Does it get any better?

Thought I'd take a rest from packing up my house and share how awesome my job is--being a mom.  Yesterday after the boys were at preschool and kindergarten, I took Macy with me to the salon to get my haircut fixed.  (It turned out good--more fun with some layers, etc.)  She is awesome to take anywhere and always so good.  She just sat in one of the other captain chairs and looked at her book and watched my stylist.  When we got home, I planted myself on some pillows on the carpet in front of the clean laundry pile and invited her to help me fold the clothes (her favorite job.)  She helped for a minute, then she disappeared and came back with my hairbrush.  For the next half hour or so she stood behind me and brushed my hair and pretended to be the stylist, telling me that I was a beautiful princess with beautiful "new" hair, and that she was getting me ready for my date with Prince Mark.
Seriously folks, does it get any better than that?  Scalp massage and hilarious affirmations while you work?  For free?  Perfect afternoon.

Bull in the China Shop

The other day (as most days) Boston woke up in his high-energy, wound up mood.  After putting up with a few hours of him bouncing off the walls and being more physical than I would have liked with everyone in his path (yes, there were tears from Cooper and Macy), I sat him down and tried to discuss with him the meaning of a well-known phrase, to give him something to think about before he inflicted such behavior upon his kindergarten class later that day.
"Boston," I said, "Have you ever heard anyone talk about a bull in a china shop?"
He hadn't, but was intrigued by the idea, so I tried to explain to him what it meant, and asked him to settle down or go outside.
The rest of the morning he pretended to be a bull.
Sigh.

To tell a slightly punny story along with that, this morning he told me that his bum was from China.
Ok...
He can read well enough now that he figured out what the sticker said that he had inadvertently sat on, and he thought the whole "Made in China" concept was pretty hilarious.
He then proceeded to entertain us at the breakfast table with his new kung fu moves, choreographed on the spot, his backside leading the action.

Macy is enjoying her last few months of being the baby of the family.  Every morning she comes and climbs into bed with Mark and I, cuddling me and playing guessing games with Mark.  She also gets upset if she doesn't get to "help" me get dressed in the morning, mostly because she hates getting locked out.  This morning I was tying the sash on one of the few "regular" dresses I can still squeeze into.  She was fascinated and wanted to try, so I let her put a few extra knots and twists into the strings.  When she was finished, she stepped back to admire her work. 
"Oh, you look SO beautiful."  Then, turning to Mark who was standing beside me, "NOW you can kiss her, Daddy!"

Of course he did.
This week we celebrated our 13th anniversary.  We had a lovely time trying out a French pastry shop downtown and then touring the International Art Competition exhibit (only comes every three years!) at the Church History Museum.  It was fun to hear his smart mouth reaction on some of the more modern, out-there stuff and also to agree on which pictures we liked the best.  He doesn't usually let me drag him to stuff like that, but I think this was pretty fun for both of us.
Of course, he does have a pretty creative streak himself.
We decided to have a little bit of fun and not take ourselves to seriously over the unromantic number 13, so although he brought me flowers, he also got me something else I had been wanting for our home storage.  The card he wrote me went something like this. 
What should I give to my queen of 13 years?  A crown?  Jewels?  Or a new throne?
He got me an portable toilet seat from Emergency Essentials.  Snaps on to a 5 gallon bucket.
It's a good thing I had already requested one (as he was WELL aware) or he never would have dared.
He said he also wants to get us a sun oven when they are on sale in a few weeks, and I'm pretty excited about that, too.
I guess you could say that my anniversary presents catch both types of sunshine.

Green Eggs and Fam

I'm all about creative+easy (as in REALLY, REALLY easy) for parties.  Yes, the green eggs and ham were awesome with our Easter Feast.

We had an extra long spring break, due to the kids being "off track" for four? weeks in this goofy year-round school system.  March is a slightly boring time to be out of school because the weather isn't particularly nice.  Luckily, it was nice enough for the boys to play outside several days.  One sunny Friday I finally decided to suck it up and take them somewhere fun, first trimester headache or not.  We started with a great picnic at a nice playground they had never been to, then we went to the Living Planet Aquarium.  We have only been once before, with Grandma Frances, a couple of years ago, so Macy was too little and Cooper didn't remember anyway.  It was great.  Boston was so excited he could hardly finish his sentences.  He would start remarking on an exhibit and then shriek, "Mom!  Look at this!!" and dart to the next tank.

The coolest attraction is the long, shallow sting ray pool (sting barbs removed) where you are free to pet the sting rays.  Macy couldn't quite reach without help, but Boston and Leslie would have done this all day.

Dude.  I liked the sea turtle best.

Cooper liked the sharks the best.  (They weren't very big.)  The boys frequently get shark books from the library.

Leslie was very glad to get out of the house.  She had a great time.

