Easter & 31 on the 31st

Every so often my birthday happens to fall on Easter.  And this happened to happen this year {I wonder if anyone happens to be tired of me typing happen yet?} And I digress.

  I have been longing for this day for years. My golden birthday where my age and date line up.  Like since I was a kid longing.  Crazy right?  Well, by the time it came, I was much less muted with excitement and instead just looked forward to spending some good quality TLC with the family.  I had already gotten what I really really wanted: a fun girls weekend to NYC that included shopping, dining, entertainment, and lots of laughs.  Oh and my brand new pair of Toms were ordered off Amazon and being shipped to my house!

After another fun girls evening the night before my birthday, I really didn't expect anything on the actual date.  It was a great feeling to not have these impossible expectations that most likely would never be met.  It took the pressure off and I just had a fun day. 

The kids put out Easter baskets the night before that ended up being quite the patch job.  Apparently 99 cent buckets do NOT last more than a year, and so stretching to two years was a little much.  I seriously pulled out the packing tape and reattached half of the plastic on Eli and Robby's buckets.  Yikes.  Needless to say, they will all be ending up in the trash can this week.  No use saving them for a third appearance. 

Easter morning Maddie was the first to awake.  She ran in our room so excited to find out if the Easter bunny came.  We made her wait until 7am and then down she bounded to search for her basket.  Robby followed suit about thirty minutes later.  I have to admit, we were so tired that we didn't even bother climbing out of bed and taking the usual Easter morning pictures.  We were so lazy that finally we got up around 8am and then had to scramble to get ready for church.  Eli was plucked out of bed about 8:15am and barely found his basket before we left for church.  Maddie and Robby searched in vain for the parent Easter basket, but were unable to locate it.  The Easter bunny was really tricky this year and hid our basket in the ceiling of the kitchen (see pic below). Luckily Mom has really good eyes and found it after we got home.

Once again, I meant to take Sunday best Easter pictures.  Somehow we never really got around to it.  The best I got was a quick picture of Eli and Maddie at home right after church.  I think we may try to do a belated photo in a few weeks before church.  Maybe, maybe........

Doesn't he look handsome?  I sure think so.  Every time I look at this picture, I have to pinch myself in disbelief at how old he looks.  Since when did I let him grow up?  I am pretty sure he was instructed to never grow up.

Miss M in her Easter dress.  I am not really loving this picture, it seriously doesn't do this cute dress justice.  Maddie was upset that I didn't get her any frilly socks or new shoes for Easter.  Perhaps in the next few weeks this will happen.

After a fairly relaxing afternoon, we prepped ourselves and our food for a fun Easter dinner with our New Hampshire friend family. We had tons of yummy food that included funeral potatoes, Ham, Strawberry Avocado Salad, veggies, fruit, rolls and of course dessert.  Oh, the desserts we had.  My friend Steph made the most delicious homemade Cheesecake.  I NEED to get that recipe from her.  And my other sweet friend, Candace, made me my very own ice cream cake.  She knows that I'm not really a cake lover and so she specialized it just for me.  It was delicious as well.  I had a plate full of dessert that night and now need to go on a diet for a week straight to make up for it.

Later on that evening we did family presents and Skype sessions with each set of parents/family.  Robby and I had a little self photo session together as well.  I love that kid so much!

Maddie was super excited to show off her new gymnastics skills to the family and spent some time practicing before the skype sessions.  I am truly amazed how much she has improved over the past six months.  She is starting to really devote herself to this sport.  She practices constantly and talks about her goal of making the competitive team this fall. 

Oh the ice cream cake.  It was so amazing that it deserves a picture all by it's lonesome.  I will have to make one like this in the future!

New St Patty's Day Tradition

I have never been one of the put together moms, that has a ton of activities and traditions for each holiday.  I am now finding as my children grow older, they are forcing me to be more creative.  

This year, Maddie decided that she was going to make her very own leprechaun trap.  And in true Maddie fashion, she managed to wrangle together some supplies and off she went to do this.  She was so excited about the finished product, and even include some gold Easter eggs because "Leprechauns love Gold".  

