Easter

I love this time of year!  Everything starts to turn green.  Bulbs are popping up out of the ground.  There are beautiful blossoms on trees.  The days are longer.  There are more warm days than cold ones.  The birds on our deck are constantly chirp, chirp, chirping away.  (Jilly LOVES the birds!  One of her favorite past times is to stand up to the sliding glass door, her face pressed against it, and talk to the birds like she knows exactly what they are chirping about.  So cute to watch.)  I love Spring!

It was a beautiful weekend here this Easter.  The kids enjoyed a fun Easter egg hunt at my mom's house the day before Easter.  My mom is so much fun.  She had the kids over at 10:00 that morning, and they all spent the afternoon dying dozens of eggs.  At 2:00, the hunt was on!  Grandma and grandpa Stock came over to watch too.  Grandpa was so nice to hide all of the eggs.

I'm glad my almost 13 year still isn't "too old for these sorts of things".  He loves it just as much as the younger kids.  :)

The whole family.

Jilly had fun watching all of the goings on.  She loves to observe.  I love this girls teeth!  I just want to eat her up!

On Sunday we went to church, then came home to make Easter dinner for all the family.

I got a few snapshots of the girls in their new Easter dresses.  The boys were too fast for me though.  They were in their pajamas before I even came in from the car!

Jilly wasn't too happy when I put her in the grass.  She is most definitely not a fan.

We had a lovely afternoon with the grandmas, grandpa, and uncles.  We're grateful they live so close by.  :)

Her Mission: Search and Destroy

Jilly is quite the mess maker.  There is just something in her that needs to make chaos out of order.  Anything that can be turned into a mess is quickly done so.  And with one of her more recent discoveries (being able to open cupboards and drawers), there is no stopping her.  She has a basket full of toys, but it is very rare to ever find her actually playing with them.  She mostly just likes to empty the basket.  Then we put it all back, and she returns to toss the contents of it all over the family room again.  And I do mean toss.  She literally stands up, holding onto the basket while she picks toys out of it and chucks them behind her as fast as she can.  Walking around in the kitchen is like walking through a mine field.  You have to be very careful to not step on or trip over anything.  It's hazardous!  As I get ready in the mornings, I am constantly shuffling from side to side so as to block her every move at trying to get into the bathroom cupboards.  And if there is a book shelf in sight, every book is sure to be on the floor within seconds.  And she does all of this with a look of sheer determination on her face, like it is her mission in life to create a chaotic mess wherever she goes.  It's a good thing she is so stinking cute!

Here she is at my mom's house, caught in the act.  Grab and toss, grab and toss.  And yes, she made the huge Cheerio mess on the floor.

 Eating as she goes.  That's how she rolls.

Spring Break

We sure had a fun Spring Break this year.

 Great Grandma Chapman came for a visit.  It was so good to see her!  Hopefully we didn't wear her out too much.  She sure has quite a bit of spunk and energy.  She was such a good sport to go on so many outings with us.  Jilly sure enjoyed the time with her great grandma.  (Darn it... This is the only picture I got of her while she was here!  I have been horrible about taking pictures lately.)

 We went to the zoo for one of our outings.  Last time we went, Jilly was only a few months old, so it was fun to see her reaction to things this time.  She was pretty fascinated by all of the different animals.

 Trent was able to get the week of Spring Break off from work, which was sooooo nice!  We loved being able to spend so much time with him.

 Jilly was not a fan of the sun hat.  She took it off every chance she got.

 Colson was all smiles after he got to eat a foot long hot dog.

 Best bros.

 Viv and Buds on the carousel.  From the minute we walked into the zoo, all Buds talked about was wanting to ride on the carousel.  Once the carousel ride was over, all he wanted to do was go home!  Good thing we saw most of what we wanted to see before the carousel ride.

 Jilly's first time on the merry-go-round.

And that is the extent of my pictures for the entire 2 weeks of Spring Break.  Oh, except for these:

 We got some snow one of the days.  The kids played outside in it and built a snowman.

By the next afternoon it had warmed back up and this was all that was left of the snowman.

