Train ride and Easter bunny

We went one day to the mall where they
had the Easter bunny (which both my children
were terrified of) and a train which both my
children LOVED!

I don't really blame them for being
afraid of this Easter bunny, I was a little
scared myself!

My bunnies

We had fun dying eggs. We'll have to find a
better way to do it with young kids next year.
Between Ian's dyed hands because he didn't understand
that he could leave the eggs alone to dye or that he
could use something else to scoop them up and
the fact that he kept throwing the eggs around like they
were bouncy balls:)

Ian misunderstood the millions of times that
I said, "Be gentle with the eggs!"

I guess he thought the dye was hot and
he needed to blow on it to cool:)

They also dyed eggs with their cousins
a couple of days later, but I didn't have my
camera. Such a fun and crazy tradition:)

P.S. The eggs became a delicious potato salad:)

Not dripping wet, but wet!

My friend Torrie left a comment on the previous
blog post saying that she was surprised Ian was
not dripping wet since we were taking the
pictures at the fountain.
Well, when we first sat him down
he must have thought the water looked like a pillow
because he laid down flat into it. I don't know if it was
his reflexes that shot him back up, his super
strong abs, or the fact that Clay and I were
both screaming and running at him thinking he
was going to fall completely into the fountain!

Luckily, the back of his hair was the
only thing that got wet.

Also, I get a lot of people that say how lucky we
are that our kids pose so well for pictures and
how easy it must be. If you'd ask Clay, he'd say it
is because I am a Nazi and don't back down until
we get some good ones. For example, we took
250 pictures at this shoot:)
Poor kids, their not even famous and they have paparazzi:)

Easter pictures

Disclaimer:
Clay did steal the camera from me and is
responsible for taking half of these pictures!:)

Spring artwork

We have been having a lot of fun doing
spring arts and crafts!

Chicken

Easter bunny

Butterflies
Flowers

For anybody that wants more ideas for
crafts, my sister and I have been combining our
ideas on a blog called happy little hat

Trouble with a capitol T

While Madison is in preschool I usually

go over to my friend Lauren's house.
Her son Ethan goes to the same preschool and
Lauren also has a son Ian's age, so we let them
play together. Sometimes they will play well
enough that we can get some exercising in.
One particular day Ian had wandered upstairs
and then we heard a loud crashing sound, something
falling down the stairs. I knew it wasn't Ian
because there wasn't any crying or screaming.
We ran to see what it was and found.

Exhibit A:
A vacuum in the wall.

Then we looked up to see
Exhibit B:
Ian, at the top of the stairs with a big smile on his face.

Exhibit C:
After we took the vacuum out of the wall.

The vacuum was not that close to the stairs.
Ian must have pushed it on the floor before
he pushed it down the stairs:)

Random pictures

Ian was particularly parched this day!

Clay's way of trapping the children:)

Cowboy Ian and Thomas the train

Maddie using her pillow pet as a cushion.

One of the biggest grapes I have ever seen in
my life!

Getting into the holidays

Maddie put her pink tights on her head
and told me she was the Easter Bunny.

Mermaid Ian

We were getting ready to go somewhere
and I asked Maddie to put her clothes on.
When she was done she said she would
help Ian, who already picked out his outfit for the day.
They were in the hallway, so I just heard
the kids giggling and when I looked to
see what was going on I found Ian with both
legs in one hole, looking like a mermaid
and his shirt on the top of his head and Madison
pulling with all her might.

He was bound and determined to stand up!

Row, row, row your boat...in the family room.

It's always an adventure on laundry day to
see what the kids use the baskets for. They are usually
turtles or they take turns pushing each other
around. This particular day they were
taking a little boat ride.

A sneak peak of summer

Last week we had planned to

go with a friend swimming at the YMCA. She has
a pass and can take guests. So I got the kids
all swim suited up and excited and then
she had to cancel. Maddie and Ian were
so disappointed. Part of me wanted to
say, "Life's full of disappointments, sorry."
But the better part of me said, "I have to fix this!"
It was in the 70's and getting warmer
by the minute, so I got the kids swimming pool
from the basement and hauled bucket loads of
warm water out to the pool.
The result was two very happy kids enjoying a
sneak peak of summer.
P.S. Ian even started his farmers tan:)

Our favorite things to say this week

Madison: "But, why?"

Ian: "Chugga, chugga, choo choo."

Me: "No, Ian, stop!"
And thinking: "...Crazy, fearless, curious, trouble-making boy!"
Also thinking: "But I still love you!"
Also thinking: "What happens if someday we have two
crazy, fearless, curious, trouble-making boys feeding
each other ideas?"

Clay: "I'm tired!"
(After working 14 days straight.)

Ziggy

For those of you who don't know, we give
our children names before they are born,
then change them to normal names.
Madison was Cletus the fetus
then the miscarriage was
Emilio the embryo
and Ian was Ziggy the zygote.

Ziggy caught on really well,
even friends and family were referring to him
as Ziggy, which made it difficult when we
decided on his name a month before he
was born to switch over.

Side note: I wanted to name him Gavin and
Clay wanted to name him Ian. I came
up with a brilliant plan that we would put the two
names into Easter eggs and have Madison
pick one out. So, she chose Ian and by "brilliant"
plan backfired:) I'm ok now, I love the name
Ian and I think it fits. But lately Ian has been ignoring
me when I call his name, so I told Clay I thought maybe
we gave him the wrong name. The kids were both on the
opposite side of the room and he yelled, "Gavin." Ian
continued to ignore us. Then Clay yelled, "Ziggy."
And Ian turned around quicker than he
ever has in his life.
Oooops! Maybe he liked Ziggy, too.

Ian loves bubbles

Pucker upI am glad that he likes to do it himself, but he
usually ends up spilling huge amounts. When he
wants me to do it for long periods of time
I nearly pass out from hyperventilation,
so I think we need to invest in a bubble machine.
We do have one of the no spill bottles, but he doesn't
like them as much.