Easter Baskets

Sunday was Easter and my kids did me a solid and hid each other's baskets and wrote notes with clues. Lucy wrote notes for Steven, Ben and Ruby (Lucy even set up a trail of eggs leading to Ruby's basket). Ben wrote a note- well more like a really cool comic book page- for Penny's basket clue. And Penny wrote a note for Lucy. It was funny that they all did them in a similar style to the ones I have made in the past- letter format with a bunny picture on the bottom. It seems my tradition of hiding baskets and leaving clues will live on.

For Easter they all got photo books recapping the last couple of years, a chocolate Easter Bunny and WWJD bracelets (apparently these are cool again). Ruby got a Child of God shirt, farm animals, little fish in a net (this was her favorite, she kept saying "fish!") and a little dinosaur fidget. Penny got a Love Like Jesus shirt, fairy garden things,a Beanie Boo and "Sons of Provo" DVD (which unfortunately didn't work- that's what I get for buying used :( ). Lucy got a Faith Over Fear shirt, fairy garden things, a Beanie Boo, and "Trek" DVD. Ben got a WALL-E brickhead, fun socks and a tie and "Home Teachers" DVD. Steven got a Jesus Brickhead, fun socks and a tie and a Spotify giftcard. Tyler got a Harry Potter Lego set, a Gryffindor tie and matching socks and candy. I got some face cream, a Lego puzzle, some candy and a new dress.

For breakfast this year I made bunny cinnamon rolls and bacon. Everyone chowed down their breakfast so I might do this again next year. I have been trying to get the right mix of easy but also something the kids will eat for Easter breakfast. 

With late church we managed to have enough time to take nice pictures before leaving. Since my mantel now has a TV and is not the best place for pictures we decided to use Tyler's shed as the background. I think that was a good choice. Tyler even set up the camera, without me asking, so we could get a picture of all of us. 

Cherish dropped off Geli and Luna at our church so the girls had their friends at church with them. Church was only an hour long but it felt longer with Miss Ruby. She was very noisy and wiggly. When Tyler went up to sing with some other men, Ruby started shouting "Dada!" Then my kids noisly shushed her. I don't know how many times I have to tell them that their shushing is louder than Ruby's talking. Later Ruby was chatting noisly again so I went to take her out and she made sure to say "Bye" to everyone as we left. It wasn't the most spiritual meeting for me. Grace came to church for once though and I didn't realize how much I missed seeing her there. 

After church I got in a nice nap and then prepped the house for hosting Easter dinner. The Jones family came over around 4pm and we all cooked our allotted dishes. Mariah made fish and I made some ground turkey to eat with the pita bread. We do a "Last Supper" dinner theme but I think each year it gets a little tastier as we add more "grown up" things. 

Once our dinner had settled, we all made Peep Houses. This is our new tradition, as of this year, to replace dying Easter Eggs because we decided easter eggs weren't worth the efforts. Everyone enjoyed eating their peep houses way more than eggs. It was a nice last holiday with the Jones family. The kids are feeling sad that they will no longer have their annoying cousins to hang with- their words. not mine ;)

Monday evening their was an art show at the High School and both boys had work from their art class in it. Their copper creations are under the glass in the picture below. Ben's is a dove and Steven's was a symbol from a video game called Doom. The other picture shows Steven's picture of old school TVs.

Monday night after the kids all went to bed I was checking text messages on the kids' phone and saw that Lucy went a little crazy that day. I had told her we needed to take a little break from inviting Claire over (because she is constantly asking me to invite her over) and give Claire a chance to miss her. Well, Lucy did not take my advice and instead sent a text to Claire saying pretty much what I said- "you need to invite me over because my mom won't let me invite you over because she wants you to 'miss' me" -and then she added on a lot of of other desperate sounding things and she tried to invite herself to a sleepover that Claire was having with other friends. It was rough to read. The next day I ended up taking away her independent texting privileges and now I have to read all texts she sends. Then we talked about why she got so crazy desperate and she said it was because she was bored. So we talked about inviting other friends over and signed her up for a graphic design class online. I have a feeling that Lucy's obsession with friends is always going to be a challenging part of raising her. I know that was something I tended to do too.

