The Easter We'll Remember

Yes. I survived Easter weekend. I knew you were all worried.  Hunting easter eggs can be exhausting. Actually. Watching your children hunt easter eggs that you didn't have to hide can be exhausting. Then, eating the candy that came in the found easter eggs can be just as tiring. Especially if your children are fighting you for the candy because they think it's theirs. Not that this would happen to you. Probably only in my house. Because I eat candy that belongs to my children.

Anyway,

Since Easter begins with Good Friday in my book, this is how our Easter weekend started.

Dawson went to school and it was Immigration Day. I already posted a picture of him on FB and I'm too lazy to duplicate. After school he went home with his best buddy JJ and spent the day with his family which left Jason and I and Evan to figure out what to do with our lives on a good Friday.

Here's a picture of Evan and JJ:

That picture was taken right after their spring concert, during which, Dawson continuously turned around to talk to JJ in between each song. He doesn't get that chatty patty syndrome from me.

Jason and I decided to take Evan to the zoo.

He got to feed the giraffes.

We found the monkeys sleeping.

We found a meerkat looking for us

 and a peacock in a tree. Who knew peacocks could get into trees? Do they fly? All I know is, I don't think he could get down because he was still up there before we left the zoo. I tried calling him down but I don't speak peacock apparently.

Evan got to feed the budgie buddies. 

I'm wondering if this bird is the same hog that ate all the food when we took Dawson to this zoo:

 Evan was very serious about the birds. He wasn't thrilled when it decided to climb up his arm onto his back either.

The last thing we did before leaving the zoo (since we couldn't get the peacock down from the tree) was climb the Will Roger's shrine. 

I'm going to interject here that I'm in way better shape now than I was in 2007 when we climbed to the top of this building. Or, maybe I have bigger lungs. There are a bazillion stairs to the top. But the view is worth it.

On Saturday, we took the boys to an Easter event they had Greg's church (that's Jason's dad, but saying "Jason's dads' church is really complicated).

The boys did crafts and then got to hunt easter eggs outside.

Evan immediately took to carrying his basket in the crook of his arm and this cracked me up. He will most likely hunt easter eggs professionally when he's older.

When we got home, Dawson and I did a little project my mom sent to us. She did this project with her Sunday School class at church. It's Davinci's version of The Last Supper.

Who is going to pay me as much for this piece of art as they would for Davinci's? Message me.

And Sunday finally came.

I had the boys hunt for their Easter baskets the way my mom used to have me do when I was little. I loved it. This year I put clues in the Easter eggs and then hid the eggs throughout the house for Dawson to find. Evan never found his basket since he can't read. NO. I didn't do that for Evan. I just put his basket on the floor in the basement and he still couldn't find it. I had to point at it. But he liked it just the same. 

You will notice that Dawson is dressed differently in the rest of the pictures after the one shown below. This is because, for one thing, I was unprepared and he didn't have any clean khaki's to wear. So he had to put these pants on until his clean pants were done in the wash. THEN, later he wanted to wear shorts. What a diva.

Some Easter pictures for your enjoyment:

And now for the best story of all. Not that the previous stories were brilliant. But this one is.

Dawson came to me several weeks ago out of the blue and asked if he could get baptized. I must say I was shocked and wasn't sure what to say, but after talking to him about it more, it seemed like something he really wanted to do. So he talked to Grandpa Greg and we decided he could be baptized on Easter Sunday at their church. 

Here he is, prebaptism waiting in line for his turn.

They made a video of each person giving their testimony and we watched before the baptism took place.

Here's Dawson ready for the plunge.

And here's the video of the entire thing. There's a crazy lady cheering loudly at the end but you can ignore her. I'm not sure who she is.

Baptized, Sanctified.. all those other over used church terms while he waits patiently all wrapped in his post baptism towel. I wonder if Jesus got a towel after he was baptized? If he did, I hope it was yellow.

After church we came home to bake our green bean casserole before going to Grandma & Grandpa's house for Easter lunch.

The boys entertained themselves while we waited.

Evan found an ant and spent some time crawling after it even though I was upset because I didn't want him to ruin his Easter clothes. After a while, you just give up.

Finally, it was time to go to Easter lunch.

We celebrated my birthday even though it's not until tomorrow.

These 3 little stinkers watched out the window while Easter eggs were being hidden.

Here we go with the crook of the arm again.

Dawson is such a good big brother. Gently pointing Evan in the direction away from the eggs so that he can get more. Actually, I think they were done hunting by the time I got this picture. So really, this is brotherly love in the raw. Or something.

 Happy Easter. 

And to all a good night.

A Moment to Ramble

This is the face of a child that wants you to think he's never in trouble. I'm pretty sure Jason took this picture right after the innocent one tried flushing my toothbrush down the toilet.

Okay. So I'm pretty certain he wasn't trying to flush my toothbrush down the toilet, but he does unroll all of the toilet paper when he's in the restroom and that's the business of a trouble maker.

