Alec's at school, Evy's napping at Nana's

James-"Mommy date at the dinosaur park!"

The wind has been crazy lately,

So James is incapable of bike riding (honestly, he looks for any excuse). Also, it was below 70, so my kids were freezing.

Alec's bringing snow gloves back.

He wore those to school today. Rock on, little man.

Shrek!

Some friends recommended a high school that does wonderful kid-friendly plays, so we bought tickets back in December to take the boys to their first musical! 

The pizza restaurant gave all the boys some dough to play with while we waited, which proved very helpful.

Being ogres.

Alec had a blast-he was laughing and sitting on the edge of his seat the entire performance. James crawled onto my lap during the second half and was half dozing, half watching. 

It was a really nice opportunity to go out on a 'date' with the boys. They have such wonderful, caring personalities & I'm so crazy about them!

Mom's shirt

Saturday morning we were turning the house upside down looking for Alec's soccer shirt for his game. It never materialized, and the coach recommended we just put them in a white T-shirt. Turns out, I was the only one with a white T-shirt. He wore it, just glad to play.

James at the Shark Reef

My shy little Jamesy-bug asked me to chaperone his preschool field trip to the Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay. I agreed. He also begged me to let his little sister accompany us. I should not have agreed.

She was super wiggly and I spent a lot of the trip putting her in a 'timeout'. 

Potty trained

Last week Evy woke up, having been sick. It was a long couple nights, in addition to a dr visit & an ER trip to rehydrate.

Never fun! 

Although rehydrated, she still had awful diarrhea, which made her cry out for the, "potty!" all the time. Long story short: she potty-trained herself! Yay!

We still do pull ups outside the home, but I'm excited to be done buying diapers.

Easter

Yes, I let the kids have a candy on Easter morning. Evy was not into group photos today, the best I could get what in sacrament:

The best part of the holiday was time with family. Dinner at Nana's:

Spring Break

I decided to get the kids into some better habits this week, so Monday morning after they woke up (& did family scripture study) we did chores and homework first thing.  Two glorious hours of well-earned play time, topped by an exciting time at the Childrens' Museum with Tess & Aubrey.

I'm working extra hard on just accentuating the positive things that the kids do this week, and trying to be as uplifting as possible. The kids are incredibly patient with me, and it's so interesting to realize how much parents have to continually learn and grow with their children. I'm also trying to teach the children that helping and hard work can be fun. They don't seem to mind it if we are all doing it together.

Thursday the boys spent all day at Gymnastics' Camp. I was worried James would be scared (he's so shy), but Alec stayed with him all day and when I arrived at 4, they had some free play time and were happily climbing near each other.

Then came Friday. Friday was the best, because Paul took the day off work! We took the children to Craig Ranch Park. It's a huge new park near our house, and it requires both of us to be there to keep track of all three children.

We had wanted to see 'Sherman and Mr. Peabody', but it turned out it wasn't playing at the theaters near us. We decided it was worth a trip across town, and left Evelyn napping with my mom. Well, it turns out I had misread which theater it was at, and we went to the wrong one! Making lemonade, we decided to have some frozen yogurt and a nearby shop.

Then the trek back across town to watch 'Rio 2' at the theater near our house.

The boys didn't mind a bit!

Then they got to have Nana babysit, whilst Paul and I went to the temple with my grandmother. 

Saturday morning was our ward egg hunt. Paul and the boys had walked around the block on Wednesday and invited our neighbors.

We also invited my brother Christopher, and his family.

Saturday night Paul & I had another night out! 

The performance was amazing!! I cried and Paul said it was, "pretty good". High praise from a non-musical fan!

A 007 'secret agent' party

Is the theme Alec decided on a few months ago. Yes, the boys choose themes shortly after Christmas. Yes, it's probably a bit ridiculous.

James had a tummy bug on Wednesday and by Thursday have one and I both come down with it. It seemed to linger, and flareup mostly on Sunday for us. What this means is, that my well scheduled 'week of preparation' leading up to his party went down the tubes. Ah, well. One thing we definitely caught onto at James's party, is that the boys want to just run around and play for most of the party anyway! 

We still manage to enjoy General Conference on Saturday morning with the Legos, but then Alec had to be whisked away for his soccer game at 11:20 (they won again!), then gymnastics at 1. 

But, back to the party: we created an obstacle course, got the food and cake sorted, threw in a couple balloon popping games and the boys were happy as can be! Largely due to the fact that the obstacle course included two squirt guns. Prized commodities.

Preparing to manuevur through the 'lasers':

I even made them put their fake mustaches back on for a group photo.

Alec's uncle got a little carried away with the mustaches at one point.

He loved it! I'm really loving the fact, that he's becoming more self-confident. When things like this happen, he just takes off laughing and everyone simply joins in with him. He's just a fun kid to be around.

On to the, "Mom, how many more questions?" Questionnaire:

How old are you? 7

What makes you happy? Mom. James. Dad & Evy.

What is your favorite thing to eat? Pizza!

What is your least favorite thing to eat? Bananas

What are your favorite things to do? Play squirt guns, soccer 

What is your favorite scripture story? Ammon

What is your favorite movie? Atlantis

What is your favorite color? Red

What is your favorite song? I Am a Child of God

What is your favorite book? Non-fiction books about Sea Dinosaurs

What is your favorite sport? Soccer

What is your favorite animal? Lion

What are you really good at? Soccer, gymnastics, reading, math

Who is your best friend? James

What do you and your mother do together? Play and read books

What do you and your dad do together? Get ice cream and go to the park

Where is your favorite place to go? Flip N Out (indoor trampoline)

What do you want to be when you grow up? A paleontologist 

James at 4

James just had a birthday and it's definitely one I couldn't wait to celebrate. Terrible three's are over! He's fantastic four now! 

With his penchant for bad guys, we settled on a pirate birthday party. I love organizing and planning these parties (thank you, Pinterest!)  and since he picked his theme a couple months ago… It wasn't too hard. I do wonderful copying ideas, and tweaking them to fit our needs, I'm just not creative enough to come up with most of these on my own.

James even looked through Pinterest with me one night to decide what he wanted his cake to look like. This was the best shot I could get of him with his cake:

Ironically, I got the party mostly set up on time, but we forgot to send out all of the invitations on time. Yeesh. Still, most of his buddies came, along with all local cousins.

Everyone seemed to really enjoy walking the plank, and hooking pretzels. 

Evelyn and Aubrey waited until the boys had cleared out to try their turns at walking the planks. Smart girls.

Coming up with silly pirate names for the food was half the fun for Paul and I beforehand:

But, the big hit was the treasure map and once that was out, they didn't want to play any other games. I loved that they were using their imaginations and playing well, so I just 'forgot' about the other games and let them have fun:

James is so shy, that even at his birthday party he didn't want many pictures taken of himself. 

So, on to the birthday questionnaire!

How old are you? 4

What makes you happy? Cuddling

What is your favorite thing to eat? Cake!

What is your least favorite thing to eat? Pepperoni

What are your favorite things to do? Play Star Wars Angry Birds

What is your favorite scripture story? Ammon

What is your favorite movie? Star Wars

What is your favorite color? Blue

What is your favorite song? Frozen, 'In Summer'

What is your favorite book? Hop on Pop

What is your favorite sport? Air hockey

What is your favorite animal? Turtles

What are you really good at? Air hockey

Who is your best friend? Kayden

What do you and your mother do together? Cuddle up

What do you and your dad do together? He shows me his race car game & he takes me to stuff on daddy dates

Where is your favorite place to go? Roos N More

What do you want to be when you grow up? A superhero