One of Edyn's favorite things to do is to climb up into our brown chair when Isak is sitting there and sit by him. She does it almost every morning before he leaves for school and whenever else she discovers him there. She is obsessed with every book recently and will have us read them to her over and over. Since Isak can read now, he will sometimes read to her for us which is awesome but he usually doesn't have the patience for her repeat requests.

 It was in the 70's the end of last week and beginning of this week and my kids have spent every spare moment outside. Mostly making mud holes and getting really dirty. We planted some flowers in my pots and also got the carrots and peas planted in our garden. Isak has been home for spring break and he has loved going for bike rides in the morning while I pull Edyn and Lucy in the wagon. Lucy could probably ride her scooter but that would mean letting go of her turtle or some other object in her hands and that's just not her style! And Edyn really loves the company in the wagon, even if she does spend most of her time trying to climb out.

Edyn was born with an umbilical hernia. They are fairly common I believe and usually pretty benign. They almost always go away on their own, usually once the abdominal muscles develop and can pull it in. They are painless and the worry is that they will bump the exposed intestine and do some kind of damage. So far she has been fine and it hasn't been a worry but we recently got a referral to Sacred Heart Children's Hospital just to double check. I'm sure all will go well and hopefully she won't need surgery.   And my mom bought her the cutest ruffle swimsuit today so that no one will be able to see it through the material. It does bring some stares from people if they're not prepared for it!

Easter

I didn't get home from work till 7:30 Sunday morning so I covered all the kids Easter Baskets with a sheet until I could see them. They didn't even notice. I even put out some cotton balls in a trail from the door in a half hearted attempt to make it appear that the Easter Bunny came. Isak discovered my bag of cotton balls though like two hours later and was like, "Hey, isn't this what the Easter Bunny used?". Yea, nothing gets by that kid. I'm just not too worried if my kids believe in the Easter Bunny. Its a fun idea but quite frankly, the idea of a giant rabbit sneaking into your house at night and hiding eggs is kind of terrifying. I'll go along with it as long as they are little though I just don't plan on feeding the fantasy more than I have too.  Now Santa I'm much more a fan of!

 My amazing visiting teachers dropped off an Easter Basket for me Friday afternoon while I was at work and it was FULL of awesome candy, oranges, and eggs. I used all the candy for my kids Easter baskets which meant I didn't eat it all and my kids didn't get an insane amount. It was a win win!

And as I imagined, there were no pictures before church in their Easter wear which really was for the best. Pretty sure none of them had socks and Edyn had drooled M&M juice all down her dress. Oh and Isak was wearing his tennis shoes. It was kind of blur with my two hours of sleep but pretty sure that's what I observed before I came home from church and dove back into my slumber.

Egg Hunt

Saturday before Easter we had two Easter egg hunts. The first one was a large community egg hunt that was across the street at Isak's school. It was completely free and so it had a huge crowd and as a result, there were not many eggs to find. Isak managed to get three and Lucy didn't get any. Luckily she did not mind too much and I went home and let her find a few eggs in the yard and she was perfectly happy with that. It was gorgeous weather though and warm enough for our kids to play in the sprinkler afterwards.

In the afternoon we had a big Easter egg hung for some friends and family at Kevin's parents house. This is the second year we have done this and it has worked out really well. We have everyone who participates bring a dozen eggs per kid then everyone finds about a dozen eggs. We always have a lot of extra and let the kids go find more after we know everyone has found at least twelve. 

 I was scheduled to work Saturday night and knew I wasn't going to be up to taking pictures Sunday morning so I put the kids in their clothes Saturday before the egg hunt and tried to make them cooperate.

They were pretty good, although Lucy had just drenched herself in the sprinkler so all I could do with her hair was a top knot on her head. And they are all wiggly and never want to all look in my direction at the same time so I think I got two maybe three decent ones. Good thing I'm paying someone else to do all this for me next week!

 We had a great turnout with about ten families that participated. It took me about 20 minutes to hide all the eggs and towards the end I just started throwing them randomly all over the grass.

 We let the little kids go first, followed by the older kids who had to run and touch the mailbox before they could start hunting. We caught Isak about three minutes in with about 25 eggs in his bucket so we made him go run and rehide some of them.

 Kids got quite the haul and I'm pretty sure they ate the majority of it as they opened the eggs. Talk about a sugar overload.

 Edyn wandered around and picked up a few eggs and would eat the chocolate out of them if she could find any.

We had really warm weather and finished up the day by getting ice cream at our super awesome Fruiteletas store.

Last Friday night my parents offered to take the kids overnight and bring them back Saturday morning. I was scheduled to work at 11pm Friday but Kevin and I had the evening off together. I love when we get childless evenings together and we hadn't been to the temple yet in March so we decided to go do a quick session and go out to dinner. Between my work schedule, Kevin's work plus his extra tax stuff, our three kids and the billion other things it seems we have going on right now, it was so nice to escape it all for an hour. I love this beautiful place and I love it even more when I get to go with Kevin. Such a peace that is found there and I know that it adds to a calmness to our lives when we leave. So grateful we have one that is close to us that we get to attend on a regular basis.

