Before The Bunny Comes

My kids are super excited for Easter this weekend.  Maren has been asking "how many days until Easter" for months now (pretty much since Christmas was over).  They know that Easter isn't just all about the candy and the Bunny, but they are kids.  They want the candy, and they know it's coming, and lots of it.  Two fun family Easter parties this weekend are coming up.  And I admit, I've been looking forward to it as well.  So, before I write again documenting our Easter weekend, I wanted to share these photos with you.

First of all, the kitchen now has new cabinets:

Yep, my house is messy.  Actually, this isn't so bad.  I'm not a perfectionist housekeeper and I've come to grips with it.  Anyway, as you can see, the cabinets don't match exactly, but we knew we would never get a perfect match, so I'm okay with it.  Something else I've learned about myself is that I'm a very practical person.  Looks are not the most important thing to me and never will be.  I'm okay with that too.  If mis-matched cabinets is the price I have to pay to get additional counter space and cabinet space, so be it.

Lainey thinks we installed them just for her:

  

And, Spring makes us all happy:

That smile.  Sheesh, this girl.  I would've gotten photos of the big girls too, but they love making photo-taking difficult for mom.

And other things we are loving:

Lainey found the oven thermometer and decided it should be her phone.  She sounded (and looked) like she was having a very serious conversation.  Oh, and we've added two new words this week, "ha!" (hi) and "addy" (daddy).  She also "bok"s like a chicken whenever she comes across one in a book.  She'll be a talker yet.

And this morning, after a messy breakfast of cream of wheat (hence the missing shirt) she was walking around like this:

I especially like the tie.  She put in on all by herself.  This girl has fashion.  And yep, another messy room.

Yep, More of That

I guess nothing exciting ever happens during the week, so you always get a re-cap of our weekend.  Life happens on the weekends around here.  Next week is Spring Break, and Nick is taking the whole week off, so I'm sure there will be something more exciting to report then.  ;)

Just in case you were feeling left out of our week happenings, here are some fun highlights:

*Maren went on a field trip to the fire station.  She's been singing "Stop, Drop, and Roll" ever since.

*Nick did pruning lessons for a neighbor.

*Ellie had art lessons with her Grandpa.  She goes there once a week and they make art together.  She loves it, and she loves her Grandpa.

*Maren threw up in pre-school, but was just fine before and after.  Kind of ironic because we had just read in Ramona Quimby, Age 8 when Ramona threw up in front of her class and she was so embarrassed.  Maren, however, was not embarrassed.  I guess that comes with age.

*Maren went to a birthday party of a classmate, but also got to have a play date with her best friend from our last neighborhood.  We really need to find a best friend for her that lives closer.  Seriously though, she draws pictures of her just about every day and knows how to write her name and everything.

*Lainey started saying "Uh-Oh".  And she says "apple".  That's it.  She is a lady of few words.

Okay, I guess we do have some life to us during the week.  Now on to the weekend.

Daddy fried us some fish, and while he's battering and frying, we might as well have battered fries too, right?

 It was super delicious.  We have sworn off fried foods for at least a week, though.

Lainey was helping Daddy:

Have I mentioned lately that I love this age?  She's happy.  She's self entertaining.  She makes adorable expressions.  She gives the best hugs and kisses.  She loves her mom and dad and is not yet defiant.  Her big, toothy smile brightens the whole room, and she smiles A LOT.  She's edible.  I can't help but to munch on her and at this age, she lets me and actually enjoys it.  She's learning something new every single day.  Sure, she makes big messes and throws fits sometimes, but even those are cute and not yet super obnoxious.  We all love our Lou Lou.

Oh, and you are all wondering what's up with the kitchen, right?  Well, here's what it looks like right now:

Granite has been picked out and scheduled to be installed in two weeks.  The desk has been successfully moved and re-installed.  Nick has repaired the huge hole he made in our kitchen wall :).  And tonight we are hoping to install the new kitchen cabinets (fingers crossed they make a decent match). Can we hear a "Hip Hip Hurray" for handy husbands?

Destruction

Another productive (and also destructive) Saturday.  The lazy Saturdays of Winter are gone.  In some ways, I'm happy about that (goodbye Winter, hurray!), and in other ways, I'm not quite ready to give up my daylight hours to endless projects.  We have a "Spring Project" list that just seems to grow.  Anyway, we got a good start.

Nick planted two new fruit trees with the kids:

And then we started our big kitchen project.  We are planning to move an existing built-in desk, install new counter-height cabinets, and then replace our nasty granite tile with a solid granite countertop.

We always have an idea of how easy a project should be, but why can't it ever be as easy as we thought?  We just ran across more problems than we solved - we found cabinets that we thought were a good match for our kitchen, just to bring them home and discover that they are not the same.  Of course, they are not returnable.  The boards that the granite tile was attached to is glued to the cabinets, so we need to find a way to remove them without damaging the existing cabinets.  And when we went to move the desk, it wouldn't budge.  That thing is very securely fastened to the floor, and we aren't exactly sure how.  Awesome.  Thankfully, I have a smart and handy husband who is very good at solving problems.  I'm sure at the end of it all, we'll be glad we did it, right?  RIGHT???

