Easter, Part 1

I know Easter isn't until next week, but since General Conference is on Easter Sunday our ward had our Easter program today. I realized late Friday afternoon that meant the kids needed their Easter clothes this week, and not next week. Thank you Knutsons for the bounty of beautiful dresses! All we had to do was look through them, let Willa choose which one she wanted, and search all over creation for a purple tie so Andrew could match.



I intended to post pictures of my beautiful kids dressed up in their finest, so we got them ready early for church so we'd have time to snap a few. Willa was ready first. She is three, and comes by her name rightfully. She is the most willful, independent, and sometimes downright ornery girl in the world. It's also impossible to make her smile, as you can see. I couldn't narrow down the pictures, I'll just let you vicariously experience the frustration of trying to make her smile without actually saying "cheese." (Note the stuffed animal in her hand; she never goes anywhere or does anything without one or more of her animals.) What in the world did people do before digital cameras?









And then there's handsome Andrew. He loves to pose but lately this is the only smile we can get out of him. Tell me he's not channeling Rupert the Monkey Boy from Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. And yes, his pants are about 3 inches too short. I promise they fit him at Christmas. Today all we could do was make him pull them down around his hips.





In the end, though, I'm sure I have the cutest kids in the world. And someday we'll capture that on film.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

W: I'm going on a date with Silas.

Me: (after I pick my jaw up off the floor) Is Silas your boyfriend?

W: Yes, I love boys!

In what part of my parenting did I teach my 3 year old and 6 year old that they should be going on dates and kissing the opposite sex in the classroom?

Birthday Week

Birthday Week was pretty chill this year. Because our house is on the market, we couldn't decorate as we would ordinarily do, or even have big birthday dinners and cake. To add to that, Casey's birthday was on a Sunday, and we both had to speak in church so we didn't even get birthday breakfast, because we were concentrating on our talks.

Casey's birthday comes first; at this point the kids are always excited about Birthday Week and want to help with presents. Instead of cake, Casey got birthday chocolate chip cookies.





Andrew is next. He is 6 this year! He is so smart, and has become so independent in the past months in kindergarten. He is super friendly, loves everyone, and has a girlfriend (Ieva). New this year: he can read! He's been sounding things out for some time, but on his birthday he read all his birthday cards like a pro. We were floored.

Instead of a party, we went to Build-a-Bear (which he's wanted to do since Willa's birthday 9 months ago) and had dinner at Subway (his choice). He requested cupcakes with blue frosting.







And to round out the week we had my birthday. By the time my birthday was here, Willa was adament that it was NOT my birthday, but hers, and all presents were hers. Birthday Week is hard for a 3 year old. Pay no attention to the bags under my eyes (which I tried hard to not show off in any pictures here), that's just my new look these days.





Happy Birthday to us!

10 weeks old

It's hard to believe it's been 10 weeks since Christian was born, but here we are. He's so fun now, he smiles! It's really hard to capture a new baby smile, but we did our best. And yes, his hair always sticks up like this.

Andrew or Willa?

So we've been thinking that Christian looks a lot like Andrew as a baby, but I'm not so sure that he doesn't look more like Willa. What do you think? Is it Andrew or Willa?

Andrew


Willa


Christian