Sleep

Here are two new pictures. Thanks Becca! Too wore out Easter weekend. We were just about to dye Easter eggs too!
AlyssaBrandon
As I lay in bed last night I started to think (I do my best thinking at night my mind sometimes doesn't stop) of my children's sleep habits. And this morning after thinking about this, it happened.
I don't know if any one else has kids that do this but mine are difficult when it comes sleep. We can put them to bed at 6:30-7:00 pm, and they will wake up right around 6:00-6:30 am. We can put them to bed at 10:00 pm and they will still wake up around 6:30.
Well, Last night Justin put them to bed at 8:00 and they were up at 5:30 AM!!! What is up with that? Not to mention all of the times in the middle of the night to get up to go potty and then wonder into our room and try to snuggle up in bed right next to us. My wonderful husband did get up and get them breakfast, even though it wasn't his happiest moment. I did get to sleep in a little past that and I am thankful for that because It's one of those splitting headache mornings. Thanks Justin.
And then we have moments of crankiness and fighting and crying all day long. Then late in the day when it is past nap times we end up with this....
and this
This is a picture of Hayden in nursery one Sunday when I went to pick him up. he climbed up in that chair himself and fell asleep. At least he went.
and this...

and this....
Hayden is really my best sleeper he always has been. It's just the problem of sharing a room with an older brother who can't sleep and he gets woken up. Poor kid. I am looking forward to the day when they can just entertain themselves in the morning and get there own breakfast. And our Saturday mornings won't have to start before the sun is up.
Until then, I guess we will just be sleep deprived parents. So if I look tired to you, I probably really am.

Random things from this past week

I have three posts because I have slacked off this past week and just haven't been in the mood to post anything. It was kind of a crazy week. Monday night was Brandon's Tball, Tues.- Justin's school, Wed- Lisa has YW's. Thurs- Justin school and Fri a test. Sat_ Lisa was gone all evening til late for a Young Women's meeting. So with all of that and Brandon's school and other misc. activities and appointments we had all week. This week will be nice to be a bit slower.
We did receive our letter of acceptance from preschool for Alyssa this next year. The School district is starting a preschool program. We had a screening done by our Parents as Teachers Rep that comes to our house once a month. And then She was submitted and we got in. There are a lot of people who aren't going to be able to be a part of it. There are just way too many kids and the space is too small. I am excited for her to start that. I really wish I had her in preschool this year. I didn't realize how much she needed it. I just can't keep her busy enough. She has a really creative mind and loves to learn and read and create etc... On another subject... Brandon has a good summer school program. It is only for 3 weeks. It is free. And We pick the fun classes he wants to take. It is only about 4 hours a day. they will learn how to do fun art projects and some other fun classes. So I hope we can get him into that.
One big change this past week... Justin is officially working from home now. He had a moving day last Friday and brought everything home from his office in Lebanon and is set up in a room in the basement. It's a long story of how it all happened so if you ask I will tell you about it if you don't already know. I will miss the mornings of having to go to the window with the kids to wave dad off every morning. And Hayden would have to wait until he is completely out of sight and say "There he goes."

These are some pictures I took the other morning. I wish I had of taken these a half hour earlier because the fog was so thick you really couldn't see very far. We see this often around here, and as soon as the sun comes up it seams to evaporate or something. I don't really know the science of it. I just enjoy the way it looks. I have never been in anything like it before. I love these pictures because you can see the beautiful dogwoods blooming which I did not realize how they are everywhere and the other purple flowered trees. Have I said yet that I love spring?
This first picture I just loved how the sun rays were coming through the fog. It really was much better in person.

Friends

Here are just a few friends in the neighborhood. It was such a nice to day to finally go out and play. Everyone was actually out there but I only managed pictures with three friends and the other 7 are missing. It was great to be out there without the bugs and humidity that will soon be here.

Alyssa's Haircut

I decided to give it a try at cutting Alyssa's hair. It had always been easy because it was thin and not much there. Since her last cut it has thickened up and grown so much it was a bit of a challenge. I just had to think about how my stylist does my hair when it is cut and tried it on her. It was fun. I gave her a popsicle and a lollipop and it actually was much faster than cutting the boys hair. So here are the pics. There isn't a huge difference in the style, I did cut off just over 2.5 inches. It is amazing how much nicer it looks.
Before

During

After

After

I have all of these crazy animal pictures and not so many of my family! I will hopefully have more up soon. I still have yet to get pictures of my kids in their Easter clothes! If I ever get a good time that we aren't sick and no rain or long crazy Sunday's etc.. It will happen. So I apologize if you were hoping for more pictures of the kids. We really don't have a whole lot going on right now. We have some upcoming events when school gets out which is only a month away! I can't believe it. Hopefully there will be more exciting things to post about soon.

