Family Vacation and Birthday Week

So its been a whirlwind of an early June!

We started by taking a family vacation to the new Great Wolf Lodge that opened up in Colorado Springs.

We planned the trip as a family vacation/birthday present for the kids. We arrived on the day that Jax turned 3 and left on the day that Jaylee turned 5. And it was, by far, the most relaxing family vacation we’ve ever had. All our other vacations involved traveling long distances to stay with family. But this one was much closer to home, and just our little crew.

The resort was awesome. They have an awesome pool area that has tons of stuff for kids, even the little ones. So we spent a good portion of every day just playing at the pool on all the water slides, sprinklers, and wave pool.

And then when we needed a break from the pool, they had a lot of fun little activities for a family to do together. Like “panning” for gold.

And build-a-bear.

And little-kid bowling.

They even had a cute little spa where Jaylee got a little pampering session with some of her birthday money.

The kids got money from our grandparents for their birthday, and they were able to use that to do some of the extra activities. We saved for this vacation, and we stayed within our budget for food and activities. It was definitely not “cheap”, but so totally worth it.

When I booked the reservation, I told them that the kids were each celebrating their birthday. So they got cool birthday ears (that Jax refused to wear). Whenever an employee say them wearing their ears, they’d say Happy Birthday – something Jaylee absolutely soaked up.

It was such a wonderful relaxing vacation. 4 out of the 5 family members took a nap mid-day on the second day. We never left the resort, though Jordan did get to go see a movie the first night while I stayed and relaxed in Fort Sleep with our kiddos.

I think we’ll definitely be going back (after a while, when we can save up the money). We’re currently going to focus on saving money for our family beach vacation in North Carolina next year. But if we’re able to meet those goals early, maybe we can squeeze in another trip here. It was so close and so fun. 2 nights was a perfect amount of time to be able to get away and enjoy each other.

After we came home, we also had a family BBQ birthday celebration and Jaylee’s gymnastics birthday party with her friends.

We had her birthday party at our rec center where she takes gymnastics classes. It was a perfect little snapshot of all the important friends in her life: her BFF from my moms group, her BFF from church, her “betrothed” (mom and dad’s friends), her BFF from preschool, and her in-state cousin. Plus all of the afore-mentioned’s younger siblings. There was only one little girl who couldn’t make it. Other than that, all her favorite little people were there.

They played gymnastics games with her gymnastics teachers for about an hour.

I missed most of this because I had an important date who needed some lunch sooner rather than later.

And then after the games, they came back into the room and had pizza, ice cream, and opened presents. I LOVED throwing the birthday party this way – it was affordable (especially looking at other places!!) and the gym did all the work, including providing paper goods, the ice cream cake, and the space. We just bought pizza and goody bags. I didn’t even have to clean my house! And the kids (and hopefully adults) all had a great time! Mark this one down as one of the easiest birthday parties of all time.

Back at home, we’ve settled into a wonderful summer frame of mind. The kids have been playing with all the new toys they got for their birthdays.

Including some giant inflatable toys – like a big water slide and a pool/ball pit.

I mean, isn’t this just the picture of an awesome summer?

The kids have also started swim lessons at a rec center up north. I wasn’t sure about them since Jax was just barely at the cutoff age of 3. But we’ve gone every day this week (and every day next week), and he’s already made remarkable growth after the third day.

Jaylee does really well – she knows how to learn in a class thanks to preschool. But Jax is still young. No big deal, he’s getting better. And I just want to make sure they’re safe in the water. I really like the program – its the same guppy/starfish/minnow program that I took when I was a kid at the local YMCA. And that gave me enough skills to letter in swimming during high school.

Though its been a whirlwind couple of weeks, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love the summer (though it’d be awesome if the AC wouldn’t ever break again, thankyouverymuch).

“Spring” Family Photos

I know its a bit late to be posting Spring family photos, but let me live my life.

We met our friends to take these photos oh… a month? ago. And I quickly remembered that I’m supposed to make sure Jax has a snack packed and ready to go. Whoops.

It also rained. Because Colorado.

