April 12th - 18th, 2021: Are you ready to broke your butt?

Another week in the books at the McKarns house. It wasn't the most exciting week, but a little busier than usual and some funny moments mixed in. So here we go.

Monday, April 12th: 

It was warm enough on Monday for outside water play. CRAZY! Which we did exactly that, because it was Zia Pylant's 8th birthday, so we played at their house in the afternoon after school got out to have fun with her on her special day. The kids had a blast with the sprinklers and a slip n slide and enjoyed every minute of getting wet. They even all dipped in the baby pool set up for the babies because apparently you're never too old for that. 😂🤷‍♀️ The boys were in and out of it and it took Nolan a hot minute to decide if he even liked being in it, the silly boy. Speaking of him, I spent about an HOUR digging around in the attic and the kids room for the bathing suit and rash guard that Nolan wore last summer when it was still a bit big on him knowing it would work great this summer too and I COULD NOT FIND IT! Seriously, stuff like that cannot be explained. I searched high and low and I know I did not throw it away. I am so dumbfounded and it is pretty annoying, so he had to rock the only other 12 M bathing suit I have, but without a rash guard. 🙄🤦‍♀️ I'm going to be forced to just buy another one I'm sure, and it's gonna show up when we move out of this house and I don't need it anymore..... super helpful. I even said a prayer hoping to have that lightbulb moment, but it didn't come. 😩😔 What can you do! Anyway, my laugh of the day was when Maeve made Zia a birthday card while in the car on the way to their house and Rowan said, "Draw me in the picture too, but put me in a dress so she likes it" 😂🙈 Crazy boy! 

Tuesday, April 13th: 

A super low key day. I really have about nothing to say other than the fact that we: 

~Did preschool
~Went to the grocery store for a few odds and ends|
~I bought some headbands and a hat on Amazon
~I went to Young Women's. The girls just split up into groups and played some board games, so very low key, but fun for them.

Just a typical Tuesday!

Wednesday, April 14th: 

Another typical weekday, but with a few funny moments mixed in, such as....

~During preschool, we were talking about things that smell bad and Rowan's ideas all sounded like variations of "A dirty floor with poop on it! A dirty chair with poop on it!" etc. etc. 😂🤦‍♀️ He'll never miss an opportunity to talk about poop and then say it as many times as he can... 😏

~Rowan's new thing is to help me fold laundry. He gets very excited to do the final fold of each piece, cause ya know, baby steps. He is particular and likes to know he's doing it right, so folding the whole thing is too much for him. While helping though, he said, "I'm gonna put mine and Nolan's clothes in the same pile because I love him. But Maeve's will go on the floor by themselves because I don't love her when she steals the ball from me when I'm doing baseball. So bad girl! Goes on the floor!" 😂🤦‍♀️ Then he proceeded to say "bad girl!" every time he would set one of her folded clothing articles in her pile. Talk about a major shift! Not only is Nolan feeling the love, but he's feeling it even more than Maeve. Wowzers. Guess that's what happens when you get in the way of a boy and his baseball. 🤷‍♀️

~Rowan decided to change into one of my old shirts that he has been using as a jammie shirt from time to time for probably the last 2 years. I noticed that it goes down to his knees now and it used to go down to almost his ankles when he first started wearing it!! I pointed it out to him and got all sad about it cause that's what moms do when they recognize their kids are growing like weeds and there's nothing they can do about it, am I right!?! 😂😭Maeve asked why that kind of a thing would make me sad and I said, "Because! You just all used to be so much tinier and look at tiny Nolan! You're just so especially cute when you're so tiny!" Her response: "...Yeah, but do you really want a baby that just stays little and is pooping in diapers forever???" 😂The answer to her question is yes, yes I do - as crazy as it might sound to her and probably many others - I'll deal with diaper changes for the rest of my life if it means I can have a forever baby. Sign me up! 🙋‍♀️

We did also get Papa Murphy's for dinner because I was just really wanting some good food and sometimes you just cave to that when the husband is willing to entertain the idea. 😉 Word to the wise though, their cheesy bread is not the best. Literally just bread and cheese and no good seasonings like all other pizza places put on theirs. Marcos is probably my fav!

Thursday, April 15th: 

Adam worked from home and the weather was GLORIOUS, so he actually stopped working a bit early and we went on a family walk. What should have been a pleasant walk though did NOT turn out that way because Rowan decided he wanted to ride his police car instead of his bike or scooter. What he didn't think about is that he can't go very fast on that and it didn't take long very he was LOSING it over the fact that Maeve was going way faster than him, no matter how hard he tried to go fast. She'd pause and wait for him, but within seconds of going again she'd be too far ahead again and cue the tears. I felt nice enough to offer to go back with him and get his bike or scooter, but he didn't go for that and instead just chose to be a huge butthead. I really did not want to miss out on the nice weather and take him back home, so I told him he wasn't going to ruin it for me and he'd have to just sit in the bottom of the stroller. I also told him that if he chose to whine for much longer that he'd have to spend some time in his room by myself when we got home. Take a big fat guess on the outcome of that one.... 🙄🙄 Children sometimes!! 

