The Three days of Easter

Easter Friday, more commonly known as Good Friday

We colored eggs....

Notice a chipmunk that snuck his way into the picture?

Easter Saturday

On Saturday we went over to see my dad who is fresh off the plane from Sudan. We also seized the opportunity to go for a swim, and JD learned a new skill. He's now going under with goggles! He was getting all the way under and swimming around and was wildly proud of himself. He kept exclaiming "I'm going under the sea!"

We did our easter baskets on Saturday because James is gone on Sunday morning. After they searched around they were ecstatic with their finds. Daddy did the basket shopping this year and went big! Whoo hooo!

Capri got the Strawberry Shortcake swimming pool!

JD was THRILLED with his basket & prize... he got video games!

Tella woke up from her nap and got her basket. She was still a little sleepy.

Tella's tummy was bugging her, so I gave her applesauce and let her feed herself. She got wild with it! At least she was having fun, right?

Easter Sunday

Tella in her lovely pink overcoat.

Capri chose her shoes, I chose not to fight her. Doesn't she look beautiful?? I blew her hair out last night so it would be strait and bouncy... love it when it looks like this. now if it just wasn't so much work to have it always look like that.......

I took a zillion pictures to get a good one of the three of them before they got changed and played outside. Not one of the zillion was good. This was the best I could do. The background is bad, but at least they are all semi-looking and not crying.

The hunt!

Tella didn't care much for the hunt, but she did like her bucket!

JD liked the one with money!

Capri got a ton of eggs...

For dessert we had giant costco cupcakes..... pretty good.

Then, we had a lovely earthquake. A 7.2 if I'm not mistaken. Wow did that change the mood. It was only the second earthquake I've ever really experienced. I know it was a first for my kids and my grandmother that just moved here from NJ a year ago. NJ has it share of bad weather - a hurricane, noreasters, maybe a tornado or two.... but fires and earthquakes are unique to this side of the country. Hard to say which is better to live with.... Anyway, no damage around here, but it sure was unexpected! As I'm sure all earthquakes are..... ha ha!

We came home with an exhausted mommy and daddy, mildly tired older kids, and an over-exhaused, maxed out baby. Poor girl was a mess, she was even running a little fever. I put her to bed at 6:30.

Disclaimer: Upon further review of this post I noticed that it appears that we feed our baby junk. Several pictures show her with cheetos, peeps, and a chocolate bunny. Please note that these were "special treats" and her normal diet does NOT consist of these things! Thank you!

Surprise x 2

My and MIL pulled off the greatest surprise 30th birthday ever.....

James was so surprised he had a hard time figuring out what the surprise was for!

Lots of friends & family came. Here he is with our friend from Bible college, Klaus.

His childhood friends Ryan & Pierre

All the kids ran wild, thank goodness we had our own room. This is them playing some sort of game under the table involving a large loaf of bread.

Birthday cake!

Isn't this face weird?

Tella couldn't get enough of Grandpa

Hooray !!! Gifts!!!!

1 of 2 wallets he got. My mom and her friend got the exact same thing for him, and put the same thing inside it. That was just plain weird! haha

Capri and Lindsey..

Capri positioned herself in a high chair to listen to the musical card.

It was a great success and he was really surprised and happy. I'm turning 30 this year too and you better believe I will be "tuned in" when it's about that time. Ha ha!

Surprise #2

My best friend from high school, Brandy, gave birth to her first baby girl on March 27th... a few weeks early. Welcome little Cheyenne Angelina Hogan! I don't have a picture to post, so just take my word for it.... she's a BEAUTIFUL little girl. Keep her in your prayers as she has not been released from the hospital yet, she's receiving treatment for an infection.

Congrats Brandy and Ryan! Can't wait to meet her!

Why no posts?

Are you wondering why I haven't posted recently?

I'm sure you're thinking that I'm too busy, I mean I do have 3 small kids.

But noooo, that's not it.

I have had time.

Oh, and material. Lots of it.

Two large surprises, one successful trip to the butterflies, hilarious statements from the above mentioned kids.

Posting material galore.

So. Where are we?

Do I have time? Yes.

Do I have material? Oh yeah.

So what is the problem?

See below.

