::end of april already??::

Seriously it's the end of April already!?  This month has just flown by.  We've been so busy and things have been so crazy around our house.

So since it's the last day of the month I thought I needed to at least post SOMEthing!

Here we are today having lunch with Kris to discuss all sorts of work problems.  It was a beautiful day.  Lucy was eating.



Lucy spent most of her time practicing walking in the last little while.  She also discovered the joys of Max's old plastic car and has spent HOURS getting in and out of it, sitting in it, and pretending to fill it up with gas.

She also makes herself at home wherever she is.



Everybody got haircuts last week.  Max's ended up a little longer than he wanted but I think it's cute.
Max has spent lots of time on schoolwork, swimming and riding his bike outside on the trails.  Oh, and playing with his little siblings.  He's a great big brother, especially when he's in the mood.



Sandy's haircut.  Sandy had a bit of a rough month.  All the family visitors over an extended period of time wore him out and he's thrown more fits in the last two weeks than he did his whole third year of life I think.  We've been working through it though.  He's also spent lots of time in the bath lately, his favorite place.  He would be in there all day every day if I'd let him.



Yes, Lucy got her first little haircut too, just a bit off the front and sides.  She was proud of herself.



Sleeping has been going better--daytime naps anyway.  For the middle part of the month, nighttimes were awful, but they're improving now. But the happy thing is that she's been taking daytime naps much more consistently--pretty much every day, and they're long!  It's been amazing.



And of course many other crazy shenanigans and goofiness has gone on.  If I have time later I'll go back and post some of that stuff, but for now, see you April 2015.  You were a good month, but it's time to say goodbye.

::down the shirt::

So Lucy likes to put her hand down my shirt.  It's a comfort thing.  And she likes to put her pacifier down there too.



A bunch of these pictures I didn't take on purpose, they just happened.  Then I started taking them on purpose.



















Whatever it takes as long as she goes to sleep, right?

::jungle::

Jungle is a baby giraffe that we got at the Animal Kingdom a couple of years ago for Sandy. She's really cute and comes with a little leaf blanket that she can be swaddled up in.

She's spent lots of time in the stuffed animal bin, like all of the other friends, but the other day Max and Sandy were playing in Sand's room and Max found Jungle.  They started pretending that she was a real baby.  
 

They went and got one of Lucy's tiny onesies and dressed her in it.  They found a little box and made a soft and snuggly bed.  She got rides in Max's old stroller, all strapped in.  She slept next to Sandy's bed in her little crib that night and many nights after.



I was instructed to watch her while Sandy was at school, and he would take her in the car and strap her in on the way to school. Sometimes I forgot to get her out of bed or I left her in the car and I always got in trouble.

Sometimes we had to be quiet because Jungle was napping.  It was like she was a really real baby for a while there and it was adorable to see Sandy being so careful with her.


The pretend has mostly worn off now, and she's hanging out in Sandy's room again like a regular buddy, but she does still get some extra special treatment.

I love that little Sandy, and the cute Max that inspired the whole game.  They're great boys.

::easter sunday::

Good morning Easter Sunday!  And General Conference sunday too, so fun!



The littles were excited to find a few fun things waiting for them on the hearth.  Lucy thought it was all really cool.

I can't resist getting the bunny ears for the boys.  They're so ridiculously cute.





Even if I can't get Max to make a normal face to save my life.  Anyway, baskets were fun and there were a few eggs hidden around for people to find.



Lucy's little dress is the cutest thing ever.  I would probably steal it and wear it myself if I could.



The boys both got a little Lego set that was a kitchen with a mom and little boy dying eggs.  So while Kris and I were working on waffles, they brought the sets in and started working on them.  Unfortunately this ended in fighting, as toys on the kitchen bar often do.  So the sets didn't get finished until much later in the day.  I don't have a picture but they turned out really cute.



Easter grass all over the floor--classic, right?  It was really really nice to get to relax and watch conference (as much as relaxing and listening is even possible with our kids around).



Later after both sessions and our ham and potatoes dinner we had an outside egg hunt.  I like to usually host a big egg hunt with friends and food--we have such a great yard for it--but I was just too worn out this year to even get it planned, so we kept it small.



I really underfilled the eggs so we could hide a ton of them.  I wanted Sandy to feel like he had found a lot.  And I think he did.



Max found the big eggs and was pleased by some big boy prizes of money and itunes cards.  I told Kris he better hide those eggs better next time, it took Max about 30 seconds to find the first big egg and about 5 more minutes to find the second!



Yes, Kris is holding Sandy's sword for him so he can use both hands to gather eggs.



Sand still took a lot of coaching, but he's getting better at the hunt.






Happy Easter from us, we're so grateful for the opportunity to celebrate the Savior and His gifts to us.  And so grateful for these cute obnoxious children that we have.