In other news, I got a People magazine in the mail for signing up for Fabletics and in checking it out I saw an article about Amanda Seyfried having kids and decided to google how old she was. I sort of fell down the rabbit hole and ended up finding out that when Mean Girls was filmed, Rachel McAdams was 26!! She was 7 and 8 years older than Lindsay Lohan and Amanda Seyfried respectively during filming. SO crazy!! I would have never guessed. Also so crazy to think Rachel McAdams was that old and cast as a high school student... 🤯. I also found out that Shailene Woodley is engaged to Aaron Rodgers, who is Jordan Rodgers' brother - the guy engaged to JoJo Fletcher from the Bachelor. Kinda wacko that Shailene will be JoJo's sister in law 🤯, if she ever actually marries Jordan that is! So there's a little Pop Culture for ya. I am normally soooo out of the loop on all of that. 

I got my headbands in the mail, which I guess I have to admit why I had to buy them.......  🙈😳. You might remember how Adam helped me out by buzzing my widow's peak because it was driving me SO nuts. Well, I had been taking matters into my own hands since then to keep it maintained and turns out it is easy to take a couple extra hairs each time you do it, which in the long run can turn into a disastrous mistake....... 🙈🙈🙈. SO embarrassing. I may or may not have a chunk of hair that needs to grow back now. SOOO, my solution is covering that up with headbands for what is probably going to feel like the rest of my life. And I guess never dunk my head under the water when I go to the pool this summer 🤷‍♀️... UGH. Kind of a horrible mistake to make. I probably should have just embraced my widow's peak because here we are in a way worse spot. Totally a first world problem, I know. 

Before Rowan went to bed, he asked Adam, "What are we going do tomorrow?" Adam responded with school and preschool and then he chimed in, "And drink water!" 😂🤔 Too funny. Maybe he's onto something with that one - if I actually took note that I would drink water the next day, maybe I'd actually drink enough water during the day. 😂🤷‍♀️ One final thing worth noting is that Maeve surprised me with the cutest note on my bedside table that I saw when I went to bed. I'll have to share it in the pics. Such a sweet girl. ❤️

Friday, April 16th: 

In the morning, Rowan and I made pancakes together for breakfast. I always prefer to use our metal whisk, but we have a colorful plastic whisk too and after I pulled out the metal one, Rowan said (referring to the colorful one), "Next time I want to use the beautiful one! But after we use it, we need to wash it to make it pretty again." 😂😊 Cute boy. He also had me laughing when he saw that the batter got bubbly when I put the water in and he said, "You need the water because it makes bubbles and pancakes need bubbles!" Whatever you say, little dude. 😂 While I cooked all the pancakes, Rowan and Nolan played "the baby game" - which basically means that Nolan is himself and Rowan pretends to be a baby and plays with him. Now that he appreciates Nolan more, it's a new favorite game around here. 😂🥰 It's pretty cute. 

The rest of the day was pretty lowkey until the evening when I went out to pick up stuff to make homemade frozen custard and on my way home started to feel sick to my stomach pretty suddenly. I wasn't so sure I'd be able to even eat any of it, which was a bummer, but it ended up kinda working out because Adam made a mistake and kind of ruined it so we weren't able to eat it that night anyway. I spent the rest of the night in bed, thinking I might throw up, though it didn't end up happening. I sure felt like it for a while though. 🤢

Saturday, April 17th: 

Luckily I felt fine in the morning, so Maeve and I went off to her dance class and then after that I went back out by myself to return a hat I'd gotten from Amazon that I didn't end up liking. I also thought I was going to return some of the headbands as well, but turns out I got a refund for them, but didn't have to return them. Crazy! They were cute so it was a win - I just didn't want to spend that much money on headbands, so I ordered a few different sets with the intent to return one of them. Lucky me, I get to keep them all, but only pay for 2 sets! Cha-ching! 🙌 I ended up going to Once Upon a Child and Old Navy afterwards to look for clothes and such for the kids and myself with this warmer weather that is about to be here to stay. I found some good stuff so that was fun! 

