April 2014

It's April!  The last day of March was a snow day for the boys.  The previous day's snow was still everywhere and making it hard for people to get around.   The boys enjoyed having a day off from school and some unexpected time in the snow.  Justin was also excited that his teacher, who had told them that there would be no more snow days this year, was wrong.


March 31, 2014  Pretty decent snowman

The boys were working on a snowman when Oscar (from Ryan's school), his sister, and his dad came walking by.  They cut into our yard and helped to build the snowman.  I wasn't using my crutches anymore, but wasn't really wanting to get up and play in the snow.  My ankle was still a bit sore and I feared that I might slip and hurt myself before I finished healing.  I was glad that they had help.

April 1, 2014  He isn't looking so great.

April 3, 2014 He is really melllllllllllting!

 

The cold weather didn't last long though. I think it is safe for me to put the winter things away now.  Of course I had thought that in mid March and was proved wrong.  Our poor apricot trees did not fare so well.  Last year they were absolutely full of apricots.  Unfortunately, much of the country's crop appears to be ruined.  Dead, limp blossoms cling weakly to the branches.  I wonder if we will see any apricots at all.  Of course while I enjoyed the fruit, it is not our livelihood. Our cherry and plum trees have not yet blossomed, so perhaps they will provide us with some treats.

 

The boys received a package from Grandma and a scholastic book order on the same day.  It was hard to get them to do anything but read.  I suppose there are far worse problems to have.

 





Since Justin was busy with the Captain Underpants collection, Ryan got a chance
to read the Skylanders book that Grandma sent.  He also enjoyed his Pete the
Cat books.  Love my readers. :)

One of the girls in Ryan's class had a birthday party.  It was not as big as the party Monica from Justin's class had, but certainly a big party for a five year old!  There were over 30 children and about 15 parents/nannies/teachers.  The first hour was a bit crazy.  It seems that things don't often really start on time here. The entertainment was still being set up and children were running around kicking each other, jumping on furniture, opening DVD cases and pulling out DVDs, popping balloons, and doing other things that I find unacceptable.  Evidently behavior like this does not bother other people, but it drives me bonkers.  Note to self: remember to arrive late at events.  Even Ryan wanted to go home.  Then the entertainment started.  There was a magician who had a pigeon, a rabbit, a monkey, and a snake. He did non-animal tricks as well.  I had to go pick up Justin so I missed the bubbles part of the party.  Ryan said that the clowns made bubbles and that the kids got be inside of them.  I arrived in time for the cake.  Now singing happy birthday is not complete unless you have Roman candles and sparklers rather than boring little wax candles.  After the cake, Ryan and I walked home.  Justin had begged to be left home so he could read his book.  Since Skyler was likely home right across the street and Aiden's family was also home, I figured he could get help from them as needed or call me and I could have them help him.  Still, I didn't want to leave him alone long and I was all partied out anyway.

Anybody want a snake?

My sweet little clown

Spring seems to be here for real.  We have seen many caterpillars.  Here is one of the nests of caterpillars we found.  They move in such a strange, jerky, rhythmic pattern.  I should look up why they do that.  I have never seen so many caterpillars in my life!  We haven't seen eggs or tadpoles yet, but there have been a few frogs by the pond. 

Caterpillars galore!

Saturday the boys were outside riding their bikes and scooters.  Aiden and his brothers came out for awhile too.  When the younger boys went back inside, Aiden came over to have a little picnic for lunch. All three boys insisted that it was their first picnic.  It certainly wasn't an exciting picnic, but they seemed to enjoy it.

The boys insisted that this is the first picnic they ever had.  Sigh.  I have a
picture so next picnic when they claim it is the first, I have proof otherwise.

The boys then played with the parachute Easter bunny parachutes that Grandma Pat had sent.  They also played a bit of tee ball and enjoyed Justin's stomp rocket.

Look Grandma, parachute toy!

Setting up the rocket.

Oops.  It got me.

3-2-1 Go!

