this could take all day

Project 365 (+1) - April 2012

April. Whew. What a month. Being a busy full-time mom, with 3 little kiddos is quite the challenge. Let's just leave it at that for now and move on with some pictures. First, the family shot. Yup, you've seen this one already. But seriously, how sweet is my family? And how lovely are we in yellow?

Now onto the dailies...

Sunday afternoon nap. 

A little overachiever, trying to hold her own bottle already. (Or, she just lucked out. Take your pick.)

My phone was turning off on its own all the time without me knowing, so my sweet tech-loving husband ordered me a new phone and got it all set up for me. Here is the first picture from the new phone. (cell pic, duh)

I have a piano!!! I have a piano!!! I have a piano!!! (Did you know an anonymous friend paid to have it tuned for us? Every time I think of this, or sit down to play, my heart swells with thankfulness. I am so blessed.)

More blessings. My best friend really does know how to speak my love language. A little package in the mail, and she even opened the peeps so they'd be perfectly stale upon arrival.

Time to color some Easter eggs!

Super star egg hunters.

Two adorable sisers, one lovely celebration of a Risen Savior.

Dani spent the morning painting while Daisy was at school. So, of course, Daisy wanted a turn when she got home. Here is the "monster" she painted for her Papa.

Yup, this is how we roll to the park: dress, boots, random bow, coat, and wings. And she wanted to bring the bucket too. Good thing, because it became a trash bucket for all the random litter the girls love to pick up. (cell pic)

Heard laughing, got suspicious. Turns out the girls found a ribbon and decided to "decorate" their sister. Can you tell she's a little suspicious too?

Face paint. Makes kids really happy. And then really sad. Good thing the camera can capture it forever.

And this is how the mama and baby roll to the park. She and I both love the sling, and I love that adorable hat a Mops Mom crocheted for us. (cell pic)

I was away on a 4-H weekend and Darin woke up that morning with a hankering for adventure. So he posted on facebook that he was planning to take the girls to the beach, and asked if anyone wanted to join them. Turns out a friend from Shoreline had been planning a little ferry trip with her family for the day. So Darin & the girls drove out to Bainbridge and our friends met them at the beach for picnic and playing.

Isn't the internet so cool sometimes?

Still makes fists all the time, but has started to coo. Is there any sweeter sound than a baby cooing?

Looked what arrived today! 

Dandylion bouquets keep showing up all over the house.

Darin and the girls planted a few tulip bulbs for me, and I love watching them bloom this spring.

We finally dug this out of the garage since it contains the only sheet music I've saved over the years. Turns out there are a lot of special treasures in this trunk. I think we'll tuck it away and dig it out again to go through some rainy winter day.

I love after nap rosy cheeks. And I love this girl, and the way she gives me camera the sweetest smiles.

Such a fun day! Went to a "retreat" of sorts for Mops, and since we were done early in the afternoon, the day was amazing, and we were all without kiddos, we decided to go play mini golf. We all had a great time, and since I was the big winner (with two hole-in-ones!) I got to pick where we headed out to eat dinner. (cell pic)

Stumbled upon this scene on Sunday morning. Love capturing moments like this.

We had beautiful spring weather today! Even warm enough to get out the water table! The girls and I had a wonderful afternoon in the backyard.

Baby L has started to smile! I was trying to capture it with my camera, but she isn't quite as good at smiling for the big black box as she is for my face.

The girls love to have themselves traced on paper to color and decorate.

Since Daisy has a "summer" birthday, she was assigned birthday snacks in April. She requested chocolate cupcakes with strawberry frosting. I decided to make cupcakes from scratch, but gave myself some leniency and bought strawberry frosting in a can. The cupcakes were awesome, the frosting not so much. Turns out I should've made frosting too and just tinted it pink.

Oh well, the girls had a lovely time decorating with sprinkles.

