Last Day of School!!

 So classic me, I decided the girls should make presents to give to their teachers on the last day of school...on the second-to-last day of school. And naturally I wanted them to be handmade by the girls so they'd mean more. To the girls that is. So we went straight from picking them up from school to Walmart to buy supplies and then raced home and began cutting out paper flowers until we dropped. They were so proud of them though so it was totally worth killing a whole afternoon and evening for! We filled the little pots with pens and pencils the teachers can use next year, put paper flowers on the tops and they included a little note that said, "thanks for helping us bloom and grow this year." Cute girls. I thought it would be even more meaningful to them because both of their teachers are switching to the new school next year and they were having a hard time dealing with that. Thankfully, daddy also got a quick picture of them with their teachers after school so they can always remember :)

If you can't tell, they're soaking wet here from apparently being sprayed by a fire truck's hose at the last day carnival. Wish I'd got a picture of that! 

And with that, let the summer games begin! I spent the morning getting ready with our new, "Fight boredom, not each other" jar full of fun ideas if things to do. So for once I'm one step ahead! Or I've potentially fought boredom with lots of projects that require my involvement, which will most likely always happen at the least convenient time possible. But it'll be fun! And jokes on them because I snuck some chores in there too, and the rule will be if they draw one they can't put it back! Russian Roulette anyone? Anybody bored yet?

Can't do one without the other!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

J didn't want hers quite as short although I think she wanted it a tiny shorter than I cut it (I was a bit gun shy about over-cutting this time). And surprisingly, she was MUCH worse at holding still. However, it might have had something to do with the fact that during M's haircut, Baby G was sleeping and Dude was happily watching Sesame Street. So we were allowed to concentrate in peace. Not so much with J's. It was post-dinner, which is a pretty scary time of day no matter which way you paint it. Is that just us? On top of it, Coop wasn't here. On top of that, the littles spent the first half of the haircut in the bath in the bathroom where we were cutting while M "supervised." Otherwise known as reading aloud, quite loudly, her newest Junie B. Jones. Course that "peace and quiet" didn't last, ending abruptly when Baby G demanded out and had to be diapered, bottled, jammied, and put to bed. Back to cutting. Then when dude had thoroughly washed himself, meaning we're now probably out of shampoo, he demanded to get out and heaven forbid M hand him a towel instead of Mama. Trying to get back to work quickly, I merely threw some Buzz Lightyear underwear on him and went back to doing my best to follow my YouTube video. Totally exhausting. I do like the asymmetrical whatever they called it where its a little longer in front. I should've done that with M's but went along with the last stylist I watched and tried some little side bangs. Either way, J's pleased and naturally, can't wait to show off the new "do" at school tomorrow, where they are both convinced nobody will even recognize them.

Can't believe I just did this!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Ok, so this is an example of using a really bad before picture to make the after picture look better, but still, holy cow! Who knew M's hair could appear to have any volume at all? It was absolutely terrifying to do, and is, I admit, about an inch shorter than she'd asked for. Eek! Its so hard to get it even!! She was just excited and kept telling me, "it looks great! You can be done now." Even when I really, really wasn't done. And she loves it, so that's good, right? I'm going to have to get used to this. You know what's worse? Daddy didn't even know we were going to do this! So its not perfect, but do you like it?

Toddler funnies

J: I slept in this morning!
Dude: You slept IN this morning?
J: Yes, I slept in this morning.
Dude: You slept IN this morning?
J: Yes! I slept in!
Dude: Did we sleep OUT this morning?

A new "favorite response of mine -
Me: Hey, how about we do ....
Dude: How about no?
Or even better yet, he said yesterday, "How about you no say no to me?" And much less cute is the quite frequently heard, "Nooooo! You CAN'T say no to me!" or "Don't say no to me mom. Don't say it," said in a melodic warning voice.

Was just reading "Dino Football" to Dude, which by the way does an amazing job of introducing vocab words such as triceratops and flea flicker all at the same time. He pointed at two dinos that were giving each other a chest bump after winning and asked who they were. I said, "I think brachiosaurus?" He shook his head and replied, "No. They's TWO brachiosaureees." He just tried to pluralize!! Hope he wasn't offended when I laughed my head off at his serious little face!

Dude: My nose is peeing again.
Me: Go get a tissue so we can wipe it.
Dude: No, just wipe it with my shirt!
(this has changed over the last few weeks. No he says its "peeled.")

And Currently he says in EVERY prayer: And thank you for the elephant bird and the T-Rex and the dinosaurs...

Snow Day Picture Overload

So turns out that this crazy April snowstorm was a North Dakota record amount of snowfall in a 24 hour period! And I'm thinking, that's gotta be saying something. Turns out 14-17 inches in one day is a whole lot of snow. Fortunately, it didn't continue snowing all day today as had been predicted (can you imagine?). In fact the sun came out and the wind stayed away and we got to go out and play! Saw snowmobiles going up and down our street. Not something I can say I've ever seen before out my front door! In April nonetheless (I put even more photos on Facebook in case this isn't enough for you :) ). 

Here's Coop and the girls trying to make it around to the front of the house. Got a bit deep I'd say with those snow drifts!

