Zoo Day

On Monday, day 2 of having a couple cousins with us, we went to the zoo.  I figured everyone was tired from traveling and excitement, so the best way to deal with that was to cram as much activity into our time as I could.  I think I succeeded.  :)

Easter

It was pretty darn fun to have some family here for Easter.  My mom always made such a big deal of the holidays - the house was decorated, tons of people came over, she made lots of food, it always felt so special.  Holidays as a family of 4 with no cousins, no grandparents, no aunts, no uncles, while fun are just not the same.  I try to make them special for my kids, but Royal really doesn't care that much about what I do, and well it's just not very fun to put on a big production for myself.  So, while I try and do fun and special things for the kids, and I really believe they enjoy it, which is really the point, I always feel like we (or maybe just me) are missing out.

We went to church that morning and celebrated with our church family the most important day of the entire year!  And then the kids walked/ran home with Royal.

They got home and out of their Easter clothes so fast these were the only pictures I had of them all dressed up and looking cute!

Willow yelling that the boys won't let her catch up.

Easter Egg Hunt!

Royal releasing them out into the backyard.

I found the boys here later that afternoon.

That afternoon we went to give my mom and the boys a tour of "Royal's" coliseum.  It has a full sized plane in it right now being tested which is really fun to see, plus all of Royal's other testing equipment.  The boys had lots of questions and Royal pretty much had all the answers including, "Yes, we do test plane crashes to see what will happen, we drop them from the ceiling.  No, we can't do that right now, it's a one-and-done kind of test."  Sadly, I can't post any pictures of the interesting stuff at the coliseum, proprietary information and all that.  You will just have to come visit for yourself and get a personal tour too.  :)  But I can post pictures from the workout center Royal had put in!

Then we came home and finished making Easter dinner.  Well, my mom did really.  I was starting to come down with a cold - of course I was, I signed up for a half marathon and it was 2 weeks away so my body automatically gets sick. :)

Jayden's Big Surprise

Back in March, when we had just come back from our snowboarding/skiing trip to Colorado, Jayden said that all he wanted for his birthday was to go snowboarding again.  Jayden has only once asked to have a birthday party thrown for him, most of the time he just wants to go do something - spending the weekend at Great Wolf Lodge has been his favorite choice, so it wasn't a big surprise to me for him to choose a snowboarding trip over having a party with his friends.  Royal and I said we'd look into it and see if we could swing it and if there would even be snow around.  Then Jayden said, "Well, my other choice is to fly to Washington and be with my cousins."  The snowboarding trip was way more feasible than flying to Washington with kids in school and work and life and everything, so while we were returning some rented snowboarding equipment, Royal went over to the trip desk to inquire about maybe doing one more trip for Jayden's birthday.  When Jayden saw what he was doing and that snowboarding might actually happen, he started crying, told me that he didn't want to go snowboarding he only wanted to go to Washington, and then walked out of the store and sat in the truck.   Sad....

Royal was really excited about the idea of going snowboarding again this year, but I used my awesome negotiating skills (a.k.a begging, pleading, and whining) to use that money to buy plane tickets for the cousins to be flown out here for Jayden's birthday.  Granted, I would of loved to go skiing again, but just the thought of how excited Jayden would be if I could pull off this surprise made me more excited for him than for me to spend another couple days on the slopes.  It took a bit, but Royal finally caved and then I had to convince my sister to release 2 of her kids to me.  Kids that haven't been away from her for more than 2 nights their whole lives and would have to fly on an airplane.  Thankfully my mom already had a plane ticket to come out during this time, so I was able to get Brendan and Wyatt tickets on her exact flights.  Perfect!  Now, it was just a waiting game to see if we could actually keep it a secret.  I almost blew it so many times, Kaylee and I would try and talk about it on the phone and we'd have to stop because I'd see Jayden looking at me.  Brendan and Wyatt would Facetime with Jayden, and all Jayden would be talking about is how much he misses them and wishes he could come to Washington to see them.  It. Was. Torturous.  But we managed to keep it totally secret and the actual arrival of the cousins was epic!

Waiting for Nana to arrive was hardly more than my kids could stand...if they only knew....

 

The saddest part of the video, for me, is when Willow says, "Where's Easton?"  We definitely missed what she has claimed as "her cousin", Easton and Annabel.  But I also loved once Jayden figured out it wasn't a dream, he runs off yelling, "Guys, come on!"  And it was pretty much running, and yelling, and going a million miles an hour all day from the time they got here to the time they left.

At the Wichita airport, someone walked off with one of the boy's bags, the one full of socks and undies and pajamas, so Nana and I made a quick trip to Target to get some things to last a couple days while the airline tracked their bag down.  I figured since we were there, I'd just get some matching pajamas for everyone!

Since it was the night before Easter, we dyed Easter eggs real fast before we got all 4 kids tucked into bed in Jayden's room.  It was an awesome start to the week!

Jayden the Rattlesnake

Jayden jumped off the bus a couple weeks ago totally excited and shouting, "Mom!!!  YOU have homework!!"  I'm like, "What the???"  Come to find out Jayden's class is creating a class zoo and each student got to pick an animal to research and do a presentation on and then create a costume for.  The costume was MY homework.  Jayden's animal of choice : Rattlesnake.  Rattlesnake? Where in the world do I find an idea for a costume for a rattlesnake.  Pinterest had nothing!  So I was like, "Let's just grab some paper sacks, make you a hole for your head and we'll draw on snake skin."  Jayden thought that was the worst idea he'd ever heard.  Turns out, he already had an elaborate plan for his costume and it needed to go over his head and have fangs and a really long tail that rattled.  Oh, man.......

So I went to the fabric store with Jayden and we found some snake skin material - the colors weren't quite right, as the fabric was "python" and not "rattlesnake", but I told Jayden he couldn't be THAT picky, the material looked like snake.  :)   And then I found an old hooded sweatshirt in my closet, cut the arms of it off, traced a pattern for it and sewed the snake skin material right over the top of the hoodie.

And created a 3ft long tail that I then stuffed and sewed onto the bottom of the sweatshirt, but not before putting a toilet paper roll filled with Mardi Gras beads in the tip of the tail for the rattle.

Sewed on some eyes, stuffed some fangs and voila! 8-10 hours later we have a snake costume that Jayden approved of!

I think it looks a little more lizard like than snake, but I'm not telling him that!

The class zoo was super cute and everybody had memorized a script about their animal, so you walked from animal to animal and they told you all about what they were dressed up as.

Sun and Snow

This past weekend, we got a taste of summer.  80 degrees (with stupid winds), but it was hot and sunny.  Royal and I did more "fixing up the yard" projects.  We put down more landscaping bricks and then I convinced, forced Royal to expand our flower bed and rip out a bunch of grass.  He was not really pleased with me, but I'm not really sure what else he thought he was going to be doing all day.  :)  I had asked earlier if he had anything that he wanted to get done during the weekend and he said, "No".  Big mistake for him as it turned out.  :)

It was hot and the kids had their first water fight of the season.  I filled up a big garbage can with water for their refilling station, but they turned it into a pool. :)

And after our fantastic summer day on Saturday, Sunday brought a thunderstorm that cooled us off from 75 to about 50 degrees in 15 minutes, then that night, it snowed and we woke up Monday morning to this.

Kansas Spring Schizophrenic Weather Strikes Again.
The End. ( Please can I move somewhere else???? :) )