Hair cuts

Well it started with Emily getting some gum stuck in her hair about a month ago and then eventually all my kids got hair cuts...some of them made me a little sad, but of course it's just hair! BEFORE: The "Troy Bolton" look!

Yeah, he's happy mom's not coming at him with those crazy, loud clippers anymore!AFTER:



Pretty short. Although Josh has convinced himself that it would be cool to SHAVE his hair off...I told him he was going to have to convince his dad to do it!

It begins...

Oh dear....I was hoping I had a few more months, but it's apparent I don't. All my kids have started in on their terrible two stage a little before they actually turned two years old. But, I guess Rusty is just a little more advanced. Time for mom to start watching out for trouble.If he were eating it...that would have been much better.But no, he was taking handfuls and throwing it on the table.Look at that smile...guilty!

Now we've got to come up with some a name for these episodes...cause you know it's going to keep happening. With, Joshie we never came up with a name, but not because he never did anything wrong, in fact his favorite no-no was using markers and coloring the walls. Emily episodes we named Katrina...after the hurricane. She had the ability to destroy rooms, within seconds...of course with Emily it always seemed to be an accident, Wesley on the other hand was a different story. If you've known me for the past 3 years then you will have heard at least one of Wesley's epic tales...these were dubbed Wes-messes. Now it seems it's Rusty's turn...oh dear, grant me the patience!

STRESS!

Okay so we have an offer on our house and as long as everything goes through smoothly they have asked to close the 28th of May and have us move out the next day. So if we don't find a place to live in 30 days we'll be homeless!

Spring Break!

To the zoo! Yeah, that's as extravagant as we get when we're trying to buy a home soon! It took as while to figure out for sure what we were going to do, but once we decided it was the opposite of smooth sailing! lol! We did have fun though! The day started out like this! Gotta love those Game Boys and then once we started to get ready....we couldn't find Wesley's shoes anywhere. We searched the entire house, we looked outside by the tramp, no use-they were gone...so we ended up making a stop here! ...don't ask me why there is a picture of it, my kids are weird! BTW we finally found Wesley's shoes that night when someone looked in the toy box OUTSIDE! Don't know why I didn't think to look there! Then we finally got to the zoo which was way crowded, I guess everyone else decided to go there for spring break too! It was crazy at the entrance but since we are members we slipped right in. Little Rusty was having a great time being allowed to walk every once in a while....I can't wait for the no-stroller phase! See Wesley's nice new shoes...and Emily's outfit? I told her once she starts school, she will need to okay her clothes with mommy before leaving the house!We had a great time and of course we took our turn on the carousel! Wesley picked the Tiger which was completely opposite from where the other kids were at!

I just love this video...check out Josh, the goof ball!

Well, back to work and school! Summer is just around the corner!

Easter Sunday

We had a fantastic Sunday morning! We woke up, got dressed for church...I got to take a shower and ignore my kids all morning because dad was home to help them get ready! (I found one more reason why I love Easter...no bishopric meetings! ) We went to church and I pulled a fantastic singing time together at the last minute! Now, it might seem like I'm patting myself on the back, and I guess I am a little. But this was amazing to me because I've been trying to come up with something perfect for Easter Sunday for 3 weeks now. I've checked my Primusic Yahoo group every day and I listened to General Conference with notebook in hand waiting for the inspiration to come...it never did. I searched LDS.ORG for some material and found little bits and pieces here and there but nothing to make an actual lesson! Then Easter Saturday came, we spent the morning doing Easter bunny stuff and we were about to start cleaning up when I came down and checked my email. There was a message from Primusic. Someone suggested to use a game found in this months Friend magazine for an Easter singing time. I looked at it and I LOVED it! I would have never though to use this game as a lesson!...I love my Yahoo group! So I hurried and grabbed my pictures and rummaged for the ones I needed. But then I had to change gears and start cleaning the house for a showing we had later that day. (BTW no bites on the house yet!) We went to the family Easter party, came home, got the kids in bed and I started working on my singing time. Shawn also sat down for the first time to put a talk together for Sacrament meeting the next day! I worked until at least midnight pulling pieces together from everything I found, I read the Easter story from the scriptures and got all the visuals ready. By the time I was done, I was actually worried that I wouldn't have enough time to present the whole lesson. As luck would have it, the person doing sharing time was totally cool with giving me extra time since she had only prepared a short lesson anyway....I had the exact amount of time I needed. The singing time went great and I was so happy with it. I always judge myself on how well it went by not only how I feel, but also by the kids involvement, as well as if I get any comments or feedback from anyone. I was not disappointed! The kids were quite and attentive and after senior singing time one of the 10 year old boys came up to me and said "I don't hope the second coming will be celebrated with something as fun as Christmas and Easter...I think it will be something more fun!" What a gem! Then when I came back into the room from Nursery singing time, I found a sweet note on my music stand thanking me for singing time. After Junior Primary ended I had a grandpa visitor come up to me and tell me that he enjoyed my lesson and he got something out of it for himself. (he seems like such a neat guy☻). I even got a phone call later in the day from one of the teachers in primary thanking me for my lesson that morning! Yay, I love it when it comes together so perfectly like that! We went to Sacrament meeting and listened to the bishopric and ward choir give the Easter messages. Shawn did a fabulous job and the whole meeting was just wonderful. Grandma A sat by us and helped out with my children (I sure love her, she's an amazing woman!) and I didn't have to leave even once with Rusty! The rest of the day was just calm and relaxing. I'm so glad we set aside the whole day Sunday to reflect on the true meaning of Easter. It sure made a difference this year! I love Easter!

