Warm Days

I feel like we went from a long winter right on into summer.  If we had a spring, it was a short one.  Ok, we really are having spring but its already up to 80 on some days and muggy.  It feels like summer already!  But anyway, here are some of our recent warm day adventures.  We sat outside and blew bubbles.  John was very excited to be out there.  He tried to hop on his knees into the street a few times. 

Grant also ran away, down the street and into the adjacent cul de sac.  I had to go retrieve him and then took my two little escapees into the house for the rest of the afternoon.  They weren't happy about it, but I didn't feel like chasing people.

 Another day we played in the water table.  The backyard is more contained.  Harder to escape.  Grant was very excited to have water to play in.

I think he and Anna started throwing water on each other.

 

It was all fine and good until they started throwing water on John too.  He didn't like it that much. Here he is after coming in and getting his wet clothes off.  Much happier.  He tolerates Grant's shenanigans to a point.  This was too much.

 

Getting the sunglasses and short sleeves out.  Here's Anna working on homework.  I think the kids are both looking forward to school being out.

 I like that Anna is actually doing her homework ON the computer.  :)

 John wanted to wear the sunglasses too (along with his Christmas jammies).

He couldn't quite figure out how to get them on.

 I helped him put them on.  Stylish!

 And since Grant is now three he can do swim lessons (without mommy) at the YMCA.

Here he is on his very first day of swimming lessons.

He wasn't totally comfortable just holding onto the side in the water so he was part way out most of the time.

Happy Easter!!

We had a nice Easter this year.  Saturday morning we went to our ward pancake breakfast and Easter egg hunt.  The kids had a great time.  Here is John collecting eggs.

 

 He was perfecting his reaching down and standing back up skills.

 I got a lot of pictures of John because he is the slowest moving.

Easiest to keep up with.

 

Grant had no trouble finding eggs - I helped him a little.

 The nursery kids got to have the first crack at finding eggs.

No pun intended.

 

Later the junior primary got to have a turn (Matthew and Anna) 

And here are the kids on Easter morning.  I felt happy that I was able to get Bunny Buns made before we had to leave for church at 8:30.  Small victories.

We also had a little Easter egg hunt in the yard before church

We stayed after church a little while Scott did the tithing (he is the ward financial clerk right now).  So this is the best picture I got of the kids dressed for Easter.  We didn't have any special outfits or anything.

 

After church Anna had a mega tantrum.  She had had a similar one on Saturday.  :(  After she had screamed herself out, she fell asleep on the couch for about 6 hours and missed dinner.  After an episode or two like that I start seriously doubting my parenting skills.  Scott reminded me that we are doing our best and that she came from heaven that way (with a "strong willed" personality).  And she did.  Hoping for better days with her ahead.

And ready for Easter dinner - ham, potatoes, spinach salad...all good things.

Happy Easter everyone!!

The Easter Egg Derby

We held our annual Easter Egg Derby on Saturday night.  It was lots of fun and we all had a great time.  Here are the kids dyeing eggs to prepare for the big event.

Anna and Matthew dyeing eggs

Anna with one of her eggs ready to go!

And here are the kids trying to roll and collide their eggs.  We set up a tournament bracket (a la March Madness) and the eggs go head to head.  The theory is that when two eggs collide, only one of the them will crack, which does seem to be true.  So the uncracked egg advances to the next round until we have one ultimate winner.

Grant and Matthew rolling some of their eggs

Sometimes we had some trouble getting the eggs to actually contact each other.  We had a lot of re-rolls

Our bracket - 32 eggs!!

Everyone got to name their eggs

And the big winner was one of Anna's eggs, Raspberry Rabbit.  Scott and I were a little torn about Anna winning since she had had some major tantrums that day including one about possibly not winning the egg derby.  But she won fair and square.

The prize for winning was a giant chocolate bunny - we let her hold it and take a picture but then we took it back and said she could earn it back by having good behavior (i.e. no tantrums) for the next few days.  She did eventually earn it back.

I've been having some heartache about Anna and her tantrums lately.  The one thing that seems to work is to offer her a positive incentive for good behavior way ahead of time.  Once we're in the moment, it seems to be pretty much too late.  When we've offered a trip to Chuck E. Cheese if everyone is good all week, she seems to have no trouble behaving herself for that.  So I don't know.  Hopefully we'll get it all figured out.

Anyway, it was a successful Easter Egg Derby.  Lots of fun.

My Magic Shoes

When John first started physical therapy, the therapists were recommending that he be fitted for plastic leg braces to go inside his shoes.  They thought he might never be able to stand up on his own without the extra ankle support.  Before we could fill out all the paperwork to get the leg braces John proved them wrong by learning to pull up on things on his own.  So the leg brace idea was put aside.

John has been making great progress and can now stand up on his own (without something pull up on) and walk a few steps.  A lot of the time when he falls it looks like his ankles are rolling or giving out, so the therapists suggested getting him high top sneakers to give him just a little extra support in the ankles.  I didn't want to waste a lot of money on shoes he would quickly outgrow but high top shoes (the basketball kind, not just the converse all star kind) were hard to find for his size.  I ended up getting some Nike basketball shoes on sale.

From the first time I tried the shoes on him he has been trying more and more to walk and seems to be able to go more than just a few steps.  Scott and I joked that they are his "magic shoes" a la Forrest Gump.  He got a lot of practice using them at the church Easter Egg hunt today.  And Matthew even told people John had magic shoes.

Way to go, John

 

Even without the shoes he has been making a lot of progress, but I think the shoes help too.

Hooray Johnny!!

Grant is Three!!

Grant turned three this week.  He's been looking forward to his birthday for a while.  He was ready for it.  He has been telling me he wants a "monster truck" birthday, so I tried my best to deliver on that.

 Grant helped me decorate his birthday cake.  Monster truck themed.

 We played pin the headlight on Mater

Grant got a direct hit on Mater's eye.

 I think Anna got the closest, but John got pretty close too.  He didn't have to wear a blindfold though.

I wanted to take a picture of everyone with the Mater picture, but Anna wasn't having it.  In her defense, she was sick today and may or may not have to go to the doctor tomorrow.  We'll see.  But she wasn't feeling her best.

We did a few car themed activities - race car shaped scratch off pictures, and small wood cars that we decorated with sharpies. 

 We also had a car shaped pinata.  You can see Scott holding it up and holding John.  Super Dad!  Anna was feeling sick, but the boys finally got into the pinata and even set aside some of the goodies for Anna.

Then it was time for cake. 

Grant did great blowing out the candles.

 Grant was more into eating his pinata candy than the cake.  But the cake was good too.

We had a short treasure hunt to find Grant's gifts.  Matthew and Anna helped.  Matthew also helped him open his gifts.  And then wanted to play with them.

 Grant was excited about his presents.

Grant liked this airplane he got, Bravo from Planes.   I told him to smile normally and this is what he did.  :)  I think he enjoyed his birthday.  Happy Birthday Grant!!  We love you!!