SB16: Easter Morning!

The rest of Saturday passed with good times and trips to the grocery store, showers, and a decent bed time.  

Unfortunately, Sunday morning came much too early.  The kids, for whatever reason, were up before 7, and ready to see if the Easter Bunny had found them in this new location.  Thankfully, he did!

Because this was fairly soon after Kaitlyn and Dylan got glasses, the Easter Bunny brought all of the kids cool new glasses cases.  Even though Kelsey doesn't wear glasses yet, the Easter Bunny brought her her own case, complete with glasses inside.

The Easter Bunny also brought each of the kids a pair of shoes, sandals or Sunday shoes.  The Easter Bunny was surprisingly useful this year :)

And, of course there was the traditional egg hunt.

This may be the first year that EVERY.  SINGLE.  ONE  was found!

The Easter Bunny didn't hide any of the real eggs.  So we had those for breakfast!

Early morning, pre-egg hunt, family picture :)

Here's the funny thing: Mom and Dad's church didn't start until 11.  So, from 7 on, we had plenty of time to get ready.  So much time, in fact, that I went back to sleep for 30 minutes!!!  It was a little bit glorious.  Unfortunately, it was a bit too much for this little dude, and, when forced to hold still, he fell asleep.

Happy Easter!!!

SB16: Dying Easter Eggs

So Friday night hubby drove over from the jobsite, also conveniently located in FL.  He also hit traffic, but made it to Gramma and Grampa's house about an hour before we did.  By the time we arrived at 10, we we a bit tired.  But we had to unload the car, take tours, and set up bedding.  We were a bit tired by the time we finally got into bed.  

Grampa was nice enough to hang out with the kids on Saturday morning.  Wouldn't you know it, they "slept in" by about 30 minutes, and were still up by 7:30.  He spoiled them by taking them to eat breakfast at Micky Dees.  Most of the rest of the morning we were kinda slow and very relaxed.  By the afternoon, we were ready to start a project: dying eggs!  This is something that we don't do regularly for Easter.  We have only done it a few times. 

Being the cheap, I mean thrifty person that I am, I had previously purchased egg dying kits AFTER previous Easters.  I had two kinds.  One kind that came with rollers and pans that you painted the eggs with....

...And the more traditional kind where you dip the eggs until they turn colors.

He wasn't dying eggs at the time, but this is a pretty good picture of hubby :)

The painting version seemed to be the more favorite of the kids.  

And we only had one run away egg.  The kit came with these life saver stand thingys, so you wouldn't have to put the eggs on the table.  But if you didn't hold onto them, they still rolled away from you, leaving a trail of egg paint to show where they went.

Grampa was such a good helper :)

I love being able to share my kids with my parents!!!

Kari wanted to try to put a rabbit sticker on her egg before she dyed it, and hubby was nice enough to fashion one out of masking tape.  Unfortunately, it didn't really work, but....  it was a nice try.

Kari was also the main one to persevere with the egg dipping.  She make a few really pretty ones!

Of course, hubby had to try his hand too.  He is a pretty artistic kinda guy, and it doesn't really seem to matter what medium he's using.

And, of course, there is the traditional mess involved too.

Which may or may not be another reason I enjoy sharing my kids with my parents....  More people to take care of the mess :)

In the end, I had each kid pick their favorite egg and take a picture.  The GIF format makes them a little less sharp and clear, but I love the focus of the egg, and the soft blurry-ness of the face behind it :)

And the goofy faces too.  Those are pretty adorable :)

Spring Break 2016!!!

For Spring Break this year, we decided to go visit my parents!!!  They had moved into their house after moving back from Chile, and we were super excited to spend some time with them.  And, lets be honest, I was also a bit excited to be able to do something first because my siblings in UT usually get that opportunity.  :) 

The week before Spring Break was fairly busy.  And I hadn't been able to pack as early as I wanted.  Unfortunately, the morning we were supposed to leave, I woke up with a headache and rumbly tummy, so I was a bit slow.  Thankfully I had a helper :)

 We were only an hour late leaving, and we got on the road at a decent time.  The big kids got out of school at noon, and we were thankfully ready to leave shortly after.  The trip was supposed to take about 6.5-7 hours of driving time.

 So we loaded in the car.  And then we hit rain.  Like, heavy duty, lots of it, rain.  Which made us slow.  And we had to stop for a potty break on the FL border.

 Wait?  Where's Kari?  

There she is!

We hit traffic.  And construction.  And maybe we weren't exactly the smartest in heading down to FL for spring break.  But we eventually made it (even though it took about 9 hours instead of 7), and we had lots of fun!!!  Stay tuned for picture overload!

Sweet Girl 3.0

Did I mention that Kelsey was a pill when the older kids got their glasses?  I am pretty sure I did.  Turns out, she just wanted her own pair of glasses too.

So the eye doc was nice enough to give her a pair of her own.

I guess I am glad she doesn't have to actually wear them yet ;)

She loves to cuddle with her daddy.

I'm pretty sure he doesn't mind.

She is my only child who I allowed to give up naps early.  With all of the other kids, I had babies and so much stuff going on, they still laid down (even if they didn't sleep) until they left for school.  With Kelsey, I am a bit lazier in the mornings sometimes, so it is nice to be able to run errands during "nap time".  Most of the time, she doesn't mind not having a nap, but occasionally it catches up to her.

The other day, while running errands, I noticed she was playing with her ear again in the back seat.  She used to do that all the time when she was tired.  It made me sad to realize I hadn't seen her do it in several weeks :(  But, then I went upstairs to check on her before I went to bed, and she was sleeping like this.  And I smiled while I was sad that she was growing up so quickly.

Because, that is what parents think happens.

Hidden Talents

One day, I noticed Dylan was beatboxing.  I asked if I could take a video, and he said yes.