::a little extra spring break::

I realized I missed a couple of important things when I did my spring break post!

First of all, one additional picture of Sandy with his banana and his fixed up Buzz Lightyear.  Do you see the bandaids on Buzz's knees?  They're Doc McStuffins bandaids.  I just thought it was so cute when he came and showed me the bandaged up toy.



Max got a new bike!  Not only had he basically outgrown his current bike, but it was having some tire problems.  And since we did something else exciting that I will explain after this, he needed something to ride quite badly.  AND Sandy has finally decided that bike riding is fun and has been riding a lot on his bike with the training wheels down on the sports court.  So that's been a fun activity that the boys can do together.  They really like it when somebody comes down and throws tennis balls at them so they can dodge.  Murphy spent a good amount of time doing that when he and Laura visited, and it was very well appreciated.



Awesome color scheme on the bike, right?  In this photo he's back behind the bike store trying it out.

And last but certainly not least, Kris and I have been talking about renting a bobcat and cleaning up a few areas for quite a while, and Kris finally bit the bullet and just did it.  First we wanted to work on a sledding track, but there was a big stump in the way that not even the baby Bobcat could handle, so that's a project for another day.  The other thing we wanted to make was a mountain bike trail around the yard.  I will take full credit for the awesomeness of this idea, but I'm sure it had occured to Kris at some point too.

I mean, there's not a ton that can be done in our deserty yard, but a mountain bike trail is definitely doable.  Especially because we have lots of hills and rocks.  And LOTS of dirt.



So Kris spent the entire evening Thursday driving that little thing around and moving cacti out of the way.  The trail is dang cool, and all it needs now is lots of kids riding on it over and over.  Max is doing his best to take care of that.



Want to come ride a loop with him?  Or if you'd rather you can just take a hike on your two feet instead of two wheels.  That's how Sandy does it.



And last but not least, Kris found the old baby swing and hooked it up to the swingset.



Lucy obviously thought it was the best thing ever.



Let's do spring break again, shall we?

:: more spring break and some easter::

On Friday Kris had a day off--he had to do some continuing ed work stuff in the morning but he still didn't have to go into the office--in the morning I took the kids up to the ski area so Sandy could do one more day of lessons.

Max and I skiied together all morning until Kris got there at about lunchtime.  After lunch we got Sandy out of his lesson (he liked it a lot better this time because there were only two kids) and we took him on the lift and the regular hill.

Can you see how slushy it is?  It was prettymuch all slush.



He was already pretty tired by the time we started.  He had learned to do a little bit of turning in his class, so we were working on that.  One of the times though he got going a little fast and got away from Kris.  Kris caught up to him but not before Sandy fell down, and of course that made Kris fall down too, pretty much right next to Sand.

Sandy didn't think that particular fall was very funny, but he did fall down a lot of other times that he thought were pretty funny.


Anyway, it was fun even though he got all worn out and just had to go in and play ipad for a while to get his energy back.
It was fun that the ski area was able to stay open through this weekend.  And it's fun that it's spring now.

''

On Saturday between conference sessions Max and Kris went up to the ski area to whta I guess is a traditional thing--the "Slush Cup" where people try to ski across a freezing cold slushy pond.

They were excited.  I opted out.  Kris forgot his goggles so he's wearing my pink ones.

 

I have to say Max is pretty brave to do this--now keep in mind he is NOT afraid of cold water.  He'll get in any ocean at any time of year, wet suit or no wet suit.

He's wearing his wetsuit here--which is a good thing.  Kris said the water was freeeeeeezing.



And there he goes--way too light and thistledown like to zip across.  He went right in there.  Poor freezing boy.  And yes, Kris brought a change of clothes for him.





Wipeout!  He described the whole thing to me as "epic" afterwards.



And I guess this was Kris's second time.  The first time he actually just zipped right across and didn't get wet at all.  Then he decided to get creative and did a spin.





As you can see, he spun right into the freezing water.



But, also being in a wetsuit, he survived to tell the tale.  But he said it was very very cold.



Later on Saturday while Kris watched the Priesthood session (and Lucy), the boys and I worked on decorating eggs.  Eggs are always the toughest thing for me to fit in on Easter weekend and it always comes down to the wire for me--I always think I'm going to run out of time and then we barely squeak it in.



Max made some of his classic astronomy eggs.  One was Jupiter, one was Earth and one was his favorite of Jupiter's moons (why can't I think of the name of it right now??!)



Sandy took the decorating very seriously this year--a first for him--and was very particular about what he wanted done.



If I had realized he was going to enjoy it so much I probably would've decorated a lot less myself and let him go for it.

Anyway, as it was we all had fun doing a few.



We used a mix of dye, markers, paint pens and crayons.



Sandy almost cried when the last egg was gone. Cute, but that let me know it was bedtime, so off we went to bed.  Busy weekends are the most fun, but boy are they busy!