Easter Weekend!

Yes, I know, Easter was last weekend. I am way behind. Again. Sue me! Do any of you know who invented soccer? I would like to hurt him. Anyhoo....

... True to our natural way of doing things,we crammed way more than is humanly possible into our Easter weekend. We kicked it off with a drive to Grandma Kay's, where Brielle discovered how much cooler real babies are than their plastic counterparts. She's met her baby cousins before, but this is really the first time she "got" how amazing they are. She couldn't keep her eyes off them. Thanks, sils, for being so kind and understanding about that! After as much drooling over babies and playing with cousins as we could fit into a 4 hour period, Kutter and I were off to Primary Children's for his sleep study. Please, people, put this on your list of experiences to avoid in life! So not fun! The nurses were awesome, but it was still sheer torture. If you don't believe me, check out this picture of how Kutter looked right before he fell asleep!

and he was way more positive about the whole thing than me!

On Saturday morning, they woke him up bright and early for a finger stick and kicked us right out of there, which was fine with me since Breje and I had a shopping trip planned with the girls. We spent the entire day eating, shopping, laughing, eating, gossiping, and eating some more. (See picture at the top, the one which refuses to move to the correct spot and is driving me crazy but accurately displays the disgusting display of gluttony that we were so dang proud of!)

Next on the list of must -do's for the weekend was egg decorating at Grandma Linda's. The amounts of glitter and tie dye consumed in ten minutes of this is staggering. Their cute creative little faces were so worth it!

I found a fun idea on the internet for the adults involving old silk ties to decorate eggs and I must say that it was quite a hit! Even the older kids could do it and it was way fun to see how well they turned -out!

Easter morning had the kids driving us all nuts, so Grandma gave them one of her famous surprises -- Easter monster trucks. You would not believe how well this went over, even with the little girls, and one of the best parts of the day was watching them play monster trucks together.

Finally, the Easter bunny remembered to hide the eggs and we let all 7 kids loose on Grandpa's lovely yard! How cute are they? I love this picture of Brielle, she's not even pretending to hide her excitement -- and I love that she's just turned her back on an egg hidden right at her eye-level!

It was a matter of minutes before they'd found all eggs and were ready to compare their loot!

The only thing that could've possibly been cuter than that is watching them all pushing each other on the swing set. It almost looks like a lovely spring morning!

My Girls!

We seriously haven't been up to much lately, but I had to hurry and post a couple of quick pictures of my beautiful girls.

Breje had New Beginnings last week and it was tons of fun! They're theme was "In the Mood for Values" and all the presidencies had to put on a fashion show choosing one value to model. Breje had faith and it was seriously tough. Most girls were going to just dress all in their value color, but who has all white in their closet? Not us! (We are messy people, folks!) We did our best with the color, but decided to incorporate the idea of faith as best we could. We used the example of faith as a seed and Breje just ran with the concept. Here's the final product... ... homemade flowers all over her pants and hat, and a necklace made of flowers and seed packets. Didn't it turn out great?! (especially since she had only been home from track practice for 1/2 hour by the time she had to leave again!)

Then there's Brielle. I have been marvelling at the speed with which that girl's hair grows, and decided to re-attempt leaving her hair down for church. I'm thinking it may never happen again, because she seriously looks 18! Help!

On Thursday, Brielle and I were able to go watch Kutter get celebrated in an assembly. He was rewarded for "impressive academic growth", being a "curious learner" and his "determination and great attitude". He was in heaven and seeing him so proud of himself made it totally worth dragging ourselves out of bed and to school by 8:30! (I know, that's not technically early, but we DO NOT like mornings at our house!)

Later on that afternoon, he totally took me by surprise while admiring our Amaryllis plant. This happens to be the one-and-only houseplant that I have not killed within it's first week in our home. It came in a box and I won it at bunco, so it definitely represents miracles to me. Apparently I'm not the only one. You see, weeks ago we all marvelled when that clunky bulb I pulled out of the box grew and grew and then blossomed into two huge pink and white flowers. They were seriously awesome. Then they died and I guess we all figured that was the end of my most successful plant ever. Well, Kutter noticed that it now seems to be thinking about producing several more flowers. When he asked about it, I told him that it is actually supposed to regrow new flowers when the old ones die.

He thought for a moment then, totally out of the blue said, "That's just like us. We start out small and get bigger and bigger. Then we die, but we get to live again with Heavenly Father.

Um, Okay.

Thank you, Primary!

More Ellie-isms!

Brielle's most recent bit of "attitude" has me wondering --- at what point do the cute little remarks stop being charming and just become warning signs for when her head is about to spin? For example...

.... "Mommy, I told you a hundred times!" --- that was seriously cracking me up this morning, when she was cussing me out for putting her pajamas away wrong. It's no longer morning, and I think I've forgotten how to laugh. Is this seriously what I sound like? .... "I'm not looking at you right now", took me by surprise and made me giggle --- now I"m just wondering what she could possibly be saving for when she actually hits puberty!

... "Fabulous!" Okay, that one is never gonna get old. Breje and I followed her around the house for two days trying to get this on camera, because there is no way to describe how cute it is. No luck, so you'll just have to trust me.

We recently spent the day having the kids try on all their summer hand-me-downs. I had absolutely no trouble getting Brielle to try on each item, and the pile of clothes that would fit next year just grew and grew (Hayley, you are seriously great!) It was still lying on the floor when Jody got home from work and Brielle marched him into the bedroom and said, "Daddy, I tried on all those clothes. It was AWESOME!" She had Jody totally cracking up the other night when they were snuggling in front of the tv and a Dairy Queen commercial came on. Out of the blue she says, "Oh Daddy, I really need a great big cheeseburger!" Then she thought about it for a minute and said, "and mommy does, too!" Thanks, kid. I do and I"ll try and remember that tomorrow the first time you say, "that's not my fault!"

Back to Work

After two weeks on our couch, recovering from his ACL replacement, Jody is finally back to work -- which is probably a good thing .... ...and sometimes, he really likes his job!

Ski-days!

Jody managed to get the kids up skiing 2 whole days before he had to go in for his knee surgery (no, I didn't let him take my kids skiing without an ACL, it just sorta happened) If they weren't before, they are now officially hooked-- and Brielle is just dying to get up there. They do make the snow clothes look pretty great!

This is the only pic that makes me jealous I stayed home. Lunchtime --with it's reprieve from life-threatening accidents and freezing cold. Besides, look at that spread!

Kutter's homework today included looking out his window and drawing a winter picture. Apparently, his teacher forgot that there's no winter outside, so I told him to make it up. He drew a bunch of skis and a snowboard. Good man!

Ellie-isms

One of the most enjoyable things about hanging out with a two-year-old all day is getting to hear all of the silly things they come up with to say. Mine has really been cracking me up lately. Here's a few of my recent favs that came to mind this morning.......We were watching ice skating yesterday morning --- she was still pretty groggy, as she had just rolled out of bed, but she hopped up and said, "That's what I do!" with some serious conviction. Yeah, okay.

..."Oh mommy, you're sooooo cute!"

... At the dinner table, out of nowhere, she rolled her eyes, shook her head, and said, "oh, mom, sometimes I worry about you!" Even the bigger kids sometimes take you by surprise. Trayson, especially doesn't ever like to be outdone. I went to his school Valentine's party and he brought me a handful of his candy with a "here, mom, this should hold you!" I guess my sugar addiction has become more obvious than I thought!