Powder Puff Derby; Year 3

We went straight from lunch on Saturday to our annual Girl Scout Powder Puff Derby race.  I love this picture if you check up close.  You can see all my kids expressions as well as mine and my dads as we watch to see if Ava's car will win!

Elle's car was the Swiss cheese car.

Ava's car was "The Black Widow" and it won most classic car....but did horrible as far as speed!  Elle's car was "Holes."  She won 2nd place and cutest car.  Another year in the books...and lots of ideas to make these cars even better next year!

Double Time

This might be the last year that my oldest and youngest agree on the same venue for a birthday but I wouldn't be totally surprised if Elle was super happy with whatever Levi picked to do next year.  She still loves to play and have fun!  

We invited some friends from church to Mt. Playmore (this is the same place Ava went back in September for her birthday.)  It was super easy to plan and execute this party!  The entertainment was provided!  

Double wish making

We told the kids to get against this wall to take a picture and they happened to line up in almost perfect height order.  

Nana and Poppy came too!

We have an 11, 8 and 5 year old now!

Buds

Since we weren't able to take Levi out to eat on his birthday, we took him after his party and this was his choice.  HALLELUJAH!

I am very fond of the fact that they serve cotton candy here.

This is why I love Golden Corral in all of it's gluttonous glory.  This was my dessert plate and it was so good.

Both hands and a toe

She's officially having to use her toes to help show how old she is now....eleven!  

For her birthday breakfast, she requested a Blueberry Oatmeal Smoothie....random, but doable and very healthy.  It tasted phenomenal!  We now have a new smoothie recipe!

As soon as she got home from school, it was time to open her gifts!

She finally got the pair of mint colored Converse shoes she's been wanting since before Christmas!

My mom and dad arrived a short time later and we headed to Mama Fu's which was Elle's birthday dinner choice.  We did a little shopping after that and then headed home and though the kids had already had some sweets, I made Elle a little bowl of icecream because we realized that we hadn't even sung Happy Birthday to her and the day was almost over!

Two birthday in two days done!  Emotionally, I'm holding it together pretty well, mainly because it all went down in such a fast fashion that I didn't have time to really think about it!

Negotiated 5th

I've been telling Levi for the last week that I was pretty sure I wasn't going to allow him to turn 5.  After much thought, we came up with a negotiation that I think works well for both of us.  I would allow him to turn five, if he would make sure he kept up with kisses, hugs and cuddles for me.  He agreed to the terms and yesterday, we went ahead with his birthday.  We kept things very low key yesterday since Levi is taking 2-3 breathing treatments per day right now and taking an antibiotic for an ear infection, causing him to have almost zero appetite.  Other than that, he got gifts, a bowl of icecream, and cards in the mail so to my brand new 5 year old child, it was a perfect birthday.

He requested donuts for breakfast...and then ate 2 or 3 small bites and was done.  His sisters were more than happy to swoop in and make quick work of the "leftover."

After the girls got home from school, he got right down to the business of posing for his traditional birthday picture in front of his sign and moving on to important things....gift getting.

Sometimes it's the small things that are most exciting.  He didn't ask for this fuzzy Ty animal...but every single time we went into Michaels, for months, as I stood in the check out line, he would go straight to this animal and play with it and loved it.  When I went to purchase it for his birthday, it was hidden behind a bunch of other Ty animals and was the only one there.  I'm pretty sure Levi had hidden it at some point.  

We always let the kids pick where they go to eat for their birthday, but since he was still having some fever and no appetite, we ordered in a pizza (which I think he ate one tiny bite of) and gave him icecream....which mysteriously, even with no appetite, he was able to eat all of.

Then we watched one of his birthday gifts, Wreck It Ralph, while taking a breathing treatment.  

Now to see if he holds up his end of the bargain with the kisses, hugs and cuddles....I'm pretty sure he will.

Maybe It's Just Not Meant To Be

Family Easter Picture; those three words cause me to start sweating and trigger PTSD like symptoms.  It seems such a simple task.  Everyone get dressed in a fresh new outfit, step out onto the back porch and let me take just ONE good picture of our family.  But as any of you photographer/parent people know, you are kidding yourself if you think it will go easy.  Case in point, Easter pictures 2015.

Exhibit 1: Elle holding her dress, and it slumping off one shoulder because she insisted that it fit just fine...and Levi's arms.

Exhibit 2: Levi's eye and Elle's slumping dress..again.

Exhibit 3: See exhibit 2

 Exhibit 4: See exhibit 2 and 3...what the what is wrong with his eyes?!!!

Exhibit 5: As good as it gets....mostly good except Ava's hands and Levi acting like the sun was in his eyes when in reality it is behind us.

Exhibit 6: I stated "Last picture" after getting on to everyone over and over and yet still Levi decided to do this.

  We weren't able to take our picture on Easter Sunday due to Levi being sick.  I have been watching the weather and know that large amounts of rain are headed our way this weekend, making Sunday another bad time to take pictures, so I thought I'd be smart and have everyone dress up tonight after baths and after Ava's school program and quickly ha snap an Easter 2015 picture.  Sigh.  Maybe next year.  Maybe.

