Easter Bunny? 2011

(Just got home from Ry's game and waiting for the load of laundry I just put in to finish washing so I can throw it in the dryer before I go to bed.  Awesome game tonight even though they lost by 1.  Score 8-7.  The Fury was ranked a few teams above the Havoc in the standings but we played so hard and should have won.  The coaches even admitted it was probably their fault for sending a couple of boys to the next base too soon.  Ryan was one of them and he was tagged out at 3rd.  He should have stayed at second but his coach called him to come so he slid great but was out.  The coach apologized and said it was not Ry's fault.  Anyway my throat is sore from yelling.  The boys made the other team so nervous they changed pitchers, I think, 4 times.  Ry of course did really awesome at 1st and they even got one of the Fury boys in a "hot box" which was CRAZY to watch.  He must have ran back and forth between 1st and 2nd four or five times (maybe it was three or four) but it went on forever.  He was finally called safe at second.  Bad umpire!  I asked Ry if it was fun to do that and he smiled and said YA!  Even our catcher was on first base and it seemed like the short stop and out fielders were involved too.  I SOOOOO wish I had that on video, it was great!  Very proud of the boys, so much pressure is put on these young guys.  Sometimes I wish they could just play for fun, I know they have fun but it's very competitive.  GO HAVOC)


Happy Easter -
So here's how our Easter weekend went.  Started on Friday decorating eggs here at home.  Nothing fancy, just the store bought decorating kit.  T and A had a great time.  R wanted to decorate his last so he could leave his eggs in the colors all night so they would be really dark.  We learned that if you leave them in too long the color actually starts to come back off.

Then on Saturday we went over to Grandma and Grandpa's house for an Easter egg hunt with the younger cousins and then dinner with everyone.

Easter Sunday we headed out to church.  I wanted to focus our Easter Sunday more on the Savior and the real meaning of Easter so I planned to do our own egg hunt on Monday but R had an early game (won 6-5) so I knew that would never work.  So I changed my plan to go to my Dad's house after church, spend time talking about and reminding each other of the gifts Jesus has given us and then doing the egg hunt.

Here are the kids before church.

So we get to my Dad's house and I have a bucket of LOTS of eggs filled with treats by the door of the van.  The dog knows just were we are and is wining and excited to see Grandpa. I open the door of the van and no one is holding her and she jumps over the bucket by the door and eggs go flying.  Everywhere.  And candy too.  Everywhere.  I don't know whether to laugh or cry so I say something about the dumb dog and how no one was holding her (probably in a not very nice tone of voice) and get on my hands and knees and begin picking up plastic eggs and candy.  R comes to help and we finally get it all, except the candy far under the van.  After that I was not in a very good mood and didn't really feel like talking about Jesus. That's probably when I really needed to remind myself of Him, but it didn't happen.  We did hide the eggs later and the kids had fun finding them all over the house at Grandpa's.

But here's the kicker....  When we got home A started telling about how a boy in her Sunday school class told everyone what the Easter Bunny brought him and his dog.  Then she says, "I don't think the Easter Bunny came to our house."  I was very tired by that time and blurted out to R, T and A,  "You know there's not really an Easter Bunny anyway.  Easter is about Jesus, how He died for us and was Resurrected so we can live with Him some day, right?"  No one really said anything so I just walked away.  Not one of my proudest moments.  

So I spilled the beans (jelly beans, haha) about the Easter Bunny.  As I was getting ready for bed, I told Larry what happened and said, "I told the kids the Easter Bunny wasn't real."  All he said was, "I heard you."  Well that's just great.

The Bunny hasn't come up again and everyone is perfectly happy eating all their candy.  Maybe they already knew.  Or maybe not.

How did a bunny become the big deal at Easter, anyway?

I guess I won't win Mother of the Year for that one.

5 years old

5 years ago on Wednesday April 12th, my first girl was born, and what a HUGE surprise that was.  I couldn't believe we had a little girl.  I didn't know what to do with a girl and all we had were boy things.  Actually I had 1 doll that was down in the basement that occasionally got picked up if a little girl came to visit.  And the boys affectionately named that doll, that was never played with, "Girl".  So here comes a real little girl to our family.  The boys loved her so much and I was so excited that she would have 2 older brothers.  Fast forward 5 years and we have our beautiful Alexa.  She is very much a girl, loving all things sparkly, but can totally hold her own with the boys, a whole neighborhood of boys, and be very comfortable doing it.  Yes, that makes me a little nervous for when she is like, 11,12 or 13 years old.  But she is a total gem in our family.  We love her!

Being 5 years old this year, she was very ready for her first friend party.  Since her birthday fell on a Tuesday we celebrated her actual birthday with family and planned her friend party for Saturday.  Here she is opening presents that morning.

Under that yellow blanket was a scooter.  A "real 2 wheel scooter" she says, not a "3 wheel one." She is planning on giving her 3 wheel scooter to L.

Even Julie got a new beautiful dress from Grandma and Grandpa.