Tuesday evening the weather was fantastic so while Penny was at soccer practice, Lucy and Ruby strolled downtown Milford with me and we got ice cream. We even walked down to the park and played there for a bit. I was wearing the Connor Price shirt Tyler had gotten me and someone at the park noticed and said they were at the concert too. I had to sadly tell them that I did not go but the rest of my family did and bought me a t-shirt. This person also had a baby named Ruby. This is the second Ruby we have met out in public and here I thought I had picked an unpopular name. Boo. Also while at the park a train went by and Ruby thought that was the coolest thing. And we heard the church bells walking through town. Lots of sights and sounds for Ruby that night.

After exploring downtown Milford we went back and caught the tail end of Penny's soccer practice. Ruby was pretty cute and kept shouting "Penny!" She is getting good at saying all the kids' names. Lucy also took a nice selfie and picture of the clouds.

Wednesday, after dropping the girls off at their school, Ruby and I went on a walk with Grace. We walked down to the small park in front of the library. I figured that one would be easier to chat at that park since it is smaller and less populated than Scarlet's Park. I was correct. We had a really good chat as per usual. After the walk with Grace, Tyler was eating some waffles and Ruby pulled herself up onto the chair next to him and started begging. She loves Tyler's peanut butter waffles. Probably because he puts so much syrup on them.

Thursday and Friday were both really warm days so after doing school work we walked to beach and the girls played in the water. Ruby really wanted to get all the way in the lake but we just did the shallow area. Ruby was very excited by all the geese and swans that were in the lake. She is going to love beach days but she is also going to need me to be with her. 

Thursday night the older 3 all had baptisms at the temple. I was going to take Penny out for a treat (she was jealous that Lucy got a treat while she was at soccer) but then I had some bowel issues and just wasn't feeling up to eating a treat so I had Tyler take Penny and Ruby. That left me alone at the house for a rare moment so I decided to clean out the guest room. 

Saturday morning Penny had her soccer game. I decided to clean the house and let Tyler take Penny to the game. It was a good thing that I did that and that I had cleaned up the guest room earlier because we found out that afternoon that Mariah's family was sick so we were going to host Tara and her kids that night. That made me super anxious because I like to mentally prep myself for dealing with Tyler's family and I like to have time to physically prep the home and pantry for such things but at least the cleaning was out of the way. After that news, I took Ben to his soccer game and that was a fun watch. He actually played for a lot of it and he did really well. His team won 4 to 0. His friend from church, Paulo, is on his team, so I got to hang with Paulo's family during the second half. It was nice to have someone to chat with. When the game was done, Tyler and I went to eat at a new place called Freakin Nachos. It was alright and was a ton of food but I wasn't super impressed. I'm  not sure we will return but Lucy did like our leftovers a lot. After dinner we went and picked up some food for hosting. It was a busy day. That night Tara and her kids came in. Their flight landed at 10pm and I did not wait up for them, I like my sleep more than being a good hostess, lol.

Easter Egg Hunt

Sunday I attempted to put Ruby in an old dress of mine but it went above her knees, it was just too short and I didn't really have any cute tights or leggings that went with it. So we just took some pictures and then changed her into something else.

Sunday after dinner we did our traditional Easter Bunny Cake. Steven even joined in the fun. It is tradition to make it look like a disaster so it turned out perfectly. The kids gave it a third eye, a unibrow and yellow teeth. We shared our awesome creation with the Jones family when they came over that night.

Tuesday was windy and cold and Penny's soccer coach decided to cancel practice since they didn't have a game that weekend. I was grateful that we didn't have to rush off anywhere. We enjoyed a quiet night in.

Wednesday I had Ben drive to soccer practice. Rush hour is not a good time to drive with a new driver. A lot of yelling occured as he turned left on Union Lake. Man left turns can be so terrifying. Thankfully we both survived. I had him drive me to Krogers later that week, a similar drive, and he redeemed himself. I think we will just avoid rush hour if we can. Speaking of teens driving--- apparently Steven hit a brick building? by a stake center and didn't feel the need to tell us. He said he didn't know it had made a mark but we had no problem spotting the new scratches. I wish this teen would be more honest with us.

