Painting and random Myann

When the weather is bad, we paint.  Then Myann must have taken the camera and took pictures of herself. Then I had to capture my girl in her choice of clothes. She has a unique style.

Big haircuts

Myann still refuses to let me do her hair, and even brushing it is a daily struggle, so I finally convinced her to go a bit shorter.  Her only condition was that she did not want to look like a boy.  With Anders, we finally went a bit shorter, but I am not ready to go as short as Shane yet.

Night out with friends

For our friend Chris' 40th birthday, his wife Jen arranged a tour at a local brewery and then dinner.  The brewery tour was great and reminiscent of my working days, the mixers, not the beer part.

Easter Weekend

Easter weekend highlights. Easter egg hunt at our church on Saturday. Not a highlight, but it was insanely crowded and Shane was disappointed in the number of eggs he collected. Ignore the fact that he stopped 10 seconds in and must have been overwhelmed by all the people. Myann could have cared less and just wanted to hold my hand. Anders did not care to move more than 10 feet from the starting line until he saw there was candy in the eggs, but by then it was too late. So as Shane is sulking, Myann was offering him some of her eggs. Then people around us started getting that he was upset and began offering us theirs. Have I mentioned that I love our church. Anyway, this was actually embarrassing me more as Shane was gladly taking the eggs and he did not need them or deserve them and was missing the whole point of Easter even as other people were giving to him. The eggs did at least perk him up to the point that I could have a civil conversation with him and explain that these kids were sacrificing their eggs for him, just as Jesus had sacrificed His life for us. I was relieved that Shane seemed to get it at that point, but still not happy to have had what seemed like the only kid at our church's Easter egg hunting complaining that he did not get enough eggs. We might have to work a little on appreciation and gratefulness in our household.

Sunday morning we had planned to get up and go to the earlier service, but since I chose instead to cook breakfast, we were running late. No biggie, we opted to push back to the later service and not rush. The Easter Bunny had hidden the kids baskets around the house, so they all worked together to find the baskets. Shane used his deductive reasoning and found all 3 quickly. The Easter Bunny did not want the deer and coyotes to eat our eggs overnight, he planned to come while we were at church.

Brian talked Myann into wearing a dress for mommy. I was super thrilled but ill-prepared. Since she had not worn a dress in over a year, I had not bought her a dress in a year. The only one we had that she would wear was a bit small. She squeezed into it with only a few complaints. Then we pulled out my never before used tripod and attempted some family photos. Not great, but we got the whole family in, so I consider it a win.

After church, we changed and the kids went for their egg hunt in our backyard and into the woods. They knew they were looking for the golden egg as well. Shane quickly got that the eggs were hidden in an arrow shape pointed in the direction of the basalt rocks at the back of our property. (He is obviously smarter than me, because I did not get the pattern, but the Easter Bunny assured me that Shane was correct.) Myann saw the golden egg hidden in a crevice of the rock, but did not want to stick her hand in so she played off that she did not know where it was and kept looking. Shane was not having much luck finding it so we told Myann they all would share the egg regardless of who found it. She then told Shane where it was so he would stick his hand in the crevice.

My sweet hubby

Lately I have been very thankful for my hubby. Almost every morning the kids and I wake up to a preprepped smoothie in the fridge. Seems rather simple, but it gives me so much relief every morning to not have to think about breakfast for the kids, at least initially. I can pop it into the blender and give the kids a healthy start to breakfast within minutes. They usually need something else within an hour, but since they had a healthy protein fruit smoothie to start with, I do not feel so bad about giving them Life cereal in a baggie an hour later.

My other reason for gratitude is that even though staying home can be exhausting and there are days that I miss work. Ok not the work part, but the getting out of the house and being with other adults all day part. I am so thankful that staying home has allowed me the luxury of going to all the kids' school parties and volunteering in Shane's class several times per month. I have gotten to know Shane's teacher quite well and even all of the kids in his class. It is so nice to have that special relationship with the people that Shane spends time with. Also, Shane loves having me there, and I know that will not be the case forever, so I am thankful that I can do it at an age when it seems to mean so much to him. If he could have his way, I would be in his class everyday, but the excitement he shows when I am there is truly flattering. Brian and I joke that once all of the kids are in school, I will be a full-time unpaid employee of the school if I work in each class. I may have to set limits, but I do look forward to being with them during school as much as possible.

I am far from a perfect stay at home mom/wife. I am a terrible housekeeper, no shocker to those that know me, but I am becoming a much better cook and I was not all that bad to begin with. I am far from organized and consistent with the kids, but they all seem to be happy and secure children, so we are doing something right. Brian puts up with my imperfections and encourages me to take sanity breaks as well, and for that I am thankful.

