Easter

Apparently since getting my new phone in February I've become a photo taking slacker when it comes to my camera!  I've been taking them on my phone and posting them to facebook but I haven't been taking them on my camera anywhere near as often.  New goal: take pictures on my phone AND my camera!

 

These first few are from earlier in March:

 

Little sister got ahold of Sam's pink chap stick and proceeded to put it on herself!

 

She then found the hand sanitizer and proceeded to use that by herself too.  At least her pants were very germ free!

 

Whenever we get a moment of sunshine the kids run outside as fast as they can.  The big kids both have flat tires on their bikes.  So, they've resorted to other forms of entertainment....like making Little Sister think she's bigger than her britches!

 

Easter snuck up on me way, way too fast this year (big surprise, it always does!).  We got to dye eggs while Travis was home.  Fun.  Travis hasn't been home for Easter since he started working at Halliburton in February 2009.

 

I attempted a few different things I'd seen on Pinterest.  One idea I tried was using Kool-aide.  That was different.  Turned out better than I thought it would (not pictured).  I also put some oil in some of the dye.  I used what the directions I found on Pinterest said and it was way too much oil.  Note to self use like a teaspoon!

 

I opted to stay home for Easter this year rather than go to Manti.  I hate making the trek without Travis.  Plus, Nash had been sick earlier in the week and Brooke was acting like she wasn't feeling too hot.  We went out to Paradise on Saturday morning for their Easter Egg Hunt.  That was lots of fun.  I think the kids' favorite part was the chicken and the bunny races!

 

Brooke found 3 eggs in the 0-2 hunt but didn't win any extra prizes.  That's ok because she was perfectly content to sick and suck on her dyed egg!

 

I realized after the fact that I had 8 chances for my children to catch either a chicken, a bunny, or both and bring home by allowing them to do the chicken and bunny races.  I'm really glad no one caught either one!  Brooke got kinda close a time or two though!

 

 

Travis was able to come home on Saturday afternoon.  This is the first Easter since 2009 that he's been home to celebrate with us.  The kids were ecstatic (I was pretty happy too).

On Sunday we went out to my parents' house for dinner, an egg hunt and egg knocking.  Egg knocking?  Well, it's a random Bown tradition.  Everyone gets a hard boiled egg and you match up with someone and knock your eggs together.  If your egg breaks you're out.  If your egg doesn't break you move to the next round.  You keep going until there is only one person whose egg isn't broken.  Winner gets $10.  My kids love egg knocking.

 

Brooke was full of attitude in her cute levi dress and new shades.  She did NOT want to share the jeep.  She's actually opening the door for Caleb and telling him "Get out!"

 My mom hid 64 candy filled eggs for the kids.  They each got to find 8.  They loved every single second of it.

After our egg hunt and egg knocking we had a yummy dinner.  Then we sat around and visited until 9 pm!  That was nice.  We haven't done that since Christmas Eve!  Much less stress for this holiday than that holiday!  The weather was beautiful and we had a fire in the fire pit.  So fun.  The kids roasted the first s'mores of the season too.  Nash mentioned a week ago he's ready to have Grandma Terri bust out her swimming pool.  I told him that would likely have to wait a day or two!  They did ask me on Sunday if they could run through the sprinklers (It was a toasty 66!)  Before we went to my parents' house we worked outside a bit on the yard - I got sunburned!

In the middle of the night Sunday Brooke woke up after throwing up all over herself and her bed.  She also had a raging fever.  Made me extra glad we hadn't gone to Manti. Travis had to leave at about four am today.  We are bummed but he'll only be gone one more week and then he'll be home!

It rained today so that was kind of a bummer way to start Spring Break.  But, I hear the weather is suppose to be nice again starting tomorrow.  Here's hoping that it is! 

New preschool = new blog

The other day I officially announced (on facebook) that I am quitting my job at the end of the school year.  I will be starting my own preschool.  I'm not going to lie....I'm excited (well, now that I've told my boss I'm not coming back!).

We decided we'd try & finish the basement so that I could do preschool stuff down there.  $1,200 later and we had sheetrock delivered in pouring rain at 7:30 am today.  Awesome.  Travis was able to get the plumbing in the bathroom downstairs done.  Tonight my father in law & brother in law came over and helped him do some sheetrock.  They'll be back tomorrow and I anticipate every day after that while Travis is home.  The more the merrier I guess!

