Awesome Sauce

It never fails that just when the weather starts to warm up in Michigan, it gets cold again. There was definite coldness this week, along with snow. So to celebrate the coldness we went to Dairy Queen for Family Night. Obviously the kids loved it:

After returning my broken camera for a refund, I decided to try out a different fancy camera. This camera finally came on Wednesday and it has some pretty cool features. One being that it has a screen on the front so we can be selfie professionals:  

By the way, this handsome guy in the picture above was officially called and set apart as Young Men's President on Sunday. He got called just in time for a YW & YM's fundraiser (silent auction & dinner) that the previous leaders had not started preparing for (a new YW's President was just called too). So we've got some busy times ahead of us but it is the perfect calling for him. He is so good with the youth and I'm happy for him!

And this silly boy above made us smile this week when he said that "Girls love awesome things!" This comment was inspired by Tyler telling Steven that I loved him for his awesome miniature golfing skills. Well what Tyler said my not be true, I have to agree with Steven, girls do love awesome things!

On Thursday, Tyler brought home some lunch from the local butcher in a brown paper bag and I was inspired to make faces on each side. Who knew a paper bag could inspire hours of entertainment?:

We are a happy? family:

This week I learned how highly motivated that sweet little boy below is by anything that will earn him money. He sent Poppy a postcard, so Poppy sent him a letter that had $2. The very same day he got that money, he was already making Poppy another card in hopes of getting more money. He will work for money!

Yesterday, silly Lucy insisted I take a picture of her in this outfit. "Chee! Chee Mommy!! Chee!!!":

And would you believe that anti-social me planned a girl's night of epic proportions for tonight!? It started out with a text to 6 people, and soon blew up to all the ladies in the ward being invited. We're all headed to Culver's this evening for ice cream so that should be fun. Also, thanks to this event, I finally started a Facebook page for the ladies in the Ward. So maybe girl's nights and play dates will become more frequent. Look at me breaking out of my shell! It WAS NOT EASY but I did it :)

Spring Has Sprung

This Sunday I was able to finally get a picture of the kids in their new Easter clothes (only like a week late):

Lucy may or may not be picking her nose, but when you got 4 kids it's hard to get *the perfect* picture. 

The weather this week has been AH-mazing- 60's and 70's! I love it and am feeling much happier about Michigan these days. Steven, however, complained when we hit 74 degrees saying that he didn't like feeling so hot and sweaty- boy is that kid in trouble when we visit Arizona this July!

Green is starting to peek through the dirt and we even managed to grow a plant that Lucy got in Nursery (usually we just kill those sort of things):

When I informed Steven (who has been watering Lucy's plant diligently) that one of Lucy's friends has not been successful at growing theirs, he informed us that that is because God can only grow one plant at a time. Interesting theory...

With the kids outside more, we came to the realization that their scooters were in sad condition- one was rusted and crooked, the other was missing a wheel- so we got some shiny new ones for them:

Even Lucy got one:

This week we went to a birthday party for the little girl across the street. Her mom is super crafty and is starting an Etsy shop. She told me I could have this super cute beanie and handkerchief bib as long if I took a picture of Penny in it for her shop. I had no problem complying to that. Penny is ridiculously photogenic and I have decided I need more of these stylish bibs (maybe that was her plot all along?):

This week I decided to get in touch with my crafty side, it happens sometimes.Lucy helped me paint the stripes on this one and for some reason she felt it was more important to paint the masking tape than the canvas so it turned out less than perfect but I had fun doing some creative handwriting:

I also printed off a coloring page for grown ups and spent some nights working on that. Coloring is very relaxing, even though I apparently have issues with staying in the lines ;):

Other happenings... 

I taught my first sharing time on Sunday and found it only slightly traumatizing. The music player I was going to use didn't work so I had to forfeit it and do something else. Then at the end of my lesson in Junior Primary, the Nursery leader came in and started talking to a teacher loudly about their child while I was trying to bear my testimony and it threw me off. I ended up bearing my testimony that "I was glad the Earth was on the church." But after the rough patches in Junior Primary, I was much more prepared for Senior Primary and that one want smashingly well.  

I completely stopped nursing Penelope this week (I was pumping once a day and nursing once or twice a day up to this week). And though I thought I was going to feel sad about it, I really just feel relief. I don't know how moms with more than 4 kids nurse, it's just plain hard the more kids you get...

