Spring Break

Spring break was the week following Easter Sunday.  Unfortunately I started to feel sick that Sunday night which threw a kink into all the great plans that we had made for the week!  Monday we were able to meet some friends at the park and have a good time.  However, by the time we got home I was wiped out and I napped for the rest of the afternoon with Henry and Alexander (who was still recovering from being sick).  William and James were such good boys and played outside for the rest of the afternoon.

We took it easy for the rest of the week--played around the house and watched movies.  (I even got enough energy on Tuesday to play a belated April Fool's joke on the boys by filling their cups up with jello so that when they went to drink it didn't move! They thought it was awesome!)

Since the boys all got seed packets in their Easter baskets we even started planting our seeds.  We decided to start them inside this year so we planted them in an egg carton.  We aren't great gardeners and every year that we plant seeds we forget what we planted where and are always surprised when things start growing!  I thought this would maybe help us keep track of them a little better.

The boys really loved filling each hole with soil and then picking which veggie/flower we would plant next. 

William has decided that he wants to help a lot with the garden and then try to sell the veggies to the neighbors so he can make some money.  (This was after I told him a story of how my sisters and I tried to have a veggie stand one summer.)  We'll see if we grow enough to let him do that!

Another day the boys decided to have a little picnic in the fort.

By Thursday it was raining so we had a picnic lunch indoors.

And rainy spring days wouldn't be complete without a fort in the family room.

Finally, on Friday I was feeling almost back to normal (aside from my allergies that kicked in!) so I decided we needed to get out and do something extra fun.  We have a museum pass that allows us into 3 different museums in the area.  We have visited 2 of them several times each but have never made it down to the nature museum.  William really wanted to go down there so that's where we went.  I didn't have any high expectations because I had heard that it was really small--but we loved it!

We saw an alligator...

and we loved the butterflies!

We couldn't resist this fun photo op.

There were tunnels to explore and water to splash in...

But I think we all agreed that the outside exhibit was our very favorite.  There was a sandbox and teepees.  Wheelbarrows and hiking trails.  It was awesome!

We finished off the week by watching General Conference.  What a wonderful way to end our break.

I loved this picture that William drew about the tomato plant from Elder Ballard's talk.

It ended up being a good week... even if illness caused us to slow down just a bit.

Easter

Easter was a little crazy this year.  We never even got around to dying eggs!  So sad.  (I did boil a dozen though so I've slowly been eating them...)  The Easter bunny showed up on Saturday (as usual).  The boys had a great time finding their baskets and hunting for eggs in the backyard.

Henry quickly discovered that there were treats in the eggs.  So the older boys did all the work of finding the eggs and Henry stood near where the eggs were being deposited and eat the treats.  Smart boy.

It didn't take long for them to find all of the eggs.  And I thought the Easter bunny was extra generous this year!  Perhaps he'll have to be trickier at hiding next year.

William kept calling this little chick a "peep."  I'm glad that he was so excited about it since he didn't get real peeps.  And it makes me happy that he isn't too big for cute stuff like that.  I know that the day is coming soon.  (It's really really hard to find stuff that isn't "cute" or pastel for Easter baskets!  Poor Easter bunny!)

The older boys all got bubbles and had a great time outside playing with them.  Good thing it was such a nice day!

You may have noticed that Alexander is absent from all of the pictures.  Poor little boy was asleep on the couch.  He had been sick all week long and still wasn't feeling himself.  Not even an Easter egg hunt could get him up!  So I grabbed his basket and brought it for him to look at.

Easter Sunday we got the boys up and went to church.  Poor Alex still looked sick but Rich and I both had to teach so he came anyway!

And just for fun... here's our Easter outtakes.

We spent the rest of the day watching The Lamb of God and eating a delicious Easter ham. 

Birthday Week!

We had a fun, busy birthday week.  James was pretty non-demanding and didn't ask for much.  It's great because he's pretty easy to please but sometimes it makes it hard to come up with something!

William spent all his free time the night before and even woke up early on his own to complete an abandoned castle made especially for James.  William was very proud to give it to him and James loved having his very own William-made creation.

 The one thing that James did  ask for was a new bike.  He learned to ride a two-wheeler this summer and was getting a little too big for his old bike.  Boy, was he thrilled!

And he couldn't wait to get out and try out his new frisbee horseshoe game.

Rich thought that James might like a big bag of bubble gum.  10 points for Rich!  I think that it might have been the most exciting gift of the day!

 Like I mentioned, he was pretty non-demanding.  For dinner he requested mac-and-cheese, homemade rolls, fruit, and apple juice.  And his cake?  He just wanted a plain white cake with white frosting.

That is, until I showed him a rainbow cake on pinterest.   I only showed him because I didn't really think he'd go for it.  Oh I was so wrong!  I was a little nervous about it... but it wasn't quite as bad as I thought it would be.  Just time consuming!

This series of photos of James blowing out his candles was just too great--I couldn't leave out a single one!  I think they tell the story all on their own.

 We were extra lucky that Grandma and Aunt Lisa joined us for our birthday week.  It was our last time seeing Lisa before she leaves on her mission to the Marshall Islands next week!  It was lots of fun!

I normally don't make a cake for Rich since James' birthday is only a few days before but this year we switched things up.  I made this Andes mint cake.  Oh. My. Word.  It was so good! (Chocolate cake with crushed andes mints mixed in, mint frosting, chocolate ganache on top).

Henry was fascinated by the fire and couldn't keep his eyes off of them!
 

 While our guests were here we kept pretty busy!  We visited Davidson, went to the movies, saw Wicked, played around on Rich's assortment of stringed instruments.

We had such a great birthday week and are so glad that Grandma and Lisa could be here with us!  Lisa, you are going to be a super missionary--I'm glad that you spent some of your last days with us!