Boy Stuff

Evan inherited Avery's purple bike, 

so Jim gave it a boy make over.

He was so so happy with his "new" bike. You should have seen him jumping and squealing. 

The three year old doing three year old stuff.

A dirt back yard begs for holes to be dug. 

I beg for the grass to get planted soon because I'm sick of dirty dirty boys and dirty dirty floors.

Jim is also digging proper holes for fence posts,

so one day Evan and Jim were hole flirting.

"your hole is deeper than mine"

"yeah but your hold is wider than mine".

I laughed and laughed remembering this event that involved purse flirting. 

To sum up: things are happening in the back yard! I pull up a folding chair and watch Jim dig deep holes and then I hold the post level while he fills it with quickcrete (clever name). Everyone plays outside in the sunshine until 9pm when that beloved sun goes down and we can't see anymore. 

It is fabulous. 

Expose'

I thought it would be fun to take a picture and tell more about some of the "drama" that is going on surrounding the moment. 

Jimi brought a huge bag of crust to feed the birds on the ferry ride. 

Why do we have a huge bag of crust? Because our kids (I suppose like most kids) do NOT eat the crust. So we always have piles of crust laying there on their plates in the morning.

This particular morning, Avery was on a kick to make breakfast for herself and the boys. Earlier we had a bit of a fight about how little she does for herself. She is almost 8 and she sits at the table and waits for her food to magically appear before her. She doesn't even pour her own cereal. 

Her friend Bea was at our house when we were discussing how pathetic this is, and we found out that Bea can make her own toast! 

So the next day she decided to try toast cooking. 

On this morning before we drove to Seattle, she made toast after toast and there were plates and plates of half eaten toast and crust. 

So we gathered it up and fed it to the seagulls.

Next.

This is a picture from conference weekend...

In a weird twist of irony, the opportunity to hang around in our pajamas on a Sunday actually made me more committed to keeping Sunday a holy day. 

I don't really know how to explain this without boring you to death, but it was a weird Sunday. I think because of the spring weather, the kids were outside playing with friends a lot, so that made it seem like "not Sunday". 

I slumped around in pajamas all over the neighborhood chasing after Andrew. Lindsay texted me and said the kids were down by the drainage ditch throwing stuff in, so I went down to survey the situation. That led to playing in the forest, and by the end of the day the kids had changed into swim suits and were having a water fight. 

It was such a slippery slope and it ended up being the most un-Sunday like day ever. 

But the good news is, it made me realize how much I treasure the feeling of Sunday. The absence of sabbath renewed my commitment to keeping the Sabbath Day holy. We've since instituted Sunday "rules" to ensure that it has a special/different feel from the other days of the week.

I have a pattern of having my mind changed by the absence of something. 

For instance: when I went to college, I exercised my new found freedom and often slept through church. After a while of not going to church, I realized that I didn't like it. 

The absence of church was uncomfortable to me. 

Then I renewed my commitment to go, even though my mom wasn't there to make me.

Last.

This wagon is a Christmas gift from Kim and Aaron. 

Long story short, it just barely came in the mail a few weeks ago. I think it fell out of Santa's sleigh? 

No, we were supposed to go to Fallon around Christmas, but had to change plans. blah blah blah.

Anyway, it's like my favorite thing lately. I'm having a real inner battle with how much I let the kids play with/in it. I don't want it to get trashed. 

Believe me when I say it WILL get trashed if they are given free reign over it. But it's so fun to play with. 

Anyway, the other day we were walking around the neighborhood in it, and a family of weekender Canadians were moving out of the American house, and the mom came and told me to come and take some toys because they didn't want them and didn't want to deal with them. So my kids run in and there are a ton of new, exciting toys. I offered to take them all to Goodwill for her, and they filled our wagon to the brim with toys. 

So now we have a room full of new dang toys that my kids are having tons of fun with. 

My inner battle is: we do NOT need anymore toys. Groan. 

Solution: I'm gonna give it another week or so and then go through and make a serious purge of all toys new and old. 

Evan's Loose Tooth

The first lost tooth is a special occasion.

This tooth was hanging around for a while. We were really hoping it would go while Grandma/pa were here because Avery also lost her first tooth when they were visiting (on Christmas morning).

So, it was hanging on by a thread, 

Jimi said "come here, let me see",

and he reached in and snatched it out.

Evan was so confused. It didn't hurt, but there was an empty space in his teeth line up. 

It was so funny watching his face register what just happened.

And THEN, Avery sounded the alarm.

She literally ran up and down the neighborhood, knocking on doors and telling all our friends that Evan had lost his first tooth!

Spring Break

I don't feel like talking about this. It involves a dead battery and a taxi ride home. 

It involves boys that were being too crazy in Lowe's, and taking them out to the car to wait for Jim backfired because the incessant window rolling up and down is the reason for the dead battery. 

I don't want to talk about it.

Spring break started with some conference and puzzling. 

By the end of the week, my tulips were in full bloom. Just wait till the end of the post and you'll see.

Grandma and Grandpa Larsen came for the week. 

We went on a ferry to Bremerton from Seattle.

Look at these birds. They kind of blend in, so look close. Jim fed them crust from the kids' breakfast toast.

They literally snatched it out of his hand.

Yarn bomb.

Look close...there is Mt. Rainier out there. It was so huge and Greek Mythology looking.

(it doesn't look that way in the picture, of course. maybe you should come visit and see it in real life.)

One warmish day we went to the beach with friends. 

Evan didn't get to come because he hit a friend with a stick a few minutes before go time. 

(he is having such a hard time making good decisions lately. it's killing me. breaking my heart. i don't know what to do about it. consequences don't really deter him from making future bad choices either. is it the spring weather? why is he in such a bad behavior slump? please tell me it won't last forever)

Once Andrew discovered the dock, I had to hover a bit. 

I also changed his poopy diaper on that dock.

Speaking of poopy diapers...

lately Andrew shoves organic materials in his mouth to see what kind of reaction he can get - sticks, leaves, etc. 

At the beach he's been shoving handfulls of sand in his mouth. I just kind of ignore it because it has a strong natural consequence attached...

 he shoves and I look away...

and then later I find sand in his stool. 

Yeah. I don't know. I don't know how to be a mom. 

We went to the tulip festival, as you know. I know you know because you study this blog, and you take notes, and then you write summaries. Probably.

Saturday morning we had a soccer game. Have I mentioned I'm coaching Avery's team? It's so fun. More on that later.

The kids filled in all the down time with playing outside. They got sunburned. They carved on the trees out back (grrr). They played whiffle ball.

Tulips.