Easter weekend

Easter weekend always seems to be full of fun activities. Since Easter gets so commercialized I decided this year I wanted the kids to learn more about the REAL reason we celebrate Easter. While teaching primary several years ago I came across these cute symbols of Easter that had scriptures to go along with them. So I collected all my tiny objects and put them in 12 eggs so we could count down to Easter. The kids LOVED it! Especially Madison. She would remind us each day that we had to open an egg. On Easter morning after we had opened all our eggs we watch the Lamb of God with the kids. Some of it was a bit much for Madison. But I really think it helped them to understand more about the real reason we celebrate Easter. I think this will be a New tradition for our family!

 As far as Easter Activities go we went to John's sister's house on Saturday afternoon and the kids got to color eggs, have an Easter egg hunt, and the Easter Bunny even dropped by and left some treats for the kids. 

 

(My kids have mastered the art of looking at me with their faces but not their EYES! It drives me CRAZY!!!!!)

Then on Sunday the Easter Bunny hid the kids baskets so that when they woke up in the morning they had to go find them. The kids always enjoy this. They each got a new pair of Crocs, perfect for summer, and some treats. 

After church we went to my parents house for another Easter egg hunt and the kids were again spoiled with treats from Grandma and Grandpa! It was a nice weekend and great to be able to spend so much time with family.

We truly are SO BLESSED!!!!!!

Easter Baskets & Fun Treats

I like to do things out of the ordinary and try to be more frugal most of the time. For the kids Easter and Halloween baskets I have tried to be more creative instead of just buying them at the store. Two years ago I made the kids Easter baskets out of ice cream buckets. I decoupaged fabric on the outside and added some cute accents on the buckets. I was quite proud of my little creations. This year I decided it was time for new baskets. I've always wanted to do empty paint can holders for something but decided I wasn't going to spend $5 bucks a pop to make them into Easter baskets. So my next best option was to use #10 cans and decorate them! I took the kids to Jo~Anns and they each picked their favorite scrapbook paper. I think they came out pretty cute! Simple, Cheap, and Personal! Love it!

We used some Jell-O molds my mom gave me to make some Jell-O treats. The kids thought they were pretty cool!

Jell-O eggs
 
Jell-o Jellybeans

18 months

My baby toddler is 18 months now. WOW!!! Time flies to fast when you get older. Claudia is such a Joy to be with. I don't know how I got so lucky to be her mom. She truly is AMAZING!!!! People ask me how I could be pregnant already and if it was an accident since Claudia is still so young. But the answer is NO. It was not an accident. Because Claudia is such a good baby I feel Totally ready to bring another Child into our family and I feel so blessed that the Lord has given me that confirmation that more children need to join our clan. I would feel guilty not having more children. Especially since pregnancies are relatively mild for me. (Knock on wood, this one is not over yet.) 

Okay, this post is supposed to be about Claudia! After all she does deserve a whole post to herself since she is child number 3 and does not get as many camera moments as the other two did. But let me reassure you, she is in NO way over looked in this house.  

Claudia is the LIFE of the PARTY! She is always happy and smiling. She loves her brother and sister so much! But she LOVES her Daddy even more. Every time she sees him she just lights up! It is so sweet. 

Her words have started exploding recently. She's been babbling like crazy for a while now but just recently words have started forming. When I took her to her 18 month doctor appointment the doctor asked me if she said words and I said of course and she can point to and say several of her body parts. So that doctor asked her where her nose was (which is her favorite) and she just stared blankly at her. Come on kid, you totally know how to perform. But she would not. As the doctor continued her check up she pulled out her little light to check her mouth and Claudia immediately pointed to it and said "light" Hallelujah! she can perform,  I guess she just didn't want to perform on command. Her check up went great!!!!! The doctor is very pleased with her height (31 inches) and weight (23 pounds) and is very happy with her eating and sleeping habits. And she did pretty good with her finger prick and shots. I could tell that the shots were a little more painful this time around. She was limping around the house for the rest of the day. It looked so sad. But she was back to normal by morning.

Claudia is very active and loves to play. She keeps up with her siblings and enjoys being outside. She climbs on everything and does a pretty good job of getting herself down off of things. She also LOVES to color. I am finding it more difficult to keep crayons and markers away from her because her siblings have a habit of leaving them out. Luckily most of them are washable but for the ones that are not I have some leftover paint so I can touch up my walls. 

When she is done eating she will give you everything on her tray. One at a time, and will refuse to eat anything else. It's really funny but gets annoying. By the time I sit down to eat my dinner I get about 3 bites in and then she's done and wants to get out of her high chair and sit with me so she can steal my drink.

