Grant is 7!!

Grant was really excited for his birthday this year.  His birthday was at the end of our spring break this year.  We had a little Lego party at home and a friend party planned for the following week.

I got a little Lego set for Grant to build (to keep him from bouncing off the walls on his birthday).  Then we decorated the cake with the Legos.  He placed them on there.

Another view of the cake

We had spaghetti for dinner at Grant's request.

This chocolate cake is universally loved by everyone in our family.  Including me.  The kids kept telling me how good the cake was.  Get the recipe HERE.

We did a little treasure hunt to find Grant's gifts

He had fun opening gifts

John had birthday envy and told me wanted all the things Grant got when it was his birthday.  

Maybe Grant will share with him.

Our Lego piñata.

Happy 7th Birthday Grant!  I always worry with him about his birthday because he gets so excited and has such high birthday hopes.  He never seems to be disappointed though although he does give me a lot of direction about how the birthday should be.  I guess that's good he can communicate what he wants.  And he seems to have great expectations for birthdays.  But he was happy.

Easter Egg Derby

The Easter Egg Derby this year was a little crazy.  It was spring break, the kids were wound up and it got a little wild.  But we got through it.  The Easter Egg Derby is always an exercise in sportsmanship in our house.  We have a tournament bracket and roll the eggs into each other - the theory being that only one egg breaks when they hit each other.  Everyone feels bad when their eggs get eliminated.  And there can be only one winner.  Matthew and I made it to the finals this year.  

And my egg "Pinkie Pie" beat this egg of Matthew's (modestly named "Egg")  this year to win it all.  I felt bad winning (there is no skill involved) but my egg happened to be the toughest.  I let Matthew have the giant chocolate bunny though.  He shared it with all the kids.

 So close Matthew.  Maybe next year.  Scott, Matthew and Emma have never won the derby.  Darn it, I was truly rooting for Matthew to beat me.  Maybe next year.

Forty

A couple weeks ago I turned 40!  Anna took these pictures of me while we celebrated.  I don't know why I am posing like I'm at the Sears portrait studio.  Hmmm

Grant eyes my cake.  His birthday is three days after mine so he was primed for birthday fun.

With all the birthdays several big boxes had come to the house (mostly for Grant) and Emma thought she would claim one for herself.  She was upset when I told her it was for Grant.  It's hard to understand birthdays when you are three.  Poor Emma.

Strawberry shortcake

Mmmm

I opened some gifts. It was a nice birthday.

In a few weeks four of my childhood friends and I are going on a cruise to celebrate our 40th birthdays (Cindy, Amy, Melissa and Sally for those who know).  Two of the friends turned 40 in March, me in April and the other two turn in May.  We are excited to get together.  I've never gone on a girls trip like this since having kids.  Scott is taking a couple days off work to watch the kids.  So it should be fun.

Stories by Grant

This might be something you file under "things only a mother would love" but I'm sharing it anyway. Grant brought a bunch of his stories home from school recently.  There were a lot of good ones in there.  Here are a couple stories he wrote about himself and his friend from class, Remy.  Another friend from school, Olivia, also makes an appearance in a story.

I've corrected the spelling but left the story the same.

The Haunted House

by Grant and Remy

(actually written by Grant but he gives Remy some credit - maybe they have a Lennon/McCartney situation going on :) )

Contents:
1) Tragedy
2) The Demon
3) Free at Last

The Haunted House

Once upon a time Grant and Remy went into a haunted house.  They ended up trapped in a room and they weren't the only people in that room because Olivia was in there.  She was there for 10,000 years but she wasn't dead.

Grant and Remy find Olivia

She knew her way around the haunted house...and zombies were following them so they needed her help.  They asked her.  She said yes but first they need the zombies.

The zombies attack

But Remy didn't know his hand was on a hammer. Olivia said, "Remy, your hand's on a hammer.  Can't you use it to bang them?"
"Good idea!" said Remy.  He picked it up and banged them.

A zombie with a knife

Not long after that they came to the last zombie.  It was holding a dagger.  I "eww" but I also wanted the dagger...and I got it and the journey begins first.  Lets go.

Running from the giant

They killed the zombies and was now running away from a giant.  "Remy, a door!" Grant said.   They got there just before the giant smashed.

Meeting the Electricity Demon

They escaped the giant but they ran into the Electricity Demon.  He was in the last room before freedom.  He was also invincible.  When they saw him they ran to the exit and was free.
The End

 and now a short one...

Bat Grant and Remy Smash

by Grant

Once upon a time there were two heroes, Remy Smash and Bat Grant.  They were a great team and best friends.  They could defeat 1,000,000 bad guys.  They were an awesome team together.

Heroes Part 2

They were in a battle against 10,000 giants.  Bat Grant tied them up while Remy Smash punched them with his power up.  They won again

The End

Easter

We've had lots of fun Easter festivities over the past few weeks.  Last week there was a church primary Easter party.  We donated lots of filled eggs for it.  Here are John and Emma playing one of the games.

The bigger kids can manage things on there own, so I was with John and Emma for most of the activities.  Here they are trying to cross the cultural hall with a balloon between their legs.

Tricky!

There was a giant piñata shaped like an egg, filled with smaller eggs filled with candy.  :). Here John has a go at it.

And Emma!

Grant used his charm to go without a blindfold.  :)

Matthew and Anna got a few swings at it too.

It was a fun party.

The day before Easter a few ladies on our block arranged a block Easter egg hunt.  Each family donated some eggs and hid them in their yard or somewhere on the street.  The kids had a great time but it didn't take them long to find everything.

Later on in the day we dyed Easter eggs.  We have lots of soccer and tennis practices this past week so there hasn't been a lot of free time.  We had lots of eggs and lots of dye.

Anna liked the color impressions the eggs left on her paper towel

She told me the names of all her eggs

Quite a lot of eggs!

Matthew the alchemist wanted to mix all the dye colors after we were done

He game all his new colors gemstone names like sapphire, ruby, emerald, amber etc.

Easter morning the kids had their Easter baskets filled with goodies and also found a bunch of Easter eggs in the back yard.

It was pretty misty that morning

I made bunny buns while we watched general conference.

The bunny buns are always very popular!

I wasn't feeling that good so I didn't do so well on dinner making.

We had ham and scalloped potatoes and it was fine but not my best work.

The table ready for dinner.  Scott made his famous baked beans and buttermilk rolls

It was a nice Easter dinner but a bit of a crazy day.  It turns out if you feed five young kids a bunch of sugar and then try to make them sit and watch general conference for several hours things could get crazy.  Scott and I were feeling a little frazzled by the end of the day.