This baby doll of Gran's has always cracked me up because it feels so huge when it comes to baby dolls. But I knew it was about the size of a normal baby. Turns out I was right! (cell pic)

Our last hurrah at Gran's house, the childhood home of Darin and his siblings, as she is moving and selling. We had a really nice day, and were able to capture some great family pictures outside one last time.

It was really hard for Darin to say goodbye, and really hard for Daisy too. I had no idea she'd have the kind of meltdown she did in the hours before our departure. Broke all of our hearts. We're all gonna miss this place.

My first Instagram Photo-of-the-Day thanks to Darin's fancy phone! I got my bumber sticker and I'm all ready to go.

Our microwave died. It was sad. Darin got us a new one. But Dani wandered into the kitchen after he pulled it out and gasped "Papa, where did the timer go?" (Can you tell what we use for a timeout timer around here?)

April down...onto May...

my girls on Easter

I wanted to get a picture of the family on Easter, what with how cute we were looking  (I'd actually changed into my outfit after church, since the musical I was participating in included "Biblical" costumes) and my goal of a family-photo-a-month. So after Easter lunch and before lollipops, we headed out to the backyard and I talked our friends into taking a couple of pictures for me.

I'm really happy with this one of the 5 (5!) of us.

And before I let the girls loose , I grabbed my camera back and told them they had to smile for me (well, at least the bigs, Leyla was a bit fussy).

A little hugging, a few of Papa's silly faces, and I am in love with these gems.

And with these girls.

a sweet little butterfly

Darin had to work late, and there was a free kids event at the fairgrounds, just up the road from our house. So after nap I loaded up 3 (yikes! 3!) girls into and the van and we headed out. I was excited for some free afternoon entertainment, and honestly hoping there would be hot dogs or something for sale so I wouldn't have to make dinner. We lucked out on the first part, but not the second. (Oh well, cereal is a great dinner when Papa's gone.)

There were lots of fun booths with games to check out, some elementary school choirs, and face painting! Dani was not into face painting, but Daisy was. Several of the county princesses were dressed as Disney princesses to paint faces. We were told to stand in the line of our favorite princess, but after a little nudging Daisy decided her favorite princess was Tiana, who happened to have the shortest line!

Most of the kids were getting elaborate designs, but my sweet girl just wanted a small butterfly on her cheek. Here are a few pictures from my phone. 

The rest of the evening I was careful to warn Daisy that her butterfly would wash off in the bath. Is there anything more tragic to a little girl then her special face paint washing off? It was hard. To ease the pain a little we took a few pictures just before bathtime.

Man, I love this kid.

Happy Mother's Day!

It was a very busy and sunny and fulfilling weekend. I am so thankful for my family and for friends and for fun adventures.

And I am so thankful for these three little girls. Mom asked me recently for a picture of the three of them, but I didn't have one! Thankfully just a few days later we were hanging out in the nursery and I was able to grab my camera and snag a few. With the natural light from the window and the tungsten light from the bulb, and the many-colored outfits the girls were wearing, I couldn't figure out how to edit the color correctly. Thankfully, a little black and white conversion always does the trick!

So Gran, Gram, Momma Too, and all those Aunties...thanks for loving me and loving my ladies too. 

 

 

Wordless Wednesday: green eyed girl

(I love when her Papa wears green as it brings out his green eyes even more. Turns out it is true of his progeny as well.)

 

planting jelly beans

We were planning to have Easter lunch over at our friend's house and they called us Saturday afternoon to have us bring the kids over that evening. They had made the decision to forego Easter Baskets this year in favor of a delivery of "magic jelly beans" from the bunny. We were going to plant them that evening and see what would happen on Easter...

Excited kids!

Dani couldn't come as she had misbehaved that night, so Daisy planted a bean for her.

And look what popped up overnight!

Yipee!

Only problem: The kids wanted to know which lollipop came from which bean, and of course we had no idea! So we gave up and just told them to pick one.

They were all happy to sit at the kitchen table for quite a while, licking away. Dani was cracking all of us up with her huge stick.