The next day she was a bit disappointed when she woke up and no Leprechaun had come in her trap and left any candy.  Luckily we left it up just a little while longer and while we were at church a Leprechaun made some serious mischief in her room.  

Playing Hooky

When we found out about the "Ladies Ski Day" at Pico Mountain last week while skiing with Ben, we knew we would have to come back and take advantage of this deal again.  So although it was a school day, we played hooky again and headed back over near Rutland, Vermont for another fun day of skiing.  One of the greatest travel buddies we have discovered recently is the audio CD children's books.  Over the past month or so we have read "Indian in the Cupboard", 4 books in the "Boxcar Children" book series and are now listening to "Stuart Little".  I love this because the fighting is practically nonexistent with these and the kids no longer constantly ask for a Kindle to play video games on as we travel.  I am hoping this leads to Robby enjoying reading a bit more and I am also enjoying listening to some fun children's books.  

We had a great day at Pico and were able to ski a little in the morning while Eli was at the Daycare center.  After lunch, we all headed out for some more skiing.  We had a fantastic time until Maddie's elbow got caught in one of the lift safety bars near the end of our day.  She was pretty upset about it and wouldn't move it the entire way home.  Luckily her funny bone healed just fine and she was in fine spirits by bedtime that night.

Robby was pretty excited that I let him ski most of the day with his ski poles that he isn't quite ready to use

One of Maddie and Robby's favorite parts about Pico is the smaller lifts that they are allowed to ride on with each other and the smallest one that they can ride all by themselves.

After an upsetting pack up with Maddie howling about how badly her elbow was hurting, she promptly nodded off for a nap most of the way home.  She is actually wearing Robby's sweat shirt after complaining that she was freezing cold :)

40 Degrees and Sunny

After being deprived of sunny skies and warm{er} weather for many months, we took full opportunity of a beautiful Sunday afternoon and dressed appropriately. Shorts, short sleeved shirts, flip flops by a couple of us, and of course Super Hero costumes!  

Too bad this only lasted for a few hours and now we are back in the midst of Winter with snow, gray skies, and cooler temperatures.  

Maddie has decided she is going to learn how to skateboard this year.....which means already scraped up knees and elbows

M has been trying to a toe stretch for quite some time and is still upset that she can't do it without holding onto something.  I love her concentration face in this picture

Spring Break: New England Style

I was thrilled when I got a text message a few months back from my favorite brother Ben announcing that he had his Spring Break from graduate school coming up in March.  He had caught the "skiing bug" and was trying to find somewhere to do this.  Luckily it didn't take much persuasion to get him to drive over and spend the week with us.  Our kids were once again beyond thrilled to have more family come to visit.  

I started searching local/relatively close ski resorts and the best deals for all of us.  In the end we kind of put plans in stone at the last minute, but it all turned out great.  Ben arrived LATE Monday evening.....3am late.  Because of this, we had a relatively relaxing day on Tuesday complete with sleeping in, kids in school, board games, chit chat, piano playing, and yummy food.

The next day, Ben and I headed out to the Dartmouth Skiway WITHOUT kids to ski for the day.  All the kids had school and Eli was watched by a good friend after his preschool.  We managed to borrow a friends skis for Ben that happened to be nearly the same shoe size and only a few inches taller than Ben.  Pretty much perfect.  We had a great time hanging out together on the lifts, trying some fun moguls and hills, racing down the mountain, crashing a few times a piece, and laughing together.  It has been a really long time since I have spent a day on the slopes without children.  

Around 2 pm we loaded up and headed back home to pick up Eli, grab the kids ski equipment, and pick up from school to head over to Whaleback Mountain for after school ski.  Once M and R were ready to ski, we got 4 pm lift tickets (<$10) and all headed back out.  Maddie especially had a great time with Ben after her lessons and got to show off her "Double Black Diamond" skills to a rather stunned Uncle.  In Ben's terms "I think she might be better than me".  That is quite possible, but more than anything she is fearless.  By the time evening hit, we were all exhausted and stopped and grabbed our family favorite Little Caesars Pizza.  