Thursday after the kids did their school work, I skipped my work out and we went to the mall to look for Crocs for Lucy. She was really desperate for legit ones this year. Thankfully I managed to find both her and Ben a pair on the clearance wall. Ben's are a bit big because the ones in his size were not the manliest of colors so we had to go a size bigger. We also managed to find an Easter dress for me while we were at the mall. It doesn't match the style of dress the girls are all getting for Easter, but the girls were insistent that I should buy it after I tried it on- they said it looked good and I did NOT need to try on any more dresses. I am pretty sure they just didn't want me to try on any more dresses but I liked the way it looked too. After shopping we let Ruby play in the play area, got a pretzel and then went back home.

Thursday night we had nothing going on so I picked up "Sonic 3" at the library for the kids to watch. I was busy getting some things ready for the Easter Egg Hunt the next day so I did not really watch it. 

Friday everyone was home because it was Good Friday. I had a lazy start but then did a work out to make up for skipping the day before. Then I worked on more Easter Egg Hunt preperations. I had hung out with Grace Wednesday night and learned they have high party standards so I sort of get into my head about it and felt I needed to do more- not like I could ever throw a party quite as fancy as their parties. 

The Easter Egg Hunt went ok, I guess. We had the Bloomfields, Mays, Townes some of the Eakins, some Cherish's family, and Claire. It was definitely a full house. I had bought a paper table cloth from the Dollar Tree that had Easter themed activities and pictures to color and so the kids colored on that while the teens hid their eggs.

About the time I gathered all the kids to give them directions before sending them out, my IBS started to kick in. I would've loved to go die on the toilet but I was in charge of all the things so I suffered. Plus I really didn't want to miss out on all the things I had spent so much time planning. It is hard to lead things and be a good conversationalist when your stomach is major cramping. It was in the 70's and the warmth and tummyache made me sweat bullets. I really wanted everything to go fast but the teens did  too good of a job hiding eggs. Ruby was really cute collecting eggs. She could care less about what was inside of the eggs, she just wanted to put them in her basket.

After the kid hunt the teens had their hunt for letters to spell out names of prizes. I had Melissa and Caroline hide their eggs and they did too good of a job as well. My boys were the ones looking for the last 2 letters and it is clear my boys stink at finding things. For some reason Melissa ended up telling her daughter where the last egg was, even though her daughter had already won a prize, that was irritating. Her daughter took the good prize- the Amazon giftcard- and gave Ben the candy she had won. Whatever. Steven got the Lego set. The teens seemed less into their prize hunt this year and so I might have to change it up next year. I am not sure it was worth all the money spent. After that I had Jason throw eggs and the teens tried to catch them with their baskets. When they caught one, they got to pick out a candy. I did this because Ben was sad about not getting candy. Ben said this was his favorite activity. When this was done I ran upstairs to die in the bathroom- at long last. Then it was back outside to finally try to socialize without feeling awful.

Anyways I am glad it is done,and I hope people had fun. I spent the whole night after the party overthinking what a terrible conversationalist I was- it was really hard to focus when I felt so awful- but that isn't unusual for me. 

Saturday we had no plans so I just spent the day hanging outside with Ruby and house cleaning. Super unexciting. Here is a couple cute pictures of Ruby though...

Permit for Ben

Sunday was more General Conference. There was a great talk that morning by Tamara Runia about repentance and our worth. Half way through the last Sunday Session Ben had a driving lesson so Ben and I listened to Conference on the way over and I listened to it while he drove with the instructor. He got a lady as an instructor this time and she was a real character and after his drive she made sure to tell me multiple times what a good young man Ben was(he was the only driver that day). He said he was often confused to what the lady was asking him to do but it didn't seem to affect her opinion of him. He got her again for his next drive and this time there was another driver with him and apparently she just speaks really positive to everyone she works with.

Tuesday Penny had soccer practice and this time I went by myself. I walked over to the library and read a book and then went back to my car for the last half hour and watched a show. It was really nice to have a chill evening. I think my favorite part of going to the kids' practices by myself is that there isn't much I can do while I wait so I don't feel guilty for indulging in some down time.