Even so, Jason was able to capture some great shots of our little crew. Now I just have to get a couple of them printed and up on the wall. I’ve got a few spots in our house where I keep the most “recent” of the portraits. And other places which are just for the long-time favorites.

Ordering the prints is on my lengthy to-do list. But you know what’s not on that list anymore? This post. 🙂

Warm Days and Late Bedtimes

Woo hooo! Its summer!!!

Also, I had a birthday. I’m now the ripe old age of 32.

I’m not big into my birthday, which bothers my family members. But I do LOVE hanging out with all of them. So my mother-in-law throws me a birthday party every year at her house where we eat dinner and cook smores and burn stuff in the fire pit. No cake, no song. Its absolutely perfect for me. I love it every year.

 

The next day were our bi-annual family photos. You know, spring photos. haha.

We got some REALLY good ones, but I kinda want to make that its own post. I adore the Irons family though, and I love this time. Plus – we all chose the colors blue and yellow. Great minds think alike!

On Memorial Day, I went and ran the Bolder Boulder with my mom and sister and 100,000 of our closest friends.

It was a fun race. I’d been “training”, and I was happy with how I did. Only 2 minutes slower than when I ran it two years ago. And I’ve had a baby since then. But you see that storm in the background in the above picture? Yea, that moved through on our bus ride home. The bus ride where the driver didn’t know where to go. And had to stop to go to the bathroom twice…..

It was a rough ride home. But at least the race was fun!

 

This little guy turned 7 months. And we did sleep training. It only took him a day (3 days max) and he figured it out. Now he’s sleeping fully through the night and taking nice long naps. PRAISE JESUS.

So we’re fully into the summer swing around here. We head to all the parks and splash pads and host all the play dates.

The kids finished their running race series today. It was a series of 5? little races for kids. I think they both cried the whole time through the first race, but Jaylee caught on quickly. And by the last week, they were both running the race completely independently – though Jax just kinda shuffled his way through while clutching his hands to his chest. Jaylee was really having a good time by the end of it.

And they both like the medals.

This past Saturday, we met some old high school friends of mine at Chuck E. Cheese. The kids had a BLAST playing all the games, and it was nice to get to see my old friends and their kiddos. They have a daughter that’s exactly one year younger than Jaylee, and they play together so well. I foresee many future playdates this summer.

Jax and I are taking a parent-and-tot music class at the gym. The first one was this past week. He was a little hangry when we went, but he warmed up by the end of it and was having fun. It lasts for 6 weeks, and its nice to have a special thing to do with my middle child. Plus its his first activity, and I’m glad to get his feet wet before he starts gymnastics in a couple weeks (especially since we’ve already paid for it).

Life is good around here.

 

And its birthday season! Tomorrow is Jax’s birthday, and Jaylee’s birthday is on Wednesday. We leave tomorrow for our family vacation celebration! The kids’ family party is on Saturday, and Jaylee’s gymnastics birthday party is this coming Sunday. Its gonna be an awesome week full of partying. I can’t wait!

Summer Eve

It’s summer eve today – the day before the last day of school. Both Jaylee and I are done with school tomorrow. So its a beautiful time of year – this is one of my favorite transitions.

Having a school teacher for a mom means you get to play with all the extra “highly scientific math” dough after her class has used it. 🙂

I love the cyclical nature of being a school teacher. Though its a lot of work (and HARD work), the seasons are always changing. I’m ready for the slow-down and relaxing pace of summer break. Fun is the only thing on the menu, though learning always comes along with that. The kids are enrolled in swim lessons, gymnastics classes, and a music class. Plus we’ll have trips to the museum, mom’s school garden plot, hiking, the library, etc. Its different from “school learning”, but its equally important. And I’m looking forward to it – especially the more-relaxed pace of it.

My district is adopting a new math curriculum next year, and I’m excited to get to teach something a little bit different. I go to pick up my iPad tomorrow and get to start diving into the curriculum over the summer. In an unexpected twist, I will actually get paid to do this work! So that’s nice – especially since its work I’d planned on doing for free. So even though its “summer break”, any teacher will tell you that teaching work still continues. Just in between pool trips and vacations.