Lads 2 Leaders; Year 2

We took part in Lads 2 Leaders again this year.  We are still feeling like newbies but are beginning to understand how it all works and plan to go "full force" next year!  Because this was our 2nd year to attend, we felt a little more like we knew what to expect so that made everything more fun.  We also saw some familiar faces this year which was exciting since last year we knew no one at the event.  If nothing else, we simply hope to work to engage our kids year round to help them grow into Godly leaders.  If that is the only legacy that we leave with our children, then all of our parenting challenges will be worth every bit of work we put in!  It is truly all we hope for.

We started off at Valerie's parents house on Friday morning.  After breakfast we headed to the Gaylord Hotel.....and going through L2L is the only way we will EVER be able to afford to stay there!

Our little banner team won 3rd place for their banner they completed!

Here's a keeping-it-real photo of our family.  It's so hard to get 5 people to smile at a camera at the same time!

But it does occasionally happen!

Here are our two Bible Bowl teams....they amaze me at how much biblical knowledge they are able to absorb.  They love studying and that makes my heart happy!

Getting ready for the quiz.

I plan for 2016 to be our best year ever!  I have looked through all the possible things you can enter and picked out about 13 events that Elle and Ava will compete in and 4 events for Levi.  We are feeling ambitious and excited about 2016!

Not-So-Dressy Easter

So this is our official Easter picture for 2015.  I have on pajamas and Levi has on a Santa shirt.  The girls are wearing dresses they already had.  This isn't exactly what I had planned for Easter Sunday.  But, Levi got sick over the weekend with high fever and a bad cough so he and I stayed home from church.  We will try again next Sunday for our nice new outfits and hope for better health.  We were still able to do all of our other traditions...but this is definitely the only time I've ever posed for our Easter picture in my PJ's.

When the girls came home from church, the Easter Bunny had hidden their baskets all over the house.  They had a very hard time finding them, as it should be.  They didn't leave the EB a carrot this year, so EB made it hard for them to find their baskets.  Ava found hers first.

Then Levi (with a little help) found his.

And finally, Elle found hers.

One of the fun things in their baskets.

Then it was time for an indoor easter egg hunt since it was wet and rainy outside.  Shawn and I did a pretty good job of hiding eggs, if I do say so myself.  We hid about 75 eggs and surprisingly, each child found about 25 eggs each.

Levi found the special egg that had a dollar in it!

It wasn't exactly the Easter I had envisioned, but I have learned over the years to expect the unexpected and be flexible!  Hopefully Levi is feeling better quickly....since his birthday is in two days!

He takes after me

Levi had his Easter egg hunt at school today and he has been so excited for this day!  When I woke him up this morning, I was reminding him that his hunt was today and with his eyes still closed, he got a huge smile on his face.  Up until this year, Levi has pretty much either been overwhelmed or too slow, to get many eggs at these things.  This year, he knew exactly what to do and did it with extreme speed and focus! I'm pretty sure he got more eggs than anyone at the preschool!  That's my boy!

His best bud Uriah

The Easter bunny wasn't too creepy so Levi was willing to go over to him and say hi and even gave him a high 5.

April Fool's Day

I learned something new about my kids today.  #1 They aren't afraid of spiders unless they are in their cereal.  #2 If they see cat poop in a kitty litter tub, their inclination is to touch it and try eating it. #3 They will make great April Foolers one day.

The day started with me hiding spiders under the kids' cereal.  Ava had the best reaction since she thought she was getting a raisin on her spoon and instead it was a tarantula.  Elle thought she'd gotten away with no spider until she got a spoonful of cereal and pulled up her own bug.  There were also bugs in the silverware drawer, a scorpion by the milk and bugs in their sandwiches.

For the main event, I made a kitty litter cake.  The kids had been talking yesterday, ironically, about the front yard smelling like cat poop and so I left a dirty kitty litter tub right at the front door so that when they came home from school this would be what they saw on the front porch.

I thought it looked so realistic!!! (and without realizing it, I made the first letter of each of their first names with the "poop!") 

I watched them from the front window as they approached.  I was laughing so hard that I was worried I wouldn't be able to act disgusted and surprised when I opened the door to let them in.  

To both Shawn and my amazement, after a split second of them trying to figure out what was going on, they went right up to the "poop" and touched it and then immediately picked it up and took a BITE OUT OF THE POOP!!  What the what? 

Obviously I have messed my kids up royally by playing tricks on them too often...to the point where they are picking up suspected cat poop and believing it to be candy.  So, we had to have a quick family meeting about not picking up animal poop and trying to eat it.  The things we never thought we'd have to actually teach someone....

And here's the kids with their own personal pieces of poop.

Then for dinner, I knew I was not going to be able to trick them again so we just added eyes to the pancakes and spiders to the scrambled eggs, which they got a kick out of.

And I found these fun straws at Walmart and added them to the dinner fun.

Speaking of fools, these guys were feeling pretty foolish after dinner and all got dressed up and marched around the house loudly chanting in a very southern accent "I fight fer my country!"  I have no idea where that came from what it was amusing nonetheless. 

Happy April Fools!!!