Big-Girl Bed

Claire and Molly had some major transitions last week. They moved into the same room together, and Claire moved out of her crib and into a bed. Claire's actually doing so much better than I expected! I thought it was going to be an all-night party in there, and constant fighting about staying in bed, but we've had hardly any problems. Molly actually has very little interest in playing once they go to bed, so Claire will try to harass her then give up after a little while. Molly also loves to tell on Claire, which is nice if Claire's getting out of bed, but not if she's telling on her for things like standing up in the bed. We finally had to have a talk that calling for mom was for emergencies only, nothing else. The most effective deterrent for Claire has been the threat of going back to the crib. She gets a chance or two to get out of bed, then it's back to her crib if she keeps doing it. I think she's only had to go back to the crib twice to realize it's not nearly as fun as the bed, so she's been staying in bed.


I snuck in the kid's room and got a picture of them sleeping. There is absolutely zero space in that room. The door doesn't fully open, and the nightstand (which is Claire's dresser) has to overlap the closet to get the door closed. Definitely not an attractive room, and it's horribly mismatched, but that's a worry for another day.

Easter

This year, with Chris working and General Conference, Easter was a little strange for us. The Easter dresses were a little bit of a waste this year since they had to wear them the week before Easter. Oh well, I can't ever complain about fancy new dresses!


The Monday before Easter we had an Easter-themed Family Home Evening. As I was getting ready to explain the Easter story to the kids, I happened to ask if either of them could tell me anything about it. Molly proceeded to regurgitate the entire Easter story, complete with death on the cross and resurrection. Not only was I impressed that she knew it, I was impressed that her attention span in primary was long enough to pick up all the details! Our activity that night was dyeing eggs. Luckily the kit came with stickers and crayons in addition to the dye because Claire had to have many dye "time-outs." She had to have her hands constantly in the dye, and I think at one point I caught her drinking it. We also went to the Easter Pageant at the temple that week, and Molly was totally mesmerized. Claire mostly entertained the people in the row behind us. The kids really were troopers though, considering the pageant didn't even start until an hour past bedtime. After the pageant we were able to get over to the Visitor's Center to catch up with Chris's old mission president, President White. He has just been called to be the Visitor's Center president.




Molly's preschool had an Easter party, and I had to take this picture because Gunner, the boy who is madly in love with Molly, is sitting just to the right of her. Last week he told Molly he was going to marry her. I told Molly to tell him to back off and wait a few years, and she stomped her foot and said "Yeah! I'm just a KID! I'm telling him that TOMORROW!"




Claire got to be involved in the Easter Egg hunt, too. My mother-in-law Kathy made the awesome skirts the girls are wearing. Molly decided to pair the skirt with the Puma's, not me.


Once again, Gunner sitting next to Molly. He and Claire actually had a little altercation over who would get to sit there, and Gunner obviously won.


Molly is definitely the tallest in her class. She just had a well check a couple of weeks ago and she is in the 90th percentile for height!

The Easter Bunny brought our baskets Saturday morning since Chris would be gone Sunday morning. Molly expressed quite a bit of concern about the Easter Bunny coming into the house, so we decided to leave the baskets outside the front door for him to fill so he wouldn't have to come in.


Molly took her eyes off her basket for a minute and Claire shoveled in as many jelly beans as she could before she got caught.


We spent Easter at my parent's. It was such a lazy day that the kids never got out of their jammies (neither did I, but that's pretty typical for me these days). But we definitely had some incredible food; my mom made cinnamon rolls and orange rolls for breakfast and my dad smoked ribs for dinner.


My poor dad trying to keep the kids occupied during conference.


The annual Easter Egg Hunt!

A Month of Birthday Celebrations

This year we didn't do a big birthday party for the girls so we had many mini-parties. The celebration kicked off with Claire's actual birthday. She got this door from Chris and I, which I know might be a little immature for her, but the kids adore it. Next up was Krispy Kreme, which has unfortunately become a birthday tradition, especially since we found out about the free dozen on your birthday. Then we made our way to the train park, where Claire ended up shoeless since somehow only one of her shoes made it into the car. We rounded out the day with cream-filled chocolate cupcakes.