Saturday was a long time in coming for our princess A.  She decided she wanted a Hawaiian party and could hardly wait.

All the kids got a couple of chances to hit the pinata but they were all very careful with their hits so this is what it took to get some candy....

Yup, that's T.  It was perfect cause he was going to baseball practice after the party, so he took a practice swing and this is what happened.....

Candy started to come out and it was like a feeding frenzy.  A couple more hits with everyone out of the way and the pinata was empty.

The kids gathered up the candy and came in to open presents.

Everyone had a great time.  We love you beautiful A!  You are one of our best sisters, friend, cousin and we loved celebrating your special day. 

More Baseball

Ry has had a couple of games since the last post about baseball.  They had one really close game where they won by 2.  They beat a team that had not last any and it was really fun to watch.  It was even more fun to see the center fielder catch the winning out and the whole team run out together.  SO wish I had a picture of that but we were all cheering too!

Here are a couple of fun pictures from his game on Monday which, unfortunately they lost.  (One day I'm going to be sports photographer after I take many photography classes and get a VERY expensive camera. And I'm smiling while I say that because my action shots under the lights are probably not Sports Illustrated worthy, but still kinda cool.)

Tag on first for the OUT!



Ry at first base going for a foul ball.

A couple different times up to bat. 

 Tonight is a game against a team they didn't play last year so we are hoping for a big win. GO HAVOC!

Off Track Fun

The boys went back to school this week after being off track for 3 weeks.  We had a good time trying to stay busy to keep the fighting to a minimum.  Thank goodness the new Rec Center opened so Ry could go there with his friends.  They would go shoot baskets or play racket ball for a while and then I would bring T, A and L over to meet them and we would all swim.  On their last day off we headed over to Jungle Jims.  I found a coupon for half off wristbands so we went over and met my sister in law and her 2 girls.  It's probably one of the coolest places if you are under the age of 5.  So the little girls had fun and the older boys made the best of it.  (Jungle Jims is an indoor "fun center" with a merry go round, bumper cars, swings, and little rides like that.)

The rides are little but adults can go on them with their little kids.  L loved the rides, either with me or the boys.

T and A on a ride that goes fast in a circle forwards and backwards

A and cousin on bumper cars.

R brought a friend and they took the little kids on some of the rides.  L loved this one where each "car" spun and so did the whole ride. 

The big boys tried the same bumper cars the girls rode.  Do they look a little big for this one?

Maybe even a little big for this one.

Jungle Jims = fun place for little kids on a school day when everyone else is at school. 



Havoc vs. Highlanders

Ry's game ended in a big win.  5 guys got hit when up to bat by a crazy pitcher, one in the face and it looked pretty bad.  Hope he's ok (shout out to #13).  By the end of the game we were all freezing but Ry played really great.  Great hitting, awesome stretch on first base for the out and even played catcher for a little bit because it was one of the catchers that got hit in the face.  Here he is playing catch.

T and A usually search out a park to play at, but the park by this field was too far away to play at during the game.  Here they are pre-game.

And this is the seat L watches the game from.  Like I said, it was pretty cold.

Next game : tomorrow. 

Merry Christmas

 

April Fools! (just a couple of days late).  This is what we woke up to this morning on April 3, 2011. There is about 5 inches!  Alexa looked out the window and said, "I was thinking of riding my bike today but maybe not."

It's kinda funny because in my previous post, a good friend from California commented that she could see some grass in the picture and the last 2 times she visited there was tons of snow.  I promise we did have several sunny days in the 60's and it was sooooo nice.  But I'm told this is spring in Utah.  One day you wear shorts, the next you wear boots. 

The sun will peak out every now and then.  If it could just stay out for a while and melt this stuff I would be so pleased.  I do have patience though and I'm sure some more real spring weather will come.

For today I will put away my snow cone maker and get out the hot chocolate again.

Isn't she a beauty?

Isn't she a real beauty?  No, no, not the dog, although she is my girl, take a good look at that couch.  Yes, that's in my front room!  Sunny seems to like it but we didn't get it cause it's so cool looking.  (Really, check out those colors.)  This couch is very special because it comes from Larry's grandma, who passed away in November at the age of 97. 

Larry used to work at a furniture shop recovering couches, chairs, love seats etc.  So he's an expert on knowing quality furniture.  Quality meaning, old stuff is the best!  A long time ago (like when this couch was made) furniture was really sturdy and made from real wood not the ply wood stuff they use now.  One day we will recover this baby and it will look great.  It costs about the same to recover something as it does to buy it new but like I said old stuff will hold up so much better, example: this couch!

It kinda brought me back to my collage days.  I could totally picture this in an apartment and hear someone saying, "look what we just picked up at DI."  It is actually very comfortable but I just couldn't bring myself to leave it like that.  And we have been talking about getting a couch or love seat for the front room.......

There, that's much better!!!  See, nothing a slip cover, a few pillows and a blanket can't fix. (Not sure what the black piece of paper sticking out from underneath is, just ignore that).  I think I can handle this until it's covered for real.