That night we had planned to go to a Truck and Tractor pull with the Pylants and some other friends to really immerse ourselves in the south, but the kids behavior went so far south before leaving that we felt like they didn't deserve to go. Kind of a punishment for us too, but it's probably for the best we didn't go and stay out late. I think they needed the good sleep they got that night. Since we planned on getting a bite to eat before going and I had no dinner plans otherwise, we still went out to pick up food and let me tell you, it was quite the fiasco deciding what to get. Close to nothing sounded good to me and Maeve was dead set on getting a burger, but Adam wanted something healthier. Eventually we realized there wasn't any 1 place that was going to appeal to all of us, so we got McDonald's for the kids and Chinese food for us. I ordered the Coconut Chicken, which I had never tried before, and it was actually really good! 👌 I liked the sauce a lot. A nice change from our usual orders. 

Sunday, April 18th: 

Normally Sundays are relaxing and spent mostly at home, but for me this was not the case this particular day! In addition to going to church, I also went to see the last performance of a high school play that one of our Young Women performed in as one of the lead characters. They put on Clue and she was Mrs. Peacock. She did a great job and it was fun to watch her shine in another light because she is normally so shy and reserved! I went with Jessica, the YW President, and we were both proud of her and her bravery!! I had about an hour to kill after getting home from that before going back out to the church for a Youth Presidency Training meeting. I had to talk to all the new secretaries in Young Women and Young Men about their new role as a secretary and what all that will entail, etc. Not the most exciting, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do sometimes. 

K and then that night the WEIRDEST thing happened!! Adam and I had briefly talked earlier that day about maybe getting a nicer vacuum that is better for carpet/rugs. We certainly made no decision, but then that night I got a confirmation email from Walmart.com that a REALLY expensive vacuum had been ordered on my account. For a second I thought maybe Adam went in and ordered one to surprise me or something, but when I saw that it was $700 I knew that couldn't be true. 😳 Luckily I also saw an email that came in right after that that said it was flagged as suspicious and the order was canceled and I wouldn't be charged. SO weird!?!? It's like someone KNEW we talked about it that day.... like what are the odds!? But also, WHO got on my account and tried to order that is what else I wanna know!! I changed my password to the account and maybe I should also delete that saved credit card too. So annoying and unsettling when stuff like that happens!

Well, that's a wrap for the week! Now for the photo dump of the week. 👇

This kid kills me with his obsession with changing batteries when things die. He literally will get out the screwdriver and batteries and basically do it all on his own now... 😂😍

Nolan saw the car cart and very quickly let me know he wanted to ride in it instead of sitting in the front of the cart. And so it begins! 😍

I know it's not a good pic, but it was too cute walking in on them playing this sleep game in their room. They take their pretend play seriously with props and everything! 👏🥰

Maeve's cute note she left for me to see when I went to bed 😍🥰 - gotta love how she added that Rowan and Nolan love her. She's definitely got confidence! 😂

He miiiiiight have an obsession with headbands.... 😂🤦‍♀️ There are few rules when it comes to going through the school pick up line. 

Love these cute babies of mine. I asked Maeve if she wanted to take a pic to show our hair bows and she was of course ready, but Rowan had to jump in too. 😊😍

Probably the best kid spelling you'll ever see for strawberries... 😂👌

Also this video is too good of Rowan saying "Brrrr!" because he thought it was cold outside 😂👌:

https://youtube.com/shorts/ikpybXb_RI4?feature=share

Peace and blessings. ✌️

April 9th - 11th, 2021: When allergies get angry...

Alright, so I was supposed to write on Monday, but I didn't, soooo here I am now to write about the weekend even though it's Wednesday. It's fine. I'm fine. Everything's fine. 😜😂

Friday, April 9th: 

I have "snacking means pooping" written in my notes for Friday and I don't even remember the context for that anymore. 😂🤔 I want to say maybe one of the kids said that when I caught them eating yet another snack and was not too thrilled about it. So, naturally, they tried to back track by saying "snacking means pooping" -- real convincing. 😂🤦‍♀️

I think I shared some pictures of the boys at the playground in my last post and I realize now, those were from Friday so I should have put them on this post. 🤦‍♀️ But anyway, that's actually the day we hit up the playground cause the weather was so fantastic. It was a fun time!

Adam's allergies have been TERRIBLE lately, starting on Easter. I had to run to the store to get him some eye drops with antihistamine in them and apparently the kind I got wasn't as good as the kind he has used in the past, because he was struggling pretty bad still on Friday night. So I went to the store again to the get the better kind and pick up some mango pepsi, cause hello, gotta try that when you see it. It's pretty good, in case you wanted to know. Maeve also played at Bella's house on Friday night after dinner for a bit, and when I went to pick her up I chatted for a little bit with her parents, Leslie and John. John saw her helmet she wore when she rode her scooter over and asked if she wears that for tornado drills. I laughed at first, but then I stopped and thought about how good of an idea that is! Apparently their girls pull out their helmets when they're hunkered down for tornado warnings, and not gonna lie, that's super smart to protect your head just in case. I'll totally have to have the kids do that in the future. A+ tip to put in my pocket. 