The family merry-go-round

We have a little vacation celebration coming up – we’re going to a new family hotel chain that just opened up in our area to celebrate Jaylee and Jaxton’s birthdays. I’m really looking forward to that little piece of family fun time. And its a fun way to celebrate our soon-to-be 5 year old and 3 year old.

 

Jaylee is also getting her own birthday party this year (Jax will probably get his first “individual” birthday party next year). She’s having a gymnastics party at our gym, and we’ve invited a handful of her friends. It should be a total blast – she’s definitely looking forward to it. Plus she designed the birthday invitation herself, so its just a great picture of almost-5-year-old glory. And it features all of her favorite things: legos, Moana, Frozen, a pink/gold background, and a dinosaur. Its a riot.

For her birthday, Jaylee is getting a table for her legos. We actually repurposed a table we already had by gluing down some lego tiles. And Jordan is going to print little storage containers on his 3D printer to hold the little pieces. We’ve already set it up (temporarily) in the living room, and its gotten a lot of play so far.

No word on what Jax is getting for his birthday (besides the family vacation, that is).

Let’s see – what else has been going on around here? I took a day off a couple weeks back to take Jaylee on her school field trip to the butterfly pavilion. That was fun.

Jax’s favorite part was getting to see the inside of the REAL bee hive. He could’ve stood there for hours. Both of my kids held Rosie the tarantula. Let’s just say they’re both much braver than I am.

 

I’m trying hard NOT to pass on my fear of spiders to my kids. So I was proud of them for holding the tarantula. Though when the gentleman helping them let go of Jax’s hand (once Rosie had exited), he pulled his hand back immediately with a cute little squeak. It was funny, and everyone around said it was super cute.

Jaylee and I went to her kindergarten registration meeting to hear information about next year. Its crazy to me that she’s already going to be in kindergarten. Wasn’t she just born?

But at the same time, she is 100% ready for it. She loves her preschool and loves to learn. She also LOVES to be around other kids her age and get to play/learn with them. And I’m so proud of the reports I get from the teachers about her – she is kind to other kids and helpful whenever she can be. Hopefully she will never lose that sweet nature.

Jace is growing like a weed. He doesn’t sleep at night, but he’s super sweet the rest of the day. My father-in-law shared a photo of himself as a baby, and all I could see was my sweet baby Jace’s face. I put a side-by-side comparison together for him.

He’s started to dapple in solid food. He’s not usually interested in it from he (unless he can grab a hold of what I’m eating). The only thing he’ll consistently accept is ice cream. But other people have had luck getting him to eat the baby foods. He still gags on anything too-solid (like a little piece of salmon).

Chicken legs are fun to taste though!

The entourage greeting Jace after his nap

Jax also continues to transform into a super fun little boy. He just never stops talking when we’re alone together. And its fun to listen to him play and talk to his sister and his cousin. He asks lots of questions and offers lots of suggestions on the next activity/snack/etc. And he’s fearless.

“I touch the nemos!”

Mother’s Day weekend was a bit rough around here, because Jordan went out to town to visit his grandpa and grandma in Oklahoma. Normally we’d go as a family, but circumstances required that this trip happen sooner rather than later. So he went down to see them while the kids and I stayed here for a weekend. Even though we have tons of family support around here, it was still a bit challenging to be so exhausted on Mother’s Day. But oh well. I guess I can catch up on sleep when I’m…. retired?

Speaking of tired, Jaylee decided to get up at 3am randomly the night before last. There was no getting her back to sleep, so we just gave her her iPad and had her stay in her room watching shows until a normal wake-up time. This was the result at 3:30pm yesterday:

She still looks like my beautiful little baby in that photo.

After about an hour, Jordan carried her up to her room and she slept there until 3am this morning. Hopefully we can get her back on a normal sleep-wake schedule tonight. She can’t take another couch nap – we have gymnastics today!

So happy summer-eve to everyone! I’m SO ready for this next season. 🙂

What. A. Day.

Phew! Its been quite the day around here!

But first, lets play catchup. Life has been chugging along as usual. There’s only 3 week of school left (THANK GOD!). I’m ready for the summer break. One evening when we weren’t able to make it to the gym, we took the kids up to my school where we have a plot in the community garden. We played in the dirt and planted our seeds. The water wasn’t turned on just yet, and the seed packets we were using are about 3 years old. So we’ll see if anything comes up. It was mostly to work the ground and kill an evening hour anyway.

