Nadia brought home what may be my favorite art project to date. A Picasso of Spaz our cat and a bird. I think it's absolutely brilliant. I'll miss the stellar art program at BYU.
Sage is finally starting to enjoy her exersaucer. The jolly jumper is still a clear favorite.
Found this while digging up the backyard. I can't believe it hasn't even rusted. I'd feel bad throwing it out after it's survived all this time.
I was invited to a blind date with a book party where we made literary treats and exchanged some of our favorite books wrapped up. It was a lot of fun! My family requested cream puffs so they could enjoy the surplus so we found a way to make those "literary".
Hi. My name is Sage and I'm super cute.
Elsa is obsessed with this pink sequined scarf. She needs to wear it to bed at night, which we loosely drape around her so she won't choke herself. Essentially if she's wearing something sparkly and pink, she's good to go.
Easter baskets. We got some specialty sodas, sunglasses, chocolate bunnies and some new shirts.
Sage got some new chew toys. Almost as good as candy.
Making empty tomb rolls. They were absolutely delicious and definitely will be repeated next year. You roll a buttered and spiced marshmallow in some crescent dough. When they cook, the marshmallow disappears.
Easter Dinner! Paper plates and plastic cups because we are fancy like that. We made homemade cherry limeade along with the traditional fare. So good!
Easter Egg hunting outside. Nadia's fashion sense is light years ahead of everyone else.
Rowan is fishing for eggs. Or something.
Super taster FHE. Apparently you can dye your tongue with blue food coloring and use the punch hole on a piece of paper to determine how sensitive of a taster you are by how much taste buds are highlighted in that particular area. No super tasters in this family that we know of, but Elsa didn't participate. I had the least. Steve used us as his guinea pigs before doing this experiment in his sensation and perception class.
Grandma Dorothy surprised us with a quick visit over spring break during her 70th birthday. We threw together a little birthday party with a malfunctioning Chinese candle that ended up much like the Hindenburg and a single serving of black forest cake. We really don't need more dessert around here.
Sagie got her first pedicure with Grandma in town. She's always making circles with her ankles so it went over really well.
Easter outfits
I'm going to have to get one of the girls standing in these dresses because they are super cute!
The park by our house is always hosting one event or another. This one was in celebration of spring.
My little cheetah and uncooperative cat.
Trying to fly our homemade kites.
Rowan's Angry Bird and Rowan playing the Angry Bird game. How fitting.
Around here St. Patrick's Day is better known as Leprechaun's Day. We continued the tradition of setting a leprechaun trap. This year we went with a maze of gold in hopes that the leprechaun would get disoriented and overwhelmed by the "gold". No such luck.
Before and after
Some weird maple leaf and dragon golden coins that were left behind. There was also the traditional green milk, toilets, and trickery. Better luck next year I guess!
Nadia was featured in her kindergarten today. I got some video, but the audio isn't the best.
I'll add a picture of her poster later as they are hanging it in her classroom for a few days. It struck me as we were putting her poster together how unique and special Nadia is. She loves animals and when she said she wanted to be a vet when she grew up, it seems like it might be something that she'd actually do. Her interests are not traditional little girl's fascinations and I respect that she knows where her interests and talents lie at such a young age. Part of that has to do with having an older brother, but I really do feel like she is following the own beat of her drum for the most part. She isn't a tomboy or a girly girl. She is just Nadia and I love that about her.
My favorite part during the spotlight was when Rowan said that Nadia is really nice and happy all the time. It's funny because we've recently made up mantras for each of our kids to help them work on things they struggle with. Nadia's is to be careful and think happy thoughts because she tends to look on the negative side of things. The careful comes from being a little accident prone. Just yesterday her kindergarten teacher picked up Nadia on the way to school because she had tripped as her teacher was driving by. I've made many shorts out of a lot of ripped jeans from Nadia getting up close and personal with sidewalks. Poor thing.
Elsa's mantra is-
People don't scream. People use their words. She likes to go around and announce this to everyone on occasion.
And Rowan's is "It's not enough to know, you have to do." He knows what he should be doing, but has a harder time following through with that. We're still working on helping him tell the truth as well. Hopefully we'll get there and make improvements as we keep working on things. I should probably come up with a few mantras of my own.
