A little bit of this...

Oh this girl of mine! She is so sweet and adorable one minute and a complete terror the next. Sunday was not a good day for us. I ended up having to pull Brooke out of her primary class for being naughty for her teacher. I thought we would just have a quick time out, but no, Brooke proceeded to scream at the top of her lungs in the church and run away from me. She started crying hysterically so we just went home early. She had a nap at home, so maybe she was just tired?

These were taken a few weeks ago. I decided this year I wasn't going to spend money on a new Easter dress. Then, as I was digging around in some clothing that my SIL gave me, I found this dress. It was perfect and Brooke loves it.

Then, Brooke fell asleep at dinner later on in the week. This has never happened before and I thought it was hilarious.

Our little Lion King! Porter's personality is showing up big time. He is a little tease and is into everything! And, Blake and I, decided is actually fun to be around when he's not teething and grouchy 24/7. He has several teeth coming in right now, and I am praying we'll be done with teething for a while--or for good.

 My cute boys all dressed for church (this was the week where Brooke had her meltdown) but these were taken before church when everyone was still in a good mood

 Porter loves to walk, but can only do it if he is holding onto one of us. He just grins and laughs the whole time. You can tell he thinks he is such a big boy!

 Porter plays with all of Brooke's little people accessories because he loves opening and closing the doors to the houses.

 and it's amazing what an empty box can do. Brooke played in this for a long time. She also likes to play with her little bottles of nail-polish (she was given 5 bottles from a friend as a birthday gift) and pretends they are people and acts out stories with them. It makes me wonder why I spend money on real toys. It's not like she doesn't have a whole pile of princess figurines she could do that with.

I am on the summer break countdown! 5 weeks of school left to go!

Conference Weekend

I love General Conference weekend. Even though it's kind of crazy with kids, it's just nice to stay home and enjoy listening to the talks. We don't subscribe to any TV channels, so we watched/listened to conference via our laptop, which is plugged in in the kitchen. The kids played at my feet during the Saturday sessions and I was able to do some spring cleaning and bake a huge batch of rolls.

reading with Brooke on Friday night:

Saturday:

Sunday we decided to head up on the mountain. The trail we wanted to walk along was a little over an hour's drive so we listened the morning session on the drive up and then ate our picnic lunch in the car to finish the session. Between sessions we walked a long the river.

spotting a muskrat swimming in the river

getting tired

Hey! I'm over here!

a crane we saw along our walk

Brooke's imagination was in full swing during our walk. She claimed she spotted a kangaroo and when we had a lesson on red vs. black ants, she chimed in that purple ants are nice. We sang some primary songs as we walked and Brooke was such a trooper! She came home and fell asleep at 5:00 pm

We got back just in time to listen the last session of conference as we drove back home. It was so interesting to me as we listened that Brooke would pipe up and make a comment when she would hear words she knew like "Jesus" or "prophet". Listening to the leaders of our church is such a testimony builder for me. I love the men and women who put in so many hours to serve and lead the church. I found myself getting emotional during some talks--a snippet of a talk would just jump out and catch me off guard so unexpectedly; it was just a confirmation that these are inspired men and women and their messages are true. If you missed a session, or want to listen to some of the talks you can HERE.

Egg-stra Special Easter

Easter 2013 was a little crazy. We learned some good lessons as a family about what we will/won't be doing next year. 

We started our Easter on Saturday. Blake took this pic of us in our PJs.

 Then we headed over the dinosaur museum for an egg hunt. I was a little overwhelmed by the crowds, but we had a good attitude and it was fun. One thing I was grateful for was that all the eggs the kids found were empty--they traded the empty eggs for prizes at the end. I appreciated that because there were kids of all ages and of course the older ones can move faster than the younger ones. We had a good time, but that will probably be a one time thing for us.

 Next, we headed over to a local grocery store to wait for the Easter Bunny.

This is what happens when the shopping cart is missing its buckles

 Brooke was super excited to see the bunny but I wasn't sure how Porter would react. He has some major stranger danger anxiety right now, but to my surprise, he loved the bunny too! He crawled over to him, no problem.

 After the bunny all the kids got a free helium balloon. This was Brooke's favorite part so I think we will skip the egg hunt and just come see the bunny from now on. Then, we came back home to dye our Easter eggs.

I hid eggs and the Easter baskets Saturday night--ready for the morning, not figuring in the fact that Brooke gets up insanely early. She was awake at 5:30am and when she spotted a couple of the eggs was SO EXCITED. We held her off until 7am and then had an egg hunt around the house.

Blake's basket

 Porter didn't know what to think of the eggs.

We stopped to have breakfast and then to have a lesson on the true meaning of Easter. I showed a couple videos from LDS.org and used the gospel art pictures to tell Brooke about Jesus Christ being resurrected.  Then we found baskets that were hidden in the storage room:

The kids each got a new hooded bath towel, balls, chalk and bubbles for outside, and Brooke got Tangoes Jr. (a quiet time game) and Porter got his Dippy Dinosaur toy (I had originally bought this for him for Christmas, but then decided he was too young). I also really wanted each child to have a special picture of Christ for their bedrooms. (side note...these pics cost me $4 each. I got the matted frames from Ikea and then found the pictures at Deseret Book. I think they turned out pretty good!)

Then ( I know, this holiday just keeps on going and going) since it was warm enough, we found the eggs that were hidden outside.

getting a taste of Cadburry Cream Egg

It's impossible to get a good shot of both kids looking at the camera

We went to church and Porter was terrible. Blake ended up coming home with him. Brooke, who sat perfectly reverent during church with arms folded while Dad was sitting next to her, the minute he left with Porter, decided it would be okay to start dancing in the aisle. Primary was really great. We taught the kids about Easter and showed a really great 2 min video to the kids to get them excited for general conference next weekend.  and I left feeling uplifted and inspired. Then I get home, and all heck breaks lose. Porter is crying and Brooke is being difficult while I am trying to finish up the last minute preparations for dinner. It was just crazy and I wanted to scream and pull my hair out. Why can't my kids be okay for two minutes so I can get things done? Oh, because they've been at church all afternoon, haven't had naps and are starving. No one was in a good mood--myself included. Blake and I decided it was going to be an early bedtime for the kids and we sat together and ate our banana caramel/toffee pie in peace. I then reflected that this isn't our last holiday, we have lots to look forward to, so it's okay if things don't go as planned. They probably won't next year either :)