Easter Party

Thanks to my sister, the boys had a very fun Easter party for Boy School.  I'm not really big on all the fluff surrounding Easter, so my idea list was about 2 lines long up until the day before.  And then, in what can only be described as an unordinary turn of events, I called my sister.  Seeing as we come from the same gene pool, when our brains are combined for the power of good, we can produce extraordinary results.  Or in this case, enough ideas to keep 4 young boys occupied for 2 hours. It's like a superpower.

So, just in case you are likewise faced with a similar conundrum in the future, here is our top secret list, that was produced after minutes I mean hours of thought:

Easter Egg Hunt

 ** This was actually already on my list.  Unfortunately I made my kids hide them all the night before and when Luke woke up he went around the house finding them all, so we had to re-hide the eggs.  Mainly because when I asked Luke to put them back, he shoved all of them in just one spot.

Easter Books

** I love the Betty Bunny books if you need a good place to start.

Made Bunny Faces

** Thank you pinterest

Made Easter Maracas

** I didn't have any dry beans to put in our eggs, so I resorted to wasabi peas.  I hope the hot glue holds up.

Easter Parade

** I think I was sarcastically singing this to my sister, when she suggested I put the maracas and masks together for. . . an Easter Parade.  Yes -- we should actually have a purpose for the things we make!!

Resurrection Rolls

** Apparently boys do not want to eat anything when you start off saying, "This marshmallow is Jesus!"  Luke and Levi wouldn't even touch the marshmallows and Luke cried, "I don't want Jesus to die." Ellie ate them for an afternoon snack.

Snacks in Easter Eggs

** Note for future reference -- eat snacks FIRST! Apparently no one wants to eat gold fish, carrots and grapes out of eggs after other eggs have produced jelly beans and chocolate bunnies.

Pin the Tail on the Bunny

** my sister drew this graphic for me in about 5minutes because the one I wanted to download from the internet wasn't available to download anymore.  I was just going to get a coloring page since time was so short until my sister proved that Joachim girls love a challenge and whipped that bunny up. 

Egg and Spoon Race

** Luke is a cheater pants

Easter Songs

** Luke's personal favorite is Little Bunny Foo Foo -- do not try and find a youtube video of it.  This might come up: Violent Little Bunny Foo Foo

** If You're a Bunny and You Know It (wiggle your nose, flop your ears. hop around, shake your tail) -- Thanks Scuttlebutt.

And . . . .decorating Easter Cookies.

We managed to use up all but 5 minutes.  Hoppy Easter

Spring Break

For the first time in years, we stayed put for Spring Break.  I was a little worried wondering what we do to keep ourselves busy (and the house clean), but it turns out staying home has its perks!

Luke had school the first two days, so I took the big kids out to do all the things Luke does that they get jealous over.  Namely, shopping.  We hit Target for Easter candy and Costco for churros and smoothies.  The second day we went out for breakfast.

For the rest of the 2 weeks we spent our time

Swimming with friends

Making cupcakes and fresh squeezed lemonade

 Easter packages with a sock bun donut and a dancing chicken to *take* out for donuts.

Lots and lots of play dates and 3 park days

Hiking with more friends

With ice cream as a reward

A birthday dinner

Got movies and books at the library & played with neighbors

 

Four nights of sleepovers

 

Some shopping for me with girlfriends and late overs for the girls

 

Date night with friends to The Spot, a wedding reception, breakfast with my family

A trip to the zoo, including a ride on a camel

 

 

And Luke peeing in public?  

 

No!  It's just the water feature.

Spring Training game for the boys

A newspaper fashion show

Hiking down into the Grand Canyon

 

A trip to Out of Africato feed the giraffes and see the baby zebra

More birthday parties, baby/bridal showers, and trampolining

Dinner with Dustin's friends who were in town at the Arrogant Butcher and a baptism

So glad we didn't go anywhere so we didn't miss out on the small moments that make life so big.

Peter Piper Pizza

A trip to Peter Piper Pizza is pretty much akin to a trip to the dentist for me.  Only at least I leave the dentist with sparkly clean teeth and not the heartbreak or only getting a tootsie roll when Luke really wanted the 10,000 ticket remote controlled helicopter.

Miss Becky, our most beloved preschool teacher, puts on a field trip to Peter Piper Pizza every year.  And since my kids have been going there for 7 years now, there have been a few.  Only for some bizarre reason, my parents are in town for pretty much all of them, so I've tricked my dad into going in my place. 

This year they weren't here and I had to pony up.  Only guess what -- it was actually fun.  All these years I've been letting my dad have all the fun!!  It helps that the place is actually closed until 11, so during the field trip, they are the only kids there.

 

They take the kids on a tour of the facilities (including the freezer and soda pop fountains)  and then they get to make their own pizza.

They also get some tokens which Luke used to play skeeball and basketball. 

 

And now I'm sad because I only have one time left to go on the field trip.  All those wasted years!!

iPhone dump

Before school got out, we had to squeeze a lot of things in.  Lukey did some babysitting for a few days:

Dustin got caught getting Dairy Queen without telling me.

Ellie grew up

 I taught 3 Art masterpieces in one week, did playground and lunch duty and volunteered at field day.

Went to a just dance party (no, that's not me)

Survived human foosball

And a few of our Ward boys got mission calls -- one to Portland and one to Kenya!!  Nate celebrated at one house with an ice cream sundae bar of chocolate ice cream smothered in chocolate sauce, m & m's, reese's pieces and kit kats.

Down and Derby

We actually watched that movie in order to prepare ourselves for Nate's first Pinewood Derby.  I actually had to force the kids to watch it (on the recommendation of one of my running girlfriends) but by the end they were all crying when our piano teacher showed up during the final run.  And then Dustin made us re-watch it the next morning since he had missed it for church meetings.

It's pretty terrible, I'm not really recommending it, but it's on Netflix and totally worth it if you've got one coming up.

Dustin and Nate may have spent more time watching the movie than  working on the car.  The started about 3 days before the main event, but I'm so proud because it was all Nate.  He designed the car, sanded the car, painted the car, decorated the car. . .  I was slightly disturbed that he picked red for his car, but you've got to let them make their own choices.  He got there and some kid had a BYU car so Dustin came home with car envy.

All in all, Nate came in top 5!  Awesome for his very first, home made, last minute car.  I was at home since Luke had passed out in my bed and kept getting video after video of Nate winning races. It was no "Fluke" but it was a great Red Rocket.

Running Club

I'm pretty sure my kids hate Running Club.  The reason I say "pretty sure" is because they no longer mention how much they hate it after I told them they were doing it and any whining about would result in an extra a lap around our neighborhood.  But maybe they love it and refuse to admit it to me.

 I love it because I love to run and I think it's an important to building up endurance, plus it burns off energy.  I hate it because our Wednesdays have slowly morphed into craziness and I would really love that extra hour they're gone for homework and piano time.

It's over for the season, though, and I think we're all breathing a sigh of relief.

This Wednesday went a little like this:

School for the big kids and Boy School for Luke (brought to you by the letter X):

Lunch out with Dad at Over Easy (so so good)

Running Club ceremony

Homework, piano, stuff food in faces

Cross Fit Kids for Ellie and Nate (poor picture courtesy of Dustin)

Tumbling for the Sadies

and then a quick drop off of the kids and feeding of anyone who hasn't eaten before Mutual for me.  We made homemade ice cream, it was rough.

And Dustin stayed home from Church activities this week to start on Nate's pinewood derby car (which was less than 72 hours away).