On Sunday we dyed our Easter eggs.  I was so excited that in Armenia we can get white eggs.  When you dye brown eggs, well, the result just isn't the same.  Having your eggs so dark to begin with can make the process hard.  This year, nice white eggs!  I also decided to dye uncooked eggs rather than boiled eggs.  We don't eat a lot of boiled eggs and I hate to waste them.  Only one cracked and I was able to use that one in some muffins I made. 

Soon my hands will be more colorful than the egg.

Having fun with the dye.

The boys had a lot of fun dying the eggs.  They put them in color after color after color.  I was quite disappointed that many of their eggs (note the bottom row in the picture below) looked like plain old brown eggs.  Nice.  All the excitement over being able to dye white eggs only to make them look like undyed brown eggs.

Our finished eggs.  Some look more colorful than others.

Easter Party

So, pretty obvious who didn't like the Easter Bunny. I figured that we should have a picture taken anyway. This is a snapshot of how it was for TB at Easter. Justin, on the other hand, was a bit amused. He told me that it wasn't a real rabbit, just a person playing hide-and-seek in a costume. Luckily he didn't look for the person. That would have been a bit  awkward.    

Justin had a blast dying eggs. Next week we will be dying some at home. I am hoping that the novelty of egg dying has passed and he will be able to choose more colors than blue AND be able to keep his hands out of the dye. His hands remained quite blue today. Always lovely.

All the egg hunting, egg dying, and eating, must have worn him out because Justin took a nice nap.  Too bad his brother didn't follow his lead.  Too bad Justin didn't want to go to bed tonight because he had a nap.  Sigh.

Easter

Today was Easter. We had a nice Easter lunch with some friends from church. Justin was in heaven because he knows the kids who were there from his church nursery class. How fun is that? It was nice for me too. A delicious meal without the prep or cleanup. I could get used to that. :)

Justin was excited to look in his Easter basket and enjoyed more candy than he should have. He has been reading books about the Easter bunny with me and has really gotten into it this year. We talked a little about how we think about Jesus at Easter, but didn't go into that much. I figured if it came to Justin choosing between Jesus and the Easter bunny that he wouldn't make the choice I would want him to make. He's two years old. Getting candy from a walking, talking rabbit makes more sense to him than someone dying (not that he knows what that is) and being resurrected. Pretty big concept for adults. Hopefully this year he will get a little bit of the Jesus part at Christmas and be able to carry it over to Easter. For now we will continue to work on Jesus loves Justin and pictures of Jesus with children and other happy pictures.

We dyed eggs this week and he was thrilled to be able to watch the eggs change color. Better yet were the eggs that had his name written on with wax crayon. It was like magic to see the egg come out colored with his name on it! It did make quite the mess. I had the foresight to have us perform the messy task out on the balcony with Justin wearing only a diaper and an art smock. We had the table covered with a trash bag and plenty of wipes and water to keep things under control. Justin and I both ended up with dye on our hands and arms. Ryan was unhappy sitting just inside the doorway, so I moved his chair out with us and he promptly fell asleep. I was a little worried that he would get dye spilled on him and be green or something. Luckily, that didn't happen.

We also went to Nandemo (community center) this week for their mini sports club. Justin had a blast. He got kind of bored listening to some of the directions since they were in Japanese. The people running the activity had a lot of fun things, but they moved through a lot of them too quickly. The childen would have enjoyed doing some things over and over instead of once or twice. Oh well. If they have the time to plan a billion things instead of just a few, more power to them. Towards the end we had to make a less than graceful exit. Justin was not listening to me. It is important that he listens since I have Ryan with us (in our new Ergo baby carrier which is the best). If he doesn't listen, we are done. So I ended up carrying Ryan in the carrier and a screaming, tantruming Justin through the gym, down the hall, and to the stroller. Justin didn't even get his shoes and socks back on. I hope he gets it. I carried him home from the playroom once and ever since he has been so good about listening to me. We'll see. The gym is pretty fun. It has a lot of tempting things like a slide, trampoline, balls, bikes (and trikes and unicycles), balance beams... All that and space to run. So hard to listen to boring Mommy. (You may note that he has had a haircut in these pictures. Yay!)