Saturday, April 10th: 

Maeve's dance studio decided to offer a free class for fun for all dancers that got A's and B's on their report cards. As a Kindergartener, A's are more like M's (Meets expectations) and Maeve did get all M's so she got to try out a tumbling class in addition to her musical theater class that day. She seemed to have fun, but said at the end that some of the stuff was hard and she didn't get a treat at the end like she normally gets after her other class. 😂🤦‍♀️ Now I'm wondering if she really likes her musical theater class or if she just likes the treat at the end....  🤔 Say the word "treat" and a kid will be interested, right?! I mean, as an adult, I've been known to do things for food before too. 😂🙈 Anywho, poor Adam's eyes looked puffy and crazy on Saturday following his major allergy flare up Friday night and I felt so bad. I have never seen him struggle so much with it before! Poor dude. And on top of the crazy eyes, he also had a headache and felt kinda dizzy so he rested in bed for a bit in the afternoon. He claimed he was still up for it, so at 5pm we still went over to the Pylant's house for the evening to eat dinner and play games. Poor Amanda made a veggie curry that she loves and accidentally dumped a little (or maybe a lot) too much cumin into it and when she taste tested it, it was so bad she said we couldn't eat it. Poor girl was so frustrated about ruining it, but obviously we assured her it was totally fine and we ended up just ordering some pizza. At least we're good friends and they have no reason to be embarrassed with us! It would have been a different story if it was the first time having someone over. 😂😳 We also played the game What Do You Meme, which is kinda like Apples to Apples, but with pictures and memes to go with them. I may have been laughing so hard a few times that I couldn't get my words out. 😂😂😂 Some of the memes were just too good!! It was a really fun night and I needed the laughs with friends. 🙌

Sunday, April 11th: 

Adam didn't want to show up to church looking like a trainwreck (his poor eyes were that bad), so we decided to stay home and just watch sacrament meeting on Zoom. The primary music leader posts singing time videos once a month on our ward primary Facebook page for the kids to learn a new song each month and Maeve has been loving that. She posted a new one that day and Maeve got to learn it and make a heart with some word prompts on it to help her remember all the lyrics. She sang it on repeat for the rest of the day! While we were at it, we also revisited the other songs from the last few months. It's crazy to me that Rowan would be a Sunbeam if primary was happening in person, so I did try and get him in on this singing too, but he wasn't really too into it. I think it's going to take him actually going to Primary for the first time for him to realize it's for him too. 🤷‍♀️ The weather was super nice on Sunday, so with Adam's eyes settled enough in the afternoon, we decided to go on a bike ride. I tested Nolan out in the carrier before making the decision to go and though he is much heavier now, I was able to do it, and luckily he was happy as long as the bike was moving. Anytime we stopped, he was not too thrilled about being confined in that carrier though. 😂 Luckily on our actual bike ride, we just rode to the school playground the kids love and let him loose right when we got there and he lasted fine again while we cruised home. It was nice to enjoy our first bike ride of the season and I think Adam really loved getting to see Nolan in action at the playground loving the slides now. It was a party! Sadly, that night I had to run back out the store again to get Flonase for Adam because those other new eye drops started to not cut it either and he was super itchy and watery again. So miserable!! The Flonase helped a lot though pretty quickly, so that's a blessing. 🙏

A couple funny/heartwarming things said by the children that day: 

~Rowan is not one to usually say "I love you too" whenever we tell him that we love him. It's pretty rare for him to do it, even when I remind him often that that is something you should say back if you love the person too. Given that, you can probably imagine how rare it is for him to say "I love you" to anyone in the first place, too. So it was pretty heartwarming and kinda the sweetest thing EVER, when he randomly said to me while cuddling, "I love you very much. All the day!" 🥰😍 Ooooh my. So cute. 

~Apparently Maeve told Adam that she wished we could have gotten snow cones when we went on our bike ride and Adam reminded her that it was Sunday and we don't buy stuff on Sundays anyway. She responded, "That's not buying stuff, it's stealing". 😂🤔 Apparently, she thinks we've been stealing snow cones this whole time whenever we go the snow cone stand in the summertime.... I'm guessing the confusion is in the fact that she associates buying things with being inside stores, so maybe the snow cone shack throws her off. Too funny!

That's all she wrote, peeps. Time for some pics!

He was killing me sitting in this little playroom chair at the little table. Trying to be a big kid! 😍😭

Little besties staring out the window together! 😍

Love that Aurum had to pose and smile once he saw I was snapping pics. 😂😍

Cute girl with her heart! The song she learned was Jesus Said Love Everyone

😍😍😍 This picture kills me with Rowan's hands on her head! Too much. 

