Since I'm not sure where to start I'll throw ya some favorite pictures.
Our lovely family on Easter. We woke up and the kids found their Easter baskets on the table. They each had a small treat and a non-messy breakfast, banana
muffins and an apple, inside so they could eat without fear of ruining church clothes. I was pleasantly surprised at how excited they were for muffins and fruit. Toby says, "Mom, can we eat these muffins?" Logan, being the sweet tooth that he is, just wanted to open his little treat. After breakfast, Jessie went to pick up Sydney off our bed to get her dressed and Syd puked all down the front of J's dress. Luckily, she had another dress on standby to change into and she wasn't too upset. Sweet Jessie is such a big help with baby Sydney. She will get her dressed and put her in the car seat on Sunday mornings when it is usually a mad dash to get out the door on time. I missed her last Sunday when she slept over at Great-Grandma's house.I had to be at church early to rehearse the Easter program with the choir. I am the pianist for the church choir and felt good about the pieces I had to play. All went well except for the last page of the hardest song. I am not as comfortable playing in front of a crowd as I am singing so every time is a learning experience. This time I learned to take off my heels to have better control of the foot pedals and to not forget to breath (sounds funny but it's true when you're nervous). My foot was shaking so badly on that last page that I couldn't control the pedal with a slippery shoe on which threw me off on the music. We all had a good day at church and took a Bennett family picture right after. My friend Sami took the picture while a member of the ward stood behind her with a bottle of water. He would pretend to poor it on her head to get all the kids attention. A few times he poured some water out and she didn't even feel it. His antics got everyone giggling and we got some cute pictures.
After church all the Bennett's came to our house for lunch. Even though we were "cozy" in our little place, it was nice to have Dave's family over for the afternoon. We ate lunch, did an Easter egg hunt for the kids, played games and caught up with each other. At left is an impromptu game of go fish with cards from Grandma and Grandpa Easter Bunny. good times. We saw my parents and more family at Gram's for dinner then came home and put the kids straight to bed. They were tired!
Saturday was a busy day of chores in the morning, quiet time while Dad was at soccer in the afternoon, then we colored Easter eggs. Usually Jessie and Toby take turns going to soccer practice with Dad, but I think they were so excited about coloring eggs that they wanted to stick close to the action even though we were waiting for Dad. Logan helped me boil the eggs while Dad was gone. He is my right hand man in the kitchen. Whenever I get a pan out or take food out to prep a meal he is pushing a chair up to the counter asking, "What are you making Mom? Can I help?" Things take longer to make and the mess afterwards is always ginormous when he "helps." He loves it though and I don't mind most the time. There are definitely some fine motor skills needed to work in the kitchen that he has not yet mastered at his ripe old age of 2, almost 3. I digress.
Sweet, sweet Syd. She is growing too fast. She has been smiling at Mom and Dad since about 5 weeks old. Here she is with Aunt Denise almost giggling. Sydney really is a dream baby. When awake, she is content to listen to the craziness that is our house. It also helps that the other kids love to check in with her and entertain her when she is awake, or asleep in Logan's case. She has been a good sleeper from the start. Thinking back to her first few weeks here, I really can't remember too many nights where she kept me up all night. Maybe it helps that I am conditioned to living on 4-6 hours sleep a night anyway.
Jessie as a Scarlet Macaw giving Dad her best fine feathered hug. We had fun making this costume for the rain forest play at school- part learn about the animals that live there and part early environmentalist 'training.' ;)
This macaw mask was a lot easier than it looks and went together so fast. Jessie was over the moon excited to wear it and everyone at school loved her mask. Dave bought a red and a black baseball hat from the thrift store. I cut the bill off the black hat and stitched it to the main hat with some elastic so it would sit up under J's chin as the bottom beak. Jessie and Daddy glued on the feathers around white felt triangles for the eye area. A little hot glue for the eyes and white paint to make the upper bill look more real and we were done.
When we were designing and making her mask she asked if we could make some wings. We ran out of time and I didn't want to go overboard. Jessie took the mask to school a week before the play to practice. The day of the play Jessie came home from school and we went over her part to make sure she knew her one dinky line, "I live in the canopy and my bill is STRONG!" She mentioned that some kids had full costumes with their masks. She must have caught me in a terrific mood that day because I decided we could whip up some wings with the extra feathers from her mask. It was 4 PM and Jessie had to be at school at 6 PM. Just enough time to get the job
done and still fix a quick dinner. I happened to have some red felt in my fabric stash which we cut to fit J's arms and hot-glued feathers on in rows. I machine stitched a little elastic ring to slip her finger through on the tip of each wing and we safety pinned them to her shirt at the shoulder. All the kids take turns being the macaw the next day. I think we might have our Halloween theme for this year. we'll see.
Kids with Dave's Grandma