Dude had an even harder time following with his tiny legs and eventually decided crawling was easier. Seeing as he's light enough to mostly stay on top of the snow, he was definitely right.

And we invented a new game. Let's call it, Can-You-Stay-on-the-Snowpile-while-Mom-and-Dad-Pummel-You-With-Shovelfuls-of-Snow. Hilarious. And remarkably therapeutic :) Just kidding! You should have heard them taunting us and begging for more! 

Even some of the kids' friends from up the street joined in the good times. It was quite the game! And after more than an hour of shoveling and throwing and very frequently knocking the giggly girls over, let's just say we're a little bit sore!

Dude got comfy and enjoyed himself eating the biggest hunk of snow he could lift in the meantime.

After mom and dad ran out of snow to shovel, much to all the kids' disappointment and to our great relief, they decided to build tunnels in our snow pile! Sadly they got bored of the project well before the two ends connected, but it was a valiant effort nonetheless.

And when Baby G woke up, I even let her come out! She'd sat at the window watching the kids longingly and then when I started to put her snowsuit on she actually applauded with excitement. So cute.

I loved how she crawled over and kept poking little bits of snow like "what's this?"

And the tunnel was just her size!

Although she was much more interested in eating the snow. Laying flat, face-first.

Oh look! More snow!

One of the big kids, just chillin' with my sisters!

Dude was also just the right size for their tunnel-turned-cave. He thought it was pretty sweet and as you can clearly see, we really enjoyed our snow day!

Oh also, I've finally caught up on our blog. I went back and added a bunch of posts from Easter and our South Dakota trip back in March, which was when they happened, so scroll down to see them if you'd like. There's some pretty fun stuff (7 posts or so) that I couldn't let go unrecorded!

April 14th - Biggest snowstorm of the year

According to that darn, lying, son of a groundhog, it's suppose to be spring. Either he was confused, or I am. 

M needed J's help just to make it back up the hill. Dude could hardly get off the porch without help. And this is only what it looked like by 9 AM this morning. It's projected to keep snowing until 11 PM tomorrow! Not sure what that's going to look like!!

 Sadly there was too much dry snow to even sled. Nice effort though by Coop, the family mule.

Baby G and I watched from the warmth of our home. She laughed and laughed watching her brother stomp around and tried to sneak out every time I opened the door to take a picture. 

 Don't think they've ever seen snow this deep that wasn't on a mountain! This is just our backyard. Crazy. And again, can I mention that it's APRIL 14TH?! J actually prayed last night that the snowstorm wouldn't come and that the trees would all be in blossom in the morning. We might have to make some paper blossoms to make ourselves feel better. And hot chocolate. Lots of hot chocolate.

1 year-old photo shoot

Not knowing of anywhere to go to get Baby G's picture taken, I thought I'd try to take some nice 1 year-old shots for the wall. The first attempt, though rather drooly was the best. Went quickly downhill from there.

This is fun mom, but I'm outta here.

Hey, what's this on my head?

Mom said no!

Grandparent's Day

So by some wonderfully lucky coincidence, Nana's trip to visit us happened to bring her here right in time for Grandparent's Day at the girls' school! You cannot begin to imagine how the girls' faces lit up when I told them that!!! And just to make Nana feel old, the activity for the day was BINGO. Hehe. M and her won one round, and J generously shared Nana with some less fortunate friends who didn't have grandparents in town. It was a highlight of her trip for the girls for sure!

Our Toothless Reds

J was beyond ecstatic to finally fulfill a lifelong dream and lose a tooth while at school. How better to be the talk of the classroom? She actually got sent to the office to have the nurse pull her tooth because she was distracting too many people while showing off how much she could wiggle it around :) Although this is her third lost tooth, its the first one that hasn't already had the replacement tooth in behind it, so its the first time she's been able to enjoy a toothless grin! Man does she love it. And speaking of toothless grins ... here's Baby Red who still only has 4 tiny teeth on bottom! Cutie.

Happy Easter!

Having pulled in to the driveway quite late, exhausted from our SD trip, with two full cars to unpack, it was hard to muster up the energy to get ready for Easter. Fortunately, the Easter Bunny did all the hard work! And in the morning, kids that fell asleep in their clothes in uncomfortable positions in a cramped car were happy and full of energy as early as would be expected! Love how it looks like the Angry Bird egg that dude is holding is the head to his dragon shirt.

Actually, Baby G slept in. And even when she woke up, I wouldn't really say she was awake. She looked a little dazed and confused.

Our little dragon didn't really remember the drill, but caught on pretty quick and enjoyed finding the eggs that he didn't have to work for at all. For at least the next week, I'd come around a corner and find him happily counting the contents of the plastic eggs. His favorite thing was to open them and announce that they were either jelly beans or M & M's. He actually only ate them without permission once or twice. As far as I know. The older girls enjoyed re-hiding the eggs endlessly. Though it is important to note that whoever was hiding the eggs was required to wear the bunny ears. But that pretty much goes without saying.

Close to a cute shot!

Less close! Baby G was not feeling cooperative and just wanted her mama.

And a big shout out to Nana for making our Easter dresses/skirt! Aren't they darling? I love the fabrics. And the boys' ties from last Easter almost match. Close enough. And fortunately the lobster made it in the family picture. Happy Easter!