A Pretty Perfect Day

First things first...Autumn had slept through the night as I'd mentioned. When she woke for the day I fed her and told the boys to pick out some short sleeved shirts as we were expecting 79 degree weather! In March! In Colorado! I was going to give them a pair of jeans from the dryer but they went ahead and got themselves all the way dressed. Then Easton volunteered to "keep an eye on Autumn" while *I* got myself dressed. They were so cute:




See how E lined up the little pink piggies to gaze at Miss A?


How stylish is Diddles who made up his outfit of clothes he could reach (the pants were on the back of a chair from the diaper bag and the socks were ones he didn't put on the other day and were sitting on the stairs). :)


I got fancy with a little flower of Autumn's for my hair:

Because it's black Jason asked me if anyone was asking if my husband had just died. Goob.

TumTums was sporting a new outfit:

So cute.

After doughnuts (which we ate at Krispy Kreme this time) and a quick trip to Target, we came home so Autumn could nap. We had plans to go to the zoo after she woke up but she ended up taking a 3 hour nap so the boys had some time to kill with costumes and Wii and bubbles:


Finally she woke up and we were able to head to the zoo.


It was such a beautiful day. But it's Spring Break for a lot of the schools around here so that combined with the gorgeous weather meant the zoo was...well...a zoo. We still had a perfectly lovely time:

























That's been at the zoo forever. There's probably pictures out there somewhere of Little Kristin jumping in that same spot. Only I was super-competive so I'm probably having a lot less fun than my boys were. :)



I was there too...see?


Eventually we had to wrap it up, Autumn was ready to fall asleep in the car and Jason was leaving work so we headed on our way as well, driving with the windows rolled down sipping lemonade CapriSuns and munching on animal crackers. Splendid!

We got home and pulled out the chilled tortellini pasta salad I'd made earlier in the day and set up dinner outside on the patio for the first time this year.






Easton was in the perfect spot to make shadow puppets in the last moments of light before the sun set over the mountains:




We jumped on the trampoline and gave the boys hair cuts before they headed up for a shower and bed.

See...a pretty perfect day!

This Is What 3 Late Nights In a Row Gets You...

Poor Diddins fell asleep in the middle of our spaghetti dinner. He had a piece of bread clutched in his hand. I took him up to bed and got him diapered and jammied without him really even waking up. He slept till this morning.

In other news, Autumn slept 12.5 hours straight herself. I don't think she's ever gone quite that long before. Having her unswaddled now that she can put in her own pacifier has been great. Except I did make Jason check that she was still alive before he left for work but otherwise...it's great! :)

Lots of Late Nights

We had a really full weekend. The kids stayed up at least an hour after their bedtimes 3 nights in a row. And handled it okay!

On Friday we had a friend over for dinner because his wife and kids were out of town and we didn't want him going hungry. Or getting too lonely. After dinner and dessert we played some Wii. Good times.

Saturday was swimming lessons for both boys. Dalton started to cry during his lessons because he was "so so cold!" and Easton was practically convulsing from shivering so hard, but he never stops smiling when swimming. He'll be trying to back float and he'll totally sink but come up smiling smiling smiling. At Easton's level the kids are allowed to hang off the edge so they can be in the pool (and not as cold sitting on the side). The rule is they have to hang on with two hands so he waved at us with his foot once. :)

After swimming lessons Easton and Jason went to a swimming birthday party. He got into his new bathing suit and grabbed a dry towel and they headed out in the Cruiser.


Meanwhile, Autumn had a nap here at home and then she, Dalton, and I headed out for some shopping. With Easton away, the other two can sit in the Target cart and I can sneak Easter basket goodies behind Autumn or on the bottom of the cart and Dalton doesn't have a clue. If Easton is there, it's much harder to sneak things by them.

We all met up back at home and headed to Cracker Barrel for some dinner. The guys all enjoyed fish. I hate fish. I hate any kind of seafood. But Easton orders fish a la carte since it's not on the kids menu. And Dalton had some of Easton's leftover filet. I may have to start cooking fish around here. Blech.

After dinner we headed over to Babies R Us for our car seat shopping. When Dalton recently heard we'd be going to BRU he said, "Babies are not us. Toys are us." We didn't decide on a seat but we sure stayed a long time trying to figure things out hence the kids late bedtime again.