Maeve found these from back when she drove me nuts asking me to basically plan out the whole next day the night before every single night ie. "What are we gonna do after that? And after that? And after that?" said until I went mad. 😂 So I tried this planner out briefly and then things must have mellowed out. Well, she took it upon herself to plan out her week herself once she saw these and it cracks me up that every single day says basically the same thing. So stinking cute! 😍

Reading party with Daddy 😍

Peace and blessings. ✌️

April 1st - April 8th, 2021: Tail end of Spring Break, Easter, & Back to the Grind

I have been so lazy about writing lately. There, I said it. There's no good excuse, I just didn't want to for the last week. Buuut now that I've let a week go by, it's had me wondering if I should switch to writing once a week. I feel like I spend too much time writing sometimes and maybe if I only write once a week I'll do better about only hitting the true high points and what really matters to be recorded so that it will be brief enough. Maybe I'll try it out and see. So here's the highlights of the last week: 

Thursday, April 1st: 

After our typical morning routine and getting ready for the day, I surprised the kids by driving them to Nashville. Maeve had no idea what we were doing until we got close enough and she started to see the city skyline. She was SOOO excited. It was a pretty chilly day and SO windy, which made it way worse at first, so once we got to the playground we were gonna play at first I started to wonder if we were crazy for doing it and thought we might only last 30 minutes before going home. 😅 The second surprise was Adam showing up to the playground 5 minutes after we got there with Chick-fil-A for lunch! 🙌 So we all got a picnic with Daddy, which was another major treat for a weekday. It was so windy and we froze and nearly lost a bunch of food while we ate, but survived and thank heavens the wind started to die down after that and it warmed up a little bit, so it wasn't bad at all the rest of the day. And! Nolan discovered that slides actually are fun and was able to ease into it by going down on Maeve first. Super cute to watch. Before long he was sliding down on his own and loving every minute. It was great to see him involved in the fun since he's usually a spectator from the sidelines!! He may have torn up his shoes from all the climbing he did to get back up to the top of the slide every time, but you only live once, right? We hit up a second playground that looked legit and the kids also loved that one. Then, we headed over to Broadway and Fifth and got mini donuts from the Donut Distillery. After trying those out a few weeks ago, I knew the kids would love them and so perfect for them since they're mini. They were not disappointed! We immersed ourselves in the hustle and bustle of the city and decided to walk down Broadway for a little bit just for fun too before leaving. I didn't think we would, but we ended up spending the whole day there and left in time to get home to make dinner. What I didn't think about is that leaving at that time meant being stuck in rush hour traffic just like Adam. Oooops! So we actually ended up getting home about the same time. It was a day for the books and I'm glad we could do something like that that we do not normally do during Spring Break since we stayed put at home. At least we got a mini day trip in! 🙌

Friday, April 2nd: 

Friday morning started off with a bang when we went to the Discovery Center to meet up with Diane and her kids (an old Nashville friend). It had been months since we'd seen each other and even longer since the kids had seen each other because the last time I saw her was for a girls night. I think Diane is awesome, so I'm kinda mad at myself that we let so much time pass before getting together again. Her oldest daughter Amelia had really been wanting to go to the Discovery Center, so they decided to make the trek to Murfreesboro and she texted me to see if we wanted to join. It was way fun to catch up, although it can get a little chaotic at times at a place like that with the kids wanting to do different things, so there were times that we ended up separated unfortunately, but what can you do. We stopped at the library on our way home to pick up some books and then spent some time reading once we got home. I had to laugh over this conversation between Maeve and Rowan... 

Rowan: "I can read this book myself because it has no words and books have words." 🤔😂

Maeve: "Yes, it does have words Rowan. I can read them!" 

Rowan: "No Maeve! You're not supposed to read them..." 

Maeve: "Yes, you are! If only it had directions so you'd know that you are supposed to read them!" 😂😂😂

Can you imagine if books had directions at the front that said "How to read this book: Read every word on every page, and once you've done that you will have completed the book" 😂 Maybe for a 3 year old it's necessary, I dunno... 🤷‍♀️. The only other highlight about Friday was when my ministering sister showed up with an Easter basket for me with some candy in it, saying "You probably never get our own one of these" which yes, so true - I do not assemble my own Easter basket. 😂 Moms just assemble the fun for every one else. Such a sweet idea for her to bring me one! Friday night I slaved away in the kitchen starting some homemade cinnamon rolls in preparation for Conference. I got them all rolled up so they'd be ready to go in the oven in the morning. 🙌

Saturday, April 3rd: 

