easter egg hunts

as you might guess, i completely forgot to take any pictures of all my kids all dressed up in their cute little matching outfits for easter... oops. however, we did get to have a fabulous easter egg hunt at aunt dorothy's house which was amazing! and we did have another little hunt at grandma's on easter sunday (after church) (have i mentioned lately how much i love living close to grandma's house?! i'm sure i haven't said it enough!!! we love you--and some of us 'lof' you ;) anyways, enough talk, here's pictures:


"hunting" for an easy one :)




after the basket upgrade




what! you're supposed to open them before you eat them? why?!




one of the reasons i love dorothy's house, gorgeous!

 

and one more little party crasher... it's a skink, if you don't speak reptile ;)

the ever popular egg-on-a-spoon relay...


more eggs...



someone found the special silver egg!



another lizard? is this becoming an new easter tradition?



and i gotta throw in another picture of chi... he's just too cute!
ps, note that he's already in his pj's, he's the main reason i didn't get any pics of all the kids together :(
though i could have done it earlier in the day, so i can't hold it against him...

happy easter!!!

general conference and afton's toe.

general conference is always a big deal at our house, unfortunately not necessarily because of the messages yet, but i imagine the kids'll grow into that ;) basically it's a favorite because we get to have "conference rolls" (aka cinnamon rolls) and we get to eat them on mom's bed. this is a HUGE deal! this is our saturday morning tradition. it was a little tricky this year because daddy/paul was out of town (in canada at a conference of a totally different sort), and malachi's old enough to need a little more attention. what that means is, we tried hard, and we look forward to reading the messages in the ensign ;-).

this year we also had the added excitement of going to grandma's house on sunday to watch on her tv, and afton managed to drop one of those hand-held sprayer-hose attachment things (you know what i mean?) on her toe... it hurt her... a lot. this is what it looked like a few days later:

 and a few weeks later:

no more toenail. she was glad by the time it started bleeding though, because it didn't hurt as much (not as much pressure), and by the time it came off completely it didnt' hurt at all anymore. now she's just a little miffed that she can't wear toenail polish until it grows back in. i think she can handle it :).

playing around

some of the fun things we've done lately (ps i love spring!)



picnic for dinner (we've done this one twice, i've got a special post for the other time coming soon)

 

malachi does NOT get to dress himself... i rarely get to pick out his clothes either, i think this was rayna's idea... poor boy.

this is one of the kids' favorite things to do, tip the stroller over and climb all over it... this one comes in particularly handy on those rainy days... we also love play-dough (thanks auntie elaine for all the cool play-dough toys from christmas, we love them!)


"look, look, look. mama, look at me!!!" "what is it rayna?" "ummmmm..... a popsicle?"



and afton's sting-ray

 there may or may not be a lot of 'horsing' around going on here too... though most of us are not exhibitionists.

what can i say, he just likes being naked!

hope you all are having fun and keeping busy :) happy spring!

cinder-chi

get 'em started young i always say :)   

(or as the scripture says, train up a child in the way he should go...)

now if i could only get him to put his toys away...               

iris

so we have some irises planted by our front door, and they don't get quite enough sunshine to bloom very well, so it's always exciting when one does bloom. unfortunately, malachi LOVES them... and he likes to sneak over and pick the buds... and eat them. :'(  

this bloom was the first one he picked. i removed it from his mouth, stuck it in a babyfood jar with some water, and two days later, it looks pretty dang good (at least considering it was bitten by an 11 month old).

there's gotta be a life's lesson there, any ideas?

sleepyhead

i just love this picture... it makes me laugh! rayna was literally falling out of bed :)

ps, after taking her picture, i did roll her back in.

ballet class

so afton did ballet class again this winter. i think she had a blast, though last fall was her favorite (remember?). she's a great poser either way :)

we let her get dressed up for the last class, her friend amelia is in the pink behind her.

back bends (sorry it's all so fuzzy, most of my pics didn't turn out great, it was too far away and dark)



aren't they cute?!



they were being bees, buzzing around with their little wings up, to the bumble bee boogie of course :)



i LOVE this one!!! she was "popping" her "balloon" and even though i cut her head out of the pic, you can see how much fun she's having!

blogworthy... (or NOT!!!)

you know, some days are just more blogworthy than others... but seeing as how i need to vent a little, tonight just might be blogged anyways. it really wasn't that bad of a day, though the girls were fighting and whining a lot. i decided bedtime could be a little early because of it, and got rayna into bed around 7.15. i had malachi asleep by 7.30 (sounds good so far, right? WRONG!) and afton was calmed down with a few stories and a foot soak (she busted her toe on sunday, and i'm betting it won't be long before teh nail comes off... i'll tell you more later, for the interested). and by 8.05 she was heading up to bed. meanwhile, rayna was crying and demanding various things (more lights, "i don't want to go to bed," etc) and screaming (the bloody murder kind, not the nice little crying/whining kind) alternatively for this entire time. when it came time for afton to go to bed too, i told rayna if she didn't calm down a little afton would have to sleep in my bed (this usually works, because she likes to have someone in there with her). within minutes, the screaming took over and i went back up almost immediately to move afton. more screaming... more screaming... more screaming... abrupt cessation of screaming "mommy, i think i threw up" ... correct. but just on the blanket (thank heaven!), so no major bed/jammy-changing necessitated. okay now back to bed... more screaming... more screaming... i hate screaming... that was more than an hour of near constant screaming folks... it won't surprise me at all if she's hoarse as a crow tomorrow.

btw, she finally calmed down enough for me to talk to her (after her banging on the door trying to get out while screaming) and within 2 minutes of me leaving her with a hug and a prayer and a reminder that mommy always comes back... she's sound asleep. pfehw.

why do my kids scream so much? :(

stargazing

i tried to add this pic the other day, but for some reason the computer was having trouble with it. we went out a couple nights to see what we could see. it was a nearly full moon the whole time grandpa was here, so we couldn't see as much as we would have if it were darker, but i think everyone (including a few of our neighbors) had a great time with grandpa's telescope.

we got a close up view of the moon, the andromeda nebula, the pleiades (seven sisters), betelgeuse (beatle juice), and a few others. as you can see, even the girls had a great time looking. i wish it hadn't been so cloudy!

airplane museum (18 march)

we had a great time visiting the airplane museum, though i must admit i didn't really take the time to read anything about the planes/etc, i had fun taking pictures :) here are a few of my favorites



ready to climb aboard?!



that's right folks, i even got in a pic or two ;) one of my fav helicopters



malachi had a blast once we got to the play area



fortunately for him, dad and grandpa went off to the computer flight simulator, so the kids had plenty of time to play around. i think they (especially chi) would have been happy to spend the entire time here!

welcome captain chi!



flying another plane!

 

we were fortunate to go on a day that had special tours. there were two WWII fighter planes there that we could climb through and see. i think this was the highlight for everyone except chi.



rayna sure knows how to make that plane look big, but i couldn't believe how narrow they were inside, and they must have been amazingly loud and bumpy!

 

fortunately, afton got a turn with the camera, and she caught grandpa in his true character :)

we sure had a great time visiting, and i imagine the adults at least had a renewed respect and appreciation for the WWII fighters that worked these tiny planes to serve and protect our country! thanks again grandpa for taking us.