nine minutes of fun

Easter sure seems to have come early this year. I feel very ready though. I've got the kids' Easter baskets and some 'crap' from Target to stick inside them come Easter morning. I've got way too many fillable plastic Easter eggs and a plan for hiding them on Easter morning. I've got some eggs boiled and an Egg Spinner complete with dye and stickers to decorate. And I still have a week to go! I guess I'm making up for St. Paddy's Day and my sucky attitude.

So to get the kids in the true spirit of Easter (it's all about bunnies and eggs, right?), we took them to the City of Woodbury's Ole Fashioned Easter Egg Hunt last night. First we had a nice dinner at McDonalds. Let me say- that is the place to be on a Friday night. We got the very last table. It was practically standing room only in there.

After dinner, we made our way to the egg hunt, where there were a few hundred eggs scattered across the snow banks, making it less like a hunt and more like a grab. There were a lot of people there. And rules.

Kiley was pretty upset when she found out that her age category was supposed to get orange and green eggs and that Jaxon's was supposed to get pink and blue.

And then she decided, to hell with the rules. She was gonna get what color egg she wanted. And we thought, sure, let's all avoid a tantrum in the middle of the egg hunt and spare everyone the drama. And we were back to happy.

 

While Kiley was off picking up whatever eggs she wanted to, Jaxon was strategizing. I was watching as he picked his eggs. He knew he was only supposed to get 10 and they were supposed to be pink and blue for his age group. He came up with about 7 or 8 in the same area almost right away because he was scoping them out while we were waiting for them to give the go-ahead.

 

 

Then, even though there were several more nearby him, he took off for the other side of the path, almost like he was savoring the 'hunt' for the last couple eggs, trying to make it somehow more challenging for himself. I notice he does this when there's only one fruit snack (insert other candy/treat/food item) left. He'll either save them for later or take a really long time to chew on it. I'm sure it's hard to know that the fun will end at some point so he's just trying to hang on to it.

 

Which I totally get. Because I'm the same way. Trying to hold on to these fun times and special moments as long as I can. Sometimes they go so quick. Like this egg hunt. Nine minutes.

 And of course, the kids were quite dismayed when they realized there was no candy in the eggs. What!! No candy? I'm fine with that though. It will make the 'real Easter Bunny' look really good!

Enjoy your special moments today...whether they last nine minutes or ninety... cherish each one. I know I will.

winter blues

Seriously. I have got it bad. The winter blues.

When I half-heartedly joked about not writing again until March, I didn't realize that I would actually wait a whole month to post something!

Last month I wrote about winter fun. Now, I'm ready for it to be done.

This past month has been hard. I'm not gonna lie. No sugar coating here. It's been downright hard. For a lot of reasons, but mainly because everyone in our house has cabin fever, is sick and tired of going to Pump it Up to get our wiggles out, and needs to be able to walk from point A to point B without hunching our shoulders up because it's so d*mn cold and windy outside!

Okay. Maybe that's just me. But I'm pretty sure the rest of my family is feeling a little bit of the same.

We've resorted to staring out the window and chasing lasers around the floor...

And every day, the kids ask, 'Mom, is it Spring yet?'. Jaxon is just itching to get on his bike and Kiley has even declared that she is excited to ride on her imaginary purple bike. Something tells me that we will be buying Kiley a purple bike this spring.

 

But before we think about that, we still have to get through the rest of this winter.

Lucky for us, there were some giant ice castles that we got to visit on a pretty decent, sunny, warmish day...

 Kiley and Jaxon enjoyed running in circles, hiding from us, and pretending they were ice princes and princesses.

 It was a fun afternoon with Auntie Jenny...

 

In February we had Jaxon signed up for a sports sampler class at a local elementary school. He got to do basketball, soccer, t-ball and floor hockey. I'm pretty excited that floor hockey wasn't his favorite. I really would rather not become a hockey mom...

 I mean, he really looks more like a golfer anyway, doesn't he?

 

These were fun Monday nights... something to look forward to during this super LONG winter (have I mentioned yet how I hate MN winters?), both for him and for us.

 

What I have really missed though as I've been stuck in my own head and trying to get past my own selfish winter blues, is just the simple moments. Having my camera out and ready to shoot. It has just felt like something's been missing. I haven't taken the time to take pictures, spend time enjoying the things I like to do... I didn't even make leprechaun footprints this year for St. Patty's! What is wrong with me? I need to get a little bit of sunshine back in my life.

And there's nothing more like sunshine than these two kids (except when they are giving us attitude, calling us names, and hitting/kicking/throwing things... which seems to have happened a lot lately. But we'll save that for another post).

 

 Kiley has been taking really good care of her babies. They have different names these days, but they're still without clothes and need their diapers changed all the time. Typical babies.

 Jaxon has been playing a lot of Wii. He's actually getting pretty good at it. I'm not sure if I should be proud or frightened by that?

 Kiley can still melt hearts with her smile. She's being transitioned into the preschool/3's class the past couple weeks. Miss Kelly, who will be her new teacher in a couple weeks, told us her productivity is going downhill as she just wants to sit and look at Kiley all day. I mean, seriously. Girl is adorable and she totally knows it.

And Jaxon has been reading words all over the place. I'm so impressed with how much he knows too-and man does he talk alot! He talks about the earth and dinasours, planting seeds, the seasons, our presidents and Martin Luther King... he's pretty darn smart and of course says some pretty funny stuff. There's always something to laugh about when he's around.

 

So today I guess I'll remember the sunshine moments of the past few weeks... and I'm going to pray really really hard for the end of winter... just as soon as tomorrow's snow storm is done. Ugh.