I told you FHE was good...

This really is a continuation of my last post. I told you FHE lessons were always entertaining, and tonight didn't fail me. First off, the two older girls were all decked out in dress-ups, from shoes to crowns to rings to lip gloss, trying to look like Barbie on the front of their new nightgowns they got today. So that was the FHE attire. Jake was giving the lesson on the Prophet because General Conference is this weekend. Mya started to make a comment about the Prophet saying "And they will never make..." and then paused for a really long time. Jake, trying to help her out, said something like "And they will never make us make bad choices". But Mya had something else in mind. She then said, "And they will never make our blood happen." What??? I started laughing but turned my head away so I wasn't laughing right at her because I didn't want her to feel bad. She is so serious and matter-of-fact when she says these things. Funny, crazy little child of mine.

My kids are funny sometimes

I don't normally let my kids dress like they are pictured below, just for the record. I took on the project of sorting through mass amounts of girl clothes, and in the process Elle got to try on her new swim suit and Mya decided to put on Elle's leotard. They love to wear my shoes, especially the really high ones. I found them like this the other day pushing their strollers. I couldn't help but laugh.

So I've been keeping this list for awhile of funny things my kids say. I try to write them down when I can remember, but I really just wish I could tape record some conversations because only that would do them justice. Like Family Home Evening for example. Mya sometimes makes the funniest comments during lesson time. I wish everyone could sit in on and FHE here. Anyways, I wanted to record some of the things I had written down. Read on if you'd like. They may not be word for word, but you'll get the main idea.

The other day, Mya broke my table decoration by banging it down on the table. I was sad because it needed to find a new home in the trash.

After she got out of time out, I was trying again to explain to her that she broke it and that it wasn't a good choice. She so innocently then tells me, "Maybe we can glue it or something". I told her I didn't know if glue would work. So she then said "Maybe we can like fix it with tape or something."

On Valentine's Day I tried to make lists about things I liked about each person in the family. When I asked Mya what she liked about Daddy, she said that he "hugs so hard".

Mya calls scriptures "script-bures" and Louisiana "the-wee-siana".

Here was a conversation: Elle- "What's Hobby Lobby?" Me- "It's like a craft store." Mya- "Like a crack the egg store?" Me- "No, not like a crack the egg store."

Elle (I think talking to me) said, "Your voice sounds crunchy."

And from Mya, in talking about being a mommy: "I'm going to be a mommy when my baby teeth falls out." And: "What do you think my name's gonna be when I'm a mom?"

Elle, explaining something about her Mealworm from preschool I think (I love it when they think they are saying something the right way): "He gets into his puka."

Today before church Mya told Elle: "Let's see if we're almost the same age." They then stood by each other to see how tall Mya was compared to Elle. Then in the car on the way to church Mya must have been comparing her shoes and she said, "Hey these shoes are the same age!"

My girls made up this game that they play at mealtimes on our little picnic table. One of them lays down and says "If I don't wake up it's not the right princess" and then the other one has to guess who the person laying down is in order for them to wake up. If it's not right, the person says "Not the right princess" and the guessing continues. Pretty creative if you ask me!

And lastly, talking about this little Boo Boo (I love it when she peeks over the window ledge and watches the girls) Mya said: "She's been being little for a long time!"

You may not find all that as entertaining as I do, but I wanted to record some of the cute stuff that comes out of their mouths. It's fun to have things to laugh about now and again around the house. One day I know I'll miss the innocent funny kid stuff that they say.

Post-Easter Flu

This post is a bit delayed due to the fact that I was cashing in on a couple of sick days that were adding up. Oh wait, that's right, moms don't get sick days. So unfair. Anyways, I had a slight case of the flu, barf and all which has luckily only affected me so far (cross my fingers knock on some wood). And, just as a side note, I don't think moms should be able to get sick. It should be built in our nature that once you have a baby you are immune from all illnesses for 18 years. There is just too much we need to do that makes laying on the couch a hard task to accomplish. So this is my long excuse as to why I am just getting around to posting Easter stuff now.

All right, be warned, it was a busy weekend which means lots of pictures. I'll try to just highlight the events as I'm sure not many of you really care all that much to go day by day through my life. So take a deep breath, here we go...

Jake had training in Louisiana at the beginning of last week and got back in town Wednesday night. He then went to the airport at about 2:30 a.m. to pick up his little brother Levi. Levi spent the day hanging out with us girls (which I'm sure was super enjoyable). The girls made him get his work out on the trampoline.


