Top Ten of Easter 2011

So as I sit at work (shhh) exhausted as can be, I thought back over this weekend on some of the real life funny things that happened.  Before I put up all the cute, fun Easter pictures showing what a "perfect" family we are, I figured I would come up with a real top ten of our Easter weekend fun:

10. Getting only four hours of sleep--blech, and having the kids come running into our room screaming "it's Easter" over and over until we finally had to respond to their incessant shouting. very happily I might add :)

9.  Going to the Easter pageant with THREE kids five and under.  Fun. Yes. Wild at times. Yes. During the scene where Jesus was crucified Eli began to yell loudly "Look Momma, Jesus died" and Robby chimed in with "Did Heavenly Father die tooo?"

8. Robby was equally perplexed at the end of the pageant when everyone came back out on the stage.  He couldn't understand why the bad men (aka Roman soldiers) were allowed to come back on the stage.  Papa reassured him that Jesus had risen and now all the people were good, even the mean ones.......nice

7. Going to church today at 10am as a family.  What did I get out of sacrament meeting today you may ask?  Well, I learned that Jesse's shoulder is the perfect place to rest my head, Robby can successfully dump an entire tray of bread quite easily because he can pass the tray "all by myself", the kids are fantastic at making messes pretty much anywhere we go, and I think my husband may have told me I was beautiful somewhere in my haze between sleep and reality. bliss right?!

6. I think I may have yelled at my son when he was trying to help a pretend rubber fishy swim back to the ocean through the toilet.  yep, that's right, up to his elbows in potty water and flushing with all his might.  The best part {not} is that earlier in the day Jesse was joking around to Robby about flushing the same fish down the toilet.

5. "Baby Scared": the phrase that Eli told me when I tried to make him practice swimming in the big pool at Grandma and Grandpa Sheffields on Friday.  He seriously cracks me up and somehow finagled is

4. Going super simple with Easter baskets this year. As in using dollar store Easter buckets for the kids, a broken basket for me from years past, and a small wood basket for Jesse that I am pretty sure was used at our wedding years ago.  Each basket had a very limited amount of candy inside and that was it folks.  At first I felt kind of bad when I was putting them together.  But then when I watched their cute little faces this morning, I realized they really don't care.  I think I may continue to keep baskets simple next year as well!

3. Egg Dying party that included Robby taking a nice sip of the green dye because "it looked yummy".  On the bright side, he now knows he does NOT like the taste of vinegar.  We only had about 3 mishaps with broken/cracked eggs, otherwise it egg dying went surprisingly well.

2. Making delicious Cadbery Mini Egg Cookies courtesy of Mrs Budge and her shared recipe.  All went well other than slightly burning the first two batches {I am the worlds worst baker...I swear I have ADD and cannot sit long enough to wait for the darn cookies to finish cooking}.  Luckily the hubby happily ate all those semi-burnt ones without a complaint!

1.  Crabbiness by this wifey at having to work yet another Easter.  I hate working holidays. There I said it.  Now that I got that out there, let me just say that I do appreciate having a job, I do appreciate being able to work 12 hours at a time thus allowing me to only work three days a week,  I do appreciate that I work a swing shift and don't have to be in to work until 1pm which allowed me to spend Easter morning with the kids, and I actually do enjoy working as a nurse; I just don't like feeling like I am constantly missing out on extended family get togethers, I don't like being so tired I can hardly function, let alone enjoy the Holidays, and I don't like being unable to make the Holiday's cute/special for my kids due to lack of time and energy.  All in all I look forward to the day that I can be home on Holidays and pick up shifts here and there and not depend on it as an income.  And there I said it and got it out of me :-)

Flashback to 2009

Just found these beauties on one of our old SD cards that I found in a pile of stuff.  I cannot believe how blonde my hair was that summer, how tiny little Eli was, how much the same Robby is and yet so much more mature.....

I still remember this day like it was yesterday.  We were invited over to swim at the house next door to my in-laws.  I remember thinking that it was the first time I had EVER been swimming with my in-laws at a regular pool [other than in Rocky Point].  It was super duper hot outside that day {a typical Arizona July summer day}, and my kids were literally stripping off their clothes in a rush to see who could get in the pool first.  Nona was pretty worried when both of the kids made it into the pool before any adults, and I gently reassured her that there was a reason why my kids took ISR survival swim lessons.  Maddie and Robby were such fishies and were swimming to and from people over and over again.  Eli was timid as always and did NOT like when he was dunked under water.  He was however extremely content in Papa's arms splashing at the water with his overactive little hands.  Robby loved sitting in the little blue swim chair and used it like his own personal boat, paddling to and fro with his hands.  I'm sure there were some fights and tears entwined into this swim date, but like always those moments are quickly forgotten.  The things I remember most were the togetherness that was felt as we splashed around, laughed and loved that day. 

{Below: a couple of pictures that were take the end of July 2009 on Papa's birthday.  I love that pretty much every year on Papa's bday, all the pics taken feature him with multiple children on his lap.  He truly is that kind of Grandpa that all the kids immediately latch onto and love....he has such a gentle heart and for that I am forever grateful!}

just a good day

At the moment, there isn't anything new to really post or add to my blog {at least that I am ready to share}, but as I was wrapping up the day I had the thought that today was a really good day.  After working the last two days, it was nice to relax, clean, play, do laundry, and in general enjoy the company of my children.  They weren't particularly good or bad in their behavior, but all in all we enjoyed each other.

random happenings today:

*it struck me that Eli's favorite phrase would have to be "all right".  It cracks me up when we reprimand him and replies with his famous phrase--making it pretty difficult to be angry with him

*Robby loved staying with daddy this afternoon and watching him work....and then head next door and swim with his buddy Jack

*running late for school again, but somehow making it to school on time with the Miss

*picking up the Highlander for the third time from the car repairman (hopefully third time is a charm?)