I will have both a three and a four year old class.  I'm only doing morning sessions so I will be done working by noon each day.  I've requested afternoon kindergarten for Caleb so I can still help at school in classes.  I'm hoping to get between six and ten kids in both classes.  We'll see how it goes.  So far I have about two kids in each class unofficially enrolled.

Tonight I got a blog for the preschool up and going.  The name of the preschool is Little Sprouts Preschool (thank you Samantha!).  You can check it out at: http://littlesproutspreschoolinhyrum.blogspot.com/

Happy Wednesday!

Act of Kindness #16 & #17

Act #16:
Today I was leaving the North Walmart & saw a man on the side of the road with a sign.  His sign said that he was a vet and passing through but was out of money and hungry.  So, I stopped & gave him $10 that I had on me.  I think it surprised Sam.  I told her my philosophy is "If you have a little, you give a little but if you have a lot, you give a lot.  I have a little, so, I gave a little."  We talked for a few minutes about it and I think she gets it.  If I can teach my kids that helping their fellow man is an important part of life I will consider myself a successful parent!

Act #17:
I've been trying to clean up my basement since we decided that we're going to try & finish the basement so I can do preschool down there.  Well, in an effort to minimize my collection of stuff I decided that I would give any duplicate books I own to my kids' school library.  So far, I've taken FIVE boxes up and dropped them off to their librarian.  She is thrilled!  She keeps telling me it's like Christmas for her.  The budget for the library isn't very large when you consider they have to buy the library bound books (which are a lot more money).  They don't even have an actual set of encyclopedias!  I decided that I can part with duplicate copies of my books - although it still felt like I was giving away my children!
When I had talked to the librarian about this a month or so ago I had figured I'd get the project done over Spring Break or Summer vacation.  Guess not!  After I talked to her about it the first time I was at the city library.  They were having their book sale & I noticed a set of state books for $10.  I left a msg for Katie (the librarian at the school) to go check it out.  She went down and got them & the library told her they had another set she could have as well.  Score!
And on Wednesday this past week while I was at Millville Elementary I noticed a set of encyclopedias sitting in a pile marked free.  I thought to myself "Seriously?"  So I asked the librarian at Millville if she was really getting rid of them.  They looked like they were brand new and they are Comptons.  She said she really was getting rid of them because they are 10 years old.  I told her I'd happily take them to Canyon Elementary.  She was surprised and didn't think they'd want them.  I told her they don't have an actual set of encyclopedias there so she'd be thrilled - even if they are 10 years old!  Then I told her that I have students using encyclopedias with a copyright of 1996 so 10 years old isn't that bad!  She said that if they would really use them she had another set exactly like that one that she'd send over as well.  I told her they'd love it!  So, I hauled the first set over to Canyon Elementary after school that day.  Katie couldn't believe it.  She was so excited!  I love that other people get as excited about books as I do - even if they are recycled books!

Nash & Sam

Sam & Nash have been keeping me on my toes lately.  For Literacy Night at their school they get to dress up as their favorite character from a book for the school day.  I told the kids about three days before Literacy Night that I wasn't making their costumes this year (made them the last two years in a row - hence the American Girl costume & the Alice in Wonderland costume).  Sam was rather disappointed but I just couldn't do it in three days time this  year.

So, I asked Sam who she was going to go as.  She was having difficulty deciding which character to go as.  I asked her what books she's read recently & she proceeded to bring in about 2 dozen books.  She finally decided to go as Dani from "My Sister's a Pop Star."  There are three of these books (Usborne Series) and each one is about 300 pages.  She got all three of them last year and I think she's read the first two but not the third.  As she was getting ready for school Brooke was feeling left out so Sam had to give Brooke some glam too.  Little sister was thrilled to play along!