Later that day, we loaded up and headed downtown to the Rodeo. We met Jake there and enjoyed some true Texas fun. The girls loved the rides and the animals and the food. Highlights were definitely the "Mutton Bustin" (kids riding on the giant sheep pictured below, helmets and all, as they took off out of the gates- very entertaining) rides, giant turkey legs, Dip-n-dots ice cream, and Fried Oreos. That's right I said Fried Oreos. And they were good too. Shame on me eating those. And to think I was a health major. I can just feel my arteries clogging.

Late Thursday night, Jake's mom, dad, and two sisters came in town. Friday was spent shopping, riding bikes, flying a kite, and hanging out. Friday night we got to go to the temple with Levi as he is preparing for his mission. We had a late night dinner at PF Chang's afterwards.

Saturday we headed out to the Oil Ranch. It was a beautiful day and the crowd was minimal which was great. The girls loved it and we all had a great time. Highlights would have to be a cow licking Jada's foot, Pops catching a chicken, Pops placing Elle in the goat pen to pet a baby goat, and a super fun ride on the "Indian Swings". Oh and of course getting to be around lots of animals which is always a favorite of mine.

Saturday night we dyed Easter eggs. Don't be fooled into thinking that Jake helped a lot just because he is pictured here. Did you not remember the little thing going on called "March Madness". Yeah, that apparently was more fun than dying too many eggs. Anyways... we still love you Jake. Don't worry- I made him iron the dresses. We got ready for the Easter bunny and later on Jake's sisters and I made some yummy homemade cinnamon rolls for Easter breakfast. Levi picked the purple frosting and when I told the girls that, one of them said something like "he's a boy!"

The Easter bunny shopped at Old Navy this year and got the girls cute swim suits. Elle and Mya also got little play cell phones which were a hit, along with Barbie as "Mariposa" (do any of your girlies love the Barbie movies like mine do?).

And what's Easter without a rousing game of toss the eggs in the Easter baskets??

I capitalized on my ability to dress the girlies alike this year even down to clear sparkly jellies (although Jada's are a little different than the older girlies). The other Easter bunny in the house allowed me to get a cute new Easter dress this year and Jake's mom got me some cute new earrings I picked out, both from Target, so I was feeling pretty happy.

Our company left during church so we had our Easter ham for a lunch (our church starts at 1:00). We ate leftovers for dinner and the girls wore their cute other Easter outfits from Gigi.

If you're still reading, you get a prize. I'm feeling like this is taking forever! In non-Easter news, Elle let me set her pet Mealworm free that she brought home from preschool. I wasn't sad about that.

I also got a few new house things, like a new "Welcome" mat. I have had our old one since Jake and I got married so it was about time to retire the thing. It's annoying because our dryer vent blows right onto our front porch so I'm sure I'll be picking lint off this new one. But I thought it was cute! I also got the fun star things for our room (hopefully they don't fall in the night and kill us- I'm paranoid about that. Living where there were earthquakes will do that to you!) and a cute picture that is in our living room from the church bookstore. That was another Easter present from Jake's mommy that I picked out. She spoils us!

And finally, Elle got her first official haircut today not by me. I usually just wing it and make it up, but she has got such thick hair that I think it is beyond me. The girl who does my hair cut it for us. Hopefully it will be a little easier to manage now.

We're almost done, I promise. I finished "A Bride Most Begrudging" and started "Princess Academy". The book ("Bride") was really cute and I could totally picture it as a movie. Also, today Jada started letting go of things and standing by herself. We may be walking earlier than I would have thought! So that is that. It's been great. I ate a lot of junk food so the flu probably came at a good time. My diet on Tuesday of rice, saltines, and blue Powerade hopefully compensated for at least one of my Fried Oreos!

I'll Take 16 Bags of Mulch, Please

I would have called it "Annual Family Mulch Day" but that would pretty much be a lie considering it was basically "Annual Sunnie Mulch Day". But all that aside, the job got done so now Jake won't have me bugging him about it anymore! It took a long time, it was hard work, and those bags of mulch are seriously heavy. I moved rocks, killed spiders, pulled weeds, bought stuff at Wal-Mart, loaded 16 bags of mulch into my Malibu (with some help), heaved it around, dumped and spread it, replaced rocks, and planted and watered flowers. Sound like fun? Like I said, at least it's done now. And it is rather rewarding to look out on the finished product. Don't be fooled by the picture below into thinking that the girlies were some big help. They lasted a little bit and then decided that dress-up, computer games, a movie, and peeing on the floor (Mya) were better forms entertainment.