The next morning (Thursday), we loaded up our stuff, kept the kids home from school, and headed over near Killington to a Vermont local favorite ski resort "Pico Mountain".  This mountain was incredible.  It was way cheaper than the big resorts but nearly as large and had lots of lifts to ride and plenty of great snow.  Ben took M and R on some of the bigger lifts while I stuck with Eli.  We spent 5+ hours skiing to hearts content.  When we were all tuckered out, we packed up and headed back home.  We have found great pleasure in listening to audio books in the car as of recent and enjoyed listening to the end of "Indian in the Cupboard".  I am amazed at how well behaved my children are when we turn these on.  I don't think we ever pulled out the Kindles during the one hour car ride there or back.

Too soon I had to say my goodbyes to little bro and head off to work.  He left later on that evening with the plan that we will see each other at some point this summer.  I have really enjoyed him coming twice to visit this year.  It has been amazing to get to know him on an "adult level", instead of just being my little brother.  

*I loved all the beautiful music he played on our piano keyboard*

*The Dartmouth Skiway-- this place will always hold many fond memories of this year*

*Eli was so proud of his fighter airplane he built out of Trios that he wanted a picture of it*

*both members of the "Double Black Diamond Club"*

*Mommy and her crazy skiing kiddos at Pico Mountain*

*I love hanging out with this cutie on the mountain*

March, already?

Last year, February dragged on and on for me {used to happen to a lesser extent in AZ as well}. By then I was tired of cold weather, winter clothes, snow, snotty noses, long pants, etc.  The magical winter wonderland outdoors was no longer so exciting and I started to long for Spring time.  I felt like Spring would never come.  This year, that has definitely NOT been the case.  I feel like we blinked and February came and went. If I could describe February in word for our family it would have to be "skiing".  We have skied our way through this winter, and have all enjoyed it so much more because of that.  

Now that March has hit, I wonder how much longer this snow will stick around.  Last year we had a week with temperatures reaching 80 degrees.  Somehow I don't think that will be the case.  Until then I will content myself with smiling at this cute picture of my boys cuddling together on E's bed to watch a show on the Kindle.  It is moments like these that makes having children so close together totally worth it.  I sincerely hope that they will always feel close to each other, and that the good times will outweigh the fighting and arguments that seem to happen way too often.

Winter Break: Saturday

We decided to try to get to Ski resort "early" on Saturday.  This meant leaving the house around 9:30am and starting to ski around 10am.  I was so excited to bring Jesse along so that he could see the progress our children have made.  I was equally excited to have the freedom to go on a few runs by myself.  It was really fun to show him how much better they have all gotten at skiing and to see him excited to take the biggies on the ski lift.  He shot some pretty good footage of each of the kids skiing, and he enjoyed riding up the ski lift with Rubba.  We even did one run where all five of us went up the ski lift. 

On Thursday, Eli rode the J-Bar up all by himself on the last two runs of the day {and then skied down the hill with the backpack harness}.  He was very insistent that he also do this by himself on Saturday as well. It was a proud moment to see him go up the lift all by himself over and over again without falling. 

The boys petered out around 12:30pm and Jesse took them to the car. Maddie was still wanting to ski some more, so I ended up taking her down 4-5 more times.  I truly enjoyed being able to ski with my daughter.  She is finally hitting a point where it is no longer a chore to have her ski with me.  She can ski down most of the beginner/intermediate runs and even learned how to ski over moguls. 

My cute Eli boy riding the lift in front of me

Pictures with Maddie on our ski date up the mountain

Winter Break: Friday

This morning I started to panic when I realized that my fun, relaxing week home with the kids was almost up. As weird as I may sound, I actually love having my children home with me.  There are definitely times when it is really convenient to have two of three gone to school full time.  Times that I can lay around and do nothing or read a book if I feel like it.  I can also be super productive and organize entire rooms without breaking up sibling arguments.  But I also miss them like crazy.  I hate how our life is busy and chaotic the moment they walk in the door after school.  I hate trying to cram in extra curricular activities, playdates and errands in the few precious hours between school and bedtime.  I hate trying to be a drill seargant at bedtime and get them down at a reasonable time so that we can get up early for school the next morning. The only thing that got me through this panic was realizing that in less than a month they have a half day/no school day combo and then in April, they have Spring break.

