April 11 - April 17

I didn't do such a great job in the picture-taking dept. this week. 4 of these pictures were taken this week, and 3 were taken at other times. One thing I love about Project Life...it just doesn't matter that all the pictures weren't taken the same week. They are still a part of our life and that's what matters. The first one (pear tree blossoms) was actually taken 2 years ago! That's what my tree looks like right now, but I didn't go out and take a new picture this week. The 2-year-old photo gets the job done just as well!

April 11th. Blossoms on the ornamental pear tree in the backyard. I love seeing these out the kitchen window every spring.

April 12th. Today's excellent deal... How much do you think I spent on all of this stuff at Walgreens today? 4 jars of Skippy, 1 box of Star Wars fruit snacks, 4 random Easter candies, 1 lg. bag of Easter M&Ms, 1 8x10 pic of Chief doing Jedi Training Academy at Disneyland last fall, and 20 4x6 pictures. Answer: 78 cents! I combined sales, coupons, Walgreens great photo deals, and "store cash" and only had to pay 78 cents when I checked out. Yay!

April 13th. Chief had an assignment over Spring Break to make an Art Portfolio to hold his artwork at school.

April 14th. Listening to Maxwell Smart do his reading homework for the night. (Cropped for the blog -- I'll include the uncropped version in our album.)

April 15th. Buddy's treat choice when we went to the mall today. My plan was to take a picture of him on the escalators. He loves to just ride up and down. The picture didn't turn out well so I'll try another time.

April 16th. What the inside of the fridge looked like on this day. When I see this picture I will be reminded of something the Skipper and I are eating a lot of these days...vegetables with cottage cheese dip (just add 1 envelope of Ranch dressing powder mix to 1 16 oz. container of cottage cheese). I will also be reminded that strawberries are Maxwell Smart's favorite food at this time of his life, that Chief always requests "Double Twist" string cheese when I go grocery shopping, and that Buddy only likes Trix yogurt.

April 17th. Random Bionicle creations filler picture. This one was taken last month, but still very much a part of life.

April 4 - April 10

April 4th. Easter Sunday. Easter began with our traditional Easter breakfast -- Eggs a la Goldenrod. Toasted English muffins smothered in a white sauce made with the whites of our Easter eggs, and then the yolks of the Easter eggs crumbled and sprinkled on top. It's always served with pineapple juice. This tradition has been around in my husband's family for many years. After breakfast we watched the broadcast of our church's worldwide General Conference. It takes place the first weekend of every April and every October. It's always nice when it falls on Easter. While we watch General Conference on TV our family eats food from our 72-hour kits that we keep on hand in case of an emergency. It's a good way to rotate the food regularly so it doesn't get too old, and we also learn what the kids will/won't eat. The kids' favorite seems to be beef jerky (didn't get a picture). None of them care for Chex Mix bars so we took those out of the kits. And finally, the kids have little "conference packets" that they work on during the meeting to help them pay attention. One of the games is a Bingo game, using words such as "prayer" -- "faith" -- "Jesus Christ" -- etc. Whenever they hear one of the speakers use one of the words on the Bingo card they get to cover it up with a little candy. Today we used sour jelly eggs. (Hmm. Looks like there is a different activity pictured.)


April 5th. Home from Grandma's. Lots of unpacking to do, but Buddy (the child formerly known as Larabee) and I decided to play Candy Land instead. I think it's funny that he's combing his hair while we play! (By the way, as far as Larabee goes...it was sounding a little too girly to me, even though it is a male character from the old 60s TV series Get Smart where the kids' got their nicknames for this blog. I gave former Larabee a few options for choosing a new name and he chose Buddy. As in Buddy the dinosaur from the PBS Kids show "Dinosaur Train.")



April 6th. A sign that "Buddy was here." When confronted about his artwork on the wall, he denied that it was his. This led to a discussion about lying and telling the truth. :)


April 7th. Chief bringing some groceries in from the car. He's quite attached to his soccer ball these days.


April 8th. Today's picture is a close-up of Chief eating his first orange pepper. I served 8 different vegetables at dinner (definitely a first) and the kids were asked to try at least 2 new ones. He was definitely not a fan!


April 9th. After watching "Kung Fu Panda" the kids were in the mood to demonstrate their new kung fu moves. My husband -- I mean... The Skipper... (I keep forgetting he has a code name) -- put a rolled up sleeping bag over each arm and let the kids go at it. Here's a blurry one of Maxwell Smart showing us what he's got. It was quite entertaining to watch. The Skipper was quite worn out afterward.



April 10th. We did a bit of spring clean-up in the yard today. The kids were excited to find a single ladybug. Later, they were beyond excited to find a ladybug for each of them to play with!
Thanks for visiting...have a great week!

March 28 - April 3

March 28th. Today the kids asked Dad to "challenge" them -- tell them what to build with their Legos. The kids loved this game, and Dad loved not having to get off the couch to play. He would give them an assignment, they would run upstairs and build, then report back with their creation. These are all Chief's creations. Maxwell Smart didn't want a picture taken of his.


March 29th. The kids are very excited to leave for Grandma's house in a couple of days. They started packing Sunday afternoon. I couldn't resist taking a picture of Piggy peaking out of Chief's backpack. Piggy is Chief's stuffed rabbit he got for Easter from my sister 6 years ago, when he was 4. He attempted to give him to his littlest brother a couple of years ago, as he was starting to feel too old to have a stuffed animal. A couple of days later he asked me if he could have it back. I told him he could, and if he ever felt too old to have him around we'd put him in the top of his closet so he could still be close but not too close. :) He liked that idea. I'm glad we haven't reached that point yet...

March 30th. This is a favorite late night snack for me and my husband. We like to have milk and cookies after the kids go to bed! It's not an every night ritual, though.

March 31st. I took this picture last week. It's not every year we can capture this!


April 1st. We arrived at Grandma's Wednesday night. This is what we woke up to on Thursday morning. It looked more like Christmas-time than Easter-time! It was funny seeing those almost-ready-to-bloom-blossoms under a layer of snow.


I need to fit this picture in somewhere too. We started a new April Fool's tradition last year. A dessert is served as Dinner, and dinner food is served as Dessert! The kids loved having things switched around like that. (By the way, that's an Easter egg cake that I picked up at the bakery. The whole thing didn't fit into the collage.)


April 2nd. Grandma and I took the kids to an aquarium. For some reason I thought of my 3 boys when I saw these 3 toads sitting together. :)

April 3rd. We had our annual Easter egg hunt in Grandma's backyard today. I got a lot of good pictures, so I'll probably stick a pocket page protector (We R Memory Keepers) in my Project Life album filled with our Easter pictures. I just can't narrow it down to 1. I don't think a collage will cut it this time, either.
See you next week!