I caught the Spring Cleaning bug and started rooting through a few junk piles in our house. The end result...even more junk in our basement and a realization of how many MORE piles of junk I still need to sort through. Once again, I don't know how moms with more than 4 kids do it- the amount of stuff we have for 4 kids is overwhelming!

Spring Break

This week Steven had Spring Break so I tried to get us out more than I usually do. Monday we had a play date at a park with some kids from the Ward. I was thinking it was a super warm day because it was supposed to be in the 50's and that just sounded warm to me for some reason but when we got to the park- it was cold! The sun was hiding and there was a bit of a wind and my kids were cold. They only had on light jackets because I told them not to wear their heavy ones. Epic mom fail! Thankfully, other moms are WAY more prepared than me and they had extra jackets in their car which they lent to my cold kids. I wish I had gotten a picture because Penny looked really styling in a huge blue fleece jacket and blue beanie :) After the kids were properly dressed they had a good time and I enjoyed getting to know some new moms who have moved into the Ward.

That night we FINALLY started raking up the leaves in our backyard (that's right, the ones that had fallen in October were just now getting raked up). We filled about 4 bags FULL and still have more to go BUT it was progress. So we celebrated our progress by making S'MORES over Tyler's new fire pit (his Easter gift). 

Tuesday I decided to be brave take the kids to the Henry Ford Museum which is about an hour drive away. It was probably not the greatest idea because Lucy was acting SUPER crazy that day...

She kept melting down over the silliest things and downright making my life miserable. There was a fun moment when I took her inside one of the trains and she refused to get out. Then I had to carry her (and Penny) out of the train with Lucy shrieking the whole way. Super fun. BUT even though Lucy made me crazy, everyone else seemed to have a good time:

And from this trip, I decided I had enough of my fickle camera. It did this to some of my pictures again:

So I have sent it back to Amazon for a refund. Now I am back to lame-o smart phone pictures until I can decide if I want to try again with that camera or get a totally different one.

On Wednesday we were super lame and our trip of the day was grocery shopping at Walmart- wahoo. On Thursday I invited Steven's friend from a couple houses down over. They seemed to have fun. Apparently his friend is addicted to Minecraft as well and that was all they wanted to do. Ugh. I miss the days when play dates at our house were actually about playing. Now Steven and his friends seem to be all about the electronics.

On Friday we met my friend Bethany and her 3 kids at Tiny Treasures (indoor play place) where I kind of embarrassed myself. Usually I just pay for the 3 kids and all is well but there was a new lady who said I needed to pay for Penny and I was like, well I have never had to pay for her before because here I am thinking they are going to charge me $5 for a baby who just sits and does not play. Well, she "relents" and just charges me for the 3. And then as I am getting us all ready to go inside, she rings up someone else and I discover the baby fee is A DOLLAR. I can not believe I bargained over a dollar. If I had realized it was only a dollar, I would have just paid it. Ugh. BUT besides my silliness and besides the fact that Ben fell off one of the play things and howled like he was DYING- it was fun :)

Friday night we rented "Big Hero 6" which I really liked. Fun movie for kids and adults alike. The kids all hogged out on their chocolate bunnies from Easter while watching it. Lucy, by far, was the messiest. I didn't manage to get a picture of her chocolate coated teeth, but I did get these gems:

And today, to finish off Spring Break, we took the kids to Kensington Park where we had a little picnic and then threw some rocks into the water.

Life is pretty great!

Fancy Pictures

So I'm going backwards, but the week before Easter Weekend was less than fun. Steven spent that whole week sick with the flu (influenza b to be exact). That meant he missed a whole week of school. That meant he was home with me for a WHOLE week. It was super fun. See:

Really when he was feeling super sick, which was most of the time, it was not so bad having him home.

Benny has had a rough week in a different way. He pretty much had a bloody nose everyday. I've decided it has to do with the weather warming up. It seems like every time the weather changes we get lots and lots of blood. Bleh.

Lucy was feeling left out, so she had to go and get a fat lip and bloody nose too. Apparently when I was trying to take a shower there was a fight over A PIECE OF PAPER and it did not end well. This girl:

Penelope is starting to actually like baby food. Well she'll actually down a few spoon fulls now. But she has definitely become more of a fan of starchy things. She is now eating (without choking) cheerios, veggie puffs, teething biscuits, and arrow root cookies. These things seem to make her happy. She still likes to gnaw on apples, bananas and carrots every once in awhile too. I think that she really just likes to make a giant mess:

Really this post is just about showing off some pictures I took with my new camera that I think look fancy. Did I mention how I watered my old camera at the Great Wolf Lodge and killed it? Well, that meant new camera time. Only if you saw my Easter post, this new camera is giving me grief. Sometimes when it turns on the coloring is all off and funky and I have to take the battery out to fix it. Probably got to contact the seller about that :(

Ok, this is not completely about fancy pictures. I also wanted to mention the good time I had at Chuck E Cheese's with my newest friend, Tina. She's a fun lady and was sweet enough to treat us to pizza and tokens. The kids had a blast and Ben was already asking if we could go again that same night.