I made a tent for the little innocent one the other day. 

Let me tell you something. If the Israelite's had to use chairs to make tents, I imagine they would have never lasted as a nation. Carrying around chairs through the dessert and then the need to place them just so, in order to have the appropriate distance for the pink blanket to hang at the correct level. I'm not saying if I was an Israelite building a tent with a chair that I would have defected or anything. But I might've asked God if I could have poles. Or maybe an inflatable tent. Fully furnished.

Once the tent was assembled and the blanket was hanging at the level needed for Evan to be able to sit in the bean bag and watch the movie we were all set. His movie of choice has been "Mee-mo". a.k.a "Finding Nemo". As a matter of fact, he's been asking to watch/watching that movie so frequently recently that today I pulled a fast one on him and snuck in the movie "Cars" while we sat and waited on Dawson in the carpool line at school. He wasn't nearly as interested in that movie so my sneakiness back fired. But at least I didn't have to find Nemo.

When Dawson was Evan's age, he used to be terrified of the tractor tipping scene in the Cars movie. I had to say that in order to have a proper transition from speaking primarily about Evan to Dawson. 

And this is Dawson building something with Evan's Duplo Lego's. It must be a plane but I'm too distracted by the mess on the floor in Evan's room to take the time to investigate the Lego concoction.

A few days ago, I decided to take some selfies with the boys. When I say boys, that actually ends up meaning only Dawson because Evan wouldn't sit still long enough and Jason was too busy flipping through songs on the stereo system much like you do with a remote and a t.v.. Actually, that drives me crazy because he won't ever allow a song to play through in it's entirety. He starts the song, listens to the first 2 minutes and then decides to move on to the next song. I'd call that CD ADD.

Back to the selifies.

I'd say my teeth could use a little whitening. I'm not sure who taught Dawson bunny ears, but enjoyed the implementation of them.

The above picture makes my freckles seem invisible. I wonder how I accomplished that. I didn't donate them like I plan to someday.

Bringing Up Boys

I have found that I'm a very.boring.mom. I've been stressing out about my boringness on a rather steep incline but it's compounded when I see things posted on FaceBook by mom's that are awesome. Stupid awesome moms. Lower the standard for the rest of us. Sheesh.

So I was going back through pictures to find anything that might give me a glimmer of hope that I have some fun in me. But I didn't find anything. So I'm posting other pictures instead. Sorry to disappoint. 

Actually, to prove my point, here's a picture of Evan who managed to snag the mouse that belongs to the $20 dollar Discovery laptop that Dawson got for Christmas one year. He grabbed his "Curly Finds a Home" book and used it for a mouse pad. Just like he sees his mom do on a daily basis for work. 

I guess I am fun after all.

Then there's the time I was too busy to play so he grabs all of the pots and pans from the cabinet and then ignores them and eats pencil lead instead. Disclaimer: I took the pencil away before any lead could be consumed. 

This one was Jason's idea. We bought Evan a "Market Trolley" yes, that's what the little shopping cart is officially called if you purchase one sold at Ross -why don't they make them in blue? I see litigation over that in my future. Evan prefers sitting in it to watch movies with Dawson rather than pushing it around the house to pretend he's shopping. I'd rather sit in a shopping cart watching a movie than go shopping too. I'm in that -.0002% of girls that hate to shop.

Jason is a great, fun dad though. He taught the boys how to play poker.

You've got to know when to hold 'em. Know when to fold 'em. Know when to walk away. Know when to run. I cropped out the part of the picture where Jason's belly was hanging out of his jacket. You're welcome.

Jason makes Dawson look like he has pop-eye arms using the fish-eye lens of our camera. Kinda creepy actually.

You know who has personality in our family is Dawson. One time I wasn't doing a very good job of keeping an eye on Evan. I knew he was in Dawson's room playing so I let him be. Only, he was in Dawson's room playing by himself so I shouldn't have let him be. After about 15 minutes of time passed by, Dawson wanted something from his room and began yelling "Mommeeeee" in a squeaky upset voice. I told him I'd be there in a minute. After several minutes, I made my way to his room to find out Evan had been running back and forth from the bathroom to Dawson's room with toilet paper and toilet paper squares, depositing them like confetti on the floor. 

Dawson made the best of that situation:

I found a picture of him I took around Christmas time after he had taken the heating pads out of the kitchen towel drawer and put them on his feet and told me he was ice skating.

Evan is also a goof ball, but I can't get many pictures of him acting that way to use as supporting evidence. We got Dawson's old spider-man back pack out of his closet and put it on Evan to wear. I'm convinced he felt he had been transformed into a GQ model.

 

Just a few days ago I was getting dressed and he made himself at home in my dresser drawer with a notebook and a pencil. The picture I got of him makes it seem as though I'm invading his private and personal realm of space where he goes to ponder and write out his feelings on life. He must not realize that's the drawer where I keep my sweaty workout t-shirts. 