After Maeve's dance class, I made homemade maple buttercream frosting to go on the cinnamon rolls and then we enjoyed those while watching the first session of conference. That frosting literally tasted like angels. Cinnamon rolls should only ever be made that way - I don't think I'll ever make them the normal way again. Sooooo freaking good. Bring me back to the days of going to Provo Bakery with their maple cinnamon rolls that we loved. The frosting I made was just as good as that frosting was, if not better!! So smooth, whipped, and creamy! 😋😋🙌 We enjoyed watching conference all day, ya know, as much as you can with a 1 and 3 year old around. 😏 It didn't help that Rowan was EXTRA naughty the day before and was told by Adam that he lost candy for Saturday and Sunday. Which was actually probably a poor consequence, considering we had a candy bowl out for Maeve that she could pick M&Ms out of anytime she heard certain words. Rowan certainly ended up sneaking some here and there, the little stink, but I guess it's hard to avoid that when it's out in the open. 🙄🤷‍♀️ And then of course Saturday night we got everything ready to go for Easter the next day. The anticipation was UNREAL from the kids!! Oh, and our laugh of the day for Saturday was when Rowan saw a can of tomato sauce in the pantry and called it "bean salad" 😂😂🤔 - I literally have no idea why he thought it was that, but I couldn't stop laughing. The rest of the weekend I'd randomly remember and start laughing again! Good times. 

Sunday, April 4th: 

The long awaited Easter Sunday!! The kids were overjoyed when it was time to go downstairs and follow their strings that Adam strung through the downstairs to find their Easter baskets. Poor Rowan got to find his, only to then be told that he would not be allowed to eat any of the candy from it at all that day. Luckily there were a few other surprises besides candy in each of their baskets, which kept him excited. Nolan got a cute, super soft stuffed bunny that Rowan actually loves more than he does, so there's that. Maeve and Rowan both got jumbo pencils, and then Maeve also got a wind up plastic bunny that walks and poops out jelly beans (I knew that would be a hit 😂) and a pack of Yo-yos. Bring me back to my childhood! Then Rowan also got some Batman tattoos and a kaleidoscope. Also a blast from the past for me. Had to introduce my kids to some classic toys I had. Turns out though that yo-yos are not easy enough for 5 year olds to use, even though the packaging said ages 3+. 🤦‍♀️🤷‍♀️ It was a bit of struggle for Maeve, but she still had fun trying and eventually found her own way to sort of do it. We used the rest of the morning hours to make cute egg crowns for Maeve and Rowan to wear the rest of the day and those were a hit! Gotta love a good craft on holidays. I must say, I wish that Conference and Easter never collided though because although I got to watch the first session, I was unable to really pay attention at all for the second session because of everything I needed to make for our Easter dinner! I was stuck in the kitchen just hoping and praying that I could come up with a way for all of it to be ready on time, not thinking through how 3 of the items needed to go in the oven at different temperatures. 🤦‍♀️🙈😭 I may or may not have had a nervous breakdown at one point thinking that we weren't going to be able to eat until 7pm due to my failure to think it all through ahead of time, but somehow it all worked out once I realized I could use our toaster oven for the pork roast and I could just put the rolls in the oven once we sat down to eat. It ended up working out that the first batch was done while we were still eating everything else, so all my tears were for nothing. BUT I didn't get to hear any of conference and that wasn't the original plan, but it was either that or eat super late! Luckily I can read the talks later, so that's what I'm telling myself. We had a delicious spread of pork roast, funeral potatoes, sauteed veggies, fruit salad, and homemade lion house rolls (that turned out AMAZING, after my failed attempt on Thanksgiving when I forgot to put the salt in... had to redeem myself, and I sure did!! 👊 Boom.). We also did our cotton candy Sprite concoction, which is always fun for the kids. Or should I say Maeve, since Rowan doesn't like soda. 🤯 He chose to just have some cotton candy by itself instead. I have been one happy lady eating off of all our leftovers for the last few days. YUM! We finished off the night by doing our Resurrection egg hunt, to focus on the real reason for all the celebrating. Luckily the kids look just as forward to that part too and I hope they always love and understand the importance of the Easter story. The icing on the cake Sunday night was when Adam tickled the pee out of Rowan and he started peeing all over the carpet in his room, while also conveniently aiming the last of it perfectly into one of Maeve's nearby shoes. 😱😳 I never thought I'd have to pour pee out of a shoe, but here we are. I'm sure I'll have ALL the pee stories to tell thanks to Rowan before his childhood is over. Might as well keep 'em coming. 😂😏

Monday, April 5th: 

Back to school for Maeve! She was not so thrilled to be woken up bright and early, but she survived and had a good first day back. We ran out of time on Easter to make and eat our Easter dessert before the kids needed to go to bed (oops), so Maeve and Rowan helped me make it on Monday while dinner was cooking. I thought I'd try out mini Cadbury egg Blondie's that I'd seen circulating around social media a bit, and they were pretty tasty! Monday was also my mom's birthday, so we did a little family Zoom call including all the kiddies that night, which was a real party. I had a number of laughs on Monday and those are really the only other highlights, so here are those...

