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?