Okay, on to another topic.  I made skirts for the girls.  They are simple, and took me about a half hour to sew together, but turned out so cute.

    This was an after church shot, so they are looking a bit ragged.  And doesn't Lainey look so big?  Man, they grow too fast.

Also, a note on St. Patrick's Day.  We don't do anything overboard around here.  "Lucky" did bring us some Lucky Charms for breakfast, and we all wore just a little green.  Which makes me laugh a little.  I, personally, think it's kind of fun to wear green, but Nick has always kind of rebelled against the idea of "having" to wear green just because of a silly holiday.  Well, now that our kids are big enough that they take great delight in pinching others, he kind of didn't have a choice but to protect himself.  Twice he made the mistake of not wearing green and quickly ran to the closet to change.  I smile.  :)

Here's another photo of Lainey, looking all toddler-like with her hair in ponies:

She's doing her favorite thing:  emptying drawers.  You should try it, it's lots of fun.  ;)

A Productive Weekend

Changing our clocks for Daylight Savings always messes up schedules.  Right now, Ellie has already been sent off to school, and two of the remaining three children are still sleeping away, so I'll take this moment to update the blog.  This weekend was a productive one, hurray!

First, my project.  Several years ago, my mom gave Nick some beautiful embroidered kitchen towels for a birthday.  I didn't actually want to wipe grubby hands on them, so I put them away, hoping to find a way to display them that was worthy of them (Mom, you're rolling your eyes, aren't you?  :).  Fast forward to now.  We pulled the shutters out of our kitchen window, hoping to let in more sunlight (and oh, baby, it sure does!), which we've really enjoyed, but the window looked so bare.  I wanted to hang some treatment to make it feel more homey.  Then I remembered those towels - perfect!!  So, this weekend I found some accent material, sewed it all together, and now it is happily hanging over our kitchen window.  I like the way it turned out.  Not to mention that I'm proud of myself for getting off the couch to do something productive.  That is a major accomplishment these days.

Here is the before:

And the after:

Nick had a project too.  His grow table is now glowing in his office, growing lots of annual flowers and a few early vegetable starts.

Our kids were not really "productive" in the same sense of the word, but they were kind to let mom and dad do their thing:

 Lainey 'unloaded' our kitchen cupboards.  Looking cute and moving stuff around is a big job.  I love it that when she needs a seat, she goes here.  I saw her there the other day reading a book.  Awesome.

Boy, we have cute kids.

SUN!

 We have enjoyed some sunny, somewhat warm (you know, like 45 instead of 29) days here.  Oh, happy day!

 Seriously, it's been just what we've needed.

This girl cracks me up:

 I took this guy's three year photos:

 What a handsome boy.  That last one makes me smile.

Nick and I caught this when checking on the babes:

 Makes me want to go take a nap.

A Little (Tiny) Princess

 So, we could use a little Spring around here.  I'm done with the snow.  Yup, done.  I've been grateful for the snow up until now.  I'm pretty sure our water levels will be fine for the coming year.  I'm done with these colder than average temperatures, and snow keeping me confined to my house.  I'm ready to take my kids to the park.  I'm ready for warmth.  I'm ready for my kids to have something to do besides jumping on my couches, chasing each other and yelling.  Yes I am.

Ok, on to my cute kids.  This one has a very messed up sleeping schedule:

This one keeps our house at a constant level of disarray:

 But her cuteness makes up for any messes she might make.  Ha!  I just noticed the sponge she's holding in the bottom corner of the following photo.  One of her favorites from under the kitchen sink.

 This one (and the older one as well, but no photos of her, unfortunately) got her hair all curled up for church, and was looking just too adorable:

 And had a great time helping Daddy make some pie crust at Grandma's house:

 And finally, this one:

 Is growing, has all body parts accounted for and in proper working order, as far as we could tell.

 Ultrasounds are so fun to get that peek at a wiggly baby.  She had her feet pulled up around her body, had her arms all curled up around her head, and was 'sucking' with her mouth, and at one point, even yawned.

Life is amazing, even amidst the end of winter blues.

Some of This

 We had a wonderful weekend.  We went skating with our ward.  I have not been skating forever, but it felt great to put my blades back on.  I was super impressed with Ellie who tried roller skates and didn't get frustrated when she couldn't stand for more than a minute or two.  She did great!

 Lainey looking especially cute, even with a dirty shirt.

We had a leisurely Sunday:

 We were playing Headbanz and Nick puts this chicken up and right away asks, "Am I a chicken?"  Totally cheated.  ;)

We went bowling on Monday.You'll have to look for photos in a phone dump collage one of these days.  It was fun, especially watching Everett carry those heavy balls.  He loved it and didn't have much patience for his turn to come around.

And then I took Ellie for a little photo shoot for her seven year picture:

What a beautiful girl.