April Fools (because now it's May)

 Since it's pretty much May now, I thought I'd mention April fools. Joseph and I had big plans, but ended up forgetting to reallly do anything. Luckily, Elora and Josh had it in the bag. First, Josh woke me up repeatedly, telling me he'd made me a beautiful picture on my door and he really wanted me to see it. He further embellished his description of his drawing, saying it was a pretty heart. When I finally went to see what he'd drawn, this is what met my eyes. Surprise, surprise!






















Later,  I discovered one of Elora's tricks when I went to use the restroom....there was a "spider" several rolls into the toilet paper. Haha. I know she got that idea from our Highlights Magazine. 
















Joseph attempted to trick the kids by offering them a bite of his homemade burrito, which was staring straight back at them!



Later in the afternoon, Elora taped a big plastic spider to our doorway (not pictured), trying to make daddy scream, but he just ignored it. Too bad.

Finally, Elora told everyone a lovely tale about how she'd woken up in the night hungry, so she'd made everyone a little snack. I think Eli was the only one really surprised by the "Brown-Es", but it was still a good trick.

April Fools!

colaborative works

In our bag of kid activities for Sacrament meeting, we have four or five notebooks of lined paper, so the kids can draw while they sit and listen. As you know, Elora loves to draw, (and name her characters)

 



and at least at church, the other kids enjoy it too. Joshua has always liked drawing monsters,

 
 

 
 while Jonah is starting to move beyond stick people with big tummies.

  Eli has just recently jumped from scribbles to stick people and monsters too.

One day several months ago, I was looking through the notebook pages trying to find a blank page. When I couldn't find one, I decided to just add to the scribbles already on the page. ( I don't draw at church very often at all these days, and I didn't want to take up a page someone else could use.)
The scribble made some nice hair, no?

Another day, I found some half-finished drawings that Josh or Jonah had done, so I decided to finish one. This was fun!



In fact, I decided Josh wouldn't mind a little embellishment to a few more of his monster drawings. This was the first addition done, drawn quickly and to Joshua's delight.



Of course, then Elora had to try it too. Copycat.



 And one time, I think Josh is the one who sabotaged Elora's drawing, with the monster coming out of the genie lamp. Haha. Elora always makes cool outfits for her characters.

And at some point, Jonah found a pair of pants Elora had drawn without an occupant, so he decided to fill and color them himself. (Green is Jonah's favorite color, and therefore Eli's favorite as well.)

 



Once again, I turned the tables on Joshua's monster: now the guy his creature is attacking has a pet monster on a chain that's even bigger! Mwaahahaha.



Of course, my favorite addition wasn't exactly Joshua's. But he did get a good laugh out if it.

Easter activities

Easter came early this year! We did all of our usual Easter fun. There was the egg hunt on Saturday at the park, coloring eggs, and finding everything the bunny left in our house Sunday morning! The night before the egg hunt, it had snowed so we wondered if they'd be cancelling it. Instead, they postponed it until 2pm, which worked great for a warmer hunt.
 Because of the time change, we colored our eggs earlier in the day. River even got to help; her egg was dipped with the aid of a whisk.

 
 

 Elora made some of the fanciest eggs. One was a "hammerhead shark", which she said she's been planning since last Easter. It turned out pretty good! Too bad she cried when we put it in the potato salad.

 

She thought it deserved a more noble death of being made into a deviled egg. Haha. Everyone made some pretty cool eggs, including Joseph's watercolor sunset, and Joshua's eyeballs.




At the egg hunt, Eli and River were in the same age group, which was awesome for Eli.

 
 
 


 I felt bad for the five-year-olds in the same group with Josh and Jonah (who are 8 and 6). But I think they hid enough eggs for all and their search area was really large. Elora was in the 9-12 group, and she had fun too!




Sunday morning we found lots of fun things in our living room! River was excited about the baskets, and Joseph helped her find some hidden treasures with the other kids too.

 

Along with what the Easter bunny brought, the kids got some books mom got at the book fair. Yeah!



 River was happy she got a basket too, even though it didnt' have all the stuff everyone else's did. She got some mini-bunnies instead of a big chocolate bunny, and she loved them! That Easter bunny, he's pretty smart.



The day ended bright and warm, despite the early snow on the ground, So Jonah and River had fun blowing bubbles outside in the pretty evening light. What a fun day!

Easter duds

If you missed it, we got some awesome Easter pictures this year. Technically, it was the week before Easter, but we were at District Conference in Pierre, and it was a lovely day, so why not? The only downsize was that we forgot Jonah's shoes and he was wearing big snowboots, but that's how we roll. I'm glad we did pictures that week too, because the actual Easter Sunday was cold and windy at our house!

I was excited that I'd found matching dresses for the two girls, as this is probably the last year Elora can find something to match River, and probably soon she won't want to match.

 This is a behind the scenes shot, before everyone sat down. 

All of these could use some improvement...like these would be perfect if Eli was actually visible and not making silly faces.

And I love the light shining by the log, but Elora and Josh are kind of hiding in the background.

Look at the boys all tipped the same way. ha.

I wish I had a few more in this zoomed out format, but this is the only one that turned out. I love how River is framed under Jonah's arm, and how the light is shining on everyone's hair. This would look great as a big print.

River looks so cute in this one! I just wish it was a little more zoomed out; I actually had to go back in and add some ground at the bottom.

While we were there, we had fun throwing rocks in the river and enjoying the sunshine. Daddy has his own life size River doll.

What fun.