I have an amazing friend, really, really amazing friend, who joined the Idaho 501st Legion (http://www.idaho501st.com/) a while back. When I was planning my Cub Scout Pack meetings, I got to my Space Derby, and I realized I had the perfect hook-up!
Who is the coolest Cubmaster ever?! (Ok, so it’s not me, but I come close for this one!)
We didn’t have money for kits, so we taped balloons to straws and let them go. It actually worked pretty well.
We even had Star Wars Themed desserts!
We started with an Easter Egg Hunt that my nieces set up for me.
(You will please note my fence in the background behind S. After a year and a half, the landscape company came out and made good on their warranty and fixed it. It’s standing straight up and down now. You will please avert your eyes from my empty garden … no one plants around here until mid-May at the earliest, so it still looks sad.)
“Mom, there’s a funny thing in this other funny thing …”
“Yum!”
Deciding to be happy with her own basket instead of trading it for her brother’s.
I wanted to take Easter pictures in advance, because with church at 9am, Sunday morning can get hectic. And as soon as we get home, we eat lunch, so clothes get changed or dirty. Sadly, I’m not a very good photographer … but here we go!
“Smile and say ‘cheese’!” gets me a pained look.
I try to pose her. “Put your hand on the fence and lean on it …” and she couldn’t figure out how to put her back and her hand on the fence, and by time I was done positioning her, the smile had faded even more …
I tried to get her to relax and be silly so I could get a natural smile … instead she looked like she’d swallowed a bug!
But I did get this one, and I’m pleased with that. Funny, this was the second one I took, so I could have saved myself the trouble and stopped there!
On to my next subject …
L was actually pretty good … especially when I realized that I kept thinking her mouth looked funny because of her missing tooth, not because she or I was doing something funny!
And it was on to Subject #3. Who I first caught in that moment of “Mom just took my pacifier away, and I’m not going to be happy without it!”
Followed by the “Wide open mouth, coming to get the pacifier” picture …
And now that my mouth is sufficiently hidden, I’ll give you a dazzling smile!
… and break into tears again when you take the pacifier away to get a picture of that smile.
A few minutes later, distracted by Hercules (seems we’re much better suited to rabbits than to dogs!), he lets me take the pacifier. But now the lighting is just wrong.
But still, I end up with this one, which almost makes it all worth it!
Happy Easter!
Okay, first off, look at my baby!!! Wait, where’s the baby?!!! When did he turn into a little boy! Wow. I just stare and stare at this picture wondering when he started to look so big!
Can you spot the gap in L’s teeth? I pulled her first tooth out. It gave me chills. I can still feel it … urgh. She got over it much faster than I did, and she’s already begging me to pull the one next to it …
I should probably say a word about Molly. I’d begged C for a dog since we got married. He finally said yes. I rushed out and got this little girl from the next town over’s shelter (a kill shelter). Over the next three days, I realized I’d neglected to ask myself if I was ready (or had the time for) taking care of a new dog and all that goes with it. In the end, the answer was no. I took her to the local shelter (a no-kill shelter) and sponsored her for adoption. I’m not saying we’ll never have a dog … just not any time soon.
Remember those hobby horses I made the kids for Christmas? And C had to help J walk his around the house? Well, he’s figured out to hold on to the mane and do it himself. It makes him very happy. (Note, he doesn’t have a pacifier in this picture – we were doing well getting rid of it until he started teething again!)
Here is a late “Happy St. Patrick’s Day!” You’ll note that S is wearing a dress. She is always begging to wear a dress lately.
I made chocolate chip cookies this month. Usually I talk myself into making oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies, so I can fool myself into thinking they are healthier. This time I just went straight for my old “best ever” choc chip cookies. Yes, the recipe is as good as ever. Good thing I had a bunch of people to give these away to.
Both J and S were more than willing to help me “dispose” of the cookies. But L took one bite and declared them yucky. They had chocolate in them, and for that they could not be forgiven. In fact, when I went to put the next batch in the oven, she asked me, “You’re not making more of them, are you?!” My poor child!
But she’s awful cute, so I’ll keep her!
I owed my sister a favor, so I made my niece a Snow White dress, like I’d made for S. I’m finding it’s getting easier to sew the more I do it, and I’m getting better. See that little point at the bottom of the bodice, where the yellow line ends? In S’s dress, there’s no point. I couldn’t figure out how to do it until after I’d finished it up and I was lying in bed wondering what on earth they were thinking. THEN I figured it out. So it was nice to have a second chance and see if I could do it right. (L is just about the same size as my niece, so I kept trying the dress on her to see if it fit.)
And finally, my girly-girl. She went to a friend’s birthday party, and they all came home with super hero capes. She declared herself to be “a princess bat woman” and then added the cowboy hat later.
J painted his face. Apparently, he’s like his dad. Chocolate is not meant to be eaten … so he smeared his face with it!
Ok, so not everything, but I’m sure you’re not interested in the daily stuff, so here’s the latest excitement we’ve had.
I didn’t to much in January, mostly because one of my best friends had her baby at the beginning of the month, and I was only half done with her blanket. I crocheted until my hands cramped, and kept going, but I had the blanket ready for the baby’s blessing.
We got to go on another trip. My mom was working a lot, but we found ways to have fun. We spent a whole day with my grandparents. They had this awesome track the kids played with all day.
And it’s a rule, you have to make cookies when you visit Grandma’s house!
Rule number #2, you must visit the zoo. This monkey (yes, I realize he’s probably not technically a monkey, but a lemur or something, but I’m not in the mood to worry about it …) jumped to the ledge where S was sitting by the window and sat next to her for a while.
We visited my Great-grandma, too, so this is a pic of my kids with their Great-great-grandmother!
When we told the girls that C was flying on an airplane, they wanted to see the plane. But of course, we can’t exactly walk him to the gate, like in old days, so they were disappointed. Luckily, I have some hook-ups in that area, and we did get to take them out to see a plane.
Even J got into it, until he realized the seats looked an awful lot like car seats, and he’d spent too much time in the car lately.
From them on, he viewed the planes from the safety of his daddy’s arms!
My two little pilots in training!
They wanted to get in every plane there was, but it was getting cold and dark, so we had to settle for only two.
They thought it was pretty cool that they could walk on the wing!
Our trip was fun, but it seems we always miss people when we go down because we’re never there for very long. I did get to spend some more time with my new sis-in-law, and I like her more and more as I get to spend more time with her. My brother picked a good one! 