 Monday night we colored eggs with the kids. They were super excited, despite Isak's very solemn face.  I baked the eggs in the oven instead of boiling them and it worked pretty well. There were some brown spots but they were covered by the dye. The kids liked writing/drawing on the eggs with crayon then watching their  design show up through the dye. We also got some shiny paint stuff for the eggs that was also pretty messy but fun to use. And despite my hands being dyed green for the past week and some spillage of the dye all over the table, it went pretty well!

Kevin left town on Tuesday for a few days and should be back sometime late tonight.  He left me with two soccer games of the kids to coach and this poor little baby who keeps spiking fevers.  Kevin has coached soccer now for three seasons and I don't know how he did it. Your own kids never listen as well to you as they do to someone else telling them what to do.   It was fairly frustrating as both of them are on the team and Lucy never wants to go out when I want her too and Isak is crying the curses of the world every time the other team scores a goal.  Luckily my parents came to my rescue on Tuesday and helped with Edyn and tonight Kevin's grandma was awesome enough to drive down and help me. I am so lucky to have so much family nearby. 

Edyn started with a fever last night and was up several times last night fussy and super hot. Today she hasn't been much better and I'm hoping to take her to the doctor tomorrow.   She's usually so happy, its pretty pathetic to see her so sad. However, the kids and I were stuffing Easter eggs tonight and Edyn discovered the bag of M&M's. That sure made her happy in a hurry!

 We found these giant bouncy balls at Costco last weekend and got a couple for this summer. They remind me of the Zorbing balls we used in New Zealand a few years ago. They fill them with water then roll you down a track down a hill. These have a hole at the top and bottom and are about 4 feet by 4 feet. They are made of pretty thick vinyl and I am thinking they will be tons of fun with water in the summer in the backyard.       Meanwhile Kevin desperately wanted to inflate one and did so on Sunday and now Lucy thinks its her house. She also refers it as her "water" and has moved all her stuffed animals and blankets in there. I try to sit in it with her and lasted about 30 seconds before becoming claustrophobic.

 Lucy got a Fur Reals dog for her birthday last month and the kids like to think of it as their pet. Edyn especially loves it and makes the "woof! woof!" whenever she sees it. She loves to carry it around and talk to it as well.

 I found this dress for Edyn last weekend while thrift shopping with my Young Women for $1. Its pretty awesome. And I love her super blue eyes and very unicorn like ponytail.

Isak and Lucy started spring soccer this week and Kevin is their coach. So far they've had two games and both done well, Lucy is pretty interested in grass pulling/throwing but also loves running and chasing the soccer ball so it balances out. Isak is showing more focus on the game this season and scored his first real goal tonight! He was pretty cute doing his little "yes!" to himself.

 Lucy was very excited that we found pink socks. They are pretty cool. The season is only about 4 weeks long with 2 games a week. Hopefully it warms up soon, these games have been cold!

 My kids before church today in their "green" outfits".  They were all staring straight into the sun, if you can' tell. Lucy is holding her new best friend gingerbread girl named "princess" that she stole from her Nana's house along with her thermometer to take to church. Edyn is happily drinking her bottle while Isak was kind enough to help corral her.  I think I need some more practice before Easter pictures in a few weeks!

Lucy

 Oh Lucy Girl. What has she been up to..Well, she is still loving preschool and the plastic food carrot that is her very favorite thing there. She holds onto it through centers and playing in the gym and has a major freak out if another kid steals her carrot. Luckily her carrot obsession is pretty well known by now so most everyone is happy to let her be weird in peace :).

 Lucy got a princess crown in her Happy Meal the day I had my race and was super sick by the awful smell of Mcdonald's food.

 We've had some super warm weather lately (temps above 60's) so we have made several trips to the park and even fit in some runs in the jogging stroller. Although Lucy and Edyn together weigh 70lbs so its getting harder to push them. Lucy loves the park and really loves when we have friends meet us there. Her little friend lives down the street from us and also goes to her preschool. They are very cute together, even when Lucy says her name wrong for the 100th time in a row. They went to the Post Office for a field trip on Thursday and got to mail letters to themselves. They were both SUPER EXCITED and were greeting everyone that came in the post office that day with a cheer and lots of "YAY! You're here's!!". It really doesn't take much to get Lucy excited. She is so happy 90% of the time.  I love that she thanks everyone for everything and is constantly complementing others. If she keeps that up she will have a lot of friends growing up! On the other hand, Lucy is kind of quirky and I'm hoping she outgrows some of her quirks. Like eating the grass. Or my new favorite, chewing teeth marks into the side of her and Isak's brandnew bunk bed. I was trying to figure out what happened since they are BRAND NEW and was asking the kids and telling them how we need to take good care of our bed and on and on. And Lucy looked at me and said, "I bite it. I go AYE AYE AYE" (as she makes chomping noise with her mouth). Yea. I wasn't even sure what to say to that, the kid is four and apparently needs a teething rail. Even Edyn doesn't do that. So Lucy and I had a discussion about eating our furniture and she hasn't done it anymore.  That might impact her ability to have friends....hopefully at 13 she's not still chewing on her wood furniture.