April Fool's Day

I can't resist a good chance to pull a prank on my boys.  These were my last-minute April Fool's Day jokes:

I switched the boys' jeans in all of their piles so they all ended up wearing pants that didn't fit.

I swapped their pink medicine out for yogurt.  

Henry's lunch looked back at him!

We had the missionaries over for dinner.  I talked up the brownies we'd be having for dessert, several times telling the boys that they had to eat so much dinner to get a brownie.  These were the "Brown E's!"

Best holiday ever!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Sometimes Henry gets ideas for art projects in his head, and he talks about them for weeks.  He's been talking about making little people like this for a few weeks, and finally we found an opportunity - Valentine's Day!  

 He made a personalized portrait for every kid in his class, and the three teachers.  He worked diligently for two nights on it.  I'm so proud of him, and I think his classmates will be thrilled!  And I'm pretty pleased that I didn't have to spend any money on this year's Valentines!

Ellis, who doesn't enjoy drawing or coloring at all (hopefully someday!), opted for the cut-and-paste method.  I thought his Valentines turned out pretty cute as well.

This year, we have started my new favorite Valentine's Day tradition (stolen from Christina): Each kid gets a new book as a Valentine's Day present!  The boys were thrilled with the surprise and wanted to open them first thing in the morning.

 Ellis got the Lives of the Musicians, Lives of the Writers, and Lives of the Artists series that he has loved from the library.  Turns out that Sam is crazy about them as well!

 

Sam got this little series, because he is so into singing right now.  It has fun songs - many that he knows, and many that I'm glad my kids will get to learn.  We just read them, and while I think the illustrations are somewhat lacking, I'm really excited about having these.

 Henry got this little journal - something totally new for him.  It has a question a day, and space to write a response - a different response each year for three years.  I got this because his teacher recommended doing something like this, because Henry has a hard time answering questions that aren't fact-based.  I think it will be a fun activity for the two of us to do after the little ones are in bed.

Oh, and I had to include a picture of these birthday cards the boys made for me.  All on their own, they came downstairs while I was still in bed and made them.  So sweet!

And Henry's card almost survived the destruction of Sam before I found it!

Happy Heart Day, everyone!

Happy Christmas!

We had a great Christmas!  I was excited that the Scotland vests from Ben's parents fit all three boys again this year.  

We enjoyed a nice, quiet Christmas Eve at home, and then a fun-filled day the next morning.  Unfortunately, my Christmas morning pictures never turn out . . . so this is what you get!  

Good Friday, Happy Saturday

After Henry had the day off of school for Good Friday (a novel luxury for us), we decided that if we have Good Friday and Easter Sunday, we had better call the day in between "Happy Saturday!" In our house, it's the day the Easter Bunny comes! The boys were excited about the baskets with candy and a few extra surprises.

Sam loved the punching balloons,

his new cell phone,

and his first sampling of jelly beans (which he was a little confused about. He sucked on them and spit them out -- but he loved them!).

Henry could hardly believe that the Easter Bunny got him something from the Fat Brain catalog: a mind-game called Perplexus.

Ben and Henry were very perplexed by the game. Actually, Henry has really enjoyed it, but Ben has been completely addicted to it!

Ellis was delighted to find an egg full of old men. Artist figurines, to be precise!

Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, and Vincent Van Gogh

He was pleased as punch to line them up with his scientists

I think we're going to have some exciting "Conferences" with these guys. Today I overheard him sustaining Salvador Dali as a prophet and Pablo Picasso as the "Relief Society Stake Presidency."

Ben died eggs with the boys while I attended a Relief Society meeting, and then when I returned, it just so happened to be the PERFECT kite-flying weather! Ben and I purchased a new kite several weeks ago, and we had been waiting for this exact moment to surprise the boys with it! So, we seized the day.

I actually think that kite-flying is one of the most wholesome and enlivening family activities in the universe. It combines so many good things: being outside, getting exercise, looking up at the sky, working together, laughing, and being far away from any sort of electronics or noise.

Yeah, that was me who landed the kite on the power line. Henry was freaking out. It was the end of the fun for him (but nothing actually happened - no sparks or anything! Just pulled the kite down).

We ended the afternoon by finishing up the sugar cookies Henry had been begging to make.

Fact: 90% of our family holiday traditions have something to do with baked goods.

We had a wonderful day, almost crammed with too many good things, but not quite. We got to babysit for our co-op that night, which turned out to be pretty fun. We played my all-time favorite childhood game: Colored Eggs. The kids LOVED it, and I was taken way back to good times with my Allred cousins playing on Grandma's front porch with the green stairs. And we also taught the kids The Bunny Hop. They were AWESOME at it. Aren't we cool?