They are watching the penguins jump off the rocks and swim super fast.  This was another really cool exhibit.  You can see the white belly of one in this shot.

My four penguins.

I was glad for Macy to get to see a real tarantula up close.  She claims that every spider she finds in our house is a tarantula.  Now, not so much.  (The tarantula blends in on this picture, sorry.)

Macy wanted to help me make brownies.  This is kind of her Michael Jordan slam-dunk face, without the tongue.  Stirring takes muscles!

The Marks brothers (my nephews) down to visit on Spencer's big BYU acceptance tour.  Go Cougs!

The Relief Society hosted their second annual Mother Daughter tea party.  Macy was excited to get to come this year...until she found out the boys were going to a playground and then out for ice cream.

This is Macy's every-single-day mess.  It doesn't matter how often I put the books back on the shelf, they are all on the floor by the next morning.  And she has a lot of them!  We need some sort of book retrieval belt like they use at the swanky libraries.

We were greeted by these three stooges one morning.  They are sad to put the winter jammies away.

Our great friends Jay and Elsje hosted an Easter Egg Roll, kind of a spring extravaganza modeled after the Egg Roll at the White House that they attended a few years ago.  Macy was reluctant to hunt the eggs (bawling) but she figured it out soon enough.

Cooper went for the tough ones.  All the kids got lots of candy (with none of that rock hard bubble gum we got when I was a kid...)

I haven't told Elsje yet, but the best part of her Egg Roll  party was the layout of activities.  It was completely brilliant (yet diabolical) to put the strings outlining the actual egg-roll tracks DIRECTLY in front of the starting tape for the egg hunt.  I think they did it on purpose just to amuse the parents.  I mean, really, what is funnier than watching someone else's kid trip and face-plant on the innocent-looking string booby-traps when they try to jump the gun on the egg hunt?  I about died trying to stifle laughter (because what if I was standing next to the mom of the kids that tripped?)  All I can say is, priceless.  Of course, none of mine tripped.  1.  I carried Macy myself because she was bawling.  2.  My other kids learned from the mistakes of others and carefully stepped between the trip lines, as you can see Boston doing here. 3.  Pretty sure no one was seriously injured, so I am expecting the same level of entertainment next year, Elsh.

Leslie was quite relieved that the egg hunt included a category for ages 8-12.

Macy shovels her egg out of bounds (for a minute) in the egg roll.  These are the notorious trip lines, in case you were wondering.

Leslie (center) takes a shot at the egg roll.

Cooper was pretty serious about this.  I think he won his heat.

Macy, who cried about hunting for candy, wanted to go right up and meet this giant panda.  I think she should have shared some of her candy with him.  I asked Elsje if the panda was an intentional pun on her "eggroll" party.

Another fun event was the kids' obstacle course race.  At this point, Boston was winning.  He is crawling under a bungee cord that you can't really see in the picture.  Cooper didn't really see it, either; on his way back through the course he totally clotheslined himself across the neck.  I think I actually brought this on by laughing at the kids who tripped during the egg hunt.  Sorry Coop!

After church, Easter Sunday.  Leslie is wearing the only white flats for a size 9 1/2 that we could find in a five stores.  (Actually, she wears an 8 1/2, but these small for the size, and still the only ones we could find.)

I'm waiting for Cooper and Macy to grown out of the Grandma LaVonne (and Scott Haynes) picture taking curse.  Their eyes are closed, or mouth is open, or they are goofing around.

Macy, Jackie, Leslie.  I guess I should have taken one of Mark and the boys, but we were ready for lunch.

Sink or Swim

Leslie is upstairs weeping bitterly.
She is on break from school and so I have tried to give her interesting jobs/projects to do.  This morning I had a flash of brilliance and remembered that I had purchased the crab meat to make the crab salad that the kids have been begging for.  Not feeling like cooking lunch, I told her she could make the crab salad herself.  (To her credit, Leslie does have a lot of experience in the kitchen, she is great at cakes and cookies, etc.) She was pretty excited because it is one of her favorite foods.  I should have known we were in a little trouble when she asked me how high to turn the stove to cook the noodles, not having first boiled the water before she put the noodles in.  Unfortunately, my crab salad "recipe" is mostly just a list of ingredients, no directions at all.  NOT good for beginning cooks.  I figured it would be pretty hard to mess up, though, it's not a souffle or an angel food cake or something.  I tried to add more parental direction and participation, still allowing her to do the "hard" stuff like chopping the celery, etc.
The problem arose over trying to determine what a "scoop" of Miracle Whip would amount to. 
Also the noodles were a bit soggy.
Anyway, I thought it looked fine, but she took one bite, made a face, and said that there was WAY too much sauce, she couldn't even taste the crab, and she had just spent a whole hour wasting her time, and she had really been looking forward to crab salad.
She did eat a whole bowl full, reluctantly.  I was just gearing up, trying to set aside my pregnancy nausea and try some, when she set down her fork and wrathfully declared, "I am going to BRUSH MY TEETH!!" 
As I burst into laughter, she stomped off to the bathroom, brushed that foul flavor from her mouth, then collapsed on her bed in tears.
I tried some.  It was totally fine.  Mark will gobble it up when he gets home, and he will probably be happy to have it all to himself.
I think she may have just grossed herself out watching how much Miracle Whip went into it, because that is not one of her favorite ingredients.  And maybe being 11 has something to do with the tears?

