April Fools

Happy April Fools day!

Today we had a breakfast where the kids ordered strange sounding dishes from a Menu (like "Hector Nectar", "Juice Brix", and "Crazee Gloop") without knowing what they were ordering.  They also had to eat with strange utensils like a pizza cutter, tongs, measuring spoons, etc...

Carter eating with a pizza cutter

Taylor eating a cinnamon roll with a spatula

Mallory eating with tongs and a fondue poker

Wyatt making his best April Fools face

We had cousins over for a dessert later in the evening.  We stole the idea of making fries out of sugar cookie dough off of Pinterest, but made up the fry-sauce idea when we couldn't find anything that would work in the place of ketchup.  The fry-sauce is frosting with some red and yellow coloring.  After eating about 4 "fries", Wyatt turned to me and in an angry voice said "Hey Mom!!  These are not french fries!!  These are cookies!"  

5th Grade Band Concert

Carter had a band concert tonight.   It was LOTS (no sarcasm at all) of fun.  I'm posting a video clip of the concert so that you may all share in the joy of the music.

  

I think the video says it all.  To all who have never been to a 5th grade band concert.....Enjoy!

Big Changes for Mallory

We finally agreed to let Mallory get her hair cut.   Her hair was almost down to her waist in the back before the haircut.  She wanted to donate her hair to Locks of Love, and that made me feel a little better about her cutting it all off.   

She is thrilled.  In fact, on the way home from getting it cut she said "Mom, I feel like I'm going to cry because I am so happy!"

Also, as you'll notice from the picture below, Mallory has lost quite a few teeth.  She pulled the last tooth (on the top) by herself.  Josh and I were sitting in a room talking and we heard this in the background.  "Ahhh!  Ahhh!  Ohhh!  Ohhh!" (in a panicked cringing tone of voice) and then "YES!!!!  YES!!!!!  I pulled out my tooth!  I pulled out my tooth!"  She came running in dancing around.  We have never seen any child so happy to have a tooth out!

Andy Apple

I let Wyatt have a "big round apple" the other day and after taking a couple bites, he noticed that his bite-marks looked like eyes and a mouth.  He added some hair bites, named the apple "Andy Apple" and carried it around all day.  He spoke to the apple all day, made it "fly", bragged about all the things Andy could do, and thought his apple friend was so cute.  He took it outside to jump on the trampoline and at the end of the day he even brought Andy to family prayer.  When Wyatt noticed that Andy was getting mushy, he began to cry and begged me to make a new Andy Apple in the morning.

Bigger is Better (Unless it Makes Someone Puke)

One of Josh's students told him about a show called "Man vs. Food" which has become a novel way to make our kids eat a lot.  We let the kids watch a few episodes and then took them to this awesome place called "Big Judds" which makes giant 1LB hamburgers.  The kids (well, mostly Carter and Taylor) were so psyched out from the show, that they both ate TONS.  Taylor ate more than 1/4  of the hamburger!  This was amazing, because he rarely can down a small hamburger.

After that day, we have made our own 1 lb hamburgers.  We made the bun in a cake-pan, grilled the giant 1 lb burger on a big piece of tin-foil and loaded it up with lots and lots of good stuff.   We challenged our cousin/nephew, Kenny to eat an entire burger, and made him throw-up.  (sorry, Kenny) We also gave the challenge to some missionaries that we had over for dinner.  One missionary finished 3/4ths of the burger, but then bowed out.  Mallory said the closing prayer and prayed "Bless that nobody will throw-up from our dinner."  That's not exactly what you want to hear in a post-meal prayer.

Kenny before puking

We also made (attempted) a giant doughnut.  (why not?)  It was going to be totally awesome, but apparently that much dough doesn't cook through very thoroughly, so Carter's friend wasn't able to finish it.  I guess he could have if he didn't mind puking it all up too.  

Arrrrr! Tis March 8th!

Four years ago, on March 8th, we made cookies and took them to a couple of families.  When we delivered the cookies, to be funny, we yelled "HAPPY MARCH 8TH!!"

After delivering the cookies, we thought to ourselves, wouldn't it be funny if we brought them cookies every year on March 8th?  So- we marked the date on our calendar, and have celebrated it ever since.

The reactions of the "target" families have been very amusing.  One family remembered March 8th on the second attempt, and when we got to their house they answered saying "Is this because it's March 8th?!"  The other family chuckled, but only a couple of the family members remembered the year before.

Each consecutive year, we've tried to go bigger and crazier.  That's sort of what makes it so fun.  This year we made banners and hung them on the homes (late on March 7th).  We showed up later in pirate costumes and delivered treasure to them.  It was awesome!  It was also awesome because one family delivered a treasure box to us before we even got to them, and the other family gave us "Pirate Booty" as a thank-you the next day.

A Treasure chest made out of Rice-Krispie treats (and covered with chocolate).

The Kids Decorated Our Own Treasure Chest

An Igloo-less year

Well, this year has not been one for igloos.  This has been sort of fun, but sort of sad too.  We haven't done much sledding or playing in snow at all because it hasn't snowed much.

Here are some pictures of the snow activities we have managed to squeeze in.   At least there have been a couple snowmen.

That's one bewildered snowman!

Mallory and Wyatt made this one without any help at all!