Easter Bunny lessons and other crazy stuff

So I played around on Picnik.com. What dya think? Not too bad for 10 minutes.


I made Oliver take this. Wish I had put makeup on because this could have been a really good shot but I have so few decent photos of myself that I'll take it!

The lighting was so good that I got some great photos, despite the weird posing.


Oh, yes, the joys of Easter.

This year the Easter Bunny must have been really tired, because when she hid the Easter Baskets, she decided to put Lael's on top of the wall heater and when Lael finally found it, she cried because her big chocolate Bunny was all melted. So we put it in the freezer, which worked pretty fast, but it didn't look quite the same. Lael also refused to wear her Easter dress and insisted on wearing the holiday dress we bought for the wedding. If we get brave enough to have another child, I hope it's a girl that lets me dress her cause Lael certainly doesn't accept fashion advice from me, although she does critique my outfits. We went to the Sr. Swanons for an Easter Egg Hunt in their back yard and a great dinner complete with a filet minion roast. It was sunset so the light was perfect and I got some great photos. We played the Clue game that the Easter bunny brought and decorated Easter eggs, which Lael of course really got into.

Last week both the kids' baseball games got rained out, which was just as well, because I didn't feel that great the beginning of the week and then I had the baby shower that I had to help set up for and do the game (I did the candy bar matching game - similar to Concentration but when you match the words, you get the corresponding candybar - like "Baby Girl" is the Baby Ruth bar and "Baby Boy" is the Oh Henry Bar (which is hard to find by the way), "Triplets" is Three Musketeers and "Twins" is Mike & Ike, etc. I had played the game several times in Berkeley but no one had played it here, so it went over well. We also did a clothesline with baby clothes on the wall, which turned out cute. I'm invited to another baby shower and two bridal showers over the next 2 weeks, but thankfully I just have to show up to those.

Lael had her fieldtrip to the San Jose Children's Discovery Museum and they had enough parents going that they didn't need me so I went separately and took Henry. It was way too crowded, which made it less fun, and I didn't end up sticking with Lael as much as I thought I would, and apparently she got sad about that, so I ended up taking flak from some of the moms (who only have one or two kids, by the way) that this was her special time and I ruined it by bringing Henry. First, I didn't need to be there at all. And second, she was fine, although I do think some of her bad behaviors are attributed to being the middle child and I am going to do something with just her this week. I may take her to see Hannah Montana - against my better judgment because she hasn't even asked for it. One of the funny things Lael asked me last week was, "Mom, can I say whatever I want on my birthday?" I sensed a trick question here and said, "What do you mean?" She said, "Can I say Oh My g-a-d like Abigail (next door)?" I said, "No you can't swear just cause it's your birthday. And you spelled it wrong." Now she has been obsessed with telling people not to say it and even wrote it in the birthday card she gave to a friend last week, but I made her take it out. Crazy girl.

Oliver made a really cool birdhouse in Scouts. Henry dribbled a ball for the first time, which was impressive for a 1-year-old. He also loves to hang from the rings like a monkey at his gym class, which is pretty impressive at his age.

Anyway, we sure haven't figured out how to relax on the weekends. On Saturday we went to the Ward Easter Egg Hunt at Golfland in Castro Valley (someone in our ward is the longtime manager) and it was fun. After the hunt, we played a round of mini golf. Then we went over to San Francisco and went to the Cherry Blossom Festival in Japantown. The kids made origami and we saw Ikebana (Japanese flower arranging) and a Japanese sword collection and traditional Japanese dancers as well as bad modern music. Then we went and took pictures of Coors billboards for Secret Shops I had signed up for but we had to get a picture during the day and night, which meant we had to hang around until sunset, so we went to the Metreon for awhile and to Beard Papa's Cream Puffs. Then we got our night photos, came home and I entered them in and we were tired! Although this means my paycheck comes from Coors, it involves no interaction with people, so for $20 a billboard, I'll gladly take it! This will help pay for Lael's new bed. Now I just have to clear off and sell the desks to make room for it! Here's hoping for a very productive Spring Break week!