This is my eye. It's weird to post a picture of my eye. I know that.

It's hard to tell but they're a lovely green. At least I think so. Ha ha!

Anyway... this eye (and the other one!) is the reason I'm not posting.

I can't see.

Well, I can, but I see two of everything.

I can't read.

Well, of course I CAN read, but I can't right now with out hurting my eyes.

I can't look at the computer screen for the same reason.

I'm in really bad shape eye-wise.

I'd get an eye transplant if I could, but that's weird and impossible. (I think?)

I'm off to the Specialist in the morning.

PRAISE THE LORD.

Hopefully he can work his magic and fix it.

And, because he's magical he'll fix it without surgery....

and his magic will help me to have lost 10 pounds instantly.

Here's hoping the fix is simple and quick!

Sorry about the eye picture and the inappropriate underlining.

I don't know how to fix it, and at this point my eyes hurt!

Details are important aka the ultimate letdown

Oh, details. Sometimes I'm so good at them. Sometimes not. Yesterday, I was not.

We started the day so cute, with Tella playing dress up with my clothes.

We also started the day with the promise that when Capri is done preschool we can go to the Wild Animal Park to see the BUTTERFLY exhibit. I put 'butterfly' in all caps because that was the single most important reason we were going to the WAP. Practically the only reason.

Here's Tell's first dress up attempt:

I put shorts on JD, I knew it was going to be hot.

He did not want to wear them, saying " I can't wear my legs to the WAP!"

I pretended not to hear him and off we went.

JD (and his legs) being a turtle:

And Capri, so full of promise, decked out in her butterfly best...

with wings, butterfly clips in her hair,

and fancy nancy along to say "bonjour" to the butterflies (just like the book)

It was an idyllic, beautiful day....

well behaved children, perfect weather.

Oh, the details. If I had only checked the details.

I wouldn't have seen this face:

You guessed it right? No butterflies.

It doesn't open 'til Saturday.

Yes, I should have checked that out.

It was sort of reminiscent of the time they cancelled the shamu show on JD.

I just knew it was butterfly time, I didn't know I was a week early!

I apologized to her, and promised a return visit next week to correct this disastrous first trip.

She was good with it, and handled it well.

Her only view of the butterflies was thru 2 barricades and 2 sets of double doors:

Fortunately the WAP has a water feature!

Tella ran around saying "wow wow wow", see her little lips?

Notice the cute capri khaki's?

Yeah, we lost those at the park. Took 'em off to dry and poof! they're gone.

Her little perch, which she battled other babies to maintain.

She was victorious.

My little pantsless wild man:

Capri met a new friend:

We were there for a good couple of hours and I was really tiring out...

but just before we left we did have time for a "Chipmunk Show".

They sang the Christmas song from the Alvin & the Chipmunk movie.

It was hilarious.

Think I'm crazy for braving a theme park alone with three small wild ones?

I wouldn't have, except for this nifty contraption given to me by a friend:

Limitless possibilities with this bad boy.

Not sure why this is underlined but I don't care at this point.

The bottom line is this...... LESSON LEARNED!

CHECK THE DETAILS.

Spring has sprung

We're excited for spring.... and we've begun the preparations.

We're planting flowers,

getting out our sun hats,

and sunglasses,

and are learning to stop sucking our thumb! Which really has nothing to do with spring. I'm going with it though. It's springtime, and it's also stop-sucking-thumb-time.

I got creative and put a glove on her hand when she sleeps and it's working really well. She isn't complaining, she wants to stop too. I've already completely removed her "blankie".

The incentive? The new Strawberry Shortcake swimming pool set for her dolls. She's all about the strawberry shortcake stuff right now.

We're so close to kicking this habit, and I'm kinda sad to see it go. She's so cute when she has her blankie and thumb. But she's a BIG girl now, time to stop. And, it doesn't diminish her cuteness one bit!

Other spring items we're taking part in?

Springtime colds and allergies. Great. Hooray for this one.

Spring Cleaning. Boo. But boy does it need to be done.

Spring wardrobe! LOVE this one. Just did a little shopping yesterday at Old Navy and am considering going again. I have this nifty little 30 % off coupon that lasts all weekend and I can use it at Gap and Old Navy as many times as I want!

