St. Patricks Day

It has been hard getting in to the past couple of holidays because all of our decorations are still in boxes in the garage. St. Patrick's Day snuck up on me this year. In the morning I was reading on Facebook about all the fun stuff other people did for their kids in the morning. Leprechauns left stuff in their shoes, turned their breakfasts green, left footprints all over the house, and many other fun things. So after realizing how lame I was, I decided to throw together some fun stuff while the kids were napping. Brayden had a fun party at school, and it happened to be the day he was the special leader. Needless to say he had a fun day at preschool. While he was gone, I started telling Brooklyn that a leprechaun was going to come while she was asleep and leave her a treasure. Big mistake. For some reason she became terrified that the leprechaun was going to eat her. So she wouldn't leave my side the rest of the morning. Here is the little photo shoot I had after lunch:
Finally the kids went down for their naps and I pulled out a bunch of leftover shamrocks I had from 5 yrs ago. I hurried and threw together a little treasure hunt for the kids. They were super excited when they woke up, as long as I didn't mention the leprechaun. We tried to focus on the treasure hunt. I hid shamrocks around the house that had clues on them. Here the kids are at the beginning:

One of the clues was found inside the dryer. We had told the kids that everything the leprechaun touched turned green. Brayden was fascinated with the green laundry that the leprechaun had touched:

I loved watching the kids run from clue to clue as they figured out wehre to go:

I love Brooklyn's face as she found a clue on the green milk. Brayden ended up drinking it all as Brooklyn wasn't a fan.

Their treasure was waiting for them inside the Dora tent. They were thrilled to get Mike 'N Ikes along with green Fruit by the Foots and green candy canes (yes...stuff I found in the cupboard.)

Here the kids are after they put all their shamrocks on the wall. Happy St. Patricks Day kids!!!

On a side note, after naps the kids got some marshmallows and raisins for their snack. I was on the computer not paying attention when I turned around and found this. Brooklyn had been wearing my shoes and for some reason decided it would be fun to eat her snack out of my shoes. Yes...her raisins and marshmallows are inside those shoes. Gross!

Disneyland Jars

We are taking the kids to Disneyland next month. We've worked so hard on our 2 houses the past 2 yrs that we all need a break. The kids are too young to grasp the concept, but they deserve this trip. They have been troopers throughout our house projects as they have been a little neglected while we've been working so hard.

I've been trying to find a reward/punishment system lately. Brooklyn is a drama queen and time out just doesn't work very well. Somehow I came up with the idea of Disneyland jars. I'm not a fan of rewarding with money because I don't want the kids to focus so much on money. But I didn't have anything else, and money is a huge motivating factor for little kids. So we sat down one morning and decorated our jars. I had a bunch of Disney stickers that the kids got to put on their jars.
Now they get to earn money to put in their jars to earn their trip to Disneyland. We'll let them take their money on our trip and they can buy something there. So far it is working SO much better than I thought it would. They love to help out, sometimes for the money but sometimes just to help. They also HATE it when they are naughty and I take money out. Brooklyn especially hates when I take money out. So hopefully we can keep this up!

Of course Brynlee loved hanging out with us all. We tried some veges, but it didn't go over so well. We've got to keep working on rice cereal first.

First Talk

Brayden gave his first primary talk last week. I was very excited when we got the little piece of paper the week before and had plans to put his talk together early in the week so he could practice it all week long. Hmmm...didn't happen. I totally forgot about it since the kids were sick all week. Saturday night Josh listened to his messages which had the reminder phone call on it. Woops. I wasn't even planning on taking the kids to church because they had colds. So Saturday night Brayden and I threw together his little talk. I was shocked that after going through it only twice he had it memorized (the picures help). Unfortunately, I couldn't go watch because Brooklyn was too sick and Josh had to teach that same hour. So he put a video on for his class and went and helped him. Josh said he did great! I made him do it for me when he got home. Here it is!

The prophet teaches us many things.

P is to pray
R is to read the scriptures
O is to obey mom and dad
P is to go to primary
H is to be happy
E is to be an example
T is to go to the temple

I will follow the prophet so Heavenly Father will be happy.
Good job Brayden! You are getting SO big. We are proud of you!

Rice Cereal

I remember when Brayden hit 4 months I was SO excited to start rice cereal. With Brooklyn, the excitement wasn't as strong and I started a few weeks after 4 months. With Brynlee I've procrastinated even longer and finally have gotten around to it (she's now 5 1/2 months while I'm writing this.) Like all kids she thinks it's quite fun and is still getting the hang of it.

Mario

Brayden LOVES playing Mario Bros on the Wii. He gets to play for @ 20 minutes after Brooklyn goes down for her nap and before he goes down for his. The other day I put Brynlee in her exersaucer so I could hop on the computer for a few minutes. When I poked my head around the corner to check on her, this is what I found. Apparently she loves to watch Brayden play Mario. I couldn't believe how enthralled she was.

Spring Fever

We definitely have spring fever here, especially since Brynlee was born and we've stayed home more than normal. This week has been SO nice outside we've taken advantage of every second. It's funny how the kids can play outside for an hour with minimal toys, yet inside with all the toys in the world they can't stay occupied longer than 5 minutes. Hmmm...interesting. N-e way, here they are, not sure what they are doing but they are loving it.
Anything that vaguely resembles a sword gets turned into some kind of weapon. Brayden took off the ends of these golf clubs (yes that's right...they were golf clubs at one point.) Now they carry these sticks around everywhere to fight the bad guys. Brayden calls them his Donatello sticks - thank you Josh for introducing Brayden to the Ninja Turtles at such a young age.
Brooklyn has never seen Barney, yet she loves her Baby Bop. It's not her "lovey" but she is always playing with it.

BYU game

I haven't been to a BYU basketball game in years! So I was beyond excited when Josh got us tickets to go to the BYU/New Mexico game. My sister and her husband watched Brayden and Brooklyn while we headed to Cougartown with the baby. Brynlee did not start the game off very well. Josh had her while I went to the restroom and as soon as they walked into the arena she freaked out with the noise. By the time I got to our seats she was not doing so well. Oops. Guess I should've been the one to be holding her at the beginning since she's most comfortable with me. I quickly fed her and within @ 10 minutes she was used to the noise and did awesome for the rest of the game. Too bad it was the worst game to have gone to all season. Just my luck. Oh well...it was still fun! Here is our little Cougar Cutie!