Jordan has gotten really into 3D printing – he’s got two printers running in our basement pretty much 24/7. This worked out well for me though, because my department at work decided to purchase two printers to use with our students. So Jordan was able to snag the deal, come in and train us, and troubleshoot when things go wrong. Its been a great experience so far. I’m pretty excited to upgrade my math manipulatives – particularly the sets of paper cones and cylinders I use every year to explore the relationship between the volume of cones and their related cylinders. Its gonna be awesome.

Jaylee has got a couple weeks of school left. She’s learned so much this year – its really amazing. Kindergarten for her next year! In another year (2018-2019), it’ll be Jax’s turn for preschool. Its crazy to think we’re at the school stage already.

The kids spend 2 days a week with their Grams and Popsi as our “day care” while I work, and 3 days with my mom and sister. This has worked out really well on our end because they get to play with all their favorite people, including their cousin Jaina. But this last Friday when they were with Jordan’s parents, it seems like the idyllic childhood day. The weather was beautiful so they played outside climbing trees

…and swimming…

…and playing in the sandbox.

I love that we live so close to family. I NEVER have to worry about my kids when I’m at work – I know they’re being loved and cared for by people who love them. And dirty, messy, outside days are the things childhood memories are made of.

Which leads me to today – that’s exactly the kind of day we had today.

Let’s start with this: Grant is in town! Grant was Jordan’s college roommate, and one of his closest friends. He was in our wedding, and we spent a lot of time hanging out with him when we were just newly married kids in Marshall, Texas. He and Jordan have a tight bond, though I consider him my friend as well.

Since he’s in town, I knew Jordan would appreciate a block of time where the two of them could do man-things (like play board games) without having all the responsibilities of parenthood. Luckily, the children’s museum also scheduled a “members-only” morning for the Saturday that Grant would be here. I try to always go to those, as they open the museum 2 hours early and its generally MUCH less crowded than usual.

So this morning, I packed the three of them up and we headed to the museum for some play time (and to give daddy some man-time).

The museum was AWESOME. May is when most of the attractions in Colorado switch over to their summer stuff – which means they turned the water on at the little river in the outside section of the museum.

The water section is one of my kids’ favorites. There’s a little 2-inch deep river which flash floods every couple of minutes. And there’s a big rock section with waterfalls and all kinds of fun toys. Jaylee enjoys scampering all over the rocks like a mountain goat.

…while Jax enjoys continually filling up his watering can and dumping it out (either down the drain or back into the pool). This was the first time Jace has been to the outside section of the museum when the water’s been on, so he mostly just enjoyed watching. Though I did put his teeny little toes into the water a couple times.

I’ve said it before, but these memberships are awesome. We love coming here, especially when its not so crowded (on members-only mornings). And with the outdoor area being completely open and running again, it means the inside of the museum is also under less pressure to hold all. the. people.

Jace is SO CLOSE to being able to sit. He enjoys getting to try, even if I arrange all kids of pillows (made to look like granite) around him to keep him safe.

He also really enjoys playing with his siblings. And they often oblige him.

After we left the museum, we headed up to Lair o the Bear park in Morrisson to meet Jordan and Grant for a little family hike. The kids and I went up here last summer, and it was awesome. So I thought Grant might enjoy getting to see a little bit of the “mountains” without having to drive 3 hours. He is from Texas after all – they’re easily impressed with the foothills.

So they met us up there (where there is no cell signal), and we ate a picnic lunch of fried chicken. Jaylee was generally refusing to eat – she was in a MOOD. But Grant convinced her to at least eat her roll so that she could try one of his candy worms. Which actually worked – shocking me!

The kids were pretty worn out from our morning, so we didn’t really get to hike. But we made it a little way up the trail to where there’s a little beach with access to the river. Jordan taught Jax about the joys and strategies of throwing rocks into a river.

While Jaylee spent most of her time climbing this epic tree, with the help of Grant.

We all had to get in on the tree climbing fun though. This tree is the thing childhood dreams are made of.