The boys had a weird schedule this week because they were doing state testing so Ben was home Wednesday morning. I had Ben go with Ruby and me to the library, partially to get him off the computer, and also so he could get some quality time with his sister. There were moments I was grateful he was there to play with his sister and moments where I felt like I brought along a fellow toddler. He likes to push Ruby's buttons- like take a toy she is playing with and run away. He maybe thinks he is being funny but Ruby definitely does not appreciate it. After the library I took Ben to school and was reminded how much I hate parent drop off times- some parents really don't know how to drop off their kids efficiently. Like if your teen drove to school you should not stop at the back of the drop off line to switch drivers and prevent everyone else from being able to let out their kids. I don't understand why people don't all pull up to the front of the drop off area.

Wednesday evening while the kids were all at the church for activities, I went to Grace's house. It's always a nice time when we get together. She is not the friend that I am the silliest or craziest with but she is one I can just "be" with if that makes sense. It's comfortable and the conversation is good. She also offered to help Tyler throw my 40th birthday which is really nice of her. I know her 40th was a bust because she was driving home from a trip on hers so I think she might just want to ensure I don't have an equally lousy one.

Thursday night we had nothing going on and the kids were bored. Grams had given us a little Easter money so we went to Walmart and the kids all picked out a little Easter gift. Steven of course didn't come but he did give me candy requests which I was able to fulfill. I did not give Ruby free reign to pick out things but instead handed her things I thought she might like. In the end she chose 2 dragons and a rubber duck.

Thursday night Ruby had one of her nights where she woke up and refused to sleep. This time she was super fussy and whiney. To top off the fun, I heard a skunk get in a fight outside our door and then got to smell the skunk smell as it came in through the cracks and permeated our house. I don't think Ruby was feeling well and after over an hour pacing with her, I finally decided to give Ruby some Tylenol and Vicks. It was fight to do both but thankfully the fight was worth it and not too long after, she gave in to sleep.

Friday afternoon Ben and I went to the SOS to go get his permit. It is nice that they do appointments so we didn't have to wait too long but we got a hispanic lady with a thick accent and I didn't always understand her questions. I hope I got the right type of permit for him- one that he can use as ID at the airport if needed. I asked her if he could fly with the one I chose for him (because I know there are new regulations) and then she told me I could fly with mine (she had my license too for confirmation purposes). I asked again for HIM and she told ME mine was fine. *sigh* Anyways he has a paper that gives him permission to drive with an adult now and he'll get the real permit in the mail at some point. Unlike Steven, Ben willingly drove me home from the SOS. I may have had some heart palpitations with his braking and turning on curves but we all made it home in one piece, as did the car.

Saturday morning Penny had her first soccer game of the season. As per usual with the first game, it was cold outside. But the sun shining made the 30 degree temps a little less freezing. The triplets were on the team opposing Penny's team so that meant Julie and Asher were there. I found her and Asher at half time and we spent the rest of the time chatting instead of watching the game, while the babies walked around. Penny's team ended up beating the triplets' team 2 to 1. 

That afternoon the girls got to watch "A Minecraft Movie" with Tyler. They tried to leave super early to go to it because they were so excited, so I had to convince them to wait a little longer. They ended up really enjoying the movie. From what I hear it sounds like it's a great movie for people who play Minecraft so I am not sure it would be one I love. 

That morning we found out we had to clean the curch so after the movie, and after a plumbing job for someone in the ward, Tyler took all the kids to the church to clean. Sometimes I wish they would just use my tithing money to pay for cleaning. It always feels like such an ordeal. When they got back from cleaning, Tyler took me to our favorite burger joing- The Filling Station. It was a delicious way to end the day.

 

Connor Price Concert

Monday I took Lucy and Andrea to go get their hair trimmed at Grace's salon- they are both trying to grow out their pixie cuts. Grace did a slight touch up with Lucy's hair but her hair still has some more growing to do before she can really even out the layers. It was nice that I got to chat with Grace for a bit though.

Tuesday Penny had her first soccer practice of the season. Ruby had to try on Penny's soccer gear...