Kid is actually not bad!  Now he does it all.  The.  Time.  Need I mention how completely excited I am?

Deja Vu: Basement Progress

Progress is slow on the basement.  It is hard to work up the motivation when we have already done things once.  :p

But, we have done one or two things downstairs.  We were able to save quite a bit of the flooring in the laundry room.  We treated them with some anti mold stuff (though there wasn't any on them) and then were ready to put them down.  But we had to figure out the pattern first.  The pieces can't be cut shorter than x and the seams have to be x apart and you want to stagger the seams, etc....  We wished we would have written numbers on the back when we took them up.... 

Eventually we figured it out, and were ready to move onto the next step.

First you lay down the underlayment and tape the seams.

Then you start laying the pieces in, and snapping the seams together.

That weekend, Nana and Pop happened to be in town.  They helped take care of the kids....

...As well as help down in the basement.

It made the work much more pleasant!

We need to put baseboards down now, and then the laundry room will be done.  Or, RE done.  Then we can move all the stuff that is currently in the basement into the laundry room.  After that, we'll need to re-install the baseboards around the rest of the basement that gets carpet, and have the carpet installed.  Then we can move back in!  Phew!  One step at a time!

Happy Birthday Dyl Man!

So, my little man, my one and only boy, turned 7!!!  

He got some wonderful presents that he was super excited for.

Lots of Minecraft things (PS- can I just say "I don't get it")

PPS- I love this picture of him!

Quite possibly the worlds coolest helmet.

And an over the door basket ball hoop!  He got it in a few times!

I asked him what he wanted to do for his birthday, and all he wanted was to have some friends come over for his favorite dinner (which turned out this year to be an experiment from Kari's mind: White Saulfredo) and "cake".  They were super "sweet" too and brought him a present: that super fun putty that makes fart noises when you play with it!

Whew!  That is a lot of "air quotes" :)

Dylan is not super fond of sweets, so when I asked him what kind of cake he wanted, he wasn't sure.  When I suggested a donut "cake" he was super excited!  

We went to Krispy Kreme the evening before and Dylan got to pick out a dozen donuts to mix in the with plain ones.  We also picked up a dozen to eat for breakfast for the birthday boy.  Might as well go all the way, you know?

Make a wish!

Dylan was nice and let each of the kids take a few turns with the basketball.  It took Kelsey a few tries, but she finally got it :)

At his annual pediatricians visit he was 52 lbs (50%) and 49 in (75%).  We also discovered he seems to have some slight scoliosis, so we spent some time waiting for an xray so we would have a baseline to compare to later.  

This year in school has been pretty great.  I believe I have already mentioned that Little Man and I didn't always get along when trying to do some "home schooling".  And therefore, he went to school a little bit "behind" the girls.  (again with the quotation marks!)  Not that he was ever really behind.  He just wasn't as ahead as the girls.  The beginning of the year we were plugging along, steadily moving forward.  When they started math stuff, he seemed to really just get it, and I think that gave him confidence in his reading.  By the second half of the year, I feel like things started going much smoother for him.  He is *this close* to being caught up with the girls.  He sometimes even enjoys reading.  (Which is not to say that I don't think some of the words they read are waaaaaaay advanced for a first grader, but that is a post for another time.  Declaration of Independence anyone?).

He is very concerned with pleasing others, but is getting better at making good choices.  He can be pretty sensitive too, and sometimes we have to remind him what is worth crying over.  He learned to ride his bike with no training wheels pretty much by himself.  He got glasses and, to me, looks like Clark Kent!  He lost his first two teeth, waiting all the way until 1st grade to do so.  He learned to swim really well.  Its been a busy year :)

Happy Birthday Dyl Man!  We love you!!!

New Lens

When I bought my fabulous (not so) new (anymore) camera, it came with one lens.  I bought another lens, that allowed me to zoom in more.  I loved the flexibility both lenses gave to me.  Most of the time, around the house, I left the wide angle lens on the camera.  It allowed me to take pictures from much closer, without having to step back, or make the subject back up.  But, when travelling, or playing outside, I would often switch to the bigger, longer lens so I could get closer to subject  without actually being *closer* to the subject.  I had started to get annoyed with it occasionally, and in one of my insomniac nights decided that it was about time for me to invest in a single lens that could take both the wider angles as well as the more zoomed in shots.  I looked around on Amazon (where I purchased my original camera and lenses) and found a 2 things: I could get one lens for an affordable price, but it would cause me to loose a little on both sides.  I couldn't zoom in as far, nor could I zoom in as much.  OR I could spend $1000 and get exactly what I wanted.   Well, neither seemed like a great option. 

While my parents were out visiting during Kelsey's birthday, my dad suggested that I look used.  And, since he was going to be flying out to UT that weekend, he would be happy to look or pick one up for me.  Low and behold, I found a used lens that would supposedly work with my camera, that had the focal length I wanted (a tiny bit more than what I currently had) and I could afford it.  Yay!!!

After a week or so of travelling, and then forgetting it was it the glovebox, I finally got it out and attached it to my camera.  

Wide angle

Close up.  From the exact same place in my kitchen!  Score!!!

And it still gave me great clarity (when I had the settings right).

Last week, for spring break, we went to my parents house, and I made a conscience effort to exclusively use my new lens, to get used to it, and make sure I liked it.  Some things I found out:

1) The lens is slightly heavier than either of my other lenses

2) To focus or zoom in, I have to twist it the opposite direction of my previous lenses

3) It does exactly what I want it to do, in that it allows me to take multiple zoom pictures without having to switch my lens.

In short, I am pretty happy with it.  The heaviness and the twisting are things I am fairly certain I will get used to in time.  And it should work out great for my upcoming trip to Washington, DC with all the 5th graders!  Yay!