~In talking about our five senses, we were discussing all the things we hear in our house and I said to Rowan, "What does Zoey do that we hear?" expecting him to say "Bark" but instead he said, "Say ruff!" 😂

~Then we talked about smells and he decided he wanted to go over and smell my birthday flowers on our kitchen table and after doing so, he said "Mmmm! Smells like lemonade" 😂🤔

~While I was getting ready in my bathroom, Rowan was sitting with me and noticed our orchid had flowers again (it was bare for a long time, but finally bloomed a few new flowers!) and he said, "Mom look! You have flowers!" I said, "I know! Aren't they fun?!" Smiling, he shook his head and said, "Nope! Playing with toys is fun!" 😂🤷‍♀️ I must say, he has a point there. Fun was probably not the best word to use there, so I don't blame him for the response. Definitely made me laugh out loud though! 

~As always happens, the kids were trying to sneak some food right before dinner time and I told them they could only have said item if they still ate all their dinner. First Maeve chimed in, "I will!" followed by Rowan, "I will!" and without skipping a beat, Nolan with a garbled version of "I will!" 😂👌Adam and I couldn't help but laugh, because it really did sound like he was trying to follow suit and copy them. It was too good! 

Tuesday, April 6th: 

Adam worked from home and we took his car to the shop to FINALLY fix the door. That car looked janky for waaaay too long and I personally wouldn't have been willing to drive it like that if it were my car - Adam, on the other hand, doesn't really get embarrassed by anything so he wasn't feeling too rushed. I'm feeling pretty happy though that it's fixed now, it was certainly past time. We also ran some errands before I needed to go to Young Women's, so we ended up getting Culver's for dinner on the go, which is always a good thing, for our taste buds anyway. 🙌

Wednesday, April 7th: 

After my usual morning routine on Wednesday, I made a couple phone calls to take care of some matters of business. While on the phone, Rowan started throwing all the cards to a game we were playing before I got on the phone, and despite my asking him to stop, he laughed and kept doing it. 🙄 I tried to physically stop him from reaching for more and his hand ended up knocking into my bowl of cereal that I had finished, which knocked it over and spilled the milk all over the rest of the cards and game boards. 🤬🤬 I managed to stay quiet since I was on the phone, but I certainly reacted as angrily as I could while maintaining silence... 😅. Seriously so annoying when that kinda junk happens while you're in the middle of a phone call! 

A few new developments as of Wednesday are: 

1. Nolan learning how to say "beep beep" and saying it on repeat for a while. Seriously so cute! 

2. Rowan making great strides in the potty department, by not only going to the bathroom without even telling me he needed to and doing it all on his own, but also trying it standing up, which was successful. 🙌🙌 Music to my ears!!

3. Rowan decided he wanted to try out showering, so he took a shower with Maeve. He actually also did this on Easter, so it was second time. It might be the craziest shower party you've ever seen, but they sure had fun together and with a little bit of help from me he got himself all clean that way. I imagine he'll be the in the 50/50 shower/bath club so that he can party with Maeve half the time and party with Nolan the other half of the time. 

You know how sometimes adults will put their mouths on babies bellies and blow and make what kinda sounds like a fart noise? I don't know what you actually call that, but Maeve and Rowan got going on doing that to me all over my legs and arms before bedtime and they thought it was the most hilarious thing in the world - cause of course - fart noises!! They decided to call it "mouthtoots", which I thought was pretty good! 😂😂 Too funny. 

Thursday, April 8th: 

Well, you know just 1 day before I said that Rowan was making great strides in the potty department? Don't worry, he couldn't keep my hopes up for too long, and decided it would be fun to pee his pants THREE times that day. And considering he's really into getting himself dressed right now, that means he cycled through 3 pairs of pants in one day. Having a hard time keeping enough clean pants/shorts around for this kid and he has had to go out in jammie pants recently, so that's cool. 🙈 I'll call one of his accidents an almost win, because I was in the shower when it happened, and he came to me after I got out with new undies in his hand and said "Is this the right way?". (he rocked them backwards for a number of days and has since been convinced that it's better to put them on the right way so now he always confirms) I said, "uh oh, why are you putting on new undies?". His response: "Because I peed on the floor, but I cleaned it up" and minus using cleaner, he totally did wipe it all up, and he even said there was "a LOT". 😂👏 I'm doing something right around here when my 3 year old cleans up his own pee, because I'm not around. Guess that means he should be cleaning it up himself every time. 😏 And speaking of being in the shower, he started screaming Mommy over and over while I was in there, so of course I eventually turned off the water to make sure he wasn't dying, and turns out he so critically needed to tell me that "popsicle starts with P!" 😑😂🤦‍♀️. If only his pee getting in the potty was as critical, but as I tell this story, now it has me wondering if I just thought he said that, but really he said something like "I need to pee" or "I just peed"... 🤔. I'm 80% sure though that I heard the word popsicle. Maybe I'll have to ask him tomorrow to see if he remembers what he was trying to tell me to see if I can confirm. 