It was a pretty happy Happy Saturday.

3.14

Happy Pi Day everyone!

I always like a good excuse to bake a pie, especially when strawberries are starting to go on sale in March. Yum!

Today I made couple of good discoveries about Pi Day:

1. If I want to be realistic, I should only try to make EITHER dinner OR pie. Not both. One year I tried to make chicken pot pie AND strawberry pie. Bad idea. Does anyone else ever try to do way too much and end up with a big pile of dishes and a grumpy family?

2. Pizza IS pie. Of course! What a perfect day to both order pizza AND make pie. Why did I not come up with that one earlier?

I'll bet you thought (for a second) that I was going to have some actual discoveries about the number Pi, or some other mathematical discovery. Um, we'll leave that to Ben for the next Ramble.

Did I mention that Ben and I are the only ones that appreciate pie anyway? Henry and Ellis both view it as a vehicle for getting more whipped cream (and a good excuse to sing "The Great Pie," the most catchy little Backyardigans song ever). They inhaled the whipped cream, licked one strawberry each, and scratched around at the pie. It was really hard to see their barely-touched pieces of beautiful strawberry pie go to waste. So -- did I dump them down the sink? Or did I polish them off while Ben was out playing soccer and I was alone in the house tonight? I think I'll leave you in suspense on that one . . .

New Year's in Virginia

We felt lucky to a) get to spend Christmas at our own home this year, and b) still get to spend the week after Christmas with family WITHOUT FLYING ANYWHERE! We are so lucky to have family just a [very long] car ride away!

Here are our happy travelers:

Henry (Now missing both of his front teeth! He is now too cute to resist -- and he gets out of eating lots of stuff because hey, how on earth is he going to bite into an apple?)

Ellis - so good and sleepy for lots of the car ride with absolutely no drugs, or even natural herbal supplements (a huge thanks to the Little Einsteins and the Backyardigans for making this possible).

Sam - who is still in training to become a true road-tripping member of our family and had many moments when he just couldn't take it anymore. And that was when I completely gave in and handed him the box of tissues -- which lasted about 13 minutes.

Finally we arrived, and we had SUCH a great time! We had a fun trip to the Air and Space Museum with all of the cousins.

The highlight of the trip for me was watching the two cousin twins - Sam and Michael. They are close to the same size and stage, and it was so funny to see them crawling all over each other.

They were like two little puppies! It was so adorable, and for the first time in the past 6 years, it made me want twins really, really badly. Once you got them to this crawling stage, it would be so much easier and would be SO cute!

Thanks to Grandma for the matching outfits, by the way! I love this picture because it a) shows how chubby Michael is, and b) shows how Sam is DEFINITELY a member of our family, a child of Ben and Jenn. Somehow it looks more obvious when he's next to a baby that is definitely NOT ours.

New Year's Eve! Wild and crazy party at Kara's house - with the most intense game of Cat and Mouse ever played.

Dave's ingenious idea for a panini bar was a huge hit.

Ellis' root beer consumption got the best of him. Let's just say he's not allowed to stay up until midnight very often!

The Great Lego Sort: The day after New Year's, some of the kids spilled Mike's carefully sorted lego boxes and mixed them all up. Mike was determined to get them all back in order, so he spent the next 24 hours sorting, building, and fixing the giant mess. Don't let the smile fool you; it was not a blissful moment. :)

All of the kids got involved in the Lego sort! Meanwhile, Ben and I sat upstairs making mental notes to ourselves (Avoid the temptation to buy more Lego sets for our kids; If we buy them and care about sorting them, keep them in a locked safe!).

Aw, look at the siblings playing cards. This is Ben with his sisters Kara and Katie. Kara is having baby #6 in March! These are two amazing mamas! I always love being around them and their families because they are super fun, and I learn so much from them.

On the way home, we got to see Amy & Dave (and Abraham Lincoln!) in Philadelphia.

They live in an awesome location near the Museum of Art. It was so fun to see their new place and catch up with them for a bit.

They took us for a walk along Boathouse Row, which was so pretty. The lights came on just in time for us to see them!

We also got to visit the Yosts, Sorensens, and Pat & Bernie on our drive. We had even more people we wanted to see, but we ran out of time! It seems like we just keep getting more and more friends ending up on the road between here and D.C. It definitely makes the drive a lot more bearable! Now, if only we could erase NYC and Baltimore from the map, we'd be all set.