What We Do

We do lazy mornings with Daddy on the weekends:

We do too much screen time with the Kindle & new iPad:

We do car washes with our Matchbox cars when it's hot outside:

(We also later dump the entire bottle of Palmolive on the track, 

leading to a half-hour of Dad spraying everything down and a giant river of suds on the sidewalk. 

Now we owe Mom $0.88 for the soap and Dad $1.00 for the water. Worth it? Absolutely).

We also finish up 5 years of landscaping work on our front yard: 

Jon is rightly proud of his newly-acquired brick-laying, masonry and landscaping skills.

Megan is proud of her work to save the lawn (an ongoing battle every year with crabgrass).

And Seth is proud of the pansies he chose to plant in the planters.

Catherine enjoys ripping the petals off the pansies when Mom & Seth aren't watching.

And that's what we do when we're not too busy doing everything else!

What Princesses Do

*Princesses like to announce "Happy Birthday, Mommy!" to you for no reason.

This is very confusing for the people at the store who keep asking if it's your birthday.

*Princesses don't like baby dolls. They will however, take their pet dinosaurs for walks:

(Princesses also love their tiny rubber lizards. Apparently reptiles are big with royalty).

*Princesses acquire a sassy voice at quite a young age. 

"No! No go to bed!" is a frequent announcement, complete with furrowed brows and pouty lips.

*Princesses love "bounce balls":

*Princesses also refuse to wear any sort of hair accessories, much to their mothers' dismay.

*Princesses often retire to the bottom of the stairs to sit when they are sad or offended.

They also refer to it as "time out", which perplexes their parents since "time out" isn't used at their house.

*Princesses also waver between being potty-training and...not being potty-trained.

It's more fun to keep the peasants guessing. 

*Princesses also wear ALL of their new panties AT THE SAME TIME.

*Princesses like to do things "self." Also frequently heard: "No! Catherine do it!"

*Princesses frequently channel their inner feline and start meowing at people.

This happens most often when Princesses don't want to answer a question they have been asked

or don't want to do something they've been told to do.

Example: "Catherine, do you want to walk or Mommy carry you?"

Answer: "Meeeeeeeeooooooooowww!"

*Princesses occasionally enjoy a bike ride, but the swings are much more fun.

*Princesses also master the eye-roll at an incredibly young age.

Mom was speechless the first time her question was answered with an eye-roll at age two.

*Princesses love to imitate their big brothers in everything.

This is obvious from statements like, "Watch my cool trick!" to van-climbing conquests: 

*Princesses also like to pester their big brothers by saying things like 

"I have more juice than you! Hee hee hee!"

Actually, usually just saying "Hee, hee, hee!" is enough to get a good reaction.

*Princesses also love Nursery and have no issues with anything related to parent-separation.

And, finally:

*Princesses master the art of climbing into (not out of) their cribs, 

prompting Mom to transform the crib into a "big girl bed":

*Princesses love having anytime access to their beds and love being able to

get out of bed by themselves in the morning. 

They also turn off their own sound machines and nightlights upon awakening.

*Princesses still have not mastered the art of opening doors, 

which means door-banging has become a morning routine.

*Princesses make their moms & dads smile and give the best morning snuggles.

We love you, Princess Bug!

Seth Paparazzi

Next on my list of things to buy myself? A new camera.

Mostly so that Seth can inherit my old one, which he has basically taken over anyway.

Some recent gems:

Absolutely no idea what was going on here.

Treasures buried deep under the couch cushions

And, finally, a beautiful princess with a cheesy grin.

I love seeing what Seth decides is worthy of photographing.

Easter Sunday

The older I get, the more I love Easter. I'm hoping to help my kids understand the importance of this day. The past couple of years we made Resurrection Rolls, which are a big hit. As they get older I'm hoping to do more things throughout the week before Easter to help them be thinking about it longer than one day. But they're little, so for now we stick with the story of the Resurrection as told by various objects in Easter eggs and Resurrection Rolls.

Seth was still pretty sick on Sunday, so we decided to just take him to sacrament meeting and then Jon would take him home. But I wanted a shot of the kids in their Easter outfits before Seth went home and stripped off. Here's what I got:

Then Jon showed up and pointed out the lovely fire alarm in the background, 

at which point I took this one:

It's not perfect, but for a hallway shot it's pretty good.

And it's a miracle Catherine left that flower in her hair long enough for me to take these.

Also, I got a nice shot of me in my Easter dress:

Me at 15 or 16 weeks.

I'll spare you all my complaints about this picture and just leave you with a reminder that belly shots are possibly the single most awkward pictures known to women. Blech.

And I'm slouching. For shame.

We spent the rest of the day just relaxing. We took Catherine out of her lovely tulle dress and shoved her into our favorite dress from Grandma Easter Bunny. Seth was actually quite offended that I wouldn't let Catherine wear this one to church since the Easter Bunny had brought it for her. But as cute as it was, grey is just not an Easter color.

So she got to wear it for most of Easter Sunday: 

Seth's shoes are great fun to wear.

I love my little man, but girls are SO MUCH more fun to dress. 

She loves how this dress bounces when she jumps.

Thank you, Grandma Easter Bunny!

Bunny Day

The Easter Bunny visits our house on Saturday morning to help us focus on Christ on Easter Sunday.