I tried to share some cooking disaster stories with her, like the time I baked the plastic wrap onto the spinach pie, but I don't think it helped.

She has had kind of a long week.  She was cast as the featherduster/French maid in the school musical, Beauty and the Beast, and they did four performances, finally finishing up last night.  My favorite was when I put her makeup on for the first time and she couldn't stop grinning at herself in the mirror, ringlets and all.   She did say that she thought the glasses ruined the effect a little, but I said, "only a little."  We took the whole family to the play and the kids were very good, even though they had to kneel (or in Macy's case, stand) on their chairs to be able to see.  She did a great job with her lines and the singing and I thought it was particularly darling and appropriate that Lumiere the candlestick, playing opposite Leslie, ALSO had glasses.  She enjoyed playing hard-to-get.  Mark claims he did not enjoy watching his daughter get chased by a boy.  The kids liked it the best when she chased off the three village girls out of the castle with her duster.

I couldn't get a picture with the feather skirt because that part stayed at the school, and it was already off (with a modest replacement, provided by her mother ) before the end of the play.  And, as you will see, we couldn't get very close for  stage shots.  Luckily they made a video.

Leslie and Lumiere, at the castle.  They are watching someone on the other side of the stage.

Be our GUEST!  This was quite a number.  I admit I sang along a little until the lady in front of me seemed a bit bothered.  Leslie is seated between the 4th and 5th plate.

Captive audience.  Boston is on my other side.

I meant to post earlier this week about Boston, so I'll just tack it on the end here.  It was Boston's turn to do the Family Home Evening lesson.  He loves stuff like that (it's almost like being in charge) and was busily preparing something all afternoon, making notes, lists, and tallies that I later found all over the basement.  I was aware that it involved water, but he promised me he would be careful and not make a mess.  I also knew the lesson was probably about Noah and the Ark because he had accidentally dumped out my huge box of scripture pictures looking for the Noah picture.  So, I was prepared.  But I still had to laugh when I heard the very first line of his lesson.

He had a big tupperware storage box filled with water on top of a towel, and also a bunch of toys.  He told his helper to pick a toy and drop it in.  Macy chose a little toy soldier, dropped it in, and it sunk right to the bottom.  The lesson begins with Boston sagely proclaiming, "That's what happens to the wicked ones."
We proceeded to take turns dropping toys into the tank, sometimes being congratulated for our righteousness if the toy floated.

At some point I reminded him to use his Noah picture and tell the story about the Ark, because both Mark and I were dying trying to hold back the hilarity, especially since our FHE had turned into some kind of backwards witch trial.  A little different than that though, because back then, it was only the innocent ones that would sink and drown.  Apparently witches float like corks.

Jealous cake

Macy turned three but she still gets a little bit annoyed if I call her a big girl.  (She likes being the baby.)  I asked her what would happen when the new baby came, and she conceded that she will just be the baby until the new one comes, then it can be the baby.

She had three days of birthday.  Grandpa and Grandma Day came over the day before and had dinner with us.  (Macy was a little nervous that night because she wondered why we had forgotten the cake.  I told her it wasn't quite her birthday yet.)  On her actual birthday we went swimming and Mark decided kind of last minute that he wanted to take the family to Chuck-a-Rama for dinner.  That was really fun except Macy drank too much pop and felt kind of sick for a while.  We put the kids to bed as soon as we got home; they were exhausted and it was daylight savings anyway.  After everyone was snug in their beds, I remembered to check on the poor forgotten birthday cake.  I had baked it, taken the layers out of the pan, and then popped them under a dome so they wouldn't dry out while we were swimming since I hadn't had time to make Macy's purple frosting, as requested.  Well, apparently the cake got jealous of all that dessert at Chuck-a-Rama and decided to jump off a building or something while we were gone, because this is what it looked like.

Jealous Cake.  It looked slightly better after I removed the broken layer and frosted it purple.  

Macy said all she wanted for her birthday was a hippopotamus and a puppy.  I told her this can be her big-sister puppet.

She felt like princess for a day.  This dress is getting WAY too small.

I think Boston was more excited about her birthday than she was.  He kept grabbing the presents out of the sack "for her".

Well, I've got more pictures I wanted to show off, but for some reason it's not uploading right today, so I might post them later.  Enough hassle for one day.