Friday was a busy, lots to do sort of day.  Maddie went to a birthday party for her friend Leah and immensely enjoyed the cowgirl theme.  So that the boys wouldn't be sad about Maddie having such a fun activity, I took them to the movie theater.  We saw the newest cartoon movie out complete with old popcorn, treats, 3D glasses, and a filthy theater. 

After both of those activities we went bowling with the Monteleone's. The kids played "Candle-Pin bowling" that features smaller bowling balls, bumpers and tall skinny pins.  Maddie and Robby really enjoyed this; Mr R was so serious when it came his turn to go.  Eli on the other hand could care less about the game.  He was busy wandering around, laughing, jumping on chairs, trying to escape to play arcade games, running halfway down the lane to bowl, and in general create mischief.  I finally buckled and handed a kindle fire to him and he played games in between turns.  As always, bowling was fun but crazy.  JJ and Eli enjoyed clowning around in the car together....I think Mr E brings out the super sillies in nearly every child he's friends with.

We ended the night with a date for Jesse and I.  We went and ate at this cute Chinese restaurant in Lebanon and finished our date at the grocery store.  It was really nice to clear our heads and take some time for just the two of us.  Thankfully we have a fabulous babysitter that our kids all love!

Some other smaller activities we did during the week included:

*Reading our "Book of Mormon Stories" kid manual every single morning at breakfast. This is yet another reason why I love having no school for the kids.  I love being able to have a lazy morning complete with yummy breakfasts together where we have time to read our scriptures as a family.  I was excited to be able to make Buttermilk pancakes, waffles, french toast, german pancakes, scrambled eggs, muffins, etc. Breakfast is basically my favorite meal of the day. I love cooking breakfast and I love eating it as well.  Too bad most days I don't have time to do this.

*Playing board games together.  One of Rob's favorite things to do besides electronics would have to be board games.  He particularly loves ones involving mathematics.  We went through all of our games this week and realized we had never opened up several of them.  The favored game this week was Quirkle. We also played Monopoly Jr, Rummikub, Parking Lot, and Memory together.  I have full on embraced my inner nerdiness and I am loving becoming a board game family.  Our favorite time to play these games are between Eli's and the biggies bedtimes. 

*Reading/Quiet Time every day.  Whenever I have all three children at home, I feel like I need a little breather some time in the middle of the day.  I need a period of time when there is a calm relaxing atmosphere around my home.  One of the ways I achieve that is holding a mandatory 30 minutes where all the kids pick out there favorite books and we bring pillows and blankets into the family room.  We all sit and "read" our books.  I always love a good book and am typically immersed in one, therefore it is heaven to be able to stop my motherly duties for a period and just read. It's been fun to see Maddie loving to read as well.  I am looking forward to the time that my other two are also reading.

*Playing gymnastics ALL OVER THE HOUSE. I think Maddie probably spent at least an hour each day doing gymnastics all over my house.  She is really trying to improve her handstand hold and does them on walls, into people, against the fridge, next to me, on the couch, you get the idea.  The brothers have also been doing lots of their "tricks" and they love showing me forward/backward rolls, headstands and spinning dancing manuevers.  We have this routine going where we set up our gymnastics mat and they stand in line and take turns doing their tricks. 

*Obviously watching some television.  Because I hate mornings so badly my children have this bad habit of getting up and turning Netflix on the TV on non-school days.  I love this because it buys me an extra 30 minutes to an hour more of sleep, but also hate how they easily become dependant on getting their fix of TV time.  Luckily we have been involved in many different activities this week which has helped to cut back prolonged time in front of the television.

Maddie has been quite obsessed with making sure that she's reading the book of Mormon every day.  She even fell asleep while reading in her scriptures one day at the table.  These particular pictures were snapped one evening while I was making dinner.  I love how dedicated she is becoming with her studies.  She loves bringing her scriptures to church now and really enjoys reading through them during sacrement meeting.  It is really neat to see your child starting to develop the beginning stages of a testimony, but sad at the same time to see their early childhood leaving.

Winter Break: Thursday

Day Four of my children's Winter Break included more of our favorite new hobby: Skiing

I have seriously loved having passes to the Dartmouth Skiway and have used them over and over, making it well worth the money spent.  Luckily the children all seem to enjoy doing it as well. 