I decided to take Ruby with me to Penny's practice so she could get out of the house for a bit. It was cold outside though so we ended up hanging out at the Milford library which is probably the least exciting of libraries. It did not have much that entertained her so she started wandering the library which was not ideal.

Wednesday was a very rainy day and for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to run a few errands with Ruby while the girls were at school. That was a poor choice because we got pretty soggy. Fun fact though, at all 3 places that we stopped at, Ruby got complimented by someone for her big eyes. After our soggy errands I had no desire to leave the house again but unfortunately the girls still needed to get picked up from school.

For dinner Wednesday we did our traditional April Fool's dinner- we were a day late since Steven has a night class Tuesday and we wanted him to participate. Everyone had a pretty fun first round. Steven got a bowl, fork and broccoli. Ben got a fork, spoon and a drink. Lucy got ice cream, a spoon and parmesan. Penny got ice cream, a fork and spaghetti. Dad got a drink, spaghetti and parmesan. The kids love this tradition but my brain struggles to get their orders right all 3 rounds with the code (like this year Elsa was ice cream, Ariel was a drink, Rapunzel was a bread stick...). 

Thursday morning the girls had a dentist appointment. We didn't get the chatty hygenist this time which was honestly ok. Ruby has a gray spot on one of her front teether to and I probably should have asked about it while I was there but it stresses me out since it is probably a cavity which means pain and $$$. Instead I just set up a dentist appointment for Ruby with her sisters in 6 months. I know, procrastination for this is probably a bad idea but it is going to be torture for so many reasons. Also Thursday the sun came out and the weather was beautiful so after lunch I sent a text to Julie to see if she wanted to get the toddlers together. She ended up coming by so Ruby and Asher got to hang out for a little bit. It's cute how they follow each other around but don't really play with each other.

Thursday night I had the joy of helping Steven with a big project on earthquakes for his college class that he saved until the last minute. He had written an essay but it needed quite a bit of editing. He also had to make a poster which he of course needed some guidance with. I really hate how he saves things for the last minute and then I feel like they become my problem. I wish I could just let go and let him fail but I really don't want him to fail.

Friday Ben had his friends birthday party. There was a lot of drama leading up to it because the 3 friends Ben had invited decided to invite people that he is not really friends with to his party. I thought it was super rude of them but at least they didn't expect me to buy these extra invitees tickets to the movie. Anyways, they went and saw "A Minecraft Movie" (Steven drove) and then came back to our house for pizza and cupcakes. After that they all worked together on their seperate devices to defeat an Ender Dragon on Minecraft- the dragon fight was honestly the reason for the extra invitees. It's funny that I had put some things from the living room into the guest room to get them out of the way and then all the kids ended up hanging out in the guest room at the end because that is where David had had to put his "device"- he had to bring his whole computer. 

Saturday was a low key day for me. I cleaned the house in the morning and then watched Conference in the afternoon. I liked the last talk by Uchtdorf that really focused on how the people in the church are imperfect but the message of Christ's love is what is most important.  There was also a beautiful message on the sanctity of life which made it pretty clear where we stand on abortion as a church. You can tell Steven was really spiritually uplifted by all the talks ;)

Saturday evening the 4 oldest kids and Tyler got to go to a Connor Price. We paid for the tickets with money Grams and Poppy gave us for Christmas. They all had a really good time and I think have developed a love for live music. Tyler took a fun video of them all singing and grooving along to a song. They also spent more total on merch than all their tickets cost so they will forever remember it. After the concert Tyler further spoiled them and bought them special Minecraft meals at McDonalds.

While they were rocking out at the concert, I was back at home with a whiney toddler who couldn't decide if she wanted to stay in the bath tub or not. Note in the picture she is trying to hold all the Barbies. This is her new thing to grab as many toys/dolls as she can when she leaves somewhere. Usually when I pick her up from her naps she will be holding at least 4 dolls, if not more.

After Ruby's bath, my friend Caroline came over and Ruby decided she did not want to go to sleep. She started saying "mama" pretty pathetically so I decided to go get her and she just laid on my lap while Caroline and I chatted. I wonder if she was just missing the noise of all her siblings.