Yesterday I spent about an hour perusing Pinterest trying to find anything that would make me fun. "Busy Bags, Crafts for Kids, How to Make Your Kids Think You're Fun without Putting Forth Much Effort". I bookmarked a few things hoping it would add a little zest to our spring break while Dawson is home next week. 

Then I came across this picture:

As long as they're happy, I'm happy.

Exercise: Motivation and Skill

Do you lack the motivation to exercise? 
Join the club. No, literally. I'm sure there's a club that you can join, you just have to find it. I can't help you there, because I'm too lazy to look.

I actually enjoy exercising. I also enjoy eating but that's a whole other issue that you can see being discussed here. 

Please consider the following suggestions as motivation to exercise:

1. The before and after pictures. Of course, you can always photoshop yourself and bypass the exercise. So. Forget number one. We'll go on.
2. More energy. Years down the road after you've gotten used to exercising. Because when you're not used to exercise, you'll be tired when you're done. Otherwise my advice is to drink 3 cups of espresso in rapid succession for immediate energy boost gratification. You'll crash in an hour and crave junk food. Just fyi. Then you'll need to exercise to work off the junk food.
3. Skinny jeans. NO. I hate skinny jeans and they do not compliment any body type. Please don't use them for motivation to exercise. And don't wear them. And don't buy them. And don't look at them. 
4. (insert your motivation to exercise here by leaving a comment because I like comments and I'll do anything to get them.)

I have in my possession exercise DVDs of all variations. Mostly "The Firm" videos. Because I thought they would make me firm. My knee cap has gone from a size 2 1/2 to a size 2. I can nearly wear shorts this summer now. And really, I'm surprised "People Magazine" hasn't contacted me for their "1/2 their size" segment. With my knee cap featured with the wind blowing the hairs on it. 
 And I'll bet you're all wondering how I manage to exercise often and keep my knee caps in such great shape.
I'm about to tell you.

First, I don my perpetually sweaty smelly workout clothes. These are the same clothes I wear to WalMart so I practically feel like I'm exercising while I'm at WalMart, and technically I think I really am because the place is so huge that most mall walkers have quit going to the mall to walk around there instead. I just made that part up about mall walkers but I wouldn't be surprised. 

Next, I deceive myself. I put away all thoughts of my dumpy pathetic body doing the cardio moves and replace that image to pretend I have the body of Allison Davis who led the workout I did today. She's skinny and all, but she has a twang, so I also have to envision that she's using a Midwest accent. If I'm fully engaged in the exercise however, I talk over her in a British accent and smile the entire time.

I wonder how fitness instructors are able to smile and talk through the entire workout.

Finally, I encourage myself. I say:  "Self, just finish this, because as soon as you're finished you can have CHOCOLATE". Chocolate is a good motivator. 

If your biggest concern with exercise is skill, do a butt clench. Right now. There. See! You just exercised! Now you can stop fearing and start butt clenching your way to healthier you. 

The Meme of 2008

Random FYI Meme

Back in the year of 2008 in the month of August to be exact, I was tagged in another friends blog for this Random FYI Meme. I didn't know I was tagged so I never did it. Nor did I know what a Meme was or how to pronounce it. 
It's never too late.

Rules Once Tagged:

1) Link to the person who tagged you.

2) Post the rules on your blog (copy and paste 1-6).

3) Write 6 random things about yourself (see below).

4) Tag 6 people at the end of your post and link to them.

5) Let each person know they have been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.

6) Let the tagger (who tagged you) know when your post is up.

Random FYI:

I was voted "Most Generous" in high school. I'm pretty sure that was a mistake and should have gone to Oprah but she wasn't in my graduating class. Or my high school.

1. I make the bed every morning. Unless I'm too lazy and then I don't make the bed until just before it's time to get into bed because I don't like going to bed if the bed isn't made.
2.  Jason was listed in the "Who's Who of America's High School Students" and his mom bought the book. Not that it's a scam or anything.
3. Sometimes Often I throw away papers and items that Dawson brings home from school because I'm not a hoarder and I'm anti-clutter and this has led to me digging through the trash to find said item. Like this morning. When I had to dig through the trash full of onions because I made home made French Onion soup yesterday, and on the way to drop Dawson off at school this morning he jabbered on about this candle he made on Pioneer Day last week and could we burn it and he would show me how. I told him of course we could. And now I must shower 27 times to rid myself of onion trash.
4. I didn't tell Jason that I had to dig through the trash this morning to get Dawson's Pioneer Day candle.
5. I don't like milk. Or Kool-Aid. Though I have used Kool-Aid to dye my hair.

Those I am tagging:
1. Felicia Louise. Start a blog now.

2. Shadow Lynn. Start a blog now.

3. Holly: Life, Love & Laughter

4. The Bigelow Blog

5. Carrie: Life, Love & All Things Jazz

6. Kelsey: The Wind in My Sails because I forgot that she has a blog and she needs to do it