 I love how Maddie asks me every single morning if it will be a ski day.  If not, she comes up with all sorts of reasons why we should go.  She has been fearless and tough.  She apparently tried a rather large jump at ski lessons a few weeks back, fell and had a bruised/scratched left cheek for several days.  When it happened, she brushed herself off after a few tears and continued to ski the rest of the time without any complaints.  She wasn't scared to immediately try another jump.  Because of her fearlessness, she has rapidly improved and is now going over small jumps and landing them every time.  She is also skiing parallel nearly all the time and has been bothering me excessively about when she will get her own ski poles.  For now, she is content to borrow mine when we are on the bunny hill.

Robby has also grown to like skiing much more than when the season began.  Of all my children, he is the most hesitant to try a new thing.  He also tends to get very frustrated at himself with failure of any kind.  This includes trying new sports/activities and being unsuccessful in the beginning.  This school year, we have been really focusing on him being brave with these new situations and he is gradually improving.  I have been really proud of Robby this year.  Even though he has had frustrating situations on the slopes and grows tired of skiing after a few hours, he has really pushed through and is learning how to ski!  He was especially excited when he learned how to walk sideways up to the small jump by the J Bar.  He figured out that he actually could do this jump and land it. Huge mommy moment right there when he came over to me and told me that he did it. 

Of all of my children, Eli is by the silliest.  Jesse and I joke around that he is our blonde silly little airhead.  He lives in the moment and gets distracted quite easily.  He laughs his way through life for the most part and everything is a joke.  When I first started teaching him to ski, he approached it the same way.  Instead of taking things seriously, he would just laugh at me and do whatever he felt like.  Talk about frustrating when you are trying to teach safety and technique for skiing.  After a particularly frustrating day, I had a brilliant idea.  I started putting him between my skis and holding his arms while we skied together.  I am sure many of you are wondering why I didn't think about this before.  Answer: I don't know.  Nevertheless, it worked.  Another thing I did was to finally get over my irrational fear of using the harness backpack.  For some reason the first time I tried the harness I felt awkward and the straps seemed to tangle up.  When I tried it again, I finally figured out how to hold onto the straps correctly and I learned how to help steer him down the mountain.  This was a revolutionary experience. Because of this I can finally take all the children up the ski lift and slowly make it down the mountain with Eli.  My knees do tend to get a bit sore from snow plowing so much, but at least it allows me to do a bit more skiing than I get on the bunny hill.

I am really looking forward to skiing as a WHOLE family this Saturday!

Robby looks like a total stud in his ski gear

Eli showing off his harness backpack that we use.  He loves wearing his "Ninja ski mask" and it cracks me up how little you can see his face

I finally caught a picture of Miss M with BOTH skis off the ground.  She has been borrowing my poles which are much to big on the little hills.  Thank goodness we finally ordered two pairs of ski poles for our biggies that just came in the mail.

I nearly caught a picture of Robby mid air. But not quite.  Oh well, next time

Winter Break: Wednesday

Wednesday took us to the "Montshire Museum", a fun children's museum that we have yearly passes at. Maddie has gotten a little jealous as of late, of the amount of time that the boys have spent at the museum in comparison to her.  We tend to go there while she is either at gymnastics or school or friends houses.  I knew that during break this would be a great time to take her there.  I wasn't sure if the children would get bored quickly since we have been so much, but luckily I was wrong.  They have a really fun new exhibit set up about how people make things.  My kids were in heaven and could have stayed much longer than the 2-3 hours we  were there.

They were able to make parachutes out of plastic, strings, tape, index cards and pennies.  They even got to test them out by sending them over the banister to the first story.  They also spent a long time making spoons, foot prints, and other small creations out of wax, made die-cut paper boxes, die-cut 3D horses, and molded pennies.  They have all been talking constantly about these fun exhibits and when they can go back again.

 One of the fun new exhibits included building trolley cars and then taking them down a ramp and watching them smash back apart (pictured above).  Eli loved it and probably built his 5-6 times in a row

They also had an old-fashioned life size car that the kids could assemble and then take back apart.  Eli favorite part was pretending to drive the car.....even if the steering wheel wasn't even attached to the car.