Easter Sunday

Easter Sunday was a beautiful day - a nice break from all of the rain and snow we'd been having.  Kerry started the day with 7am meetings, followed with our ward and then his other ward, so he had a long day.  He missed the Easter baskets, but made it to the big family dinner at my parent's home later that afternoon.  We missed him...!  

This is Beckham's way of yelling "Cheeeeeesssseee" for every picture.

The kiddos and their dog.

Just the boys.

Beepbop

The Easter bunny hid their baskets very well this year.  It took them a while and even a few hints.  Last year one was in the dryer.  This year one was in the same place, but had towels all over it and they overlooked it twice!  One was hidden in the lazy susan and Becks' was a little easier to find - hidden behind the cereal in the pantry.  

I really want to do more activities with them to help focus on the Atonement.  I'm finding this to be a difficult balance and I am determined to make it more meaningful for them.  We watched a great DVD that the church had sent out a few years ago in the Ensigns on the resurrection.  It is one of my favorites and the kids can really appreciate it, too.  

 I have this great FHE lesson that has an egg carton with plastic eggs inside.  Each of the eggs has something in it that talks about Christ's crucifiction and resurrection.  The kids love it and I thought for sure it would happen this year.  It didn't.  Next year...or maybe we'll just do it next week anyway!

Eggless Easter Egg Hunt at Wheeler Farm

Last Saturday Uncle Steve, Aunt Harmony and cousin Devyn invited us to go down to Wheeler Farm.  By the time we got there, there were no more Easter Eggs to hunt.  Not to worry - there were a lot of other activities going on.  The kids got their picture with the Easter Bunny - notice Beck's eyes in this one.  He couldn't get away fast enough.

The kids were able to get their faces painted  - Ethan got a snake and Eva just got attitude.  She hates pictures.  She said that all of the stuff was baby stuff.  (Thankfully this didn't last long) She's starting to move into that tween age....Heaven Help Us.

Just as Ethan was coming out of his surprise flip 

Cute Devyn - she almost likes me.  She loves Ethan.  

They love Darth Vader.  They Hate Darth Vader.  Both boys were fascinated by their Star Wars heroes, but when it came down to it, Ethan was too cool to take a picture and Becks was scared to death.  The guy in the brown tights had all the cool poses  - I think he probably practices at a local park with his buddies.

Little Mister always posing.

Nice "Peace Out" Eva.  The pigs just added so much to this photo.

Time to go home to dye eggs.  

So there's this goat and a dog.

We live across the street from some riding stables.  The 'barn' also has lots of animals that roam freely.  One of them is a goat that will occasionally come across the street, just wandering up and down the sidewalk.  A little odd, yes.  The other is  a big, no BIG, dog named Slinky.  Slinky thinks he owns the neighborhood.  I remember last year he came into my garage and took a poopy diaper that was sitting on the steps waiting to be taken to the trash.  He ran off with it and did who knows what with it.  Poor person that found it later!  

Today Beckham had had enough of Slinky's shenanigans.  Slinky came over to our yard and took our puppy Jack's  rope toy.  He ran off with it, and Beckham started bawling.  He was ticked.   He walked across the street to the dog with me, went into the big barn's lawn where Slinky was sitting with his winnings he had just stolen, and grabbed Jack's toy away from this dog that was 3 times his size.  He not only bent over to pick up the toy, but as soon as he did he wacked the dog on the nose with it and said, "Bad Dog, Slinky!"

Holy Cajones, kid!  That dog could have bitten his head off, but Becks felt pretty confident that he needed to know who was boss.   I think Becks now thinks he's the boss of the neighborhood.

FHE

For family night tonight, Kerry and I told the kids to go in and get teeth brushed and jammies on and ready for bed, while the two of us went alone for a nice little walk around the block.  Does that count for FHE?  We counted it.  What a beautiful night....finally.  Spring is here!

This morning....

Beckham just told me he would give me a hundred dollars if I would let him play PBS kids online. I told him "Sure!"   I asked him where his money was and he shrugged and told me that he didn't know.  Then he asked me if I would go and get $100 for him from my purse.  I told him  I didn't have $100.  He said, "That's ok.  Do you have some cash, then?"

Ethan's extreme mini bike

One of the things I love about Ethan is his passion and sometimes obsessiveness with things he enjoys.  He cracks me up, and I love to see how he thinks and how excited he can get over doing things he likes.  He's also got attitude and likes to 'bring it'.  We get a kick out of him. 

Here he is on his bike at the neighbors - Xtreme Mini Bike happening daily in this neck of the woods.

He also carries this passion to the soccer field.  He has perfected the slide tackle.  It is his 'go to' soccer skill.  It's probably partially illegal at this age - not sure.  But all I know is that he is on the ground during the games more than he is not.  This is what his legs and socks look like after every game.  

Even at school recess the slide tackle comes out.  I think he thinks he's pretty cool when he does it, so....the more he does it, the cooler he is!   He has 1 - count it 1 -pair of pants left that don't have grass stains and holes in the knees from playing soccer at recess.  Becks will have no hand me downs from this kid.