 

Nash could really care less if he dresses up for the Literacy Night event or not.  I told him the night before, "DUDE!  You should TOTALLY go as Captain Underpants!"  He has read the first nine books in this series.  In fact, it was this series that got Nash to like no, love, reading.  He's dying waiting for the library to get the tenth one or for me to finally break down and buy it for him.  He laughed hysterically when I suggested this but then was like, "Yea!  I'm going to do it!"  The next morning I was telling him, "Nash, go put on your underwear, pants, and underwear and get ready to go to school."  He kept telling me, "Mom.  This is so embarrassing!  I don't want to do this!"  I had to keep telling him, "Nash!  This is the coolest costume ever!  NO ONE else is going to dress up as Captain Underpants!"  To which he would reply, "Yea.  Cuz it's embarrassing mom!"  I finally convinced him he had nothing to be embarrassed about and that his costume was going to be the best costume at the school.

 

Later that night I took all four kids and wen went up to the school for the Literacy Night events.  Each of the kids got a free book.  Caleb & Brooke were excited they got one just like the big kids.  Caleb was bummed though because I wouldn't let him take the volcano book - it was too old for him and I know full well he wouldn't have sat through looking at it.  He picked a polar babies one instead.  Brooke got a cute one called "Baa-Choo!"  We went to my friend's "How to plot a novel in an hour" workshop, voted for the fourth grade dioramas (there were some pretty cool ones - and no, I didn't vote for Sam's.  I felt like it was cheating to vote for my own kid!  Is that bad?).  We got the kids an ice cream sandwich & filled out the quiz on The Lemonade War.  Nash's teacher (and anyone else I talked to about his costume) loved his costume!  The best part - it was SO easy!  Thanks to grandma Terri for making Caleb the flying suit for his birthday last year!

 

On Friday and Saturday the drama club at MC put on a workshop for all elementary school aged kids.  They went for a few hours on Friday and then went back Saturday morning for a few hours.  We went up at 11:30 to watch them put on the play & do the musical number they learned.  It was cute and the kids had fun.  I couldn't believe how many kids signed up!  There were roughly 100 kids (six of my students if you count Sam).  After their play & musical number they fed everyone pizza.  I think Sam had more fun than Nash did.  She's been singing different songs that they learned for two days now!  They also each got a certificate saying they participated in the workshop, completed the classes & performed in the play.

I don't think either one of these kids plans on slowing down any time soon.  Nash wanted to play spring soccer but I missed registration.  Sam has about a million dance competitions/performances coming up too.  We're also about to hit Relay season full swing.  I'm planning to put them in swimming lessons for at least one session this summer again.  They loved that last summer even if it did require them to wake up early!

Cakes for Cakes

My niece, Sunny, turned two yesterday!  She's so stinking cute.  My sister asked if I'd do cupcakes for her to take to daycare and her birthday cake.  I said sure (cuz you know, I don't have anything else going on right now).  My sister never lets me down when it comes to finding an appropriate challenge for me.

Here's what we created this go round:
These were the cupcakes we made to take to daycare (thank you pinterest - you fantastically evil invention you).  Apparently Sunny quite liked these.  She insisted Cassidy bring them in the house Wednesday night & let her eat one!  I told her her daycare lady probably would want to kill us since they were 1-cupcakes, 2-had frosting, and 3-20 m&m's a piece on each one!

My sister wanted me to create a mermaid cake for her birthday cake.  Then she found gelatin bubbles (thanks again pinterest).  I have never done gelatin bubbles before but happily accepted this challenge.  I'm always looking for ways to improve my skills :)  The gelatin bubbles weren't as bad as I thought they'd be.  The worst thing about them was that once I opened the water balloons I then had four kids blowing up water balloons & drawing faces on them with sharpies (which Brookelyn found & proceeded to color on her own arms!)  The sponge, coral, starfish & sea weed are all marshmallow fondant.

I think the cake turned out really cute.  I wish I would have done an 8 inch on the top layer instead of a nine inch.  Then there would have been more of a ledge for me to put stuff on between the cake layers.  The original picture my sister found also had purple fondant flowers & sea shells, pink sea shells & some grey rocks.  Had I had a bit more time I would have done the rocks.  I didn't have the right cookie cutter to do the flower & I'm not sure how they did the sea shell and made it look so real.  Next time!

In sad news, my mixer died today.  I've had it five years or less (I didn't get it until after we moved into our house and we've been here six years this April).  At least I finished Sunny's cake & cupcakes before it died.  Now to find a new one...