A Colorful Tradition

Eleven Easters ago we did this:

Friday we did this:

Ten years ago we did this:

Friday we did this:

Nine years ago we did this:

Friday we did this:

Eight years ago we did this:

 Friday we did this:

Seven years ago we did this:

 Friday we did this:

 Six years ago we did this:

Friday we did this:

Five years ago we did this:

Friday we did this:

Four years ago we did this:

Friday we did this:

Three years ago we did this:

 Friday we did this:

Two years ago we did this:

Friday we did this:

Last year we did this:

Friday we did this:

Every year brings changes, big and small, but our traditions are the heart of our family.  And the annual Easter egg dye is one of our favorites!

Spring Break Revisited

This year we've gotten into the habit of being complete homebodies during school breaks.  Sometimes I go as far as saying, "Maybe...we'll see...call me the morning you are planning on going and I will let you know," when we get invitations to do things.  Laaaaaaaaaazy!  It may seem like we are party poopers, but really it just feels good to have nothing that we have to do once in awhile.  It doesn't mean we don't do anything, it just means I don't make a lot of plans and we let the day take us where it may!

We had originally planned on going to California over the spring break week, but the more we thought about it the more we just wanted to stay home, relax and get a few house projects completed (like the Bunk Room).  It meant we'd miss out on the greenness, orange blossom smell and my sis, but our weather here had been so nice that I wasn't feeling the green-need like I usually do this time of year, plus we weren't going to be able to see my sister much anyhow because she had a huge final test for her Master's Degree at the end of the week we were going to be there.

So other than the ski days, we stayed home.  And it was a great week!  The weather was beyond perfect, sunny and hot, so the kids could play outside a lot which makes for happy boyss and cuts down on the cabin fever fighting.  We only got about 2 of the 25 things on the home project list done, but we had a lot of fun and took advantage of the rare opportunity to put our feet up and chill.

Here are a few of the things we did:

We met some friends at the dollar movie theater for a viewing of Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked.  We saw The Squeakuel with my sister two Christmases ago, and I texted her afterward letting her know she missed another quality sequel to the amazing Alvin and the Chipmunks film legacy.  She was terribly upset that we didn't wait for her visit in two weeks so she could see it with us.  :)

Of course, there was soccer.  It seems that there is always soccer.  Good thing those boys are so fun to watch!

Our creative juices found imaginative outlets--one of my favorite things about nothing-planned vacation days--as Ben and Josh took duct tape to new levels, creating duct tape gloves and wallets, and Tommy and Luke planned out and, with help from Mom's hot-glue gun, put together some sock puppets.

We basked in the glorious weather--70 degrees and up day after day!--and let our kites soar (and tangle strings) in the gentle breezes.

Of course there was the unavoidable bickering of brothers spending too-much together time, but also several sweet moments of togetherness.  Thank you, Dav Pilkey's Dragon anthology, for the special moment below.

I found time to make a couple of fleece twin-size no-sew blankets for Zac and Ben's beds.  Those just about max out my fabric craft skills!  I can also sew on buttons.  I glue Scout badges.  The boys are enjoying every snuggly minute with them, which makes them so worth the effort and cost (dang that licensed college fleece is pricey, even on sale!).

Zac and I participated in a "Mom and Zac Book Club."  We read Rules by Cynthia Lord, Number the Stars by Lois Lowry, and Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson.  Zac and I both loved the books and had some great discussions about all three.  He sure is a smart, thoughtful kid!

Ummm...that's about it!  It was just play, play, play.  Just like we like it.

The Bunk Room Realized

Once upon a time, I was one of those moms, perusing the latest Pottery Barn Kids catalog, dreaming about coordinating paints and room decor, everything perfect and organized, a "theme" accented here and there around the room, beautifully painted pictures that played into the theme of the room, and of course...it was all spotless!  When Zac moved into a "big boy bed" on his second birthday he was the recipient of many Pottery Barn and Pottery Barnesque items to create this "perfect" room.  And when Ben joined him in bunk-bed-life a couple of years later, I was able to pull off the coordination again.  {sigh} It was nice.

But then, do you know what happened?  Well, I will tell you.  Those selfish boys wanted to make the room their own!!  They started asking for weird blankets, like Spiderman, that did not match the bedspread!  Next came the desire for Star Wars Clone Wars and super hero posters, and then they had the audacity to want to put up pieces of their favorite personal artwork (read: every single picture they ever drew or painted).  At first I balked.  But...but...your room is so perfectly decorated!  It has fire truck paintings that nicely compliment the red and blue checkered quilt on the bed with the plush fire truck accent pillow (all in coordinating reds and blues of course)!!!  Yes.  That is pretty much the idiotic train of thought I had in the beginning.  Fortunately, I quickly realized that perfectly coordinating, spotless, character-free bedrooms, while The Pottery Barn might have you believe differently, are for nurseries, when the children who live in them are too small to care about the decor so you, as Mom, can have all the control.  If you are a mother who has successfully maintained a coordinated room and kids who revel in the Pottery Barnness of it all, I applaud you...let me in on your secret!