And Sunday was church and then we drove over to BRU again. We made a decision only to find out the pattern/cover we wanted sold out the day before! Oh no! We have a 20% off BRU coupon so it's not like we want to head to Target to get their version. It's $40 of savings! Oh well. Easton only has school once this week. Spring Break is over but now they have conferences and Good Friday.

Anyway, after BRU Jason brought home sandwiches. The boys played outside and then the guys all headed to the park to try to fly Easton's new party favor kite. There was no wind but we said we'd try. :) When they got home I headed out for a tiny bit of shopping all by my lonesome trying to wrap up some Easter surprise shopping and after I got home we headed to our Marriage Builders group and that was our weekend.

I do have some pictures (mostly of Autumn) from this last week though.

Looking so lovely in blue:


Even if she's at the "let's-throw-things-on-the-floor-and-watch-people-pick-them-up-for-me" stage:


She's also a pincher:

It's how she shows her love...by drawing blood. I've got a healing scratch on my nose and Easton's got one on his cheek. But we love her anyway:


Here she is checking out the start of the snow storm last week:




Less than an hour before we had that amount of snow, the boys were playing badminton outside. They came in just before the rain started and quickly turned to all that snow. So the badminton had to come in:


The next morning:


Dalton making his own breakfast on Thursday:

This video is kinda cute...it's not just a kid schmearing a bagel, he says cute things.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

And Easton flying over the seat checking out Dad's new car:


We'll finish up with this last shot of Autumn being adorable. Her bangs are so long, aren't they?


Okay, quiet time's almost over after all this. Till next blog...

Cruisin'

Jason got a new ride yesterday!

It's an FJ Cruiser.
(Notice Easton climbing over the seat inside the car?)

The kids are thrilled with it:








Quite honestly, the Diego Rescue Mobile wasn't my first choice as far as models go but it meets all our requirements (4 wheel drive, ability to fit our entire family with car seats if needed--like, if my car broke). It's got alllllll the bells and whistles and although he (wisely) bought it used it's in great condition, low milage, all that. Jason is pretty darn happy and if he's happy, I'm happy. Truly. He works hard and deserves a car that's a little bit "fun" if his mean ol' wife insists he have one that's also practical. :)

I'm especially excited that he'll be able to take Easton to school now on his way to work most mornings. We're hoping to pick out a car seat for the Cruiser this weekend. It'll be one that will work for all 3 kids which will be nice for one-on-one time with a kid or if we need to take one kid to a birthday party or something the rest of us aren't stuck at home anymore (which will actually be the case tomorrow, *groan*). Oh well, we've made it this long. One more day won't kill us.

On that note, hope the rest of you aren't stranded at home this weekend. Enjoy!

Hippity Hoppity, Easter's on Its Way

Just a few Easter activity highlights from recently.

We brought out our Easter tote on Sunday.

With Easter being so early in April this year I didn't think to bring out our décor till just 14 days before hand. Oops. On second thought, 14 days of Easter crap strewn about the house is more than enough.

But the kids love it...so much that they didn't want to stop to pose for this picture:




It's Easton's Spring Break this week so we have extra time for breakfasts in the mornings. They requested bunny pancakes the other day:

I orginally had a chocolate chip making a little "O" mouth but Easton pointed out that bunnies have buck teeth so I had to add to it and that's why it looks wonky, but he was happy and that's what I care about.

We also tackled some Easter crafts:
First we did some lambie foamies:




Can you guess which one is Dalton's? It's my favorite:


Clearly he is only a young'un and doesn't know exactly what it was "supposed" to look like. He also is unsure how he's "supposed" to use a glue stick:




But he sure was proud of his bunny pin:




Then we got to work painting some faux stained glass stuff:



Dalton wanted his bunny to be green. I have no clue where all the paint went. It wasn't on the bunny. And then he asked me to fix it and there was no green left.

Easton did a great job on his till he was finishing up and dropped his washcloth on it. :( So I helped fix it too:


Oh, and I wanted to show off Autumn's new Easter basket. My mom has traditionally gotten the kids their personalized Easter baskets and she chose this plush one for TumTums:



Cute, no?

Speaking of cute...a few parting shots of my bunny girl:






Alrighty, time to hop down the bunny trail. Toodaloo!