Thankful

My mom has now lived in our basement for 2 months, (although she was gone for most of the first month) and I feel very thankful.  I love having her around to do things with, or to talk to.  The kids adore having her around, and love going to the basement to Grandmas, to read her books, or play with her toys.  I am sure that there will be some hiccups along the way, but for now I am enjoying the blessing of having her here.

Dad's Legacy

I have mentioned before the love for Golf that my Dad had.  We have felt his loss a lot, and whenever we talk about Golf, my thoughts turn to my Dad.  Jordan is missing his golfing companions as a new season is starting.  My brother Stephen was always up for a game of golf, and my Dad was usually instigating them.  Jordan has a Love for golf, but doesn't love going by himself.  My Mom has decided that in Dad's memory all of the kids will learn to golf.  Naturally my kids would have learned to golf eventually, but likely would not be sporting their own little sets of clubs this early.  Jordan has said that the kids are too young to learn and that there is not much that they can do at this age, but that only brings up memories of me being about Skylers age, my brother John being close to Ethans age, and my older brother Eric being about 8, and all of us going golfing with dad.  He was patient with us, and told us to keep our eye on the ball until it came out without him making a conscious effort to say it.  We would always tee off, hit it a few times, then pick it up and drop it again close to Dad, and finish off putting.   No we were not a super fast foursome, and sure people passed us, but we learned to love the game, and I loved spending that time with my Dad.  My Dad was more or less a scratch golfer before he got sick, and then after would still consistently win his rounds.  He lost a lot of his strength, but had some killer accuracy, and played the fairways well! 

 

This past week my Mom bought the first sets of golf clubs for Dad's grand kids, and  they are thrilled!  Skyler actually has a pretty good swing, and he will do well.  I am thinking about getting him into some lessons this summer. Ethan has a ton of fun with it, but pushes the ball more than hits it.  What can we say though, he is 4.  Ryley needs some help, but feels so important with her own clubs to carry around.

My favorite part in the little golf bags that give my kids the ability to throw them on their back, and carry their own clubs.

Jordan has played in the waterton oilmans for the past couple of years.  It is a gold tournament that my Dad golfed in since the begining, It is going to be hard to continue to go because it is so full of memories of my Dad, going back to when I was just a little kid and the excitement I had for the ice cream in waterton while my Dad golfed, to last year where he and I spent the day in Waterton with my kids while Jordan golfed because he was physically unable to play himself.

The game of golf will be a legacy in our family of all the good times with my Dad.

Little Helper

Ethan had a couple of crayons in his pocket (from a restaurant) and I did a load of laundry, which resulted in Crayon melted all over the load.  I was soo upset - has anyone ever tried to remove crayon???  My Mom and I, and our little helper spent an afternoon de-waxing that load of laundry.  We started by spraying the wax with WD-40 which removed the wax beautifully, and left a horrible greasy stain.  The next step was to scrub out the grease stains, so we used dish soap (a LOT thanks to our helper) and some oxy clean spray and scrubbed, and then scrubbed some more, but ALL of that wax came out and the clothes are good as new!  Thanks a ton to my Mom foe helping, and being patient with Ryley who sprayed her several times with oxy, and doused her in dish soap!

Easter!

We had a good Easter weekend. My brother Eric and his new wife Taneil came and spent the weekend at our house - we are the place to be now that Mom is in the basement.

The Easter bunny visited with baskets on Saturday since we have 9am church on Sunday. Skyler was the most excited and quickly emptied his basket and made sure the the whole house was awake and knew that Easter was happening with or without them.
He got a cool Monster Hat and of course some new sunglasses as has become a tradition in our house.Ethan was all about the candy, but he did get a nest shirt that changes color in the sunlight.He also got his sunglasses and was very happy that they are his favorite color - RED
Ryely loved all of the excitement, but was the last to crawl out of bed - than seems ot be the norm in our house, and she is not happy if she gets woken up.Check out her crazy hair - it was in curlers, but she had an accident so I had to take the out in the middle of the night to change her pj's which resulted in the craziest of crazy hair.Jordan was very excited to get a new laptop battery that is bigger and will hold a charge at all - mobility is a great feature in lap tops.
We decorated some easter eggs. I had some things, but Eric and Taneil brought up the mother of all easter egg decorating kids as well as the coolest little q-tip painters that allowed the kids to color on the eggs pretty easily.We had some very serious egg decorators.Ethan was puking as all of the excitement of Eastaer eggs started, so he sat on the couch with a puck bucket - how great is that???The kids all had new Easter outfits thanks to My Mother in Law and Eric and Taneil who bout Ryley the prettiest blue dress - which oh my, with her blue eyes she was quite the little lady.
The kids had a yummy cinnamon pull apart and yogurt breakfast before we ushered everyone out the door to walk to church for he first time this year. I made bunny tail treats for the boys to take to their classes,, and they were both very excited to do so - although it just added to the sugar overload of this little holiday.
We of course hosted dinner at our place, and found a good use for all of those decorated easter eggs -we used them as place markers for the group that was over for dinner.
It was a fun day that ended in playing some games and some good laughs - I am sure that we will never this of syrup or bald heads the same around here.