And then, all three kids fell asleep in the car on the way home. In fact, I left the car idling in the driveway for a little while so they could sleep a little longer. We had a birthday part to go to this evening, so I wanted them to be somewhat rested after all the activities today.

I’ve got no photos from the birthday party, but it was just a typical kids birthday party at monkey business. So the kids had a blast, while Jordan got to stay home with Grant and start their weekly board game night several hours early.

After the party, the kids all had to take a bath (seriously – it looked like Jax had gotten a sweet tan in just one day). But though it was exhausting, we had a lot of fun. There were definitely poor attitudes at times, but that’s to be expected with such an action packed schedule.

I love getting to do these family things – my favorite childhood memories involve things like this. So I’m happy to be able to provide some of the same things for my kids. I kinda like them. 🙂

April… snow?!?!?

So here it is, the 29th of April.

And outside, it is snowing.

We haven’t gotten a lot snow this winter. But now that its firmly spring and we’ve been enjoying the warm weather… NOW it decides to snow. We’ve been cooped up in the house most of the day (aside from a jaunt to the grocery store), which is never fun with toddlers who like to go places and do things. Jordan took the kids outside to make snow angels for a while, which they really enjoyed.

But it just doesn’t seem right to be looking through the last two weeks of photos on my phone and see all this nice weather when outside we’ve got about 8 inches!

Most of our days have looked more like this:

Empty garden beds ONLY because we KNEW we’d get a snow curve ball sooner or later. Seems to always happen. Maybe this time, we won’t have one on Mother’s Day that ruins all the tomatoes that I plan to plant (in the currently empty flower beds).

Jaylee insisted I take the above picture.

This little guy turned 6 months this last Thursday:

Its hard to believe he’s already been here half a year. Though I can’t imagine life without him. Its also strange since we didn’t know we were having a boy. But now that I get to dress him in all of Jax’s old outfits (like the one above), I can’t imagine anything else!

Jaylee and Jace have a special relationship – she loves him and he adores her. In fact, he thinks both of his siblings are pretty funny, but Jaylee will ham it up specifically for him. Jax is less interested in being the entertainment, though he loves his baby brother in his own special way.

Jace has been the worst sleeper of all my babies. Maybe that’s because he doesn’t get a “normal” nap schedule, since he gets dragged around to the various family activities. But its also about the time that we sleep trained both Jaylee and Jax. I probably need to do it with him as well, but I need to wait until school is out so I can commit to getting him his proper nap times. In the meantime, this is what he looks like at 10pm.

This definitely contributes to my feeling of exhaustion. I brought him into bed with Jordan and I last night, and I felt so wonderful because he slept for 4 straight hours (which meant that I also slept for 4 straight hours). Of course, I woke up sore from sleeping uncomfortably. But it was a really long stretch of sleep for me. It makes these days really hard – getting no sleep. I work from kid-up to way past kid-down with no real breaks (except for SOMETIMES, when I get to use the restroom alone). Teaching is 100% on all of the time, and so is mothering. Not to mention cooking, cleaning, keeping the budget, fighting the laundry, washing diapers… If I blow off all of my responsibilities, then I can be “done” at 8:30pm. If not, then its more like 9:30pm. I just don’t really get any rest, and its not real great for my mental health.

I know this is just a season, and there are some wonderful parts to it. This evening, I took a 20 minute break from the housework and sat on the floor to play marbles with Jax and Jace. It was so nice. I want more time like that, and less time like the 2 hours I spent today doing laundry.

But its not really like I can blow off the housework (or grading papers or emails or cooking/planning or budgeted or etc etc) – it doesn’t disappear. It just piles up and hangs over my head like a dark cloud. I’m hopeful that this summer will be better, because the teaching work will decrease significantly (though not totally disappear – we’re getting new math curriculum next year). Maybe THEN I’ll figure out how to balance all of this.

For now, I’m doing the best that I can. Like bringing all three of them into Jace’s room with me while I hang up his clean clothes.

I took this picture because it struck me that all three of my babies have slept in this crib, even though those older two dwarf the bed now. And there’s only a 4 year difference between the biggest one and the smallest one. These times really do go fast, and I want to be able to savor the sweet moments. Instead, I just feel like a Debbie Downer right now.

