Easter Festivities

Matthew made a very cool looking egg and when he picked it up to show me, he dropped it. He was pretty bummed.

 

Two weird boys coloring eggs.

 

Matthew finding an egg in one of my favorite places:When I was a kid, this access to the chimney was a perfect oven for mud pies.

Here Comes Peter Cottontail, Hoppin’ Down the Yummy Trail

It would seem that the bunny buns are becoming a tradition around here. Of course, three-eyed alien bunnies, Cyclops bunnies and pretzel bunnies are not exactly normal, but since when have we been anything even remotely close to normal?

Out of the Mouths of Babes

Last night it was Matthew’s turn to give the lesson for family home evening. Since it was the Monday before Easter, he decided he wanted to give a lesson on Easter. So I helped him prepare the Easter egg lesson, the one where the eggs are numbered and each one contains an item that helps tell the story of the crucifixion and the resurrection.  As we were gathering all the items to put inside, Matthew would ask why each item was included and I would explain. One of the eggs was to contain a nail, but Matthew seemed really confused by that which kind of surprised me. I would have figured that he would know exactly what it was for, but I started explaining anyway. It didn’t take him long to interrupt me and tell me that one nail was not enough because Jesus had a nail in both hands. That was when I realized that not only did he know exactly what the nail represented, but it was very important to him that we have the right number of nails. So together we figured out how many nails we needed and he counted five nails into the egg.

When we got to that part during FHE, I welled up. Seriously, he is a pretty amazing kid. He is constantly reminding me what we can learn when we listen to the Spirit.

Simple Pleasures

-Malia's hair is long enough to do this:

(Thanks, Rachael, for the crash course in piggie tails!)

-Daniel is old enough to babysit.

-Matthew has gotten brave enough to try riding his bicycle without the training wheels. He is so close to figuring it out!

-Our elementary has brought back the school choir and Daniel and Nathan are both totally excited about it even though it means going to school early two days a week, even when they are off-track.

-Although we can't afford lessons right now, Nathan is teaching himself (with lots of help from Kev's mom) to play the piano. Our house is filled with music!

-Daniel and Nathan are learning how to change diapers.

-The tulips are coming up...in spite of the fact that it is snowing like crazy right now.

-Kev passed the exam to earn his CISSP (one of the granddaddies of professional certs for computer guys)!

He Never Stops Surprising Me

I was just downstairs watching t.v. when I heard the pitter patter of feet upstairs that indicated that Matthew was out of bed…again. He has been doing that a lot lately. Usually it is just because he can’t sleep or he just wanted to see us or something like that. So I came upstairs and headed into his room to talk to him.

When I asked him why he was up, he said, “I just can’t wait for tomorrow.” And honestly, I was completely stumped. Tomorrow is Wednesday. We have nothing on the calendar. I have laundry to do and bread to make. Kev is studying for a test. There is really nothing to indicate that tomorrow would hold anything the anticipation of which would keep a six year old awake quivering with excitement. And so I asked him why. His response: “Because I just can’t wait for spring.”

I’ll admit that it took me a minute to come up with a response for that. I was a bit flabbergasted, after all. Yes, tomorrow is the first day of spring, but Matthew is the first kid I’ve ever known who took the date on the calendar to be the tell all of seasonal predication. I mean, he has been playing outside in the spring-like weather for a week now and for most kids (in fact, every other kid I know) that and the tulips peeking out of the ground would be plenty enough for them to decide that it is spring right this very minute.

To my credit, I did not laugh while I got him tucked back in and very seriously told him that staying awake would not make tomorrow come any faster and if he closed his eyes and let himself sleep he would wake up happy in the morning and could go outside and play. I did, however, laugh just as soon as I was out of his hearing.

For his sake, I hope it doesn’t rain tomorrow.

Pintsize Wordsmith

Malia has hit that stage where she is gaining new words every day. Many of those words are incredibly helpful in letting us know what she needs. Words like hungry, eat, up, down, out, cup, poop, diaper, and bum all help to prevent those toddler crying jags that occur when we just can’t figure out what she wants. Other words are not necessarily helpful, but they are fun. Some of those are belly, shoes, boots, baby, Woody, Elmo, hat and silly. But my personal favorite? When we get to the end of a prayer (either at church or at home) or a talk in Sacrament Meeting and everyone says amen, Malia consistently says, “Yeehaw!”

"Huh?!"

Matthew will only come into my room during the night when he has a problem, usually a bad dream. So when I startled awake sometime last night because I became aware that there was someone standing about two inches from my face, the nightmare report is what I expected. But when I asked him what was going on, he said, “I had a good dream that filled my heart with the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ.” In my sleep addled state my first thought was, “Huh?!” Then I semi-processed what he said and told him that was good. When I asked what the dream was about, he told me he dreamed that all of us watched a star rise that told us that Jesus was born.

Never had a kid tell me he dreamed about that before…

They’re Feeding Our Obsession

Anyone who knows us knows that we are a bunch of Lego-philes. I don’t think we’ve had a gift giving occasion at our house that did not involve Lego since Daniel was a toddler. Our house is constantly littered with Lego. And believe it or not, when Kev and I got married, our wedding cake topper was made out of Lego. So imagine our glee at the announcement that a Lego Store is coming to a location near us in the near future .

We’ll probably be standing in line at the grand opening. :-)