Beckham asked me to take a picture of his muddy wet pants, too.  He didn't want to be left out.  Plus, he has to show off the effects of his mud puddle jumping abilities.

Very Cool, Becks.

Love my boys!

A New Budding Blogger

Eva has decided, or rather, has been begging me, to start a blog for her.  She named it: Eva and the Pink Polkadot.  It is under her direction, she picks out pictures, puts in her own comments.  (Don't be surprised if each comment ends in....the best ever!!!  She likes that phrase...)  So if you or any of your children would like to be a blogging buddy to Eva, please leave a comment and let me know and we'll put you on the private 'short' list.  I know that there are some of my loyal blogging readers that don't have google accounts to leave comments - so email me if you'd like to be on her list.  OR..you could sign up for a google account in a matter of seconds.  It's basically a username and password and your golden. (As Kerry would say.)

I showed her how to select pictures from the computer to put on her blog and had her drop them into her own picture folder.  I was surprised to see that there were very few pictures - out of about 30 - that she was actually in.  Most of them are of her cousins, friends, family, etc.  I thought that was awesome.  She has all of these "crazy" captions in mind that she wants to use. Stay tuned!

I however have been finding no time lately for blogging, let alone anything else.  I'm not sure what has happened, but all the sudden life is a big boat and I'm just getting dragged along by the rope!  It's all good - just going through crazy schedules and projects that have thrown the usually perfectly run and functioning Westenskow household into pure chaos.  It's true....

I keep thinking If I can just have one day to reign things back in that I could do it...

This has been a snowball effect- no groceries, bare cupboards for a week - each day thinking I'll have time to run to the store.  But then it's dinner time, no groceries, and it's literally fend for yourself. (FFY)  We even ran out of food storage mac and chesse - which I thought we had an endless supply of! We've resorted to the cheap frozen pizzas twice last week - usually I save those for babysitter nights, cold cereal.  Unpaid bills and random post it notes all over - my purse, laundry room, counters to add to my calendar.  Soccer schedules, taxes, to do papers and lists all piled up - waiting for someone to come and deal with them.   Papers jammed into my purse from brochures, price sheets, etc from basement projects.  Using my car - which is also being neglected and needs a major vacuum/clean/scrub to hide easter stuff in the back because there is nowhere to put it in the house along with more papers and kids coats, bags - since the laundry room is overflowing. Receipts stuffed into an envelope that need to be entered.  

It's been a month of daily apologies to my husband as he walks in from work as I say - Just don't look at the house.  I've been doing this and that all day and I've been trying to get it pulled together but I gotta run right now so when I get home....blah blah.  And then I come home to him having done/finished the dishes, tidied up a bit, etc.  He's a keeper.

I don't expect a perfectly clean home.  Not even close. Kids are busy, dirty, messy, into everything, and that's ok.  But I do have a certain level of cleanliness that can usually be maintained so that I can function and not feel crazy, and it just ain't happening right now!  Muddy shoes in and out of the house with construction, little boys and dogs that have been playing in the mud garden that has also been a little neglected, floors that get vacuumed daily but are disgusting and need a solid mopping.  There is no 10 second rule on those floors, baby!  Laundry overflowing, can't find soccer clothes, can't find school uniform pants because they haven't been washed yet. Does any of this sound familiar?  I think a lot of moms feel like this some times - Yes?

   It's been a week of a set of towels on the laundry room floor that literally would probably only take 3 minutes to fold and put away but are still sitting exactly where they were left 3 days ago, a stack of papers scattered all over the kitchen table that keeps growing daily, this or that that needs to be put away that again would take 3 minutes, but all together it seems like chaos and so it doesn't get done and keeps expanding!  Yikes!  I need to pull this puppy together!  

What has happened to my organized chaos that was working so well before?  Now it's just chaos, bursting at the seems, please don't neglect me anymore tasks that need some TLC.

I'm not sure why I feel like I have lost control.  Control?! Where are you!!??  Please come back.  We miss you.  Maybe we were never best friends,  but we had a good thing going.

Anyway, I do have one small victory.  Tonight I limited myself to 3 Oreos.  Huge.  That is huge for me.  Those devils get me everytime - It's never 3.   It's more like 10-12.  We have a love hate relationship.

Alrighty!  I feel better already.  There must be some therapeutic benefits of writing it all out.  Life is good.  Life is good.  Even when it is crazy.  I'll take it all.  

There goes another hour....

This just seems to exemplify one of the devilishly schemed up strategic distractions/interruptions that happen on a daily basis with a toddler.  Not only is there nasty mac and cheese stuck in the dog's hair, but Becks also dumped dirt and mac-n-cheese juice on him as well.  Nasty!!   Poor dog.  

Just after we cleaned him up a little I then went over to the doorway where Becks had dumped out the entire bag of dogfood onto the floor/rug/vent cracks.  Honestly Child!  

It's a good thing God makes them so stinkin' funny and cute or they'd never make it!