby tried to join in and the grandma did not seem to love her butting in. It was awkward.

Thursday I did some really fun deep cleaning- under the fridge, oven, couches and I picked up things in our yard- and then at noon I meet Kara at the mall. Ruby was very opinionated and didn't want to walk much. We ended up spending a good chunk of time at the play area. We talked about all sorts of things but I feel like just as the conversation started to go a little deeper (into religion and things(, she needed to get Amelia home for a nap. It was too bad because I really do prefer deeper conversations. The timing was awkward because I really didn't have time to go home but I was too early to pick up the girls. I ended up taking a long drive hoping Ruby would nap in the car but she did not. So I finally stopped at a park and let her play for 10 minutes and then it was time to pick up the girls. 

After I got back from picking up the girls, Julie came by with Asher. We let the toddler play outside for a bit and then Ruby wanted to go on a walk so we did. Asher helped push Ruby for a good bit (he only pushed her into a parked car once).

Julie kind of dominated the conversation with things going on in her life but I didn't mind. Sometimes it's nice to not feel like you have to run a conversation. I was ok with mostly just listening. We ended up stopping at the dock and we let our toddlers play in the shallow water. Don't worry, she has shorts on under that dress. She did try to strip afterwards but I made her wear her wet clothes home. I am so mean.

As if I hadn't gotten enough steps in already Thursday, I decided to walk the girls to seven eleven after dinner. It was just such a nice day and that seems to be the only way I can get them outside. It was a nice walk and the kids all got fun red tongues from Ruby's slurpee. 

Friday night I watched a weird, creepy movie with Lucy and Ben, "The Boy". It was about a doll that seems to come to life but we find out later it's actually being moved by a person living in the walls. The twist has some flaws but Ben and Lucy seemed properly creeped out by the movie. They really love watching stuff like that. Should I be worried?

Saturday I made everyone (except Steven who could not be convinced) go with me to the Detroit Institute of Art. I promised they wouldn't have to stay long. I just really wanted to get out of the house and didn't want to go alone. We stayed about an hour and saw some cool things. There was a Rome exhibit and it was cool to see art that reminded of us our trip and we saw some paintings of places we had actually been too. The kids were slightly traumatized by the nude artwork but they also saw some things they were impressed by- like armor, swords, daggers and mummies. They even saw some things that reminded them of things they had learned about in their history class. It was a good outing and filled my itch to get out. The only hiccup was when Tyler accidentally went down the wrong way on a one way road on our way out of the parking garage. Of course their happened to be a cop right there. He was nice and didn't give Tyler a ticket but he also told Tyler he was welcome to donate to the Detroit police dept if he wanted too. Yeah, ok.

Later that afternoon I took the younger 4 to see the 2nd Super Mario Movie. This was Penny's first ever movie in the theater. She did great for the first half of the movie but got wiggly and a bit noisy for the second half. I pretty much had to keep feeding her candy to keep her quiet. I don't know if it was that the movie wasn't a great fit for her or if she is just not quite ready for theaters.

Ruby is getting quite talented and can now draw ghosts;). She also is going through a licking phase and I do not love it. She will literally try to lick my face and has been successful a couple times- blech. I tried to explain to her that we only lick ice cream, lollipops and popsicles but then that just makes her ask me relentlessly for all those things. I have also tried to explain that only cats and dogs lick but then she says she is a cat or dog. She is hopeless. I wonder if I need to introduce a bar of a soap?

Palm Sunday and Spring Break

This past Sunday was Ben's real birthday and also Palm Sunday. Since General Conference will be on Easter Sunday, we had our special Easter Service. The morning felt hectic because we needed to celebrate Ben's day by letting him open gifts but I also had to make sure everyone's hair and clothes were on point for the family picture we always take on our special Easter service. So in all the chaos I failed to get a picture of Ben with his gifts. His big gift was tickets to a "Weird Al" concert in July. Then he got some candy, a giftcard for Steam from my parents, and money from Tyler's parents. 

The service itself was ok. Our congregation is small these days so our choirs are small and not so mighty. And I was a bit distracted by Ruby's shenanigans so I didn't get too much out of the talks. But we looked all cute and matchy so there's that.

After church we decorated our Easter Bunny Cake as per tradition. It felt like a fitting thing to do on Ben's birthday. They made it creepy as always.

After dinner we celebrated Ben's birthday with some cupcakes. I can't believe I have another driver in the house! He is a good kid. I am gratefulness for how he is always willing to do things with his siblings and is a unifier in a our home.