Oh, and taking pictures with my camera of random things like this:

Anyways, Jada was the ultimate trooper. She slept for a long time in the morning and then some again in the afternoon. Luckily Jake got home a little earlier than I thought from his YM service project so he helped with Jada when she woke up. He also did a little of the work by putting in fertilizer stakes for the tree and trimming it up a bit. I put him in charge of dinner which was a good idea considering I didn't finish until after 7 pm that night and still needed a shower. I bet you're not surprised we had take out!

Here's one picture of the finished product. We have rather a lot to mulch in our front yard. I hope my flowers take and don't die off like a bunch of them did last year.

We got to see Eric and Tori again on Friday night which was so great. The kids played together, having a great time and we enjoyed talking with our friends. We wish they never moved away!

Here's the three babies, Jada, Emery, and Whitney. Check out Jada's olive skin. She definitely didn't get that from me!

Okay and honestly, doesn't that look like a whole lot of kids??

In book related news, I finished "The Star Garden" by Nancy Turner (from the "These Is My Words" series). I enjoyed it. Not really a page turner and still not as good as the first, but met my expectations. Worth reading if you liked the first and second books. I'm now reading "A Bride Most Begrudging" and I'll keep you posted on my opinion.

Easter Ramblings

Because next week is Spring Break, this has been the week for Easter egg hunts. Elle had one at her preschool, we had one for playgroup with church friends today, and I got to host a small one on Wednesday for Mya's preschool. We did some fun Easter projects like gluing cotton balls on bunnies, using markers to decorate paper eggs (I wasn't brave enough to do the real thing), stickers on bags for the egg hunt, cool bunny ears (I know you want some), and bunny marshmallows for part of our snack. Can I put on a party or what!!

The little bunnies got to search for eggs in our backyard and then went hopping on the trampoline. Mya's little friend Emma couldn't come so she had to go "hunt dinosaurs" with the boys. She was a little hesitant at first but then joined in the fun.

Elle started gymnastics at a new place two weeks ago. It's hard with kids to know how much to do, what is too much, when is too young, etc. Elle's been doing gymnastics on and off for a long time. When she was really little a lot of the motivation for signing her up was really just to give us something fun to do. But now that I have more kids, I can't exactly have all my kids in stuff. It's just too expensive and "Mommy and Me" doesn't work quite as well when you have two other kids to worry about. So Mya is still yet to be involved in any type of structured activity. We may put her in soccer in the fall, and I've played around with different ideas about when to start her in gymnastics. It just gets to be so much running around when it's not just one kid's activities. Maybe I'm not making sense. I want my kids to be involved in stuff and don't want them to start out too late, but where do you draw the line. Any advice?

Okay, back to Elle. So we started her at a new place in hopes that she can actually start to work on and improve her skills. I think she may have some natural athletic ability so hopefully this will be a good place for her and she can have fun and learn and get better. We'll see if she likes it. I bought her two new leotard shorts outfits for the new class. It was funny to hear her talk about which one to wear and that the other one was "so cute".

Jada's pretty much at this stage of craziness...

She's cutting her second tooth and pulling up on everything and crawling all over the place. She's sporting a new bruise just about everyday (you can see some of them in the second picture). I put her hair in two piggy tails yesterday which was kind of fun.

And like I said above, today was our Easter egg hunt for playgroup with friends from church. We met at a really fun park and the kids loved playing. I spun some of the girls pretty good on the tire swing and I think Elle felt a little sick afterwards. Jada loves to swing. One of the dad's gets the prize for the day as he ran kids back and forth on the zip line about a million times.

We ended our fun adventure at the park with climbing on a giant mountain of mulch. The park was a little muddy anyways and then the kids climbed on this and were pretty much filthy. Mya rode home in just her panties. They took a nice long bath and I got to do some laundry, shoes and all.

Lastly, I'm still pushing for us to go to the rodeo sometime and I've got to get the house cleaned next week for Jake's family to come for Easter. His brother Levi got his mission call to Las Vegas, Nevada and is coming here to go through the temple that weekend. We are really excited for him! I'm wanting to get my flowerbeds looking pretty before they get here but I may be on my own as Jake has a service project all day tomorrow. We'll see what I can get done with just my little ones as helpers. And we all know what great helpers little ones can be!