So this happened over the weekend. The question is, would it work for your kids? So far Rowan has earned $3 and the babysitting Elsa chore got upgraded to a whole dollar. Apparently it was deemed as not worth 50 cents. I don't blame them. Rowan is hoping to save up for a Pokemon 3ds game and Nadia wants more lego sets. Just what we need around here... The blank cards are turned over because Rowan already completed them. They were cleaning the kitchen chairs and wiping all the kitchen cabinets with wood cleaner. They have daily chores in addition to these, but those only earn them screen time, not cash. I'm debating making one for Steve, although he would probably be more motivated with alone time than money. ;)
We did homemade valentines for the kids' classes this year. A little more time intensive than I was hoping, but that's mostly because of this...
Nadia's 2 different kindergarten classes meant over 60 valentines to distribute just for her alone. They turned out really cute though. Rowan's whoopee cushions were a big hit too, until his teacher had to ask for no more farting noises during their class party.
Nadia sharing her Valentine's bounty with Elsa and Elsa's friend Aaron. She is so good about sharing.
The other day we were having a discussion with Nadia and Rowan about how we need to be patient with Elsa as she hasn't quite reached the age of accountability yet. Little did we know, she was painting her nails, the walls, and the sink in her bathroom with nail polish while we were having this discussion. It could not be removed from the walls, so I have some painting in my future I guess. If you don't know where Elsa is and it has been quiet for more than 5 minutes, you know you are in trouble.
Rowan babysitting Sage. I'm so thankful for my older kids and their ability to help me out with their younger siblings.
Sage has started to be a fantastic sleeper at 4 months. We've really gotten into a nice routine with her and I'm so thankful for that. She wakes once during 12 hours for a bottle and goes right back to sleep, sometimes doing 8 hour stretches without waking. During the day she gets tired after being awake for 90 minutes or so. Part of the reason for this change was letting her sleep on her stomach. There would be days where her gas would be so bad, she would sleep soundly for 15 minutes and then wake up screaming. Being on her stomach solved her tummy troubles and she sleeps so much better. They say you shouldn't let babies sleep that way due to SIDS, but honestly it was to the point where I couldn't get her to sleep any other way than in the swing. Besides, she is rolling so much now that it would be difficult to keep her from rolling over on her own in the crib.
Sage is wearing one of my favorite onesies from Nadia and her boots too. I love seeing my girls in their sisters' hand-me-downs.
Aunt Chandy visited us over President's Day weekend. We had lots of fun with her and even managed a hike with all four kids. We found two caves, a random leather couch and enjoyed the beautiful spring-like temperatures.
The first cave and our kids' personal favorite.
Forever my happy baby. She is my little trooper. The road got pretty rough in areas, but she didn't seem to mind at all.
Chandra was more adventurous than us and took the kids up this steep hill.
Zoomed in when they got to the top.
Steve and Elsa went to go investigate the second cave. This one was extremely deep to the point that Steve couldn't see the end even with his flashlight. It creeped me out so much I couldn't even go look. The last time I went to check out a cave, I was barely older than Elsa. We were hiking in the mountains as a family and we decided to take some trails that didn't seem that used. As we reached the end of one path, we found a cave and there was a dead deer in the entrance. Not smart. We also stepped on a hornet's nest as we were leaning over to check it out and were swiftly attacked. My brother Darren picked me up and ran with me out of there, resulting with me only getting two stings, one on each knee, and Darren getting the brunt of the hornets' anger. He was my hero that day. We managed to find some relief in a stream by putting mud on our sores. Thankfully that was not repeated this day.
Just a beautiful day. Rowan was probably talking Chandra's ear off about Pokemon or Minecraft.
We managed two dates that weekend. One of them Chandra babysat our kids so we could go have dinner out. The second was later in the week. We got babysitters for the kids and went on campus for dinner at the Cougar Eat. Afterwards, Steve came to my Pearl of Great Price class that I'm auditing this semester. It was a nice outing and also redeeming since the last time Steve went to a class of mine, we were dating and it ended up being a breastfeeding lecture complete with detailed videos in my child development class. Now that was awkward.
Cute Converstaions
Sitting at church in the hallway, an old man walks by with a cane...
Elsa excitedly says: HEY! That people has a pogo stick!!
Grandma Dorothy and I are discussing art when the topic of Monet comes up...
Nadia: I know who that is!!
Us: Who? Monet?
Nadia: Yeah, we learned about him in kindergarten. He paints with quick strokes!