This week was Spring Break for the kids. I figured with all of them home to help watch Ruby, this was a good chance for me to go on a little road trip with Grace. So on Monday Grace and I went back to the Dollar Book Swap store in Ohio that we had gone to on our girls trip the previous summer. We wanted to stock up on some more books. It was a bit of a drive, 3.5 hours, but we had some good talks. We also had some eventful events. First, about an hour in, the exit to a freeway we were supposed to get on was closed. I am usually directionally challenged but I managed to navigate us to a road that ran parallel to the freeway and eventually we were able to get on the freeway. Slightly stressful but we figured it out. The second eventful event was that a piece of her car just randomly flew off while we were on the freeway- like it didn't want to live anymore. I think it was the windshield molding? Whatever it was it was a little noisy and shocking when it flew off but nothing detrimental. 

We spent two hours at the book store and I mostly stocked up on books for Ruby- eveything is $1.50 and they have a huge kids selection. I did also find a couple good books for me- one with paintings that reminded me of my Italy trip. I didn't find the books that Penny wanted me to get but I did find one I thought she might like- she did end up liking it and finished it quickly. It was a successful outing. After our shopping we got a very late lunch at a Mexican place. The food was good, tasted fresh. Then we hit up a thrift store. I didn't end up getting anything but Grace had some good finds. After that it was time to head home. We didn't take any pictures but it was a really nice daytrip and a good little escape from life. 

On Tuesday I was going to clean the house but the weather was really good so I decided on a last minute trip to the Toledo Zoo. Lucy wasn't interested in going, but I managed to get Penny and Ben to join Ruby and me. It really was a beautiful day and we saw lots of fun animals. I wonder if you can spot the leopard in the picture on the left below.

Ruby was very excited to go to the aquarium there and she wanted to stare at these jellyfish forever. There were more jellyfish in the aquarium but she seemed less excited by them for some reason. 

The owls were making some funny faces at us so Penny managed to get some good pictures of them. We also got to watch the baby orangutan make a mess with some shredded paper. So cute!

I got the kids some french fries to snack on while we were there and below is the pose Ruby gave me when I asked to take a picture of her. It's like she is a Queen waving at us. All in all it was a great zoo day. We left after a couple hours because a storm was supposed to roll in and we did not want to get caught up in it (there was a chance of tornadoes). We lucked out and made it home without encountering any crazy weather.

Tuesday after dinner I took Ruby and Penny to the library, while Tyler went out shooting with Ben and Lucy. Ruby was playing with a little boy who was missing a hand and at one point she must have noticed the missing hand because she just stared at where it should have been with a puzzled look. A day or 2 later she said to me "mom, my friend had no hand"- like it had just dawned on her what was missing.

Tuesday evening we watched the 1987 movie "The Gate". It was weird as heck but definitely one we will laugh about later. There was a part where the kid gets hurtled from the house and it was obviously a manequin spinning in circles. We rewatched that part severalt times and had a good laugh. 

Wednesday morning I took the kids to Dave and Busters. They have half price games on Wednesdays and I am not sure why we have never come on a Wednesday before. It sure helped our money to go further. The kids had a lot of luck and Penny won a roll of 500 tickets and Lucy won 4 stuffies out of a claw machine. Ben also won a stuffie out of the same claw machine. It's not like we raelly needed more stuffies but Ruby sure enjoyed lugging around all the stuffies. I failed to take a picture of her carrying them around. She was kind of prone to fit throwing while we were there so it wasn't my favorite outing but I think Penny, Lucy and Ben had a good time. Ruby ended up getting a bucket of kinetic sand with her tickets which she has loved making messes with since bringing it home. The other kids got some candy and other misc junk with their tickets.

After we were done there, I made them go with me to Barnes and Nobles because it was close by. I know I just bought a ton of books Monday but they didn't have any drawing books and I was on the hunt for some for myself. I probably should not have dragged the kids there because Ruby was still being fussy. It was tricky trying to look at things while Ruby cried for me to buy her everything, but I managed to find myself one drawing book. The big kids were nice and took her to the car while I was checking out. 

Wednesday we had our traditional April Fool's dinner. All the food is in code and they order 3 things for every course but they don't know what they are actually ordering. Everyone had a pretty disappointing first course- a couple of them got toppings for the ice cream but no ice cream. Most of them got bowls but no spaghetti. Lucy also got parmesan and no spaghetti. It always fun to see what they'll get. Then they reversed roles and served me. I ended up with spaghetti and no bowl for my first course. This year it felt less stressful, I think I am finally getting a system down. It helps when they write their order for each course before we start and then I can translate it and be ready for when we begin.

