::::

Tonight Sandy was having a total melt down flip out in bed. At bedtime.  When he was supposed to be asleep. It was a serious major meltdown that included screaming and kicking and death screams.

I was just done with it.  Sandy has been experimenting with all sorts of different "behaviors" lately and by bedtime I'm all worn out.

What happened?  Well first I told him he wouldn't be having a sleepover with one of his little girl friends at school.  That was so mean.  Then later on he had an "injury" on his finger and "needed" a bandaid.  Against my better judgement I stepped into his bathroom and grabbed him a bandage.  His box of Star Wars bandaids was empty and so I grabbed something else.  I had a feeling of inpending doom when I saw the empty box......and rightly so.  When he realized that minions from Despicable Me were surrounding his finger rather than Yoda or Luke, he lost it.  Truly lost his mind.

I left.  I was done like I said earlier.  I went and found Dad and told him it was his turn for some of the fun.

While I was finding Kris though, Max snuck into the room.  He was sure he knew what to do in order to fix the problem.  I saw him darting around the house, finding things and doing things.  I didn't think he could fix anything, figured he could only make things worse, but I was wrong.  He fixed it.  He made Sandy a Star Wars bandaid.  See the above photo.  It's complete with a little bandage cushion made with a tissue.

When it was wrapped around Sandy's finger Kris said that Sandy looked at it and with a shuddery breath said, "It's SO CUTE!!"

When I went in to give the crazy guy one last kiss, he told me "I'm so proud of my brother!"

Even though these guys fight a lot, they are great brothers.  And Max's drawings are SO CUTE.  Good job Max, saving the day.  I can always use the help!

::this week::

This week there was obviously not enough time for blog posting.  But lots of things happened.  

Mostly people were sick though, and it was sad.  We were supposed to go on a fun weekend trip to CA, but Sandy had been sick the weekend before and then Lucy and Max both started throwing up mid-week so we had to cancel our fun.  Nobody threw up at Target this week though which was better than the week before.  Sandy may not ever be allowed back in the women's bathroom at Target again after that episode.

But lots of other things happened.  The kids were cute.  Some flowers bloomed that had never bloomed in the yard before, which was pretty exciting.



Here is the requisite Lucy and Mom shot.  She doesn't hold still much these days.



Poor miss Lucy got the pukes on Tuesday night and thew up all night long, it was a long night for both of us.  Luckily in the morning she felt better and there were no more pukes.  But she had to do some pretty good napping to catch up.  Me too.  Here she is in my bed.



A little pre-bedtime Donald Duck for Sandy.  Bedtimes are the best and yet sometimes the hardest part of the day.



Lucy got a new chair that attached to the counter so she could sit with the boys.  She loves it.  Now we have even more mess to deal with on the counter. It's so fun to see her interacting with the boys, when they're not fighting over toys that is.



Here's Lucy not eating.  That's the thing she mostly does when she's in her chair--not eat.  She only likes processed packaged food these days.



The most exciting thing that happened this week was WALKING!  Lucy has been taking steps here and there and walking between Kris and I--diving into our arms at both ends--but not really walking.  Well, this week one afternoon you could see a switch flip in her head and suddenly she was a walking kid.  She decided crawling was for babies and she was big.  And off she went.



Yes it's pretty much the cutest thing ever and she is SO proud of herself.











A walking baby angel!









Poor tired baby.  I seriously can't even imagine how much work it would be to learn to walk. It must be completely physically exhausting!



On Friday we went to do some fun things in ABQ, but Kris wasn't feeling good at all, poor thing.  We still had dinner and a little shopping, but sadly it was just a sick week.  Poor us.  I missed church both Sundays attached to this week for sick kids.

But so many great things happened too.  We're just lucky to be together and to get to take care of each other.

::::

I love this little dress that Mom and I found at Target.  Lucy didn't love it because it really impeded her crawling.  In fact, she was really mad when  first put it on her.  It was just too long.  She had to monkey crawl or stand up.




And the fact that she insisted on putting on Sandy's old baby shoes didn't help.  She really wanted them on, but they were also driving her crazy.


Anyway, she was just so cute I kept trying to get pictures of her--not all of them worked.





And to make sure that we have plenty of goofy pictures in this post, here's a rather goofy one of the two of us.  She's mad at me--why?  Who knows.  Maybe becasue she's wearing a bib.  Good thing she's so cute!

::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.