Anyway.

Jaylee and Jax are in a 6-week running series. This past week was the first one.

Jax was kinda in a mood, and seemed really overwhelmed by all the kids and adults around. And since he raced first, he didn’t get to see Jaylee do it. So he was whiny until the horn went off and all the little boys took off. He ran with the pack for about 5 seconds until he realized I wasn’t running behind him. When he saw that, he stopped immediately and started crying. I ran up to him and tried to encourage him to keep going, but he wasn’t having it. Jordan came and helped him run the rest of the way, but Jax was crying for the next 20 minutes or so.

Until he got his post-race banana, anyway.

Jaylee feeds off of other kids’ emotions. So she was unhappy at the start, but did well during the race. But then when she was in line at the end so they could grab her tag number, she started crying again because “Jax is so sad” (even though he wasn’t around).

They go for week 2 of the series tomorrow (assuming the snow has melted from the field). So hopefully this second round will be a better experience. If Jax hadn’t gotten overwhelmed, I think they would’ve had a fun time. I guess time will tell. Either way, I’m proud of Jax for finishing the race, and of Jaylee for running so well.

Till next time!

Happy Easter!

Monday at work, I asked one of my coworkers if he’d had a good Easter. He replied that he’d had a good weekend, but he was Jewish so he doesn’t celebrate Easter. I then said happy passover, and we had a nice sacrilegious discussion about peeps and the land of milk and honey and all that. It was funny.

But around here, we had a pretty good Easter.

It was this little guy’s first Easter. Which meant lots of photos, of course.

Though lots of photos is pretty much standard anyway.

So let’s see. We had 3 different egg hunt events. The first one was at our church. They have a fun spring/Easter festival every year in the morning, which works out well for our nap times.

They blow up bounce houses and have a bunch of different stations where you go to complete various activities. One of my favorites is the photo booth where you choose some props, take 4 photos, and they print you out a strip. This is the second year we’ve done it, and we laughed when we got home and compared our photos: Jordan chose the SAME hat this year as he did last year. Apparently his taste hasn’t changed.

We’ve gotten more involved with our church over the course of this year, so these events have gotten even more fun since we know more people. Our church does something pretty interesting too – the egg hunt is at your own pace. All the eggs are spread out in the field, but they’re all empty. So kids can go out and gather as many eggs as they want, and then they bring them back and trade in the empty eggs for the candy. Jaylee loves this, because she can collect as many eggs as she wants without competition.

Jax is a gather-and-open-immediately kind of kid. So he gathered a couple eggs, but since every one he opened was empty – he stopped gathering pretty quickly. He was plenty happy to trade in his eggs for candy though.

Even baby Jace “got” an egg. He’s getting pretty close to being able to sit on his own. He can do it physically, but doesn’t have the sense of balance to stay upright for very long. So photos like the one above are snapped pretty quickly. It won’t be long before he’s sitting on his own.

After the first Easter party, we came home and took quick rest periods. Then it was off to another Easter party at the church where Jordan and I met and were married (and where his dad still works). In some ways, it still feels like my home church since both of our families attended/were on staff there. But so much has changed since then, and we decided we wanted to attend closer to our home.

Anyway, its fun to go back.

We went to this one with my mom and my mother-in-law. Which was really helpful, since Jax fell asleep in the car.

Apparently the sugar crash combined with the relaxing car ride knocked him out. He woke up eventually and joined in the festivities. I’m actually really glad we were there – usually he’s a BEAR when he wakes up from a nap. But when you wake up to jumping castles and carnival games, your attitude gets adjusted pretty quickly.

The kids looked so cute in their matching egg-hunting outfits. Poor Jax’s pants were too big, so he was having a hard time with them falling down. But somehow, that didn’t stop him from grabbing lots of eggs during the hunt.

And these eggs weren’t empty, so he’s was totally into it. Even storing the suckers in his shirt pocket.

