Friends

We took Emma to ballet yesterday and John and I waited in the waiting room. There was another mom with a little girl who was probably 2 years old. She didn't talk much. John and this girl would kind a play next to each other and eye each others food and toys. Finally John walks up to her and says, "I think you are looking for me because I am the only one who isn't dancing!" She looked at him and went back to what she was doing. It was obvious to John that he was the ideal playmate and here he was in all of his glory!

April Fool's Day

Today was my big Holiday of the year (so far). I have been planning and scheming for weeks now. Mostly because I know that Emma would love to have tricks played on her.

It started last night when Emma and I swapped out Aaron's shoe laces on his workout shoes with some camouflage ones. I thought he would put his shoes on during lunch time for the first time to go play basketball. This morning I was laying in bed and hear Aaron start laughing in the foyer. So I came out and took a picture.

Also last night I put mustaches on the kids. Emma giggled when she saw it and then really wanted to take it off. I made her keep it on because I knew that it would help John to not be upset if he saw one on Emma. Sure enough John was not thrilled when he saw his. He obliged me and smiled for the camera but make no mistake, he let me know he didn't like it and wanted it off.

Emma decided to play a trick on me so she made a sign for me that said April Fool's Day was over. I thought it was pretty creative!

Also last night I put a pair of undies on gorilla. That crossed a line with John and he took them off right away. He also let me know that was not ok. So by about the first 5 minutes into the morning, John was pretty cheesed off. I was a little worried because those were pretty benign.

Next I lined up some of their stuffed animals like they were waiting to use the bathroom. That lightened the mood a little. They giggled at that and then we went downstairs for breakfast. I had frozen their cereal in milk the night before. They were very confused and kept wacking the cereal with their spoon. Emma giggled and John was mad. So I got them their real breakfast.

We got ready to leave for our Easter egg hunt and I had the kids put on their shoes. I had stuffed toilet paper in their shoes. This is where John started to lighten up about the whole tricks thing. He would alternate between laughing and telling me he didn't like it. But in the end, he thought it was funny. Emma liked it from the beginning. She was a good sport about all of the tricks.

At the Easter egg hunt I didn't do any tricks. People from the ward came with their kids and everyone brought 12 eggs per kid and we did the hunt and the kids played on the playground. It went over very well. I told the kids that we would eat candy after we had lunch. John listened and even told another mom that she should eat her candy after she had her lunch. It was pretty funny. He actually stuck to it. Emma was another story. She ran off with a friend and ate some. After lunch, I let them eat quite a bit of candy (for me - for any other mom, no biggie). Later that day Emma came to me and said she didn't feel well and that she ate too much candy. She asked me why I let her eat so much candy. I explained that if I had stopped her she would have been mad at me and she wouldn't have learned this lesson. (Note: she didn't really learn it as evidenced later in the story.) I think she wasn't convinced.

We came home from the egg hunt and I offered the kids an Oreo cookie. They were beyond excited and shocked that I bought cookies!! They were giddy! I had replaced the filling of 2 Oreos with a mixture of toothpaste and cornstarch. It looked amazing if I do say so myself. John got to the cream filling first, made a contorted face and asked for water. Emma finally got to the cream filling and immediately asked for water. I think she would have kept eating if I hadn't stopped her and told her it was a joke. I don't think her mind could reconcile the fact that this was supposed to be a delicious cookie and it wasn't. So I gave them a real cookie and they hesitantly ate it. They might be suspicious of Oreos for a while.

When I took Emma up for quiet time she walked in her room and asked me what I had done to her room. Mission accomplished - I had made her paranoid!

For dinner I told the kids that we were having cake and they came running. They start to eat the cake which was really cheese, spinach, and ham inside of pizza crust balls baked in a bundt pan (so it was like pizza monkey bread). They started eating it and make no comments on "hey, this isn't cake." Instead they just look a little confused and keep eating. I had to be the one to say, "So this isn't cake! April Fool's!" Once John saw the ham he refused to eat the pizza. Emma ate it fine but didn't comment much. Her stomach was still too upset to eat dessert which was spiralized apples and carmel sauce that was made to look like pasta and sauce. She was however fully recovered a few minutes later to ask for some candy from her Halloween bag.

I ran across and idea for Aaron to do at work. I bought M&M's, Reeses pieces, and Skittles and he mixed them all together in a bowl and put it out on a table at work. He over heard a couple of ladies discussing it. One made the comment, "Who would do that??" He also took them to mutual tonight.

Overall, Aaron asked the kids what their favorite day was, and John said, "Eater-April Fools Day!" My guess is that if Christmas was yesterday, that answer would have been different. By the end of the day, he thought the pranks were funny. Emma liked her breakfast the best and was a great sport about all of the pranks.

Blue Bonnets

We took our annual blue bonnet pictures. This year all of the pictures had a decent sized flaw in them. Mostly it was due to the positioning of our family. I guess a camera on a timer can't tell you to reposition Emma so that she is part of the family.... At least they are looking at the camera.

 Emma remembered that we took pictures every year in the spring. She was excited. Not for the pictures, but because she would jump off the rock to Aaron every year. She loves this. You can see the sheer joy in her face. John's expression is a mixture of joy and "I-hope-I-don't-die."

