Easter

Well the kids were so excited to participate in a couple of Easter egg hunts this year. Our community had an Easter egg hunt at our community park. They had all the kids line up and had all the eggs on the field numbered one through seven. Each child was supposed to find an egg 1-7 then go back to the line until everyone was finished then they would have a free for all for the rest. They said go and the kids took off, Deke attempted to keep up with Hunter while I watched Avery. She was so funny, kids are scrambling and running all around her and she was just taking her time, slowly picking up the eggs and showing them to me then putting them in her basket. When she first picked one up she saw the number on it and said "Look Mom, it's my 2!" From that point on it didn't matter what I said she would not pick up any other egg with any other number on it. Instead she insisted on getting her 2's. It cracked me up and even though we weren't quite following the rules it was pretty cute and neat to watch her scan through the piles to find all the number 2's she could. The highlight of the event however for me was when it came time for the games. One of the games was gunny sack racing. Hunter had never done it before and it proved to be more than entertaining. Deke got a shot of them jumping and accidentally caught someone's crack..oooops. He started the race jumping and falling and then jumping again. About mid way the bottom of his bag jumped out and he would jump then run until we would yell, "Hunter jump no running!" He just wanted to win so bad and to watch all the kids jumping as fast as they could and falling over the majority of the time was so hilarious. On Easter we went over and dyed eggs with Grandpa and Grandma McWhorter, Alec and the girls. It was a lot of fun the kids hid eggs, jumped on the tramp, colored, ate and we visited. Grandma and Grandpa gave Avery a cute little purse for Easter filled with pretend makeup. She spent all afternoon pretending to paint everyone's nails including Grandpa's. She also loved the chapstick that the Easter bunny brought her and went through about half the tube in one day. All Hunter wanted to do was play with his new HotWheels and jump on the tramp with Alec. It was a blast, the kids love going to see Grandma and Grandpa, uncle Alec and the Aunties.

Any suggestions?

This is what we like Hunter's room to look like when we ask him to clean up.

However upon Deke and I coming in to inspect the job he did cleaning Deke bent down to pick up a Lego out of the carpet and said, "MeKell look under the dresser." I looked and saw a brown pile underneath it and knew right away what it was. Any guesses, let's look a little closer...

Yes that would be a pile of wood: a combine of woodchips from preschool, sticks, bark and twigs.

So I reached underneath and pulled them out and look at the pile that he managed to compile under there. Ever since he turned two Hunter has loved sticks and wood. He collects sticks wherever he is. The last year however it has gotten significantly worse, he has started gathering and hiding.

At home we have found them in his socks and shoes, under his mattress, in his drawers, underneath his dresser, in my washer, in the bath tub and any other possible available crack, crevice, or hiding spot in his bedroom. We realized that he was trafficking them home from school when one of his teacher's caught him lining them underneath the sheet on his bed cot and in his cubby as well as filling his pockets and shoes to the brim. We have in no joke asked them to routinely do a sock/pocket check for wood or sticks before he comes inside from the playground. Admist all my trying to find all the hiding spots he finds more and I can't get rid of the piles of wood everywhere. Not only that but he has an emotional attachment to each one. If we try to weed some out it is always the discussion of "But Mom, this one is so cool because it is shaped like a hook , or this one has neat bumps on it." The other night Deke and I talked about it trying to figure out a solution and we are going to try to designate a spot outside just for him that he can create a "woodpile. I wonder what he is stockpiling up for but I am sure he has enough hidden to support us through an entire winter. I am handling this much better than Deke who as some of you know has very real OCD tendencies ;) :) :) I am trying to look at this as a cute little quirk of his but if any of those piles ever ends up bringing in any crawly critters than we will have to take it to another level. Any other suggestions??????

Spring break

First of all sorry that the pictures for this post are not in order of the text I was having issues and sorry about the quality of some of the pictures I definitely need to get some better ones of Hunter doing karate.We were very excited to have a week of no school for Deke. Even though we were still working we made sure to plan something fun everyday. One night we went to Ocean Blue which is the best frozen yogurt place since it is self serve and you can sample every kind. Another night we had a family game/movie night. One day we got off work at noon and took the kids to Golfland which was so much fun. Hunter actually did really well, better than me. :) Avery was very interested for the first three holes and then she just drug her club around behind her. It was so cute, she would get upset when the ball went into the hole, we tried to explain to her that that was the point of the game but she didn't get it and kept running over and trying to take the balls out. One of the holes had a small bridge that you had to hit your ball over and if it missed it went into the stream. Hunter refused to hit it because he didn't want it to go in the water. Deke finally convinced him after ten minutes or so and when Hunter finally agreed to hit it....of course it landing in the stream. Thank goodness they had a little guardrail at the bottom that caught it down below. It was a lot of fun. Hunter also started karate this week which was both adorable and hilarious. His exact comment to me on the way was "Mom, I don't think that they will teach me to chop metal in the first class, probably a little later." Upon further discussion with him about what he thought karate was going to be like I realized we needed to have a longer discussion with him because he may have had some unrealistic expectations :) Chopping metal being one of them. :) He did a great job and really enjoyed it, I can't wait for basketball and soccer to start. We also added a trip up to PV for the weekend with some of our favorite people in the whole world the Grants!! We went up and helped them move into their new house which has a very cool sunroom and is wonderful because they have so much more space. The kids played and played. We played games, unpacked, visited and laughed until all hours of the morning. I loved getting to mug on this little guy: so far every time they have a boy we have a girl and vice versa which means to things: our next baby has to be a girl for Logan and we will then increase our odds of having a set of our kids get married :)We just love Kerry and Erin and their family they are such wonderful people. Erin and I left the guys in charge and went and cleaned the old house and just visited for like three or four hours. I would have driven all the way just to go do that :) :) It was such a nice week we ran hard and packed the week with all sorts of fun family stuff and it was a blast.