*watching Miss M do gymnastics while Eli happily played with his buddy Jameson, and seeing Maddie's excitement when she overcame her fear and did a handstand on the balance beam!

*coming home from lessons to Jesse freshly showered and smelling delish with the dinner already cooking in the oven :)

*playtime outside with the neighbor kids before dinner

*alone time this evening with pasttimes such as blog stalking, facebooking, catching up on my fave show "Biggest Loser" online

--hears to another "good day" tommorow as well!!

--and I especially love my mornings with Mr E.  We get the bigger kids off to school, and come home and have a relaxing time eating breakfast, and reading the paper.  He is quickly turning into a pro and is very demanding at wanting his fair share of the reading material!

Random March Happenings

March oh March, where have you gone?

Once again another month has flown by {and we are now WELL into April} and I am attempting to play catch up with my journal/blog on our whereabouts.  Here are just a few things we have done:

1. Spring Break for a whole week, which included lazy mornings of sleeping in until 9 or 10am for me :)

I love love loved this, especially since I don't go to bed until typically 2 or 3am because of work.

--it has been nice to have my older two kids become more self reliant as they grow older.  they are fantastic in the morning at getting themselves dressed, eating breakfast and either playing quietly downstairs or watching a movie until Mommy can drag herself out of bed!!  Luckily Eli is still in a crib and normally sleeps until around 9am as well--

2. Phoenix Zoo Trip over Spring Break with the kids.  We went on Tuesday, March 15th and it was so hot we probably spent a good 1-2 hours just playing the Splash Pad.  Other than losing Eli's shorts, it was a stress free, relaxing day together as a family.

3. Playing with the slip'n'slide in our backyard for three days straight.  The result= the kids LOVED it.  It was incredibly hot over Spring Break and so they all had a blast playing in the water to keep cool.  {we even hit 100 degrees that week!}  

4. Jesse competed as a solo in another Xtreme Outdoor Adventure Race.  He was a trooper and drove up to Moab, Utah on a Friday, raced on Saturday and as soon as he finished he turned around and drove back home.  He did great and had a blast {even though he had some generalized aching pains} and already is looking at when he can do another race.

5. Field Day at Miss M's school (pictures will be on another post).  It was so fun to follow her class around and watch them participate in all sorts of activities such as tug of war, hula hoop contests, 3 legged racing, etc.  Eli was a complete trooper and sat in the stroller the ENTIRE time. I had to work that night, so it was wonderful to spend time with my M while she was at school.

6. Two more birthday parties for Miss M to attend, including one at "Jump Street".  The boys were a little bit jealous that she went there {it's filled with long trampolines you can bounce down and do flips on}, so with our limited funds we went to McDonalds and then shopped at Kohl's with our coupons.  We found some adorable Adidas green flip flops for Robby {green is his fave} and a fun new Monster Truck toy.

7. And last and certainly least, my birthday.  It was a bit of a crazy day, being that I had playgroup at my house with 4 active boys, picked up carpool after school, frantically cleaned my house, and prepared food for an extended family dinner that night.  I think that when family got to my house, I was officially exhausted :)  It was fun to see everyone (especially my super busy working Momma).  Robby was cracking me up, because he kept telling me it was not fair that I got another birthday--apparently he was under the impression that I made off with two birthday parties this year.  silly boy

Playgroup at our house consisted of swimsuits, sunblock, slip'n'sliding, towel time, playing in the baby Crab pool, lunch outside on the towels. 

{perfect playdate} 

Robby, Jude Opfel and Asa Whitener...his buddies :)

My FAVORITE lunch item right now: french bread, pesto, mozzarella cheese, turkey lunch meat, and artichoke hearts all toasted up in my George Foreman. 

I was soo craving a chicken artichoke panini on my bday and an amazing thing happened.  I was blog hopping and stumbled across my dear cousin Ariel's blog where she had the idea to grill a cheese sandwich on her George Foreman.  I stole this idea and added a few more ingredients to come up with a Turkey Artichoke "panini" of my very own.  I was so proud of this that I had to take a picture; dorky I know but definitely delicious.  Jesse even tried a bite and proceeded to make himself a panina as well.  Since then, we have probably made some variation of this almost every other day!

And finally to my one and only birthday picture.  Yes, there were definitely more on my camera phone.  But I hate every single one and instead will settle for this one to pay tribute to my last year of my twenties.  {and yes, that is my twiggy husband in the picture with me :)}

Robby, Maddie and Eli snuggling together on the couch.

(this might possibly be my most favorite picture of the month= SO SWEET)

Did you know....

Miss Maddie is upside down more than she is right side up?

{thank heavens for our beautiful sunny days where we can spend all day outside playing gymnastics together!}

Comparison

Just some beauties I pulled off my parents computer.  The top picture is me (Tiffany) at two years old.  On the bottom is Maddie at two and a half years old {obviously taken just about three years ago}.  Please disregard the semi-puke inducing outfit that my Mom dressed me in---still <3 you Mommy :)

I think Miss M is much cuter than I ever was AND does not really look like me.

What do you think?