April Favorites

Here we go: my favorite Instagram and Project Life pictures for April.

 

Both Tyler and Kyle did the Easter coloring contest this year for Wray's grocery store. Sadly neither won, although Tyler does have a history of winning.

Tyler put two birthday gift cards together and bought this Minecraft Lego set from Toys R Us.

Arrrrrr! Hands off my coffee cake!

And just to break up the pirate eye. This face.

April 2nd was World Autism Awareness Day and Tyler and I were wearing blue for the cause.

 

Story time. I love how Tyler is trying to read a book to himself while I read out loud to him. Not really. I made him put it away. What I really love is how the cat always sits front and center when I read. 

♥ Carmelita ♥

 

Also this month I got a new phone. A Samsung galaxy S6 and the front facing camera has a nice high resolution. Yay! Here's to better Project Life pictures because I use the camera on my phone almost exclusively. Plus it's voice activated, so all you have to say is cheese, capture, shoot, or smile and it takes the picture without having to press any buttons.

It's also National Poetry Month and the library has a cute creation station set up in the window of the children's section with all kinds of words to use to make small poems.

 

Here's what we left in the window: The cat comes to story time. Not so much a poem as a true statement.

In the grocery store Tyler was trying to teach Kyle how to do a pirate eye. "Nope! You closed both eyes!".

The boys playing with Kyle's power wheels truck.

 

And my favorite outfits for April....or what turns out to be the only three I took pictures of this month.



Easter Festivities

When I went to the parent/teacher conference (the last of Tyler's elementary years..gah!) right before spring break, Mrs. James was telling me about the other girl in her class that shares the same birthday as Tyler and how her parents decided to change her name to Lily at the last minute because she was born so close to Easter. I honestly have no memory of that Easter, but when I looked it up on the calendar I saw that it had been on the 27th that year...two days before Tyler was born. And as the years have passed, Easter has bounced around, but has never landed on his birthday. Until Tyler turns 38 in 2043, when Easter and his birthday will fall on the same day. Luckily I won't have to worry about planning birthday parties anymore by then.

 

This year Easter landed one week after Tyler's birthday, which was also the last day of spring break before heading back to school. I thought we'd have all kinds of time to dye eggs, but somehow it got put off until the night before.

 

I bought two different egg dying kits this year. A traditional kit with color tablets that you dissolve in water and another kit that had liquid paint and mini rollers, which I thought would work better for Kyle. Turns out traditional is the way to go. The liquid paint and roller situation was super messy and the paint stayed wet and tacky on the eggs. Kyle actually preferred the traditional method, so I'll just stick with that kit in the future.

Early morning delivery from the Easter bunny.

Then an egg hunt in the afternoon.

My absolute favorite plant in our backyard is the King Arthur when it's in full bloom in the spring, so of course I had everyone gather in front of it for pictures.
 

 

For dinner we had ham with the usual sides and I made some carrot cake cupcakes for dessert. The ones with buttered popcorn jelly beans on top were mine...obviously. Yum!

March Favorites

My favorite Project Life and Instagram photos for March:

 

Selfie in the car with Kyle.

We went to Red Robin for dinner and Kyle got a balloon on the way out and had so much fun with it on the drive home. There was nothing but giggles coming from the backseat.

Lately Kyle has been wanting to read Tyler's old Blue's Clues books from when he was a toddler and so we also searched DirecTV on Demand for old episodes of Blue's Clues for him to watch. He's a fan for sure! In this picture Kyle is watching Blue's Clues while Tyler builds a fort around him, another artifact from Tyler's toddler days.

My St. Patrick's Day lucky charm.

World Book Day was this month and Tyler was sent home from school "sick" that day even though he seemed perfectly fine and even told me he probably could have stayed at school. Anyway, I told him to take it easy in his room and read to his brother.

It was parent/teacher conference week towards the end of the month with half days all week long, so Tyler had to tag along on grocery shopping day as well as every other errand I had to run that week. He normally hates going anywhere, but he was actually joking around quite a bit in the grocery store.

Max and Tyler playing with Lego Mindstorm pieces. Max especially likes the Mindstorm pieces because they have more holes in them to grab onto than the regular brick style Legos.

