Can you hear me screaming?

No, you can't. That's because, believe it or not, I had great self control and just set to work cleaning up the path of destruction Romney created. Now, for the story... I walk downstairs to check on Romney and was met with the distinct scent of permanent marker. I was dreading walking through the door and seeing what my two year old had destroyed. (Apparently I leave my child alone for for too long because I could not believe how awful it was.) Romney was sitting on the floor surrounded by markers and there in the middle was a black permanent marker. I think he opened one of the boxes we had packed with office type stuff because it wasn't one of the markers we had been using for packing. Anyhow... The first thing I noticed was the van seats (a lot of side notes, sorry. When our van broke down on a camping trip and we sold it, the seats were back at home.) that we were selling on Craigslist. They were 75% black with marker. Then I followed a little path along the floor which let to a plastic toy chair, then over to a little suitcase for Paige's Barbie clothes, on to my sewing machine case, a scanner we were selling, an open box of greeting cards (on the sides of half of them), a plastic storage box or two and thankfully(?) it ended with a few marks on the back of our leather couches. Talk about a destructive child. I started wiping stuff off before it stuck worse and I heard Joe come home. (He rarely comes home for lunch so this was just meant to be.) He looked on the internet and found out toothpaste takes out permanent marker. It was amazing! It came right out of the upholstery on the seats and off plastic. (And it leaves a clean minty scent!) I haven't gotten around to cleaning it all. Ran out of energy and time. Oh, here's a funny thing as we were downstairs cleaning I thought (could be a spiritual prompting to save my child's life) I should go check on Romney. I found him upstairs, sitting in Rebekah's crib with Paige's school box full of markers. Can you believe it! Does he never stop?! I love his energy and ability to stay focused on a project! ;PI think it all came out of the seats.This is the remaining mess. It has all been moved around now but you could just follow this little path of black marker.

Pinewood derby time again!

Jacob had a great time designing and making his car. Unfortunately we were working on it at the last minute. A month seems like a really long time to a kid. "I'll work on it some more later.", was often heard from Jacob.

Jacob and his buddy Jacob T. posted the flag.

Jacob's having fun!

Here's his cool snake car with a lead weight rattler.
That cool snake skin was made using a fly swatter. Here is Jacob's car at the starting line of one of his races. I didn't actually get very good pictures. Aren't they supposed to check to see if the mom is ready with the camera before they start the race? j/kI tried to use the multiple succession photo thing but never pushed the button soon enough so I only caught these two decent photos. These are from the second race. He won the first one and lost the second one. Jacob and Jacob with their certificates. Jacob was kind of upset he won the "Funniest Looking Car" award. He didn't think his car was funny looking. It's cool and creative!

Floral Design by the Mia Maids

I taught a floral design class to the Mia Maids last night. They were so excited and energetic. It was a lot of fun. I've discovered on different occasions, however, that I'm not the best teacher. I have a difficult time keeping people's attention. I had planned to have them follow me step by step but that didn't last too long so the just kind of did their own thing. That's fine because they were very pleased with the arrangements they made and they had fun. Afterwards we went out and delivered them to different people.
Ooh. I have to add we got all the flowers free from Jill Hardy. So, that was a great expense saver. And the lovely containers were from the Dollar Store. The Mia Maid class.I made one arrangement before I came so they had an example to follow.
Then I made another one as I taught the class.

Here is Carrie and Megan with their cute wildflower basket.Alex, Samantha, and Amelia with their warm, vibrant arrangement.

Jessica & Sarah with their Martha Stewart inspired design.

Easter Morning

Fun stuff with Romney

I just wanted to post some of these photos of Romney.
He was being so funny but I had a hard time getting him to look at the camera.He loves being outside!

He uses the garden stakes as swords.

Exploring the garden area.

We went to Idaho for part of spring break (and a funeral for Joe's grandpa). The cousins had so much fun playing together. The trampoline is a favorite place.

Easter Egg Hunts Galore!

The kids went to three Easter egg hunts this year. We got way too much candy. Incredibly it is nearly gone. They started the morning with the Primary Easter egg hunt. I stayed home to cook and Joe took them so I don't have a whole lot of information about that one (not that you would like to have a whole lot of information anyhow). There are pictures of Romney getting a ton of help from older kids. One of them made me think how many boys does it take to help a 2 year old find an Easter egg. Apparently quite a few.
After lunch we headed out to Joe's Aunt Lucille's for another Easter egg hunt with Ginger, Carmen and their families. The kids had fun running around the huge yard and finding eggs hidden in trees and long grass. After a game of softball it was time to head to Easter egg hunt number 3.
We drove to Mary's (who is actually Joe's 2nd cousin or something). She is great; very energetic. There must have been thousands of eggs hidden there. It took quite a while to find all the eggs (who knows if they really were all found?). Paige filled up her basket, emptied it, and filled it up again. The hunt was for ages 8 and under so Jacob didn't get to participate but he had fun jumping on the trampoline. Paige also got to share her three pounds of candy with all of us. Romney wasn't too interested in hunting for eggs again. He decided to ride the bouncing horse instead. I finally convinced him to look for eggs. He would find a couple then run off to some other fun toy, bike, wagon or whatever. He had a blast anyhow. After the egg hunt was a wonderful dinner. I went back for seconds, especially on the salads. So delicious. Then there was dessert. Too many for me to even try them all. Crazy, I know! I was so full! Joe and I enjoyed visiting while the kids played outside.
It was a very busy, long, fun day!

My Easy Baker

Paige loves to use her Easy Bake Oven. She got an Easy Bake decorator kit for her birthday. It is pretty cool. It's battery operated! It is like a pen and you just push a button and the frosting comes out. There are 3 tips, too. She, of course, tried them all out and decorated this lovely cake. She's obviously into modern contemporary design (or something like that).