T-ball kick off

Brian and another friend of ours Dad are coaching the kids this year for t-ball.  Together they make a great coaching duo.  Here is the team introduction.  Shane is #6.

Myann 4 going on 24

Conversations in the car with my kids are so interesting. Last week's went like this:
Myann: Mason asked me to be his girlfriend.
Me: What did you say to him?
Myann: I did not have a choice, so I said yes.
Me: Myann, you do have a choice and you are too young for boyfriends.
Myann: Mom, we are just kids. I know that.

Now flash forward to today.
Me: Myann, is Mason still your boyfriend?
Myann: No we broke up.
Me: How do you know what breaking up is? What does it mean?
Myann: It means you do not want to be with that person ever again and you will not get married.
Me: Wow, how do you understand this at 4?
Myann: They told me, Jameson and Alex told me. Besides we are just kids and it is all pretend.
Me: Ok, good. (But I was thinking, seriously. I did not think I would have this conversation for another 10 years.)

In the same week of these conversations, Myann can still be such a little girl. We have since quit dance class for the time being, but Myann was often attached to her poor dance teacher. She had to stand with her the whole class and often wanted to hold her hand. Most of the time when we pick her up from Sunday school, she is being carried my a teacher or holding her hand. When Myann had stitches, she was wheeled around the school and the playground in an office chair. Are you detecting a trend? My girl loves her attention, loves affection, and is a master of wrapping everyone around her little finger.

Shane is 6 going on 26

My baby, my first born, my truly special little boy (okay, not so little) is 6. So hard to believe. Only when he was at his birthday lunch with Daddy, Mommy and Aunt Tiff did he look like a little boy. When he is with his siblings, he is such the big kid.

He is full of ideas and I am positive his brain never stops creating and inventing. He is counting down the days until he can do his first lemonade stand and has now decided to do an evening caffeine stand. In his own words, "I will sell caffeine to parents on their way home from work so they can deal with their kids when they get home." No comment, since I am pretty sure where this idea came from. He has a new invention every 5 minutes, some have already been invented, but he does not know that, so it is still creation in my mind. His latest are the hyperator (makes parents more hyper and kids less hyper). Aunt Tiff said this has already been invented and it is called drugs. Cloudinator - makes it so you can float on the clouds.

At his birthday, when his friend Jameson said thanks for inviting me to your party. Shane responded, "Well it wouldn't be a party without your best friends." On his birthday after he found out his party was on his actual birthday, "This is the best birthday ever." He is so easy to please and appreciative. For breakfast when I asked what he wanted, he replied, "Chicken with broccoli." I explained that I thought breakfast food would be more appropriate, so he said waffles, eggs, and strawberries. Now that I could do. I served it to him in his room and he was in pure spoiled heaven.

Of course Myann then wanted her breakfast in her room too. I obliged, I was feeling generous, since we all know what a mess Myann makes when eating. Thankfully, she surprised me and only spilled her orange juice a little and the syrup only got in her hair, but not the carpet.

As for other Shane greatness, since it is his birthday, I can brag on him. At his last parent/teacher conference, he rocked it. He has surpassed all the kindergarten markers and is very close to meeting his end of first grade markers. He is a great reader, but math is his true strong point. His handwriting needs improvement, but he has improved dramatically in the past few months. His problem is that he goes too fast. He rushes his work and wants to be done first. Sounds familiar, I remember getting upset if I did not turn in my work first too as a kid. His teacher was impressed/irritated that Shane has mastered following her instructions by doing the least amount of coloring possible. Example, they are creating equations like 5+1=6. They had to color squares to represent the numbers. ALL of the other kids actually colored their squares, all the squares. In an effort to not color, Shane decided to use white. So he would color one square or 2 squares and do the equation 1+6=7 or 2+5=7. The most squares were of course white. Then to decrease his coloring even more, he created 3 part equations (which his teacher said he was the first in the class to do. 1 red, 1 blue and 5 white squares so 1+1+5=7.) Again, he did everything he could to never have to color more than 2 squares. This was how his entire assignment went. His teacher was amused, but miffed that he does this every time. To be fair, he is not perfect and did receive constructive criticism. He tends to lack patience and needs to work on respectfully addressing adults. Shane is a "know it all" (shocking given his genetics), and tends to say things out loud when he should keep his mouth closed. He rolls his eyes (again shocking since no one in this family ever does that) and to a recent class guest speaker, Shane said, "You already said that, could you please move on." Ouch, I was not happy to hear that. And he called addressed his teacher's much older dad as dude. Thankfully he was paying him a compliment, he said, "Dude, I like your white hair." But we had to have a long talk about respectfully addressing adults and being patient even when you already know or understand something.

Lunch with Aunt Tiff, Mom and Dad

Birthday dessert - root beer float