Thanks for including us in this fun new tradition guys!

Easter Egg Hunt #2

Our church was hosting a big Easter Bash which included a 5k run, booths, live music, lunch, bouncy houses, and a MASSIVE egg hunt. Pastor Shelly told us there were at least 12,000 eggs scattered throughout the property. Oh my.

Darin took Dani this time to her age group and this was the only photo he snapped.

Luckily we have a pretty photogenic kid and I was able to snag a couple of pictures someone posted to the church facebook page!

Darin did shoot a video of the event in which he proved just how easily distracted he is, and how just how scary of a soccer dad he could be.

I was over in Daisy's area with her. Here Pastor Shelly is giving out instructions (Another facebook steal, since I only had the mini flip camera.)

A lot of families came out to participate. A little help to spot Daisy.

And they're off!

By this time Darin and Dani had finished up her hunt and wandered over to find Daisy who had spotted a corner without kids and cleaned up.

See all those eggs? I think she had nearly 50.

Dani "cheering" on her sister.

After the hunt the girls were eager to play on the playground and it was such a nice day we hung out for a bit. Then headed home to indulge in all that candy! (I'm pretty sure we got way more on this holiday then we did on Halloween!)

Easter Egg Hunt #1

Our sweet little neighborhood hosts an annual Easter Egg Hunt the Saturday morning before Easter and we all were excited to participate again. (As it is with traditions, I read over last year's post and it is filled with some of the exact stories and wording as below. Good times...)

Just a few "blocks" through the greenbelt trail to the park for our hunt. Here's the girls. (I had to head back as soon as we arrived because *doh* the camera was out of batteries. Good thing we live so close!)

Daisy had spent the morning working on a picture to give to the Easter Bunny. She was pretty proud of it.

Dani, on the other hand, is not such a fan of the bunny. (As you can see her hiding here in this fuzzy picture and the video too.)

 

After the egg hunt announcements we split up with Darin heading to the 3-4 area with Daisy and me sticking with Dani in the 0-2 area.

I gave Darin the big camera since I was lugging around a happily snoozing Leyla and so my footage of the hunt is from the flip camera.

Here she is, ready to get some eggs!

And let the hunt begin! It totally cracked me up how she would run across perfectly good eggs to get to one farther away.

The one shot of Daisy from her hunt. Apparently Darin didn't get the memo that he was supposed to take pictures, because what he came up with was a really distracted video with some crazy moms yelling at their kids. Oh well, Daisy was a champ at the egg hunt.

 

This kid rocked it! Taking first place in her age category (it helps that she is at the older end of the span) and super proud of her hard work.

Joined with her sister, who took second place in her category (once again on the older side of her age group).  The girls each got to pick out a prize, in addition to all the treats in the eggs.

Before heading home we walked through Daisy's egg area and found another good 15-20 eggs. Turns out whoever hid them decided around a giant holly bush would be a great place. Poor Daisy during the hunt was dying "I can see them, but I can't reach them!" Thanks to her Papa, she was able to round up even more eggs!

And when we got home to feed the baby and pack up for our next adventure, the girls dumped out all the eggs. Daisy was cracking us up with her system so Darin took another video.

And then we were off to church for Egg Hunt #2!

 

Wordless Wednesday: another awesome post-nap do

(and the glazed look of the TV watching too)

Easter Egg Dying

I'm finally getting around to editing our Easter week pictures, so now time to blog! First up: egg dying.

I have to say, this potentially messy and finger-staining activity is not high on my love list. So I made sure we attempted when Darin was home. The girls loved dying and painting the eggs, and I was happy to take pictures and minimally help.

After the eggs dried, and Darin left for work, the girls were allowed to decorate with another kit I had purchased last year that included stickers and glue and eyes and pom poms.

Daisy's favorite egg:

And Dani's: 

 And with that, I can cross another tradition off the list for this year!