Pre-Easter Pictures

I somewhat got my act together and took pictures of the kids this morning for an "Easter" photo. It isn't Easter but General Conference will be that weekend so no church clothes that day. And I went slightly above and beyond my typical Sunday effort to do their hair, tuck in John's shirt etc., but let's be honest, I am not a mom with every detail in place. I am just proud to have taken a picture!

Weathering Storms

I have recently had a couple of experiences where I have received promptings to help someone else. These were fairly clear so I have confidence in them. The strange part is, after the act of service was completed, I am not convinced the prompting was to help them! In fact I think the service was inconsequential for them. However, in both cases it turned out to be a rough day for me and the service helped to mitigate the effects of the day for me. I wasn't rescuing anyone but Heavenly Father helped me to weather a couple of storms by performing the service. It has provided me a new perspective on service, how to weather storms of life, and promptings from the Holy Ghost.

St. Patrick's Day

I love St. Patrick's Day. I wasn't ever into it before last year. But now that we have small children, it is a ton of fun to view the day through their eyes. It turns out that leprechauns come and play tricks on you. That is the magical part.

Last year the leprechaun peed in our toilet and didn't flush. How would I know that it wasn't a member of the family? Because the pee was green. Duh! Emma was really excited about the leprechaun coming this year. She even wrote the leprechaun a note. She wanted to stay down stairs to catch the leprechaun but we wouldn't let her.

This year the leprechaun turned their hair green. He also turned the water in Aaron's sink in our bathroom green. When you turned on the water, it came out green. Cool huh? I am pretty sure the leprechaun was super proud of himself on that one. He also turned their milk green. He didn't pee in our toilet but he did pee in Aunt Mary's toilet this year. I guess he doesn't pee at every house he goes to. It is understandable because that would be a lot of peeing.

I was surprised to find that Emma and John were hoping he would have peed at our house. They went around to all of the toilets to see if they were green. They also turned on all of the sinks to see if they were green. Only Aaron's was green though.

He did leave a note and a picture for Emma and John.

Dates and Church

Yesterday we did a Emma-daughter date and a John-son date as Emma calls it. The original plan was to have it be in the afternoon until dinner but due to the nature of our activities yesterday, it really was an all day thing.

Aaron took John to Lowes to buy mulch two times in the morning. That alone would constitute a wonderful day for John. When we go grocery shopping he tells me he doesn't like HEB but he likes Home Depot. There are lawn mowers, rangers, tools, and fork lifts at Lowes... really it is a dream come true. But the day didn't end there. John got to wear work gloves and help spread the mulch with a rake. Again, that alone would be enough happiness in one day. Then working in the yard, Aaron took John to watch planes take off from the airport. John asked where one was going and it was a Singapore Air jet so Aaron told him Singapore. John giggled all night over the word "Singapore." When I asked him about his experience he said, "Singapore is funny! There is a China in it!" Then he just laughed and laughed. John loved to see the big loud jets. He played with an airplane all morning, making loud sounds. I knew immediately airplanes would not make a great Sacrament meeting toy today.

Emma helped me make bread. She got to use the rubber scraper to clean off the oil and honey out of the measuring cup. I also taught her how to crack eggs. She loved it! She told me she wouldn't tell John because he would want to crack an egg. She was so proud of herself! Then the day got better when I let her do dishes. Happy as a clam! And she got to vacuum! All by herself! I do feel a tinge of guilt that this was part of our mother daughter time, but the fact that she was truly excited and happy helps to mitigate the guilt. In the afternoon we went for a walk in the forest to the swinging bridge. It has been rainy here so we wore our rain boots. There were a ton of muddle to walk through and that definitely added to the joy of walking through the forest. Emma turned to me at one point and said, "Mom, I want to talk about something." I replied, "OK, what do you want to talk about?" To which she said, "I don't know." I suggested preschool. She didn't want to talk about preschool but said she wanted to talk about kindergarten. I was able to find out that she isn't excited to go everyday to kindergarten but really what she is excited for is the bus ride. Go figure. Then we came home, had dinner and painted toe nails. Emma tried to paint her big toe. All in all she did pretty good and she let me put a second coat on it. She was very excited to try painting her own toes. It is funny because I would prefer that someone else paint my toes.

As for church today, John needed a diaper change just after they finished with the sacrament. So I go to take his hand to take him out and he tells me in full volume, "Don't change my bum! I am not done pooping!" He keeps repeating this. So I have a dilemna: 1. Do I sit back down and everyone now knows I have a kid with a poopy bum and am letting him sit in it and letting them smell it?? or 2. Do I continue to take him out and not let the kid finish pooping?? I figured I couldn't win either way but that I should get him out because he keeps saying, "Don't change my bum! I'm still pooping!" over and over in full volume. In fact he says this quiet loudly as I am walking down the aisle. I should note here, that most of the time, he is done, but knows that phrase can work as a delay tactic to getting his bum changed.

After church his nursery leader told me that during their singing time the were going to sing "I Am A Child of God" and John just started singing without everyone else. So they let him sing the first verse by himself. John's first solo in church! Apparently everyone joined in on verse two...