Missed a week but I'm back. We've been busy as always. Evelyn's had a hard couple weeks, just a real rough go of it. It started with her trying to stack two 24in play ground balls on top of each other, then jump on them, trying to balance herself on top...like playground ball airplane of sorts, and ended like this...

Serious facial rug burn. She was extra upset because Caden laughed at her before he run upstairs to get help....But really, I mean, that had to be a little funny to watch, but so sad. She also had her first real bike crash. We were at a play group at the church where everyone brought their bike to ride in the gym. There were only like 3 kids but Evelyn splayed herself within 5 min

Minor injuries but not minor screaming....Then...She was having some trouble with playing basket ball at home. We figured out how to lower the hoop in our dive way and the kids have so much fun out there, but for some reason one night Evelyn just couldn't keep her footing. It went from this...

To this...

And then of course there was the day of utter boredom...it was awful for them..

They got over it though. Nothing a little paw patrol can't fix. They got to stay the night at grandma's that night and I forgot Caden's night time diapers but found an old one of Evelyn's. He did his best to show and tell me all about it...

We've also had the remainder of our branches chipped and taken from our back yard and even got some lilac trees transplanted into our front yard. Caden was a big help in the removal process and Steven dug in the ridiculously rocky dirt at our house to get them in while I pulled up grass and tried to give our front yard some kind of shape.

 

Now that the branches in the back are gone, we've got a lot of raking to do and I mean A LOT. The pine needle back there are nearly knee deep in some spots, and that's not even an exaggeration. good thing we've got lots of help though...

 Caden gets it done one dump truck load at a time.

And Evelyn occupies her self with other things..

She did get a nice picture of her daddy working hard

And even a good one of Daisy...Doesn't she look majestic...

Evelyn and Caden have come up with a new game that keeps them busy for nearly an hour or more. They pretend they're going to Japan (like in Toy Story 2) and pack suit cases and make the "couch" in to an airplane with a bench and Caden's booster seat. It's a mess afterward but they get along so well in Japan!

There getting along and actually playing together has increased a lot lately. I think it's because of Caden's newly acquired mad hide and seek skills...

and also their mutual love of Jake the Pirate. This is on of about twenty pictures like this from they're camera.

 

 We had a freak sunny day hail storm so I sent them out with an umbrella and they loved it

It really is funny how much they've gotten along this week. I went to mutual last night but apparently they went to bed on good terms because when they woke up they couldn't stop hugging each other and Caden wanted to give her a big kiss, so hesitantly she kissed him right on the lips, then wiped her mouth of, tipped her head to the side and said, "Huh! I thought it would've been a lot more slobbery."

We got new game this week at the goodwill. Jumpin' monkeys. Gma has this game so we had to get it. We've been playing it nearly every night and Caden's developed a strategy.

I also snagged some pictures of play time here and there this week.
The first being taken by Evelyn...he likes his privacy (or pry-see! as Cade says)

 We scored a cars blanket at a yard sale. Caden LOVES Mator

 Caden was the dino/dragon and Steven was the knight

 Then Evelyn made Steven be the dinosaur and he was not too happy about it

 Evelyn saved this screen shot of her coloring on the Ipad so she must have thought it was pretty good...and she wasn't wrong

And Caden has discovered the many fun things you can do with a fly swatter. You can also hear how happy Evelyn is in the background...

 

 

 

Caden's also been really helpful in the kitchen. I caught him licking all of the grape tomatoes then putting them back in the fridge and then I found this when I went to make tacos

He took full bites and a couple test bites then put it back so when I found it, it was fully molded.

Today Evelyn proved yet again, that she is just like her mommy. We get home from the gym and she run straight to her room yelling, "Can I take my jeans off! I gotta get some sweat pants on!"

Caden has also proved he is much like me and Evelyn like her daddy one day when we were out on a walk and Evelyn ran ahead yelling back, "Come on Cade! lets run!" and Caden responded with, "No...Hard."

Caden is also nearing the end of his speech therapy. He's doing so well. Our latest big success is that he's started saying 'excuse me' instead of  'beep beep!'

 

And lastly, again, I just love how these kids sleep, or in the case of this first picture, grab every toy and a cowboy hat where they're supposed to be sleeping

Easter Festivites an other activities that weekend

We'll start with the sleeping babies. I have so many pictures of the kids sleeping because they just look so sweet. In fact...sleeping baby montage!

 Just a few from the last 6 months. The car ones are my favorite.

So this last week we got back on the back yard. We had some one come and chip a bunch of our branches and haul off. Steven took Friday off and they went to town. It only took an hour before his trailer was full.

 

Before he came we had some prep work. We had to separate and line up all the branches so it went faster in the chipper sine we paid this guy by the hour. We  line the entire perimeter of the yard then one row down the middle all about wait to chest high piles. That's a lot of branches.

The kids had a good time watching. I made them wear ear plugs. It was definitely really loud.

 Caden had a really good time though...

 Snack time watching daddy work. It was still a little too loud for Cade. He kept his hands over his ears the whole time, even during snack time.

 We normally don't do the typical Easter with the egg hunts and Easter bunny, but since this year was general conference and we didn't need to be in church during my brother and sister in laws Easter extravaganza, the kids got to experience their first Easter egg hunt, Easter scavenger hunt, and visit from the Easter bunny.
That morning, even though we didn't have church i had the kids get dressed up so i could have some pictures of them in nice clothes with clean faces for one. So we headed the the park bright and early.

  The ones at the park didn't turn out so well because some one was walking their dog....like Caden's going to look at me when there's a dog around.

 But Miss Evelyn, she loves her picture being taken. Where she learned the duck face, i have no idea. But we did a few at home. They were a lot more cooperative at home...surprisingly

 And then after pictures we took off to the farm for the Easter extravaganza. Evelyn had been calling it the great feast all week.
Caden loved the pigs. he loved the big pigs the most but had fun with the babies too.

 There was a runt of the litter that was away from the other pigs and just free range.

 Caden gave that little piggy a run for his money...

 Caden got a lift from Evelyn in the wagon. She is a good ride giver. She was seriously hauling down the driveway!

 look at her go! She got air she's running so hard!

 Then there was the egg hunt

 And the scavenger hunt

 And the pinata

 I wonder if I'm in any of Carlee's pictures...Our camera's are point blank at each other. Probably could've thought that one through a little better

 We all had a really great time. Evelyn keeps saying she can't wait for another Easter

We had a great weekend. Steven also took Monday off and we were going to work more in the yard but it rained and snowed! all day. So we had a relaxing day of hanging around and cleaning every now and then and games with the kids. Caden is actually pretty good at jenga.

Another thing I did this weekend is I took the pictures off the kids camera. We have this old digital camera we let the kids use and they just go off and take pictures for whatever. It keeps them busy for minutes! So i finally got around to emptying the memory card for them so they can keep taking pictures. There were hundreds of pictures on there! Here are a few of my favorites....keeping in mind these are all take by either Evelyn or Caden

 Evelyn getting proof that Caden is the one throwing things off the deck

 And the one putting things in Daisy's water

 Caden's first selfie

 We call this one 'welcome home daddy'

 and now Caden mastering the art of the selfie. You can just see his thought process. "Me eating gold fish"

 "Me up close"

 "My gold fish up close"

And then perhaps my favorite series of pictures in the history of pictures...

Seriously! Where do they come up with this stuff!!