Jaylee listens to EVERYTHING that is going on. The pastor was telling jokes, one of which asked something along the lines of “Why was the Easter bunny sad? – Because he was having a bad HARE day”. Her look of concern was for the poor Easter bunny, because he was having a bad day. 🙂 She didn’t get the joke obviously, but it made me realize that she was actually listening to what was being said through the microphone – even though there was a lot of noise and other conversations going on. It was pretty cute.

Jace got an egg or two at this hunt as well. But mostly, he hung out on my mom’s hips and watched all the commotion with his huge brown eyes.

Its crazy to think that this time next year, he’ll be toddling out there with all the other babies to pick up eggs at a very leisurely pace. I don’t know – in some ways this season of babyhood has dragged by (like at night). But in other ways, I just can’t believe he’s already so close to sitting on his own. The old motherhood conundrum that matched my favorite saying about motherhood: The days are long, but the years are short.

After all that Easter fun, we walked to the park as a family and had some pizza in our nice egg hunt clothes. It was a good, but tiring day. All the kids fell asleep pretty much instantly that evening.

The actual day of Easter was fun too. The kids opened their Easter baskets and played with their new toys. Then we went to church in the morning, in our nice Easter clothes of course.

Then we came home and hung out as a family for a couple hours. We were still pretty wiped out from the day before, but that didn’t stop us from playing in the sand and trying out the new egg-shaped chalk (courtesy of Aunt Chelsea).

Then we headed over to my parents’ house for our usual Sunday family time. But this time, with bonus Easter activities. Like egg painting.

And ANOTHER egg hunt.

And MORE egg coloring.

I do love these wonderful family times. The kids love playing with their cousin, Jaina. And I enjoy having all the reinforcements to help keep the kids happy. We’re lucky enough to be related to some pretty cool people.

When Jordan and I were first married, we wanted to make a couple of our own traditions. One of the ones we started was to ditch the traditional Easter ham, and do a nice cajun crab boil instead. When we moved back to Colorado, my mom started to do the crab boil Easter dinner too. Its fun to all gather around the table and dig into a huge pile of shrimp, crab, corn, sausage, and those lonely forgotten potatoes.

Especially when my dad gets out his drone to function as the selfie stick for the family portrait, and everybody has to stare into the sun to take a photo.

Overall, it was a gorgeous and wonderful weekend. We had a ton of fun, and we’ve got enough candy to last us for a couple weeks (as long as it stays hidden).

So what else has been going on lately. Lets see – Jaylee’s BFF had a unicorn-themed birthday party.

And there were even real-live unicorns to ride! Both of the kids got to take two rides up and down the block – giggling the whole time. The party was a blast overall.

And funny story – we didn’t put a card in our present and had to leave before presents were opened. But apparently Jaylee had already told her BFF what we’d bought for her birthday. And when the gift was opened, Bella knew EXACTLY who it was from despite the lack of card. Her mom texted me to say thanks, and I laughed. Even though we’d discussed it, Jaylee still gave away the surprise because she was just too excited to tell her friend about the cool Moana legos.

Both Jaylee and Jax got haircuts – the first professional one for Jax. I’ve cut his hair myself, but I only know how to buzz it with the razor. I didn’t want it cut that short this time, so we went to a professional.

Other than that, life has resumed a relatively normal pace here after the luxury of spring break ended.

We went a visited an old house in our area from the 1820’s that used to serve as a boarding house, a ranch, and a farm. Its been on my mind a lot – how lonely it would’ve been back then with no one else around for at least 17 miles.

Jace got to wear one of his daddy’s old outfits, which was SUPER cute. Crazy to think this little outfit is 30 years old. He looks super stylish, like my little sailor boy.

He’s also reached the age of sink baths and pureed foods. He spent a long time not be interested in food – but has recently decided that it seems to be a good deal. So he gets to try pretty much anything we are eating (mashed up, of course). Of the baby-food lot, carrots and sweet potatoes seem to be his favorites so far. And of course, all these foods mean that sink baths are a necessity.

Its a pretty good season of life right now.

And soon, it’ll be summer! Only 26 days of School left for me! And something like that for Jaylee. I’m looking forward to a more relaxed pace, though definitely not the HOT weather. Spring has been just lovely.

Until next time. I hope everyone had a happy Easter (or passover or whatever holiday you choose to celebrate). 🙂