Hooray for Spring!

You're going to Hollywood!

James and I got to be judges this past friday. No, not for american idol. Duh! For the Speech and Debate Tournament at Pt.Loma Nazarene of course! But wouldn't it have been cool if we got to send them to Hollywood? Ha ha!

What qualifies us to be speech and debate judges you ask? Nothing. Apparently James used to do it when he was little, but I have ZERO experience. Turns out you don't need experience to be a "community judge". A kid from our church asked James to do it, and James -the good guy that he is- was going to do it. Then he discovered that if he did it for 2 non-consecutive sessions that he could get a free Disneyland ticket. So, he signed up and got me in on it too. I'll be honest, my main motivation was the ticket. But James, it should be said again, was going to do it anyway, without the reward. That's just the kind of guy he is. A REAL GOOD one!

Here he is all judge-y looking!

It was sooo much fun, in my opinion! I was blown away at the ability of these kids. Especially at their knowledege of the Bible, and making life applications. Now, these were homeschool Christian kids (most of them). It seemed to me like a alternate universe (in a great way). I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I felt at times guilty because you have to score them and give them places... and I had ZERO frame of reference for what I was doing. But still, it was great. These are dedicated people..... they do it every weekend, and practice all the time. And, it shows. I really did enjoy it, and for a moment it made me think I was the "homeschool" type too. Truth is, I'm really not. But, I knew that already. Do I use too many comma's?

P.s. there was lots and lots of free food that was really good. And a coffee bar complete with syrups, and chocolate shavings. That was a bonus!

Me showing James how to model in front of the scenery. PLNU is a beautiful school right on the water....

No comment!

This was this morning. In full St. Pat's gear for our celebration at my mom's after church.

My arch nemesis:

The giant red velvet cupcake. Or, in this case, the hot pink velvet cupcake. This particular one has blue vanilla frosting. I had two others in the box with cream cheese frosting. My lovely husband brought these home from church, as a gift from one of the high schoolers who apparently owns a bakery. WOW. What a nice surprise. I kind of feel like I'm cheating on Sugar Rush. I'm not, I promise. These things were calling to me from the fridge, they're gone now... good thing. Here were are on thursday night, and I'm still thinking about them. Anyway, here were some other happy recipients:

Does she look like Cindy Lou Who?

ooh can you see our St. Patty's stuff in the window? We're all about window decorating!

I know the title of this post is Arch Nemesis.... the following does not fall under that title. This part should be called "the last ballet class" or more appropriately "the greatest stress of Capri's life" or "if looks could kill".

Capri has loved this new ballet class. Even the teacher, who I really struggled with. Yesterday was the last class of the session, and much to Capri's dismay the teacher mixed it up and they did some "new" stuff. They danced new dances to new songs, holding bears (!), and the class was frequently put on hold for parents to take pictures.... because it's strictly forbidden to take pictures any other time. No, I did not obey this rule. I often have problems with rules. Yes, I'm working on it so that my kids don't pick up this habit. Well, let's be honest some rules are silly.

Anyway. Mixing things up really messed with Capri. She tried so hard to "work-in" and go with the flow. But, by the end the stress proved too much.
Here is the beginning, trying to go with the flow:

Here is one of the "pauses" in the class, where it began to spiral downward.

And, this is where it began to get really bad. I couldn't capture the really bad ones because I was either video-ing (for proof) or trying to get her to stop. She gave me the nastiest looks, kept telling me to "shush" (with the shushing finger in place), and also tried to rip her ballet leotard on several occasions. It was just more than she could take. When I asked her what went wrong, she said she was scared. Poor girl. Wish I could say I was immediately understanding and helped her work through it. I didn't. First I was understanding, then I was annoyed, then I was hurt that she was being so nasty, then I yelled at her for being mean to me, then I apologized and tried to understand what happened. Again, wish I could've skipped all those middle steps and just remembered how sensitive and deep Capri is. She won't remember that when she's 20 right? Hope not.

A new session starts in two weeks, and this time there is a recital. I am really wavering back and forth as to whether or not we should put her in. There are two other ballet options that don't include a recital... and I think that might be a better option. I don't know! Maybe Ice skating is the answer!