Busy Easter Saturday

The Saturday before Easter was filled with all sorts of Easter fun! We started it off with our Ward Easter Party in the park by our neighborhood. We go every year and the kids love it! Tyler was even able to join us for part of it before leaving for a hike with the Scouts.

First we had a yummy breakfast and then they had something new- a train ride! The "train" was made from dollies and water barrels and was pulled by an ATV. All the kids loved it and it was a constant fight to get on it- here are the boys with one of the girls in the Ward:

After the train did a few rounds it was time for the "hat" parade. Some women in the Ward had on some nice Easter bonnets,and then lots of the kids joined in by putting their Easter baskets on their heads. Of course my boys are followers and did this too:

Then it was time for the Easter lesson:

And then off the kids went to get their 10 allotted eggs. This year Ben was not shy about getting eggs at all and he found 10 no problem (not hard when they are all strewn about in a field):

 Here's Steven with his bestest friend, Colin:

After the Easter egg hunt it was time to dye Easter eggs and this year the boys made monster Easter eggs. It was a fun change for them. (And please excuse Ben's gross shirt, he seems to think that a shirt makes a good tissue):

Then Ben decided to make some Easter Bunnies. (Steven had made some with me a few days earlier while Ben was napping so he wasn't interested in making anymore). I love that Ben kept putting the pants on the bunnies' heads :)

And after eating lunch we decorated some Easter/Spring cookies. Ben is still way more about eating the frosting and cookies rather than actually decorating and Steven is still into squirting piles of gel icing onto the cookies. But fun and tastiness was had by all:

Ben's Birthday Date

For Ben's actual birthday I took him on a date to Build-A-Bear. I was hoping that some one-on-one time with Ben might get him to open up with me a bit (lately he's mostly just chatty with Steven) but, he was still my sweet, quiet, shy child (thankfully the "Told you!" attitude of last week has faded).

When we got there he was all grins. They asked him if he wanted a pair of bunny ears and more grinning so on the ears went. Then when I asked which animal he wanted, more grins. I would point to one and he would just smile. The 2 that he reacted to with a smile AND a "yes"- a pink bear and a penguin. So penguin it was!

Then it was time to stuff the penguin. I love how the worker was so friendly with him and kept asking him questions and all he did was stare at her with a smile as though he was some mute child. Also when the worker asked him to kiss the heart before they put it in the penguin he took it from her and put where the heart should go. And then kissed it. He seemed very surprised when she then took it from him and stuck it in the penguin's back. That's not where hearts go!

After stuffing the penguin and giving it a "bath" it was time to pick an accessory for the penguin. I told him he could have one thing but he kept just walking around with a smile and giving me no response to anything I showed him. A worker tried to steer him towards some things for a bit too but his quiet grinning finally frightened her off too. SO I was about to call it quits and just go buy the penguin when he grabbed a Fedora hat! Absolutely the PERFECT accessory for a penguin that already has a bow tie- excellent job Ben!

Once the penguin was made we met daddy over at Red Robin's for a birthday lunch. Bad idea. Apparently everyone who was on holiday for Good Friday was there and it was packed! We waited 20 minutes to sit down and at least 30 minutes to get our food. By the time we got the food, it was nap time for Ben and he was very sleepy. Not fussy sleepy, just tired sleepy- 

so tired he didn't even want to eat his pizza! Poor kid! 

In the picture below, I asked him to show me how old he is now. I can't believe I have a 10 year old!

He filled up some of the wait time by taking pictures of daddy- pretty good job for a 3 year old!

I love my Benny boy and was so glad I got to spend some one-on-one time with him for his third birthday, even if it didn't go exactly as planned.

Ben's Pirate Bird Party

This Sunday we celebrated Ben's birthday with the family. His birthday isn't until Friday but it'll be Easter weekend so this Sunday just worked out better.

Ben wanted a Pirate birthday so of course all the boys (and even Lucy) had to get their pirate tattoo's on. I love that his cousin Bryson insisted on getting his right on the middle of his forehead.

Tyler got back into cake making this birthday and made Ben's pirate boat cake. SO much better than anything I could ever make!!!

Little Ben loved his cake

Once again we had issues during the singing of "Happy Birthday." For some reason Ben seemed to think that when the song ended that meant it was time to go. So instead of blowing out the candle he left his seat and his cousin Miles blew it out for him.

So we had to relight the candle and do a redo:

We had more drama when Tyler decided to set down his very heavy present...right on Ben's fingers. It was so sad! But by the time he opened the gift, he was recovered, happy and ready for more presents!

And after opening gifts, Ben got to cut and pig out on cake. I love that even though he didn't get a fork right away, he didn't let that stop him from eating the cake- nope- he just put his face in the cake and chowed down. I wish I had gotten a picture of that!

Life This Week

Yesterday we finally declared Ben "potty trained" and gave him his prize, a Mr. Freeze house!

And then he had 3 tiny accidents that same day...Argh! So I threatened to reclaim his awesome prize if he has an accident again and so far today he has been dry. 

Ben has really had some major attitude lately. His favorite sentence start off this week: "Told you..." Ways he has used it "Told you I didn't have pee." "Told you I was thirsty." " And what he really should say "Told you I'm being a brat." Because he's making me crazy!

Steven and Ben have been having sharing issues. Steven might be playing with one of Ben's toys or Ben might be playing with one of Steven's and then- fight! They grab it out of their brother's hand and scream, "That's mine!" And then crying ensues. After the millionth melt down I had had enough, I took all their toys, put them in the play room and locked the door. No more toys! And Steven's response? He raided my linen's cupboard and made his own little bed which also acts as a trampoline. As seen below:

My new solution to the sharing problem... I had a big talk with them about how everything is really not ours since God made us this world. And I talked about how God would want us to share our things. And we talked about what Jesus would do. And then we (more like I) determined that if we are going to fight over a toy (and not use our nice words to figure out who should play with it) then we can give the toy to someone who doesn't have toys and will appreciate it. So far, they have only lost one toy so maybe it's working!?

