The school had a twin dress up day for Dr. Suess week. These dress up days are getting oddly specific and hard to accommodate, another reason to homeschool. Luckily the neighbor had a great idea and a printer and saved the day. We really like Luke, he is in Heidi's Kindergarten class and a big sweetheart.
We also like Tommy! He's gotten pretty adventurous and hilarious.
He loves being under the table, I can only imagine it has something to do with all the crumbs. He recently discovered that he has the ability to throw food onto the floor. Alex also had this talent as a baby. Things come full circle and it just happens to be her job to clean the table and rug. So it doesn't bother me too much that he drops food, because Alex is the one picking it up now!
I had to sneak this picture as we were getting ready for family prayer.
Tommy and Quinn played hide and seek behind this curtain for a good 10 minutes. When she isn't flattening him and trying to drag him backwards by his legs, they seem to have a good time.
Tommy LOVES terrorizing Daddy's grapefruit tree.
I can find him pulling blossoms and tiny fruits off pretty regularly.
Alex turned 8! She got her traditional St. Patricks green t-shirt for her birthday, and we had a special locket made with our pictures in it for her. She got some special scriptures for her baptism, a couple of nice dresses, some shopkins and 2 hamsters! She named them chocolate and vanilla and they are her little best friends, except when vanilla bites her and it breaks her heart that she would do that, almost more than it seems to hurt.
We had some special visitors for Alex's baptism birthday! The Brady's came out a few days before to be here for Alex's birthday, and Grandma Asay overlapped for the baptism. It was a great week!
With so many Grandparents in town, Tyler and I got to go on a date! I've been wanting to go to Pamela's diner for years and it was well worth the wait!
We had cupcakes for my birthday made by my friend Lisa. She also made cupcakes for Alex's birthday party (the morning of the baptism) and for the baptism!
The baptism turned out nice, and we had a lot of friends old and new show up. Both the Grandmas gave talks, Daddy baptized her and Grandpa confirmed her.
It was a very special day and I'm so proud of Alex and her decision!
Grandma Brady got her the special white dress and her headband was made out of lace from Grandma Asay's wedding dress!
It was a chilly day.
Tommy like hanging out with Grandpa and it was sad to see them go like always.
It softened the blow knowing that Grandma Asay would be staying for a week though.
And we got a trampoline.
We decided to take advantage of Grandma and took a quick trip to D.C. so Tyler and I could go to the temple together instead of just one at a time! We found a cheap hotel in a crummy neighborhood (on accident) and survived the night to find the tires still on our car and no stray bullets in the windows! We now know it's worth the price to find a nice hotel in D.C.
It turned out that we were there for the start of the cherry blossom festival! So we walked around the sites and went to the American History museum.
The weather was perfect and the kids loved playing on the steps of the monuments.
We did a LOT of walking, nearly 6 miles with the kids and they did great.
Toad season is upon us it seems, Alex names them all.
Grandma Asay left the day before Easter, but we got some egg decorating in before she left.
Heidi and her Baton.
Alex all ready for dance.
Dance class is at the mall, so we spend a lot of time here.
Tommy is my #1 fan and sidekick. I think we are going to have some great adventures together, I'm glad he was last.
Although Alex comes in a close second. She is his little mama and packs him around like a stuffed animal.
Warm weather comes and goes these days, but on a nice one we made it a fun outside day and enjoyed icecream and stories by the tent.
Our 2 month long garden project is nearly finished! We took 2 truck loads of leaves to the dump and Tyler has been building garden boxes, tall enough to keep the rabbits out.
Daddy's birthday was next in line and he spent it building garden boxes.
Quinn's birthday matched up with Conference again and she declared she wanted a purple dinosaur cake which I was more than happy to make for her. I'm glad the terrible two's are gone, but she has now passed into the threenager year.
A friend painted the kids silhouettes and I thought I'd post the real picture to get an idea for how long their hair is. I liked Heidi's short hair, but now it's long enough to braid and that is fun.
Alex's is very lovely and I think the longer hair suits her, although she keeps talking about cutting it because it's getting hot.
Quinn's hair baffles me. There are no words to describe it's texture and cowlicks.
I've taken to sneaking picture of the kids while they sleep, so I can remember they arn't always moving and making noise.
I often wake up to this in the morning. Tommy and I are bed buddies and Quinn is usually first up in the morning to sneak in and "snuggle" with us. "Snuggle" meaning wiggle and crush and wake.
Heidi usually falls asleep in the oddest of places, with a book in her lap.
For the last 6 months I've been collecting Oreo flavors to have a big taste test party. I finally did it and it was fun/ disgusting. It was determined that flavored oreo's don't taste very good 8 out of 10 times. Original Oreo's won, followed by golden and mint. The rest were a mix of odd and awful.
Thrive is going well! This was what I got for Free and 1/2 off for my first 3 months! We have a nice start to our food storage, plus snacks, plus Thrive to cook with so I'm very happy. It's enjoyable and I believe in the product- It's just not physically possible to do many parties when Tyler is never home to watch the kids in the evening. This is probably for the best, so I will focus on family for now- but I can see this becoming a real asset to us in the future.
This boy is just wonderful.
This girl is a hoot!
Best friends.
Quinn, Tommy and I went to the Zoo the other day. Tommy was moderately interested. Crazy to think when Quinn was that size we were at the zoo about once a week.
shenanigans.
Potty training is going well. Except for the times Quinn has an accident and tries to clean it up herself.
I hired some kids from the ward to come pull weeds and help mulch our yard. I was hoping teenagers would come, but a handful of 3-10 year olds was something at least. The girls and I worked it for 6 hours with 2 hours of help and we got about 2/3 of it done.
I should have taken a "before" picture, so many weeds, so many leaves and sticks and ugly. I LOVE looking out my window now. The weeds are already breaking through the mulch so once a week, or more, we all walk the perimiter and pick 10-20 weeds from each spot. along the way. It only takes 15-20 minutes but this way we easily pick 1000 weeds. I'm hoping if we can keep it up then we can enjoy a pretty yard all summer.
I finally got this beauty put together! My maternal line!
Alex has taken an interest in family history which is so fun.
My cuties.
This was the first week of real spring, when the dandelions were beautiful and blooming for the first time. The violets were popping up in the grass and we were making flower crowns after school. After that week Dandelions became the enemy.
These two are partners in crime. They don't play very nicely together, but Moira is Quinn's best friend she claims. Here they are after getting into the sun screen.
Tommy found my seedlings.
This angel loves quality time, which is hard to get as a middle child with 3 siblings.
This was Tyler's last trip around the yard with the push mower. That mower has had quite the life and we only know the last part of it. We inherited it from our rowhome, where it was used to mow all 5 tiny laws in our row for years and year. When the old lady who owned it moved she gave it to us. Out where we live now, everyone has their own riding mower. It took Tyler hours to mow our lawn with that thing, hours that were taken away from being with us on perfect sunny days! So I finally decided it was time to get a riding mower. It's my gift to Tyler, paid for with the Thrive money. The greatest part is that it came with a leaf sweeper! I'm going to be loving life come October!
These two. And dirt. Every day.
So we do this now.
It blows my mind how beautiful things just spring from the ground here. There are a million types of flowers everywhere all the time. Literally entire gigantic bushes of flowers! Everyone talks about how beautiful fall is out East but I think spring is so much better. This has by far been the most beautiful season of my entire life.
And the toads.
Plenty of flowers for the kids to pick and play with.
Our yard is a magical park. It's going to be an amazing summer.
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