And here's what he left us this year:

Perhaps Mommy Easter Bunny and Grandma Easter Bunny went a little overboard this year.

Seth was the first one to wake up and see the Easter Bunny's gifts: 

I took this picture THREE TIMES.

He closed his eyes THREE TIMES.

Soon, Catherine woke up to join in the fun.

Being too young to remember this from last year, she was a bit shell-shocked: 

But she's a bright girl and quickly realized there were goodies to be had: 

Seth, working hard on assembling his Bumblebee car: 

Catherine was very excited to find sunglasses in her basket.

Look at that cool, cool guy.

(Notice the Peep in her hand? She calls them "beeps" and prefers decapitating them before devouring them)

It was a very successful Bunny Day, even if we had to postpone the egg hunt until Seth felt better.

Egg Hunt

In what I hope will become an annual tradition, we met with a bunch of friends for an Easter egg hunt the week before Easter. Both our kids were VERY excited to hunt for eggs this year. 

Ready for the hunt

Also ready, and less willing to hold still for a picture.

Mom was in charge of assisting Seth, while Catherine got the benefit of Daddy's day off work:

Let the hunt begin!

She was a pro hunter.

(And yes, this is the only picture I got of them hunting.

When you only get to find 12 eggs, it goes pretty quickly).

The spoils of the hunt:                                      

Not too long after this picture, Seth insisted that we go eat the candy in the van: 

Which was the point when I realized he really wasn't feeling well.

We made a quick exit, hoping we didn't share with anyone.

Want to know what your house will look like when your two-year-old has free access to her Easter basket?

Wonder no longer: 

I'm a devoted member of the "let them eat it all at once and get it over with" club.

Four Pictures

#1

I found her like this while her dad was playing on her computer.

She was quite content.

#2 

How I found Seth while Daddy was playing on his computer:

Under the trampoline, playing on the Kindle.

#3

Seth's first people drawing.

The top one is him in his crib when he was a baby.

The ones below are "two Seths".

He's even written "Seth" to the side in case anyone was confused.

#4 

Catherine in shades. 

When she's wearing shades, you must address her as "cool, cool guy."

Decorating Eggs

I happened to casually mention dyeing eggs to Seth one day a few weeks before Easter. Will not be making that mistake again--we had much whining and a few tears over the next weeks when I wouldn't let him dye eggs "right now, Mommy!"

So it was with great excitement that we finally busted out the dye for FHE before Easter.

Not an exaggeration--GREAT excitement

Ready to start the festivities.

Catherine worked very hard painting her eggs with Q-tips full of dye.

Best invention ever? I think so.

Seth fell victim to my Pinterest discovery of putting eggs inside a whisk to dip into the dye.

He liked the idea for a few minutes, then it was back to manual mode.

Catherine shows off her handiwork

Seth dyed all his eggs blue, despite his claims that purple and pink are his favorite colors.

Which makes me wonder why I bothered making all that dye...

It was about this point that our nice, tidy little egg-dyeing got more exciting. Because heaven forbid that Seth be allowed to do something (dunk eggs in dye) that Catherine wasn't allowed to do! And thus began the part where Catherine started rapidly tossing her eggs back and forth between the blue and orange dye, leaving her eggs and fingers dyed a lovely shade of vomit color.

Obviously egg decorating was a big hit at our house.

As usual, this is where Jon spent his time where we dyed eggs:

Playing on the Kindle, having nothing to do with it.

It's my stupid tradition, after all, so I get to deal with it. 

At least he's consistent--he's refused to decorate eggs ever since our first Easter as newlyweds.

March

March in Maryland was not pleasant this year. Cold, cloudy, rainy...a pretty standard combination for depression, especially since we were basically trapped inside the whole month. But we did our best to come up with fun things to do inside.

First up was a treasure hunt for Seth. Jon put a lot of effort into designing the clues--he had Seth do things like reading, rhyming, and math in order to find the next clue. Seth LOVED it, even though it was a challenge for him.

Reading the last clue

He found the treasure!

(Matchbox cars and candy for Seth & Catherine, plus Seth got to keep the treasure box for himself.

It's currently living on his bed, full of random buttons)

I honestly have no idea why I took this picture.

But she's cute!

And I'm pretty sure she dragged that chair over herself so she could "help" me cook.

The good news is that finally (FINALLY!!!!) it snowed! Sure it was exactly a week before April 1st, but we'll take it! Seth came down the stairs in the morning fully dressed (which is very strange--as I type this he's been up for three hours and is still in pajamas) and announced that we were going outside to play in the snow.

And so we did. It was a very wet, heavy snow--perfect for snowballs and snowmen.

Seth was thrilled to finally get a decent snow

Catherine enjoying the snow in pajamas and rain boots

Seth and Samantha (neighbor) discuss their plans for the snowman

Catherine was in LOVE with this snowman.

Notice the arm coming out of his head--that would be Seth's addition. He was also the one who ran inside and grabbed the hat and gloves. He wanted a scarf, too, but couldn't reach them. 

We had great plans to come out later and finish the face and buttons, but our plans were foiled by rain. By the afternoon our snowman had slumped over into a heap and the snow on the grass was gone. I'm glad we got out there early enough to enjoy it!

And now that we've had our snow, bring on the sunshine and warm temperatures!