The boys and Trent also got to go with the grandmas to the museum and see the reptile exhibit that is here right now.  (Vivi was home sick.  Poor girl!)  I guess Trent was quite enthralled with all of the different species of reptiles.  A little known fact about Trent; when he was a teenager, he used to breed snakes.  He had over 30 different breeds in cages in the basement of his parents' home.  Boy, was his mom ever nice to have all of that down in her basement!  He LOVES snakes and other reptiles.  A few years ago, we found a rattle snake at the end of our driveway.  It was about 10:00 at night that we were walking some friends out to their car when we saw it.  I was ready to get in the car and run the thing over pronto, but Trent wouldn't have any of that!  He called animal control, pulled out a camp chair, caught the thing on the end of a 2x4, then proceeded to wait for animal control to show up.  Every time I would go out to check on him, he would marvel at how amazing the snake was, what beautiful markings it had, and try to convince me to come take a closer look!  I wasn't inclined to get any closer than the front porch.  After waiting close to 2 hours for animal control to come, to no avail, Trent decided he needed to return the snake to the wild himself.  I was still all for running it over with the car.  He enlisted my help in locating a box, as he still had the snake coiled up on the end of the 2x4.  He got the snake into the box, loaded it up in the car and drove it out to the middle of nowhere.  By the time he got back, it was well past midnight.  Luckily we haven't seen a rattle snake in the neighborhood since.

Anyway, back to Spring Break.  The kids also got to go swimming at the Rec center a couple of times.  They had lots of sleep overs with the grandmas.  Trenton got to go on a camp out.  One of his favorite things in the world to do.  Since he is in Middle School, he only got one week off instead of the two weeks the younger kids get.  Such a bummer!  It's tempting to just keep him home, but I was a responsible parent and sent him to school.  :(  Colson read almost 3 books over the two week break.  He's really into the Harry Potter series right now.  I think he had 2 solid days where he sat on the couch reading all day, besides all of the other reading he did.  It reminded me of when I was a kid.  I always had my nose in a book any chance I got.  Vivi, the poor girl, was sick for part of the break, but she made up for it by having shopping dates and tons of sleepovers with the grandmas.

 Here is a picture of her and great grandma while out shopping.

We also spent lots of time playing outside.  The weather was actually pretty decent most of the time.  It was so nice to have the kids home.  It is always kind of a let down when they have to go back to school and we have to resume a schedule.  About midway through the day on Monday, Preston looked at me and said, "Wow mom.  It is really quiet in our house."  Ah. Quiet.  On second thought, sometimes a schedule isn't so bad after all. ;)

Park Day

 It's official.  Jilly LOVES the park!  My friend Michelle and I took our boys the other day and Michelle decided Jilly needed to try everything out.  Jillian isn't talking yet, but by her reaction to it all, I would say she had a blast!

 She love, love, LOVED the swing.  She was laughing hysterically.

I think the only thing she liked more than the park was the snacks.  This girl LOVES food.  Oh boy does she love it.  And she'll eat pretty much anything you put in her mouth.  One of her nicknames is actually garbage gut.  I know... so bad.  But she literally will eat anything she can find.  Even the three day old cheerios under the table that we haven't managed to sweep up yet, or the dried up pieces of cheese.  Again, I know.  I just try not to think about it too much, and sweep as often as possible.

Art Show

Back in March, we went to the district art show.  This year, some of Vivi's art work was selected to be in the show.  Her and a group of other students all worked on this together.  It turned out fabulous!

Jumpsters

Colson was part of the Jumpsters team again this year at his school.  We went to see the Jumpsters show on Mar. 21.  (Again, late with the blogging.)  These kids have been practicing since January for the show.

 These pictures are a little blurry, but it's all I got!

Colson with his gym teacher, Mr. Gaede, who is an outstanding teacher!

I was so excited to be able to go and watch this year, since last year I was home with sick kids, and hugely pregnant.  Colson did a fantastic job! 

Destination Imagination

Colson has been so lucky to be a part of the Destination Imagination team at his school this year.  These kids worked so hard for months to prepare for the tournament.  The tournament was on March 17.  (As per my usual these days, I am very late in blogging about it.)  For their challenge, Colson's team decided to build a structure and golf ball delivery device. 

 Colson's team were called the "Destination Dominators".  (Colson with the golf ball delivery device (GBDD).)

 For the requirements, the kids had to come up with a skit, and in the skit they had to incorporate their structure and GBDD.