April Showers

Hola! I can't wait for the break that starts this Friday. Last week was tough because Erik had a meeting with India every night at 8 or 9, including Friday. Erik usually puts the kids to bed and it's pretty chaotic because Oliver and Lael tend to fight and we're often also trying to get Henry down. Basically, I don't wish our bedtimes on anyone. Since it's impossible for Erik to work in peace, he spent several nights taking his conference call in the driveway while sitting in the minivan using our wireless internet connection and his laptop. Yes, poor guy. The car is now his office.

Living in 925 square feet definitely has its challenges. Right now all three kids are in the same room and Lael and Henry are both on the bottom of the bunk in a double bed. So I sent Erik with Oliver over to Santa Cruz to pick up a twin bed that I found on Craigslist for Lael. During the spring break we are going to turn what has been the office into a room for her. It's quite the undertaking - it means I have to get rid of a lot of stuff and sell several large pieces of furniture (desks, chairs and a TV), which is always a huge pain because of flaky Craigslist people, but it will be worth it. We are going to get a 55'' flat screen TV that will go above the piano in the living room and we are going off cable because Erik has put up an antenna on the roof and has built a sage system that works as a DVR. We are going to get everything we can't pick up off the air from hulu or the internet. It sure will be nice not to pay that cable bill!

This week I was asked to make 80 bridal shower invitations and same-day baby shower invites, so I whipped these out the same day on the computer - it was the only way I could get them done on such short notice. I included the files for you to see since I had them handy. I don't know why but the bridal shower invite colors came out really funky in the html version - it's actually pink and gold, but I guess something got lost in translation. Also, I helped someone else design these or I would have made slightly different choices but we put pearls on the swirls and they turned out cute enough. The baby shower invite was simple because I had 30 minutes to get it done and it was mostly emailed out. Hope the event turns out well, since it's such short notice and there is general conference.

Just to add to this week's craziness, we were offered the same multilevel communications business opportunity by no less than 3 ward members within 48 hours. Makes me feel like I'm living in Utah. Don't fear – we are passing (like we have the time even if we were remotely interested or weren't horrible salespeople). We won't be hitting you up at any rate.

The kids each had a rare birthday party to go to. Oliver took the GATE (gifted and talented) test Saturday. He could have taken it during school the week before but they had him listed under the wrong teacher and his teacher didn't bother to call me until the test was over. When I dropped Oliver off, the district people were strange. The woman in charge told us parents to go ahead and buy the children whatever gifts we had promised the kids for "passing" because they had already earned them (What? Like I promised him anything). Then she said they didn't use the terms "pass" and "fail" but they prefered the word "achieve" to describe a high score on the "intellligence assessment test." Whatever. Oliver thought the test was fun and he said he got everything right except the two questions he didn't have time to finish. The extreme overconfidence stems from the fact that he gets 100 percent every single week on the spelling pretest and math is his favorite subject, so he does well there too. It's hard to tell where he's really at, though, since he's in a group of kids where English is obviously their second language. I'm interested to see the results but there really are no programs offered him at our school – not until middle school, so it doesn't matter that much how he does for now. And it's not the only way to get him into the GATE program. We'll find out how he did at the end of the school year.

We had the usual Tuesday and Thursday baseball games but it was so cold Thursday that as soon as Erik got there I left with Henry and went to Costco. (I know, many of you are not feeling bad for me because I think it's cold in the 50s.) Lael said lots of funny things but maybe I'll remember them for next week. Henry didn't make any horrible messes, although he did baby experiments on what fits into an electric pencil sharpener and lost the battery cover moments after it was found and repaired. (We cleaned the house while watching Conference today and found lots of little missing things). And the Senior Swansons are back from their cruise - yay! We missed spending Sunday evenings at their house and it's good to be back in the routine, even though we probably drive them crazy. Here's hoping for an uneventful week so I can get that room ready! OK, so there's no hope for me since I have a fieldtrip for Lael and two baby showers. Hope it's a calm week for all of you at least.