Thursday we all had a very chill morning. I slept in, worked on a puzzle, ran to a thrift store where I found a bunch of Disney movies we didn't have. That afternoon Penny went to Mimi's house. Ben had been hoping to hang with Andrea that afternoon, but she ended up ditching him so I took him to Chuck E Cheese instead. I was grateful Lucy watched Ruby so I could go hang with him. We had fun playing arcade games together. When we got back from Chuck E Cheese Ben was complaining he had nothing to do so I told him he could go pick up Penny from Mimi's and he immediately said yes. I was shocked because I am so used to Steven who is never willing to do stuff like that. Having Ben as a driver is going to be pretty great.

Later that afternoon Lucy's friend Jenna came over for a sleepover. I took them to Target and then we all came home and made Peep houses (one of our newer traditions). I failed to invite Steven to make houses with us because he is always so negative about doing things with us (like he had no interest in going to Dave and Busters) but he came downstairs and seemed offended that we hadn't invited him. I think that really he had just wanted to eat the candy.

Friday Tyler had off work so we ran a couple errands together in the morning. Then that afternoon I took Jenna and Lucy to the rollerskating rink. Jenna's mom, Stacey, met us there and we chatted while the girls skated in circles. It is so loud at the roller skating rink so conversing with someone feels a bit like a chore- you have to speak louder than normal. So that drained me a bit but still it was nice to catch up with Stacey.

That evening the older 4 all did Baptisms at the Temple so Tyler, Ruby and I got some quality time together. We ended up going to another bookstore because I am obsessed with finding drawing books. Tyler was nice and watched Ruby so I could look at books. Then we went out for dinner at Chili's. Ruby was actually pretty well behaved and it was a nice meal out.

Saturday morning I had a few last minute Easter errands to run and then we watched General Conference at noon. Ruby felt everyone needed a bucket on their head in order to properly watch Conference. Steven pretty much slept on the floor the whole time. Maybe some of the messages are getting through his subconscious.

After the first session of conference we had Mimi over and Cherish's family over for an Easter Egg Hunt. I didn't do anything for the boys because I felt like their friends didn't really appreciate what I did last year. Although now I feel bad because Ben probably would have liked to have done something. The girls spread some Easter eggs out in the lawn for Ruby and Izzy to find. Ruby was finally old enough to enjoy hunting for eggs (as long as they weren't too hard to find).

Then I had an indoor scavenger hunt for the girls. They split into 2 teams. Penny, Mimi and Luna were team pink. Lucy and Geli were team Orange. I hid 10 paper clues/riddles around the house. Each clue/riddle led to the next one (fan, couch, pillow, etc). For each clue/riddle they solved, they got an Easter egg and the final clue took them a basket full of prizes from the Dollar Tree. Some clues were more challenging than others but overall I think it was the right amount of challenge and I think it was a nice way to change up our Easter Egg Hunts.

After they were done with that, the girls all hung out for a bit. We chatted with Cherish and Roberto and I got to see firsthand the challenges of having a special needs kid. Izzy is very full of joy and enthusiasm for all the things but she is also very needy and requires a lot of attention. Cherish is an amazing mom and I admire her patience with Izzy. They were very grateful to us for allowing their whole family to join us and I am glad we could do that for them,

After they left we watched the next session of General Conference. During the session Ruby played with her doll house and it was cute to see her have her toy figures knock on the door to the house and watch her let them in. 

Then that night, Tyler and I went over to Grace's for a couple's game night with the usual crew. The first game we played, What Do You Meme?, was not the best. I was losing big time which isn't that fun but not only were my cards not getting picked, but the cards I picked were getting insulted. It hurt my pride and I may have acted like a sore loser because of it. Not my favorite moment. Afterwards we played Itzi and things lightened up and felt more fun. Then we chatted for a long while about various things. Jason is really pushing doing some sort a night where we try gross foods- they want to call it a Dark Pot Luck. I think instead of gross foods, we should do weird foods that actually taste good We will see if anything ever pans out. Jason also got talking about a weird family at our church. One of the things I loved about our crew was the lack of gossiping because we run in different circles. I didn't love this change in conversation so I feel weird about the whole night but we did have some pretty good belly laughs during it. 

And I will end with an inappropriate Ruby story that I feel I should document... Lucy and Jenna were playing video games and Lucy shouted "What the butt!?" and Ruby in turn shouted "What the f**k!?" I would like to think that "butt" just came out wrong since we don't say that word in our house. It was defintely shocking to hear that come out of her little mouth.