Easter Fun

Easter Weekend this year was also General Conference Weekend. At first I was bummed that they coincided but in the end I think having them together was kind of great. Conference helped us remember the purpose of Easter and prevented us from getting too caught up in all the other stuff. I still think the  other stuff is OK, just as long as in the end my kids remember the reason we celebrate Easter. So on that note, I must admit that most of this post is mostly about the other stuff. 

Saturday, after the first session of Conference, we dyed Easter Eggs. This year I bought some fancy fake eggs that were dyable instead of wasting real boiled eggs (we never eat them and it is just SO much effort to boil eggs). The fake ones were a bit less fun though. You can't submerge them too long and they don't hold unto color very well and the boys blew through them in like 5 minutes flat. They were done before I could get my new, fancy camera working (although I am doubting its fanciness since it is giving me grief). So I made the kids pretend to dye the eggs again for the photos below:

Do they look staged?

Although the dying eggs was less than great, our next activity went *mostly* well. I decided to start a new tradition of making Resurrection Rolls. You take a marshmallow and dip it in butter and than in cinnamon sugar and you compare it to Christ's body and how it was prepared with oils and spice after he died. Then you wrap it in a crescent roll, which you compare to the linens they put on his body. Next you put it in the oven (the tomb) and bake it. When it came out we cut open the rolls and they were empty- no more marshmallow. His body had disappeared just like the Resurrection. It was a good analogy, and even though I slightly burned the rolls, they still tasted pretty good. 

After the second session of Conference Saturday, we did an Easter Egg Hunt with our 2 neighbors. Stefanie and I hid a 9 eggs of each color and than each kid was assigned a color before they could go on the hunt (except for the kids who were 2 and under, they were assigned all the big eggs that we scattered in plain sight). I got a little carried away and hid some of the eggs a little too well so Steven was pretty crabby at first because he couldn't find any (he has issues) but in the end he got all of his eggs and his happy smile returned. Ben, on the other hand, was a trooper about finding the tricky eggs. Well, until his nose randomly started bleeding everywhere and then we had to do some damage control. But in the end I think everyone had fun and got sugared up pretty well- except for poor neglected Penny who got no eggs. 

That night the Easter Bunny came and hid the kids Easter Baskets. Steven's in the dryer, Lucy's on the water jug, Ben's on the bookshelf and Penny's with my Precious Moments. (Note that these were all in places that mice can't get to. Tyler literally trapped 2 mice on our kitchen counter this week alone)

The next morning Steven was rearing to go and found his basket no problem. However, he gave a pretty lame sauce reaction to everything in his bucket. I'm not sure what he was expecting but apparently it wasn't found....

Ben needed a little help finding his basket(note the sleepiness in the picture where he's holding his note). But with some pointing in the right direction, he found it. He gave much better reactions to the stuff in his bucket and seemed thrilled with everything he got- even if he had a hard time keeping his eyes open for the camera...

Lucy slept in a bit that morning (probably because she was up several times that night) and once she was up she was a little too obsessed with her milk to focus on the contents of her basket:

Penny's basket was found by Steven and she loved her new blanket and books:

For breakfast I decided to be a Pinterest mom and I made cute bunny pancakes for the kids. But I think being a Pinterest mom is overrated. The kids hate black jellybeans and wouldn't eat the part where the eyes were and honestly were not that appreciative of all the cuteness I created. Maybe being a Pinterest mom works out better when the kids are older? Maybe than they will like to eat food that looks cute?

After our Easter pancakes the kids played with some of their new stuff outside (sidewalk chalk & bubbles) and then we had our 2 sessions of General Conference that afternoon. 

This lasted for about the first 15 minutes of Conference:

Then this happened:

He's such a good example!

We ended our Easter Sunday with Salisbury Steaks because it was cheaper than ham and Tyler claimed that's what he wanted. And since it tasted good, everyone was happy. All in all, a good Easter!