Is it already May? Pictures from April.

It's been too long! I feel a lot busier with three, that's for sure! I've been wanting to post, but other things come up, like sleeping, house cleaning, breastfeeding, dinner making, movie watching, etc. You know, all those other important things.
I feel content with life. I am staying busy and getting better at making a schedule so I don't just sit at home all day. I put together a walking group Monday mornings since there is a jogging path that is made of asphalt that is the width to let one car on it (though it's just designed for walkers/joggers/bikers). It's at the end of our street and goes down about 1.5 miles. So me and anywhere from 1-3 other mom's push our kids in strollers. The 3 mile round trip is really good for me! The first day I did that, I had to take a nap in the afternoon because it wore me out (I had William in my backpack carrying him) and Kalvin and Tristen together are 80 pounds.

So, Tristen really is gonna be a handful of a kid, I think. He's great, but goodness, he likes to push my buttons and not even on purpose I don't think. He just has a hard time listening and hearing me, I think. Anyway, Kalvin and Tristen have fun together most the time when Tristen is not hurting him. Lately, Tristen has liked to wrestle and tackle Kalvin. This time they just happened to be naked after getting out of the bath so I had to snap a couple shots on my phone. (What would I do without a phone?!)

Kalvin was just laying here crying and I was calmly telling Tristen to stop as he laughed. I was feeding William and I've found that if I yell too loud William will stop eating (that's annoying) so I've had to keep my composure a little better. Poor, poor, Kalvin. It's hard to know what to do exactly. I don't want to tell him to hurt Tristen back because when they do that mean words come out and we all end up upset.

Have I mentioned that we have the best neighbors? The mom is a teacher and loves hands on learning. They came home with tadpoles the other day from a friends house and Kalvin really wanted some too so the next day they went by their friends house again to get us some. There are at least 20 of these guys in here, but they hide in the bottom when they see someone walk up. Here's one little guy and then I think the other thing is a fly larva or something because it too was twitching around.

 Logan has moved away :-( The boys have missed him. Good thing Griffin is still here to play with! I think he came to play just after he got back from AZ. He and Griff are on the same soccer team too!

 Kalvin started soccer last weekend. Duane was at the hospital all day and night so he wasn't around to be there so I had all the boys. I was only able to keep Tristen from joining the 5 year old soccer players for about 5 minutes. So for the hour practice, Tristen joined in. I tried my best to keep him in line and actually, he did pretty darn well! Here is a picture of him and another 5 y.o. kicking the soccer ball back and forth. After a few minutes of helping him, I wanted to see how Kalvin was doing and looked away for just a few seconds. When I looked back at Tristen he had wrestled some boy twice his size to the ground and was trying to take away his soccer ball. Several parents nearby were laughing and I pulled Tristen off the kid. Apparently, Tristen didn't see that his ball was kicked a few feet away so he thought this boy was trying to take his soccer ball. Goodness!

 That same day I went to Walmart to get some groceries and cleats for Kalvin. I was trying to rush along and Tristen was lallygagging. I was resisting his attempts to play. Finally, I just took a deep breath and went along with what he was doing because in reality he just wants to have fun! He's just exploring and he's not trying to make me peeved!
He put on these boots and I had to take a picture.

 William is a thumbsucker and it's so cute!  

 William's first bath in the big tub. Kalvin volunteered to help him.

William is a smiley little guy!

I love this picture of Tristen! Apparently Kalvin took the picture. 

 This is a normal face for Tristen. Sadly.

This is a normal face for Willy! :-)

My Sweet Boys--cute stories

I love my boys! I had to blog about this real quick even if I don't have pictures to correspond.

Tristen is starting to take more interest in William. Yesterday eveneing I was a little busy and put William down for a nap, but I guess he wasn't ready to sleep yet so he was whaling away. After a few minutes he had calmed down, but I couldn't find Tristen. Then through the baby monitor I heard quiet talking. I went upstairs to find Tristen whispering to William and he had tucked some covers around the baby as well. I asked what he was up to and he said, "I'm singing him stories." William was wide awake watching Tristen. It was so precious to see this moment between the two of them.

In primary, Kalvin is a great singer and does his best to make his voice heard while singing. I get a good laugh out of it. This last Sunday, they were singing Follow the Prophet and Kalvin was as usual, singing above everyone else. This is what we all heard, "Adam was a prophet, first one that we know, in a place called Egypt, he helped things to grow". The pianist had to find his place in the music again because he was laughing too hard. I'll miss these cute experiences.

Kites, Easter, and more

 We were at the store the other day and walked by this manikin. Tristen stopped and held its hand, then said, "Dead!" in a sad kind of way. Ever since we went to Arizona for my grandma Mickelson's birthday, Tristen has been obsessed with dead things.

Albany usually has quite a bit of wind so a few weeks ago, I took Kalvin with his money to Walmart to get a kite. He pulled one off the rack then said, I want to buy another one for Tristen. It was so cute to see him excited to get one for his best friend, Tristen. Tristen got one with planes and Kalvin got one with Spiderman. They were both very happy! We went to the park that day, but had a hard time getting Kalvin's to stay up.

 I had to work non stop to try to get his kite to work and William was screaming. I went over to see him and he was smiling while I talked to him, but then screaming when I'd walk away. He did the same thing today at the park, so I wonder if he just doesn't like the wind or the cold or laying in the stroller (he really does not like laying in his bouncer and much prefers his bumbo chair).

 So, we went to the thrift store and bought these silk ties to make patterns on our Easter eggs (something I saw on Pintrest).

 It was fun to see how they turned out. Wish I would have got the real camera out for this.

 Kalvin is taking after his dad mostly, but his mom a little too with his sense of style (or the lack thereof). I told him to get dressed and he found a shirt that is too small for Tristen now, to put on. So I took a couple pictures of how it shows his midriff. He didn't mind me chuckling at him.

Tristen and Kalvin were totally obsessed about peeling and eating the boiled eggs!

 Easter morning was fun running around getting eggs. Even having to find 50 eggs was pretty short lived.

 And, I guess we were rushing them along because it was very cold!

 I just had to try to get a sunflare shot before we went in.

 Both the boys got ring pops, their fave!

 That evening we made Resurrection Rolls. When I was in Young Womens, our leaders encouraged us to make a binder of all the handouts we received each week. It's been fun looking through and getting ideas for things from the many papers I have. 

Anyway, the Resurrection Rolls go something like this:

1. get a can of crescent rolls and open them. These are like the linens they put on Christ's body.

2. Get one large marshmallow. This is like Christ's body.

3. Rub the marshmallow in melted butter. This is like the oils they put on his body.

4. Roll marshmallow in cinnamon. This is like the spices and herbs they put on his body.

5. Roll the marshmallow up in the crescent dough. 

6. Bake in oven as instructed on package of rolls. The oven is the tomb. 

When you take the rolls out of the oven, there is nothing left inside because the marshmallow melts into the dough. Kalvin could remember what each step symbolized and what it meant when we quizzed him while eating them. This was definitely fun and we WILL be doing it next  year, or soon for an FHE! I think next time we might come up with a reason to put come pecans inside too. These were very fast and super yummy! Beats slaving hours in the kitchen for cinnamon rolls!

(Tristen was good at helping to rub the marshmallows in the butter and then eating the.

I didn't remember to take a picture till there were only 2 rolls left since we were so busy eating them!

 Before the sun went down, we went back outside. It was very windy so I brought a blanket for William while he sat in the Bumbo chair. I put this blanket around him that someone in the branch made for him. Then I got to play with my sunflare again! :-)