The past few months I have been babysitting my friends two boys several days a week. The youngest is 6 months older than Claudia and they have a great time together. His name is Parker and Claudia calls him "Paw-A" Recently he mastered her name and so they get so excited when they see each other. Several weeks ago in sacrament meeting when we were sitting in our row Parker walked in the chapel and saw Claudia and started calling her, then Claudia would call him back. It was so funny. Then they would start doing it in the middle of the meeting. It was very cute. I'm glad they get along so well. 

When she started nursery on her 18 month birthday it helped that Parker was in there. She did a great job going in without crying and I've been told she's doing well. It's nice but weird to sit in Sunday school and Relief Society all alone. 
We LOVE LOVE LOVE our Claudia and can't wait to see how her personality and words continue to explode! 

Conference Time

We have been anxiously waiting for General Conference. Well I shouldn't say we, but I know I have! I've felt the need of a spiritual recharge. And conference always does the trick.

As a mom I am always looking for ways to keep the kids occupied during conference but still somewhat involved in the speakers and messages. I started searching the Internet a month or so before for some great ideas. Pinterest had lots of good ideas but I finally found one that combined a few all in one. This blog http://craftcritters.blogspot.com/2009/03/general-conference-activities-for_27.html had the idea of having conference bags. I thought this sounded great. I did not make mine look as cute as she did. I just found every bag/envelope I had in my house and put the games/crafts/treats in them. The kids really liked it. They were bummed because we went to my in-laws during the second session on Saturday and we did not take the bags with us so there were some that they didn't open that had fun stuff in it.

In my bags I had; Conference Bingo, Dollar Store crafts & activities, snacks, matching games, coloring sheets, word searches, play dough, and a few others I can not think of. I tried to make as many as I could related to the conference and/or general authorities. I will definitely try this again next time. Maybe with some more thought and effort put into it. I kinda procrastinated on it.  Some of the things Madison loved but Charles did not. 

But that is how we learn, by "Trial and Error"

Hockey!

A few weeks ago John and I had the opportunity to go to an Ontario Reign game with my sister and her boyfriend Bobby. Hockey has always been my favorite sport and one day John and I hope to be able to be season ticket holders for the Ducks. But this time we go to see the Ontario Reign in action. It was great. We had seats about 8 rows from the glass. It's not quite like watching a pro hockey game but we had a great time.

Science Center

This year on St. Patrick's Day instead of doing the normal fun "green" things we decided to head down to L.A. to take the kids to the California Science Center. We headed out late morning and hit a little traffic but got there in good time. The museum was a little busy, I think because of the rainy weather. But the kids LOVED it. There were so many different things for them to see and do. It was a little difficult with Claudia because she was not big enough to totally run free but the didn't really enjoy being in the stroller either. In several of the areas there was a discover zone which was geared more towards smaller children so those places worked out great for her. Overall it was a great inexpensive way to spend a family day.

This magnetic board with the insect body parts was great! Charles just learned about this a few months back and did a project on an insect.

 

Charles, putting on a puppet show for Claudia.

 

And Madison doing a puzzle with daddy. Puzzles are one of her favorite things to do.

 

 

  

 

   

   

  Using a "simple machine" (another thing Charles recently learned about in school) to lift a truck! The kids (and Daddy) thought it was Awesome!

A NEW bed

Since we have a new baby coming soon I decided to start looking for bunk beds for Madison's room. I want to transition Claudia into a big bed before the baby comes to try and make life easier once the baby arrives. Claudia is a HUGE climber and I was afraid she'd climb up to the top bunk and then not be able to get down. I searched the Internet for bunk beds with a slide thinking that would be a great solution. But they all were made of metal, and I'm not really a fan of the metal bed look. So I kept searching and finally found one that had stairs up the side. I thought that would be Perfect, Claudia knows how to do stairs so I thought this was a great solution. Well then I saw the price tag.....$1200. Yikes!!!! I knew there was no way that John would let me spend that much money on a bed for the kids. And we don't even have that kind of cash lying around anyway. So I started periodically checking Craigslist just to set what else was out there. While searching one day I found a listing for bunk beds with the stairs that I loved. And it was only $400. John was still Not sold on the idea of getting bunk beds but I emailed the seller anyway. And luckily she still had them. Long story short, I was able to haggle the price down to $300 and my dad so kindly took some time away from work to help me pick them up because they were moving that evening and needed them gone ASAP. 

So I got exactly what I was looking for at a fraction of the cost! 

Now we just need to buy mattresses for the top bunk and trundle.