Hair cuts

My Mom and I took the kids out on Friday and stopped by Giggles and got the kids hair cuts. Skyler really wanted a mohawk, but the poor kid has so many cowlicks that it is almost impossible. The lady cut it and then sprayed it so that it would help show it off, and he was thrilled even though it resembles very little of a mohawk.Ethan is a challenge on his own because his hair is blonde, thin and still has not filled out in the front, and who knows if it ever will. He decided that he wanted a mohawk just like Skyler. The lady who did his hair, I believe her name was Amber did a fantastic job! He can style in like a mohawk, or have his old man combover.

Ryleys was like a bang trim since her hair is so thin. I still want to try growing it out, but it needed to be cleaned up. That took about 30 seconds, and she got some pink hair and sparkles put it.I am generally happy with the cuts, but don't get me started on the cost. I cut all my boys own hair, I really do not enjoy doing it, but seriously that is a lot of money to shell out every couple of weeks for something that I CAN do.

A great night

Tonight was awesome! I don't have any pictures, so you will just have to believe me. I found the idea somewhere on line, but can't source it because I have no idea where I read it. But our family ate dinner on the floor on cushions, and with no utensils because we were eating like Jesus did at the last supper. It was great, it allowed us to talk to the kids about the true meaning of Easter and what we are really celebrating in a fun way. Then we had an FHE lesson using resurrection eggs - again awesome. I loved having a visual activity to bring the kids back to Christ. Then we got to go do a fun activity and we "secretly" egged someones house. The kids were thrilled to hide candy filled eggs at someones house - this family kindly watched from inside so that my kids didn't realize that they were discovered, and then we drove by and saw 2 excited little girls looking for all of the loot that my kids had left. I LOVED the time spent with my family. We had fun, and taught the kids some important lessons.

Skylers first time skiing

Jordan took Skyler skiing for the first time a few weeks ago, and he loved it. No lessons this time just daddy and Skyler on the hill for a few hours. Skyler gained his confidence quickly and had mastered the bunny hills by the end of the day. So great to see him learning new things, and the skills so that we can do more activities as a family.

April Fools

Soo, our day started off with some little boys waking up with mustaches drawn on. Skyler was very concerned because it was not hairy, and he had no idea where it came from. Ethan on the other hand was convinced that it was only him in the mirror with a mustache and that he didn't really have one, so he went around with it drawn on his face for the next several hours.

Then comes dinner - this was soo fun, except the kids were convinced that everything was a Joke and refused to even try the dessert. I made Jello juice, this really upset Ethan, who loves Jello but was really mad that he didn't get any real juice.For dinner we had a bunt cake that was really a pizza dish. This didn't turn out as well as I had hoped, but was still fun, and really tasty.Dessert took by far the most work. I made chicken pot pies found at Family Fun.
I spent hours making all of the filling in the hopes that this candy pie really would look just like chicken pot pie - it totally did!
Jordan got a video of my trying to get the kids to try it, but none of them would. I even had Skyler pinned down, but he was sure that I was forcing cold chicken pie down his throat. My brother John was pretty convinced that it was real too.

So, in the end, several hours of my life gone, and kids who are so sure that I am tricking them, that the trick is ruined...until next year.

Easter Eggstravaganza

The community put on an Easter event for families on Saturday so we thought we would check it out. We also had the pleasure of taking my 2 nieces along with us. We actually missed the Easter Egg Hunt for the little kids, by a few minutes, but they had a little carnival as well. The kids got to do bunny races, rubber ducky races, make Easter baskets, get their picture taken with the Easter bunny, and decorate eggs. Not gonna lie, it was a little crazy in there - just a lot of people in a relatively small area, but the kids did have fun, and it was a beautiful day, and we got a nice little walk in.

A visit to Daddy

Another thing that we did to help get through the week was visit Jordan at work. Ethan quickly took up the post of playing on the computer, or drawing on the white board as the official color-er Ryley on the other hand was a big boob!

Bowling on Spring Break

Ethan and Skyler had different spring breaks this year because Skyler is now in the foothills school district. Awkward for this year, but then I am going to have 6 years where all 3 of my kids are in the same school!
Ethans spring break matched up with his cousins, and we took all of this kids bowling. Ethan and Ryley loved it, even though Ryley couldn't come close to getting the ball far enough without the ramp, and I am sure there are some new dents in the floor from Ethan.

My kids are growing up though, and before you know it they will all be beating me!