What really got me on the happiness-in-chaos track is that I remembered how, when we were younger, my sister had one wall of her room completely covered in pictures of hot guys cut out from Tiger Beat and People, and how my parents let me paint my bedroom every couple of years whatever color I wanted...including the furniture--I had a dresser that I painted with my own rainbow-painted footprints.  We loved our rooms.  They really were uniquely ours.  I wanted that for my boys.

So I let go of the dream, it was a stupid dream anyway, and let my kids express themselves. 

I still try to get some kind of coordinating colors in the room (the colors are chosen by the boys, but how they are used is still in my controlling little hands!  buahahahahaha!); I need something like that to satisfy the OCD part of my brain, but that is about as far as I take my mom-influence...for now...I may have to re-exert my influence if one of the boys develops a love of hard rock bands with names like "Dead Kitten" and "Skull and Buttock," or worse, wants to hang up a pin-up girl.  No.

That leads me to the purpose of this post: a bedroom realized that I would NEVER have dreamed of having in my home back in my early days of motherhood.  Too much in one place, too many beds, too many people, too many things, very little coordination!  Last summer the boys got the idea in their heads that one room with four beds would be a hoot.  We pushed them off, saying we'd give it a nice long trial run sometime in the next year, maybe summer when bedtime is a little more flexible than during the school year.  Time passed, but the idea didn't die.  Adam and I even got a little excited about it, so we decided that Spring Break would be a good time to get the room settled.  They had 10 days to get used to it and then only 2 months of school before summer.  It seemed the perfect time.

Zac and Ben have been sharing and quietly whispering late into the night for a couple of years, and they are still performing well in school and have the energy to cope with their busy days.  Josh falls asleep within seconds of his head hitting his pillow.  We were really only worried about Luke who has been doing much better with bedtime, but still has his bad nights.  However, we always still had the other room, just in case he needed a night alone on the floor in a sleeping bag to remind him that bedtime was still bedtime, even with his brothers in the room with him.

Thus, the "bunk room" was born.  Four beds, one room.  Each boy has a little clip light on their bed and the wall space by their bunk is for whatever floats their boat.  The boys are doing great with bedtime.  There are two rules.  One, "lights out" means SLEEP; all whispering and giggling must be completed before "lights out" is called.  And two, each of their beds is a sacred space, intended only for the sleeper of the bed.  No invading that sacred space.

The other room is now the "dressing room," used for four big shelves that house the boys' clothing, also used for select favorite toys and a pile of pillows for snuggling down and reading.  We have some ideas for when Tommy wants to join in the fun, but we are hoping that is still at least a year away.  I am a fan of stretching crib-life (meaning: contained-life) as long as possible.  Everyone has been so happy with the new room situation, and the boys are completely stoked about the bunk room.  I really like things that will bind the boys closer together, and I know this will.  They are physically closer, no doubt, but there is nothing like late night whispering and giggling to bond them closer as friends. 

The Spring Break Project

During spring break Adam and the three older boys collaborated on a fun little stop motion video project.  They started the video below over a week ago, but weren't able to complete it until yesterday in the late afternoon.  They had such a good time "filming" and then seeing the video come together!  Of course once the big boys had seen the results of the first day of their Dad's shooting last Saturday, they set off on several stop-motion videos of their own including trampoline jumping, Lego spelling and Lego battles.  It was a perfect creative outlet and wonderful for a spare time activity!  

I LOVE all of their projects, but the one below is my favorite.  It's so cool.  Make sure the volume is on, enlarge it to full screen, take a peek and enjoy!

APRIL FOOLS!!!!

I usually don't get too much into April Fool's Day.  I don't know if I am hugely into pranks, just because they can escalate so quickly into meanness or messiness (and I have plenty of that without purposely creating extra!).  But the boys think April Fool's Day is hilarious, so I wanted to give it a go for them.  I saw some fun, not mean ideas online this past week and Adam and I put them into action last night.  I have to admit, it was fun shouting "APRIL FOOL'S!" all day today as one or the other prank was discovered.  :)

We dyed the milk with food coloring...blue and pink.  Hee hee hee!

Ignore my messy utensil drawers--we switched the kitchen drawers around, so when the kids went looking for silverware they opened the drawer to a mystery!  Ho ho ho!

We swapped their underwear baskets.  Zac put Josh's on without even thinking about it!  Ha ha ha ha!

We salted their toothbrushes.  Oh they thought that was gross!  Hahahahahahaha!

 

We TP'ed their bedroom.  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!  Ben woke up in the night, crawled under it all and came into our room, "Mom and Dad, something weird happened to our room."  HOHAHAHAHOHOHOHOO!

Here we are high fivin' each other for our hilarious cleverness.

Ben got me back this morning by rubber banding the sink sprayer.  I was a fool not to check!  Fortunately I had my apron on.  And then I chased him down the street.  That boy is too quick!

In addition to the pranks, we had a wonderful day, watching another fantastic General Conference and then Skyping 3-ways with my parents and Leah and Jason.  What a great day!  Hope you had a wonderfully silly (and spiritually enriching) April Fool's Day like we did!