The weather was GLORIOUS so after school we rode bikes/scooters through the neighborhood to Bella's house and she rode back with us to play at our house for a bit. In honor of Grandpa's birthday (Adam's dad), that night we also decided to redeem our free custard from Culver's that we didn't get on Tuesday since the kids didn't deserve it then. 😅 We ate it outside and I am loooooving this great weather right now. Can't wait for pool season and neither can Maeve!! She actually just told me in her words: "I love Summer because we go to the pool and get snow cones. I love Fall because the leaves are pretty. I love Spring because there are lots of flowers. And I kind of like Winter because sometimes there's snow, but I don't like that it's cold and I have to bundle up... soooo, I'd say I like 3 1/2 seasons" 😂👌. She kills me. 

Alright, I realize at this point I am finishing this post on a Sunday and now I have the weekend to still write about too, but I will do that tomorrow and then I might start writing once a week on Sunday or Monday nights after that. We shall see if I can stay committed doing it that way instead. 

Here are pics and videos from the week! 

The first bunch are from our day in Nashville! 👆👇

😍😍 Nolan is figuring out how to keep up with his older sibs! 

This tunnel was pretty cool and for some reason I love tunnel pics 😍

This park was pretty dang cool with this big dragon sculpture! 

She's sooo pretty! 😍

Passed out hard! He did so good all day and eventually wore himself out. 

This little stink wouldn't take a pic with us so he got his own, which also was real successful 🤦‍♀️😏

Donut Distillery mini donuts! 😍

We saw a bunch of cool walls so naturally Maeve had to pose! 👆👇

Cool flower display! 

Maple cinnamon rolls! Get in my belly! 🤤

Maeve paid attention real well at times during conference as her selfies will show you... 👆👇🤦‍♀️

This one is kinda cute to me that she wanted to capture her feet up there like mine 😂😍

Easter!! 

Nolan just got this bunny in his basket and getting a pic of him with it and the kids was unrealistic cause he will not cooperate for that and is crawling away in 2 seconds! 😂😏

Action shot throwing his bunny 😂

He was actually pretty sad he couldn't have all the goodies in their baskets so I guess I did him wrong by only getting him a bunny... 😂🤷‍♀️

Rowan had to show off his cute drawing 😂

😍👇👆

Rowan was not feeling this dinner spread being documented... 😏

Resurrection egg hunt! 

She had to pose like this acting more excited once she noticed I was snapping pics 😂😂

Matching Easter leggings since 2017. Might be the last time we get to match cause I think they'll be too short for her next year! 🥺

Before I got the smiling pics from above, these are the pics I got when I first asked them to smile. 😂😂👌👆👇

They are so crazy! 

My dynamic duo! 

😂😂

Then you've got this cutest little dude that ever lived!! That smile! 😍😍😍

Rowan's birthday card to me that I forgot to snap a pic of 👆👇

It is funny that it says "shy" because those are letters that Maeve wrote down for Rowan so he would know how to write an S, H, and Y. Ironically he needed to know those letters in order so it happens to spell shy and Maeve didn't bother to write them on a different piece of paper 😂

Gotta love the Christmas tree 😂

This little boy knows to cheese it now when he sees the camera! 😂😍😍

Oh my goodness 😍😍 I just can't handle this photo. Little Nolan is not nearly as shafted these days and the love is starting to become real between him and Rowan and him and Maeve! Warms my mama heart cause it's been a long time coming. ♥️

He fell in this basket by stepping backwards and not realizing it was in his way 😂😂

Some playground fun! 👆👇

He no longer hates swings, but despite this smile I managed to get I would say it's more like he tolerated it. He wasn't so sure but decided he didn't need to cry and was pretty straight faced most of the time. 😂

Oh man. I looooved when Rowan wore this lion romper and now it's Nolan's turn and I'm soooo happy I get to see it again! Cutest little romper that ever existed. 😍😍😍

Someone didn't love this one 😂😏

Maeve was paying attention real well during Conference 😂🤦‍♀️: https://youtube.com/shorts/vovonbenVrM?feature=share 

Maeve explaining how she planned on spreading out the reading of her chapter books everyday 😂: https://youtube.com/shorts/iuxSFlsQL2Y?feature=share

Nolan warming up to the slide by going down with Maeve and eventually doing it like a pro climbing up himself and everything! 😍:

https://youtube.com/shorts/tfajcQJyrLI?feature=share

https://youtube.com/shorts/QXLkt2mY8FU?feature=share

Peace and blessings. ✌️