Next up was a Sunday dinner celebration combined with Chris's mom. My sister-in-law Carlie made the kids cakes, which they loved. They got some great presents, especially the awesome tutus from my mother-in-law. For the record, I really dislike Sponge Bob but the only hats they had left at Walmart were Sponge Bob or Transformers so it was the best we could do.








The third party was combined with the kid's cousin Max, who also has a birthday in March. We started off at Chuck-E-Cheese then when back to Sarah's house for some cake and higher-quality pizza from Barro's instead of having to eat the cardboard served at Chuck-E-Cheese.






The last party of the month was Molly's birthday day. She got an easel for her birthday from us, and since it was a preschool day Chris picked up Krispy Kreme and brought it home instead of eating it there. I made some scrambled eggs to go with it so I could feel a little better about myself, but out of the four of us I was the only one who even touched mine. Oh well, I tried. After preschool we went to the Mesquite Groves pool in Chandler. I gave her a few different options of things we could do to celebrate her birthday, but as soon as I mentioned the pool she said "I've been DREAMING of going to that pool!" She didn't miss a beat from where her swimming left off last year; she was swimming like crazy and doing tricks off the diving board. For her birthday treat I made mini raspberry cheesecakes, which she told me she wanted when I showed her a picture of them. Unfortunately when it came time to eat them she scraped off the cheesecake part and just ate the crust.

What? Already?

Apparently there is a little boy at school that is in love with Molly. When Chris dropped the kids off on Thursday he overheard one of the moms tell Ms. Nancy that her son Gunnar talked about Molly constantly at home. I didn't think much of it until Sarah called me on the way home from picking the kids up and broke the news that he had given Molly a token of his affection: a stuffed bear covered in hearts that he had apparently won for her the night before out of a claw machine. From what I understand, Sarah had loaded the kids up in her car when Gunnar came running up and practically threw the bear at Molly. She seemed thoroughly confused, and after a few more seconds Gunnar got up some guts to come back and talk to Molly. He actually jumped into the van, mumbled something to her about a stick he had found, then ran away again. What a nightmare! Luckily Molly doesn't seem to care at all one way or the other about Gunnar, except he is her friend. She has been dragging the bear around with her everywhere this weekend, but I'm pretty sure it has more to do with its sweet hood that comes on and off than it does her feelings for Gunnar. Can't this wait another 20 years?

Back to the Museum

The kids and I have been spending a lot of time at the Children's Museum lately. It never seems to get old, especially since they change things around a lot. They just added a new room for building forts, tunnels, or whatever else you can think of. We probably spent an hour in there, and Molly took part in building some extravagant structures. One employee compared our fort to Fort Knox, which I thought was quite a compliment. Unfortunately no picture, I only got a picture of the tunnel we spent a lot of time working on. I think Molly only went through once or twice after all her hard work.

Public Safety Day

My dad helped put together a Public Safety Day for Fountain Hills, so we all came to support. It was really fun, and as long as there are free fire hats, the kids have a great time!

Princess and the Frog

A couple of weeks ago, the girls and I went out for our first movie. Molly has been to the movies before with Chris's mom, but the was the first time I had taken her. We went to the dollar theater by our house, got some popcorn and lemonade, and I thought things would be beautiful. Claire lasted in her seat until the popcorn was gone, or she was tired of it, I'm not sure which came first. Then she played musical chairs in our row (luckily the theater only had about 10 other people there) which doesn't sound so bad except she kept getting folded up in the seats since she's not heavy enough to weigh them down. Then she dragged her booster off the seat to try to use it as a stepstool to climb over to the next row. The intermission to use the potty only made it worse because she didn't want to go back in. We finally survived through the whole thing, and oddly enough Claire can't stop talking about The Princess and the Frog, which I doubt she saw more than 10 minutes of. Needless to say, she won't be going back to the movies for quite a while.



Afterward we played out by the amphitheater, which was definitely more fun than the movie.