Easter Party

So we had a fun family Easter party Saturday night! We went to the new McAlister Manor...how exciting and fun that was. We had a fantastic dinner and Aunt Jennie will probably never willingly choose to sit next to Rusty during dinner time ever again! Smart. Then afterwards Grandma pulled out some Easter baskets for all 9 of her grand kids!
They were the cutest little baskets! See how they can wear them on their heads?! You can also get a good look at how gorgeous McAlister Manor is!

This picture I just had to include. You can see more of the Manor and also goofy Cody! I'm not quite sure what he's doing in this picture...but really I don't know what he's doing most of the time!☻ We played High school Musical Sing-a-long something ruther...it was a blast. Of course it always is great when you can get this clan to start singing!

And apparently this is the best seat in the house...I didn't know the kids were sitting up there watching the TV! I didn't even take this picture...from the forehead I would guess that Spencer took it! Busted!

Well thanks for a wonderful evening and a great way to end Easter Saturday!

Easter Saturday

That darn bunny can be so tricky! It took about 40 minutes for everyone to find their basket...that EB can sure come up with some sneaky spots! First they looked in all the spots the Bunny has hidden their baskets in the years before: the dishwasher, the dryer, the cupboard, the bathtub, behind the couch---which is where Rusty found his. Then they set off trying to come up with places to look that was big enough to hide a full basket but completely hidden...this is where the bunny hid them this year!

Emily was the first one, besides Rusty, to find her basket. She went down in the toy room and was looking everywhere...then she looked over to her baby crib that had the curtains closed. She said "wait a minute, I didn't close these curtains!" and so she carefully pulled back the curtains...squealed and just sat there looking at her treasure!

Wesley was next, the boys were seeing if the EB had left one in the bath tub again and they were on their way out when Wesley decided to check the linen closet. There was no hesitating with Wesley....he dug right in!
Joshua took a little longer to find his stuff, but he being the oldest I'm sure the EB just figured that he could hide it a little harder. It wasn't until Josh saw an Easter Egg hiding on the side of his backpack that he realized that his backpack looked a lot bigger than it should.
Usually the kids only get a few silly, little toys in their baskets but this year the EB dug up some Game Boy Advances from some where, along with a ton of games...it has been quiet in my house ever since! No kidding, they saw them, turned them on, and then didn't even bother to see what else was in their baskets!
It was even hard getting them to stop long enough so they could find the rest of there plastic eggs. Although I have good news! We finally found Emily's last egg. The EB must have put it between the cushion and the side of the couch and when kids sat on the couch it must have fallen through to the floor. We finally found it Tuesday morning!

Well I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter Saturday!

We live to DYE!

The smell of vinegar and boiled eggs...the rainbow of cups full of dye. It's that time of year! Coloring Easter eggs!

We actually colored them Monday night for FHE. But I forgot to take pictures.

I married into this technique of coloring eggs....where you color them first with a crayon, before you dye them! See if you can find the watermelon, Ernie and Bert and the school bus.

Then the traditional egg with our names on them. For some reason Josh's and my white crayon didn't work as well!

General Conference & Hoppy Easter

I love General Conference! Not only do we get to listen to some amazing talks, but I get to have my husband home for the entire day! Sure beats the 11 hours of Sunday meetings he usually has!

Then next Saturday...is Easter Saturday! We have made a special request from the Easter bunny to come the day before Easter so we can do the usual tradition of finding the basket and Easter eggs. On Sunday, we have a no-stress, relaxing day which we can focus on the true meaning of Easter. This will be the third year we have done that and we love it! Thanks to the family who gave us the idea. It never crossed our minds to find out if the bunny would be willing to do that...but I bet it makes his job easier, not having to go to all those houses on the same night!

Hoppy Easter everyone!

New Year party at my house!

The History: In the 16th century, France celebrated the New Year just like we do today, except they partied on April 1st. In 1562, Pope Gregory changed the calendar to the one we use today and from then on, the New Year began on January 1st. Lots of peeps didn't know about the new calendar, or they ignored the new calendar and kept celebrating on April 1st. Everyone else called them April fools and played tricks on them.

Happy April fools day everyone!!