I let Lucy girl cry it out a 2 nights ago- it lasted almost an hour and was awful! So last night I was weak and went and fed her. This girl truly has me wrapped around her fingers already! I'm hoping maybe she'll just outgrow that one middle of the night feeding by herself because I really do miss sleeping through the night :( 

And last note, today we went to Boeing open house with my brother. The boys had a blast (is it any wonder since snow cones, cotton candy and chips were all involved). I enjoyed seeing my brother's cubicle and leaving silly notes in it, eating the yummy Firehouse sub, seeing the helicopter flight simulator, seeing cool real helicopters and spending time with my family (even Tyler was able to come!). 

Lucy Lou

Today I attempted to feed Lucy her first "solid" (aka really liquidy baby cereal). The attempt was very unsuccessful. That adorable tongue of hers pushed out any solid that tried to enter her mouth. I am partially relieved because now I don't have to worry about feeding her at each meal- one less thing to do.

Lucy (and her brothers) all got a bad case of pink eye yesterday. It's funny because Lucy doesn't cry one bit when I give her the eye drops but they boys throw royal fits and bawl like I am murdering them when I give them theirs. That's my tough girl!!

Lucy is still not sleeping through the night and doesn't have any consistency with nights either (I think I had said she did but this girl loves to prove me wrong- she doesn't). Some nights she'll just wake up once (anytime between 1:30&4:30). Other nights she's up twice (once between 1:30 &3:30 and the second time being somewhere between 4&5:30). I know it's probably time to enlist the cry it out method with her but it is SO hard to do! 

Since she doesn't have a consistent initial wake up time (it's anywhere between 6:30 & 8:30) her schedule doesn't have consistent times. BUT she does follow a consistent "routine." She nurses (usually for 10-20 minutes total) and then is awake for 2 hours and then naps for 1-2 hours (so she nurses every 3-4 hours). She usually takes 3 naps throughout the day. And then at night she typically cluster feeds- will eat between 6&7 and then eat again around 8:30.

This week Lucy has turned into a rolling machine! Back to front, front to back- whichever, whenever! She rolls over at least once a day! I am so hoping that this means that she will be more like Steven with crawling and walking so that she won't be over 1 before she can run away from her brothers!

Slap Cheek, Potty Training & Other Adventures

It's a little blurry but the picture above is of Steven fixing Benny- Benny was a robot. Other silly things from my Steven last week- at church he was getting a drink from the fountain and some water got on his upper lip, when that happened he asked his daddy, "Will that make my mustache grow?" Also, I was contemplating getting Steven a tie that would go around his neck and he did not like that idea, in his most dramatic voice he declared: "You can't get me a zipper tie, that hurts my body!"

Below I tried to get a picture of Steven's red cheeks but was unsuccessful, you can't really tell how red they were. Last Monday Steven woke up with what looked like a sunburn on his cheeks and then I noticed he had a flat, lacy rash on his upper chest, back and arms as well. After doing some internet diagnosing and then calling the nurse practitioner for confirmation, I found out Steven had Fifth Disease, aka slap cheek. He had had a runny nose for a few days before the rash which I thought was just symptoms for a cold but apparently those are the symptoms before the "disease" and apparently that was when he was contagious. Once he got the rash he was no longer contagious. I felt bad because that meant we diseased everyone we met that weekend. Thankfully Fifth Disease is nothing serious for children. For him (and then later Benny) it just meant a lovely rash and some crankiness.

On Sunday we were getting ready for church and Benny got really quiet and asked "We going to Jesus Christ?" It was really sweet :) Lately Ben has been very prone to start off phrases with "Maybe I..." For example, "Maybe I do" or "Maybe I should" or "Maybe I would like it"  He also has been very good at saying, "Ok mommy" when I ask him to do something- his follow through is less than great though.

This week I begun the torturous job of potty training Ben. Day 1 was awful- I was really having high hopes that it wouldn't be but it was. I started off the morning by showing Ben how his army guy can pee and poop in the potty and get treats. I also set a timer and took Ben to the potty every 15 minutes and then rewarded him with candy just for trying. Well, Ben managed to hold all his pee in until about 11:30am and then he peed his underwear, MAJOR, 4 times in a row- despite me putting him on the potty after each accident. I wanted to die. That afternoon, he finally started to pee in the potty (and I started only giving him candy if he peed) but he was still slightly dampening his underwear in between each sit down and I was taking him to the potty every 10 minutes. We went through like 20 pairs of underwear. It was depressing.

Day 2 was a major improvement! He once again held in all his pee until about 11:30 (despite me taking him to the potty every 10 minutes) had a MAJOR accident BUT when I sat him down on the potty after the accident-- he peed! And for the rest of the day all his pee went in the potty and he stayed dry- it was wonderful!!! However, he did have a BM that night and it was quite awful getting him to sit down and let it out on the potty- bribery didn't even work.

Today (Day 3)- he has been dry so far (it's 3pm in the afternoon) AND I haven't had to take him to the bathroom every 10 minutes to keep him dry. It's been more like every 20-30 minutes. Now I just want him to start initiating more that he needs to go- he has a few times but most of the time he only goes because I take him there.

And in the picture below you can see that Benny wanted to be like his big brother and have a chain counting down to his birthday. The chain also marks when we get to do the Boeing open house with Mike and I added a couple chains so it would go until Easter. Lots of fun things a'coming.