 In the skit, Colson was the moon, and he was tired of having to share the night time sky with the stars, so he came up with a device (the GBDD) to get rid of the stars.  Part of the challenge is to see how strong their structure is.  In between putting golf balls into the structure using the GBDD, (there was a taped line that if Colson had crossed while using the GBDD, they would have been disqualified.  No pressure!) two of the kids would add weights to the structure.  Their structure ended up being one of the strongest.  It ended up holding over 175 lbs.!  The kids decided on the design of the structure and built it on their own.  And came up with the skit on their own.  Actually, as parents, we had to sign a contract that we would not interfere in any way or tell the kids what should be done.  If they asked a question, we could guide them, but the idea was for the kids to come up with everything on their own.

 In my opinion, their skit was the best.  They met all of the requirements in incorporating all they were supposed to, and there was tons of humor in it!  Colson is such a ham.  They all did amazing!  After their skit, they went up to the instant challenge room.  The parents weren't allowed to watch the instant challenge.  They did great though!  Colson's team got first place in the instant challenge in their category.  Basically, for the instant challenge, the kids are presented with a problem, and as a team, they have to figure out how to solve it using the materials that are given them.  And all in just a few minutes!

 Later that night, we went to the awards ceremony.  Colson's team got 3rd place in their category out of 14 teams!  Amazing!  Which means they are going to the state tournament, and if they make it in the top 3 or 4 (I can't remember which) they will go to the Global tournament in Tennessee.  They had one little hiccup during the skit, and if they get that fixed, their chances of going to Global are really high since they placed so high in all of their other categories.

Here is Colson with the rest of his team (minus 1) after the awards ceremony.  So excited!  The next tournament is this Saturday.  Can't wait!

Prestonisms

Preston has had some funny sayings these days, so before I forget them, I thought I better jot them down.

This one was actually from when we went to Disneyland a year and a half ago.  While at Disneyland, Trent's dad said, "Disneyland... the great money sucker."  (I'm sure the comment had to do with the fact that every time my kids saw a snack/food/drink vendor, they all of a sudden became STARVING and had to have something to eat or drink despite the fact that they had just eaten something not 10 minutes before.)  Anyway, Preston piped right in with, "Where's a money sucker? I want a sucker."  And for months after the fact, he would randomly say, "Can we go to grandpa's and see if he has any of those money suckers?"  We never could convince him that grandpa wasn't talking about a lollipop.

This one was also from a while back.  We were all sitting down eating dinner and Vivi kept talking about wanting a pet bird when she got older.  She also told us several names she would like to name her pet bird.  Then Preston piped in with, "Well, when I get a pet bird, I'm going to name him Steve!"  There was a moment of silence, and then we all busted up laughing!  Well, naturally we had to call Trent's dad right away (who's name is Steve) and tell him that Preston wanted to name his pet bird after him.  He got a kick out of that.  :)

Another one happened just the other night.  Preston was saying something about how when the sun is coming up, the moon is coming up, and when the sun is going down, the moon is going down.  I told him that actually it is the other way around.  When the sun goes down, the moon comes up, and when the moon goes down, the sun comes up.  His reply was, "No mom. That is not how it works.  You know, there is an order to all things.  Duh!"

He is really into questioning lately if things are "worth it" or not.  The funny thing though is that he doesn't always use it in the proper context.

A few weeks ago we were at a family BBQ at Janet and Steve's.  Preston was busy playing outside and wasn't interested in eating.  Finally grandpa called out to him, "Preston!  Come in and eat bud.  There's a plate in here with your name on it!"  What do you know?  He came right in.  We gave him his plate of food, and he spent a few seconds examining it, only to say, "Hey! I don't see my name on my plate!  You told me there was a plate with my name on it!"  Since it was a paper plate, we went ahead and wrote his name on it.

Preston has really been into Jinxing people these days.  He'll ask you to repeat something and say it at the same time just so he can say, "Jinx! You  owe me a soda!"  I think he's already jinxed me 12 times today. :)

The other night, Trenton had requested pigs in a blanket for dinner.  As I was preparing them, Preston asked me, "What blanket are we going to use to eats the pigs on?"  I tried to explain to him that the hot dog was the pig and the roll wrapped around it was the blanket.  He wasn't going for it.  Needless to say, we ate our pigs in a blanket on a blanket in the front yard.  :)

Then there's one of my absolute favorites.  Every night as we help the kids get ready for bed, he always asks, "Will you tock me in?", instead if "tuck".  I don't know why, but every time he says it, it just makes me giggle.

Preston sure adds some laughs to our lives!  I love that kid!