Tyler at his Jump for Heart event at school.

Kyle sneaking a nap in the backseat of the car.

Carmelita loves storytime so much I can't even get over it. When I read to Tyler at night, she'll push her way up to the head of the bed so she can lay right next to the book.

My #FourLeafJulep IG contest entry. I've been subscribing to the Julep Maven monthly box since last November, which is a mix of nail polish and other makeup items, all Julep brand. Besides the nail polish, I've tried their lip gloss, eye primer, and the face highlighter. Good stuff!

 

Another St. Patrick's day Julep contest entry.

Some of my favorite March outfits: it was all about green this month.

Tyler's 10th birthday

Tyler's birthday being at the end of March either lands on the last week of school before Spring Break or the first weekend of Spring Break and he usually has some sort of classroom celebration.

 

Some teachers celebrate birthdays on the actual day, but Mrs. James does a lump celebration of all the birthdays at the end of each month. This year the celebration included Tyler and one other girl who not only share the same birthday month, but the same day as well. The food policy for the school changed this year and they no longer allow any outside food to be brought in to share, so I was relieved of having to make multiple loaves of banana bread for the class. Instead, Tyler was invited to bring in a game to play and he brought Monopoly and had a great time with his friends.

On Sunday we had a small family celebration, with lots of streamers, balloons, presents and cake of course.

This year we got an ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins that we special ordered with Tyler's pick of design and cake and ice cream flavors. He chose a rainbow cake that usually comes with a flower in the corner that kind of makes it look like a "Get Well" cake, so he asked that instead of the flower, they put two small ice cream cones on top instead. Then he chose chocolate cake and gold medal ribbon ice cream to go inside.

We also got those special candles that have colored flames to match the color of the candle. So cool!

After cake and presents we went to the new(ish) trampoline park, Get Air. They have lots of trampolines for open jump, foam pits, and basketball hoops, but the boys tend to stay in the Dodge Ball section for most of the time.



Then we went out to dinner at Tyler's choice restaurant El Porton.

All in all, it was a great day. Back at the house, Tyler was so busy with his new toys (primarily building Minecraft Lego kits) that I literally fell asleep before getting either of the boys to bed. Good thing we're on Spring Break now because it was a long night!

February Favorites

Here are some of my favorite Project Life and Instagram photos from February: Mostly a bunch of boring indoor stuff. Thankfully the weather has been warming up and I'm looking forward to getting outside more often.

 

February was FULL of days off from school and I had to take Tyler grocery shopping with me on more than one occasion. Normally I avoid taking him to the store because he despises all forms of shopping, but by the look on his face, I'd say it wasn't that bad after all.

Earlier this month we trekked our way over to Toppenish High School (about a 30 min drive from Yakima) to check out the VEX robotics competition. It seemed really cool and Tyler seemed into it, but unfortunately none of the schools in the West Valley participate in the program. Hmm...maybe we need to start pioneering and find a way to make it happen.

Speaking of robots: Tyler built this robotic Lego Mindstorm guitar that actually plays music and he was super pumped when he was invited to bring it to school to share with the class.

Trying to use the selfie stick I got for Christmas.

Kyle Bear reading to Carmelita. Nothing quite as riveting as "Purple Flower, Orange Carrot", but as long as you throw in a few pets and belly rubs, she'll take it.

Kyle climbed into the front of the car when we got to school for Mileage Club, so first we took a picture and then we went to run.

A special storytime at the library that included a party with Elephant and Piggie, characters from a series of beginner reader books. Kyle had fun even though he was too shy to get a picture with them.

 

Max getting a look out the dining room window. Watching the street in front of the house and all the goings-on has to be more interesting than the view of the backyard he gets from the kitchen.

Coco Bear stoically waiting for me to finish my workout so she can cry and tumble at my feet.

Finished a 4 mile run of the treadmill and there's Coco Bear on the floor all laid out and ready for belly rubs.

Coco and Max sharing a window seat.

My favorite February outfits: all about the red and pink.

And a look at the books I've read this month. The top three are my reading books and the bottom ones I've read to Tyler.