Animals

Racoon's
Saturday night around 11:00 Justin and I were getting ready to get in bed. Then we both heard banging on the window on the deck. We have been waiting to see our furry friends that have been stealing my suet! Well, They weren't interested in the suet tonight. I had just hung the humming bird feeder. This picture is what Justin saw as he opened the curtain. and right in front of him was this raccoon. It could have cared less that we were right there watching it. It wanted that sugar water! It looked right at Justin face to face several times. How crazy is that! this is the only picture I had of it. It was too hard to get a picture in the dark and my camera kept dying. There were actually two but only got this picture of the one. It's never ending with the animals around here. And I am sure it is all just beginning with Spring and summer on it's way.
Frog
One morning Hayden and I were looking out the window. Something on Brandon's bike caught my eye. This little frog. What a weird place for it. It was there all day, until the kids got home from school at 4 and moved the wheel and made it fall off. It had been pouring all night and very strong winds so I guess it felt secure there?
Artica; Justin's new pet Last week sometime Justin took the kids on an outing to Petco as he does quite often. He came home talking about the cutest hamster he has ever seen. It is all white except a little blackish grey line on it's back. and he said it looks like a little snow ball. So, Saturday he gets Hayden in the car and leaves, doesn't say much of where they were going. A short time later he shows up with the little cardboard pet taxi. He said it is his new office pet. Anyway, He thinks it's just the cutest thing. The kids all love it! And the cats are jealous of it because of the attention. It is super soft and cute. But I myself don't think it is the cutest thing.
Hayden thinks it is soooo funny. He laughs at it in the cage when it runs on it's wheel, when it digs, or cleans itself (which it does very often so it is a very clean animal) and the best was when Justin put it in this ball to run around. Hayden was laughing so hard it was cute. Alyssa could just sit and watch it forever but could never be trusted alone with it because she just wants to touch it and hold it. At first she kept asking dad if she could see the Rat. Now she just asks to see the pet.

Growing up

Tonight the boys and I were having our reading time together. I read Brandon some gross book about spiders he checked out at the library. Ew! and then Hayden wanted me to read Goodnight Moon. This was the very first kids book we had. My sister gave this to me as a baby shower present. The one we have is a big board book. It has always been Brandon's favorite and has held up very well the past six years. Before he could crawl we would lay it in front of him and he loved to just look at the pictures.  We would read it to him every night. All of our kids have loved it. And it is a good story to read before bed. Especially compared to Alyssa's new obsession with Cat in The Hat which is 61 pages long! Well, as I started to read Brandon told me to wait and took the book from me and said "I will read it mom." So he started to read it. And not just from memory because he had trouble with some words. He really read it. That just made me start thinking about all the changes they go through so fast. We read this book to him and now he is reading it to us not many years later. It is so fun the first year they are in school to see how much they learn so fast. You realize things that you didn't know also. Like with Brandon. I thought I worked with him really good with the alphabet. And it surprised me when he started school and really didn't know all of his letters. Little kids are amazing how fast they learn and grow. It really is a proud moment hearing your child start reading to you the first times. 

First Day of Practice

Monday started the T-ball season for Brandon. He was so excited he couldn't stop asking if it was Monday yet. No one on the team has ever played before. Little kids are so cute playing sports and trying to learn. Alyssa had a hard time with it. She wanted so badly to go out and play. She just didn't understand why she couldn't. She walked around and pouted for the longest time, until she found some older girls to play with. After wards she asked to see her picture of her crying. I should have had a pouty face picture of her. 

Brandon got right out there and did what he was told to do. He loves it. He and another boy were practicing catching and I caught him giving the other boy pointers on how they were told how to do it.

Hayden seamed just as excited as Brandon was. He wanted out on that field so bad! He went and sat on the baseball bag with the helmet and ball for awhile watching the boys practice batting.

The games are going to be all about learning and having fun. They don't even keep score. I don't know if they do that everywhere? This is our first sport with him. I guess we need to work on that form a little bit. 

Afterwards we all had ice cream. He loves his chocolate! He was the messiest of the three! Nice face huh? He was wore out. they made them all run the bases at the end. They were all falling down by the time they were done. Too cute. 

Sassy's tender moment

What beautiful weather the past few days has given us. It's just perfect temperatures and little or no wind and all of the trees are starting to bud and all of the birds are singing so loud. I love Spring! Yesterday I was able to go on a walk and enjoy all of this. Alyssa was having one of those days and had to get out of the house. So we went on a walk up the street. We live in such a beautiful area. It is very unlike any place I have ever been. We didn't walk too far but I did end up carrying Alyssa home. Upon returning home we saw a disturbing thing on our porch. Alyssa gasped and ran to the spot under her window where a bird lay motionless. She was devastated. We think it flew into the window and hit too hard and didn't make it. She told me a story of how she was in her room earlier and heard a thump on her window and she looked out but couldn't see anything. I got a box to put it in and started across the driveway when Brandon said "You aren't going to throw it away are you? You can't just do that."  I told him no and went to grab a shovel and took the three kids on the side of the house. I dug a very small hole and explained what had happened and that it's spirit is in heaven now and I had to tell Hayden that it has to go to sleep now and we need to cover it up. He told me okay, but would not let me cover the head. As we went inside I took Alyssa to wash up with me. Tears swelled up in her eyes really big and got bigger as she told me "I'm so sad that the bird is gone to heaven, now I can't see it anymore." just watching her emotions and reactions was so sweet, she was just so sad. She had to go tell Justin the same thing and needed a little comfort for a bit. A little later on she told Becca on the phone that "the bird is in heaven like our old Prophet is in heaven. But we have a new one now." Meaning a new Prophet. It was all pretty dramatic for her.