Sibling Shots Part 3

With no luck here or here, I had hoped to get an Easter picture of the two kids together. I am giving up on ever having them together and happy in a picture.

I love that she's clinging to him, begging him to stay.

Sad to be all alone.

Easter

Easter morning dawned bright and springy. Oh wait...


Calvin helped me make muffins


Then as he was carrying them to the table, for some unknown reason he just stopped and unloaded them onto the floor.

Then he fed his to his rabbit

The basket of goods (honestly I totally FORGOT about Easter. How could that be? All growing up I would help my mom get things ready. I was the one who did the bunny poop trail (chocolate or black jelly beans) from the door to the Easter basket. I was the one that put out half eaten carrots and then left sassy notes to the kids from the Easter bunny. I'm all about it and I totally forgot. Luckily the boy is still young enough that we can wing it. After breakfast I had Andy distract him while I set everything out. He didn't know the difference.)
The biggest hit: Easter Veggie Tales. I do not understand what kids see in Veggie Tales. They all drive me crazy. This one was semi cute though and he watched it no less than 8 times today, all the way through.

My favorite thing was this memory game. I bought it online and didn't pull it out of the box until this morning when the Easter Bunny came, but I couldn't believe how big and adorable it was. He loved it - not as much as Veggie Tales, but it still got plenty of attention today. He was very sad not to be able to use the sidewalk chalk outside.

Autumn wasn't the least bit interested in any of it.

I love Easter. I always feel very grateful on Easter for my knowledge of a Savior who lives. I always feel grateful for the coming spring (despite the snow). And today I feel particularly grateful for all of the good things in my life. I have a husband and two kids who I adore, and I feel adored in return. I couldn't ask for anything more than what I have in this life. I am happy.

Happy Easter!

Eggs, Yaks, and Ice Cream

Today our church had an Easter egg hunt. It was pretty lame. We showed up on time, waited for ten minutes to start, and then within 5 minutes they'd picked up all of the eggs strewn in a wide open field. The end. The only interesting part was me forgetting the Easter basket and arguing with Andy over whether we should drive home and get it. We ended up with a ghetto child out hunting eggs with a plastic Target bag. At least we had that in the car, otherwise if we'd gone home we would have missed the whole thing.

Andy and I whined about what a fun activity it could have been and how we would have done it differently, and then decided we weren't ready to go home yet. We ended up going to BYU's Life Science Museum so that the boy could look at the animals. We just happened to get there during the live reptile show, so Calvin enjoyed the turtles, iguanas, and snakes and then wandered around. Here are a few shots.

He was more interested in his train than the the animals. He drove it over all of the displays.

Some gazelles, goats, yaks and such.

Looking at the tadpoles.
Fish that he wanted to be lifted up to see properly.
More train driving.
Calvin with the "Brother Bears."
A very tall giraffe.
Then we went to the BYU Creamery. They make hands-down the best ice cream I've ever tasted. And I've tasted lots of ice cream (unfortunately).

3/27

Spanking

I'm not fundamentally opposed to spanking in moderation - my parents did it and I survived with no real emotional scars - but I just don't like doing it. I feel like a bully trying to beat my kid into submission. Calvin has only been spanked twice and both times were because I was trying to impress upon him that certain things are just not acceptable. Like today when he enjoyed his second spanking.

When I put him down for naps he screamed for about 30 minutes before finally giving in and going to sleep. He slept for 20 minutes and then was awake again yelling for chocolate milk. This goes in phases. I never let him have chocolate milk in bed at night because we have brushed his teeth, it's a bad habit, blah blah blah. So it follows that I shouldn't let him have it at nap time either because that would be confusing. Most of the time he knows he doesn't get it in bed and goes right to sleep, but he goes in these little spurts where he'll freak out and it takes us several times going in and laying him back down before he'll realize we're serious and go to sleep.

Today was one of those spurts. He yelled for over an hour for chocolate milk. When I went into his room each time he had thrown everything out of his bed and would scream at me. With the screaming I would just lay him down again, cover him, and leave the room. Towards the end of the hour however, nice mom wasn't working. I told him firmly that he would have no chocolate milk until after naps, at which point he started screaming and jumping up and down and hitting the walls and the crib. So I said, "Calvin we do NOT act like this." and I spanked him.

He stopped crying, looked me right in the eye and said in a sad, firm little voice, "No Mommy. We do NOT hit!" I had to leave the room. Does anyone else have a hard time being a parent without cracking up? If he weren't such a pain in the butt he would be so funny and clever.

Baby Name

Today Calvin finally said the girl's name for the first time. Too bad it was while pushing his one year old cousin and yelling, "Stop that! Don't touch Autumn!"

Bonding

The boy is starting to warm up to the girl. Finally.

First he started to poke around at her.

The he actually started kissing on her.

After he got up to leave, she grabbed at his legs and didn't want to let him go.

Happy to have finally won him over.