Happy Easter

I hope everybody had a wonderful Easter weekend. We had a great time Saturday doing all the Easter bunny fun stuff. We then celebrated Easter Sunday by focusing only on the Savior and why we celebrate this day. The kids amaze me with their understanding of the resurrection. I am so grateful for my Savior who has made it possible to return again one day with him and Heavenly Father.

We did a community egg hunt at the middle school and then the Easter bunny visited the house with more fun. Josette really figured it out quick and loved picking up the eggs, especially after she realized all the candy there was to be had.


Thanks to Meme my kids looked like the Princes and Princesses that they are. Thank You Mom!!!

You let him lick the toilet handle!

Matt had the camera yesterday at the egg hunt so when I saw this picture my first reaction was like many......

YOU LET HIM LICK THE TOILET HANDLE!!!!

After giving me that look that said, what kind of Dad do you think I am? He came over looked at the picture and started laughing. I then heard the real story. Matt had to take the little man to a restroom break after the egg hunt at the middle school. While there and going pee he discovered that he could see his reflection in the handle. Carsten, while continuing to go pee, goes up and says "Big mouth", scrunches down and says, "Little mouth".

The little tornado

At this moment I am wondering what things I need to be taught by my children, I'm obviously not picking up on it fast enough. At this moment I have cleaned up shredded paper from ALL over the downstairs two too many times, caused by a certain little person. Have a broken wire that was holding up a large picture frame upstairs from a little person pulling on it with all their weight. Told a little person to get down off the kitchen table, the sewing table and another surface that shouldn't be stood up on. Clothing from drawers opened flung over a shoulder. Had bigger smiles and prouder moments than I 've ever seen. What child do you have in your head, short spikey hair, a calick that goes crazy, a smile and a twinkle in the eye that has said "adventure" since birth? You would be completely...WRONG! No this sweet little child I have been following behind making sure the home will survive is nobody else than my sweet little Josette. I do feel bad that Carsten has gotten a bit of a "bad rap". Josette is surpassing him by far (and I don't mean to start giving her a "rap" but the stories are going to be good with this one). Matt keeps worrying about my sanity next year when mellow Benjamin will be in Kindergarden and it will be just Josette and Carsten. Ooh the stories there will be to tell. If it can be climbed, opened, dumped, or smashed Josette has discovered it. She was just so mellow until her body became fixed, healed and feeling good.

Finding Sophie's ice cream treat in the garbage, what can be better than trying to get that last little drop that might be left. Two minutes later she crawled up in my lap and fell asleep.

ALOHA!!

I've been so slow at getting this update. Once we got home I had to get over the fact that I still was 2 months away from having spring..so now that the mini depression has passed I'll share our great vacation. After many, many years (10 to be exact) of saying and saving for a vacation and needing to go somewhere with warm beaches and water, it happened! We spent the last two weeks on Oahu and Kauai. It was so much fun seeing the kids free from all the clothing and able to just run and dig to their little hearts content. The weather was not the best and being on the North side of both islands didn't help the cause but we still enjoyed warmer temps than we've had in 2 years. It was so funny to see the locals all bundled up and the weather man saying it was "chilly" because it got down to 68 at night. Blue skies lacking we still visited the beach most everyday. My side of the family met us in Kauai and we had fun being with Aunts and Uncles and Grandparents. It doesn't happen for us very often and it was the longest time we had spent with Uncle Steve! This was also great grandma's first visit to Hawaii and what great memories for the kids of their great grandma. A classic Benjamin quote was that he wasn't going home until it was summer. " I want to go from summer to summer!" Pictures say things better than I can so I'll let them do the rest of the talking.

Hanging out with the locals at the Polynesian Culture Center. This was the rare time Josette was out of the carrier.
Our luau at the PCC. Josette is feeling a bit under the weather but it was just a one day thing.

Trying really hard to get a good picture of all 4 kids being happy in front of the temple, at least they are all in one spot and semi smiling.

First entrance into the ocean water.

We let the kids pick one thing they really, really wanted to do and this was it. A submarine dive to 110 feet. We saw sharks, sunken ships and turtles. The only down fall: there were no toilets and what happens to little boys when they are presented with a situation where they can't easily access a toilet.....even though they just went 10 minutes before!

Part of the sunken ship.
Carsten was a little timid with the water but eventually he got in up to his knees.

There were some turtles taking in the rays on the North Shore of Oahu at sunset.

My brother-in-law looking small (he's 6'2)next to the incredible waves we experienced for the trip.

Josette getting ready to surf those big waves.

Carsten Boxing

We finally broke down and bought a Wii after our last stint of being confined to the house due to weather. I needed a new source of entertainment and this has fit the bill for kids and parents alike. I don't know who has more fun. I know that only little movements are required but I can't help but go at it like I'm doing one of my kick boxing workouts and end up sweating and out of breath at the end of a "fight". Matt has determined that this is the only way he has a chance to cream me in tennis. He's even thinking he'll take my Dad on, at least in Wii world. We have to have all the 9 and 10 year old kids teach us how things work, we are so clueless!

This video of Carsten is hilarous. Matt has to hold on to the back of his pants to keep him from hitting the tv or anybody else. He just swings! The thing is he wins.

This is a fun one!!

okay so the first 5 people to respond to this post will receive something made by me to you.
my choice.
made especially for you.
of course there are some restrictions and limitations:

1 i make no guarantees that you will like what i make! (but i know you will)

2 what i create will be just for you.

3 it will be done sometime this year.

4 you have no clue what it will be... it may be a story. it may be poetry or an article on properly cleaning your face before a masque.i may draw or paint something. i may bake something and mail it to you. who knows? not you, that's for sure. (um, you can guarantee it will be something you will love)

5 i reserve the right to do something extremely strange. (probably not)

the catch? oh the catch is that you must re-post this on your blog and offer the same to the first 5 people who do the same on their blog. the first 5 people to do so and leave a comment telling me they did will win a FAB-U-LOUS homemade gift by me!!

oh and be sure to post a picture of what you win when you get it!!

Pirates of Alaska

After the boys had been setting up the pack n'play as a pirate ship I decided it was time for something I didn't care if it got ruined. A family moved into the ward last week and I hit them up for a few of their moving boxes. Below are the creations. There are still many things that Benjamin needs to make it up to snuff but it's a good beginning. I used a roller shade for the masts and the boys created their images. It is saving by spare bedroom from certain ruin as gangplanks (wrapping paper holder) and the bed which was the ocean.

Carsten with his sword and ready to take over the ship next door.



Captain Hook peaks out from his home base.

These are the "cannon" balls shot out for the cannon holes on the side.