Easter at church

Our church starts at 4pm, which gives us the opportunity to spend a lot more family time at home on Sunday. The only down side that is that we usually have to wake Yannick up from his nap, and that we have to put on church clothes in the middle of the day (though really, everything goes at our church).
The message was one unpacking one verse only: John 3:16. As the greatest sacrifice, the greatest love, the greatest gift, etc.
After the service today, they were having baptisms. One fun way to get people to stay after church is to have a yummy food truck come! Our boys were very well behaved, all sitting together, watching the baptisms. Very sweet. It prompted some questions from Zachary about what it means and when can you get baptized etc. It is definitely time to start shepherding his heart towards him being ready to accept Christ as his savior.

After the baptisms, we got in the long line for FOOD TRUCK. I had brought pb sandwiches for the boys, knowing they would probably not want anything. Good decision. they were happy, and we didnt have to spend too much money. Art and I shared a yummy 4 taco plate. SO GOOD!! We met a few new people, including a young guy who had gone to Savannah Christian, and an older couple who lived in Asia for 20 years for his work. They also have 3 boys and survived. :)

We got a friend to take some pictures of our family for Easter pics. Yannick paid them back by trying to ride their middle son (same age as Nick) like a horse. Sheesh. :)

The boys wanted to play on the playground for a bit before leaving so we did that too.
A very nice day!

Easter at home

He is not there; He is Risen! Amen! Our church had a challenge for everyone to invite one non-Christian to church on Sunday. We don't know that many people yet, so instead, we invited our Islamic neighbors over for Easter lunch. We had to forgo the traditional ham and had grilled chicken with peanut sauce with fried rice instead. I had asked the mom ahead of time if we could give Aya, their 9yr old daughter an Easter basket, and if Aya would like to dye eggs with our boys. Yes to both! Aya, Naila, and Ya Ya arrived first, and the boys had been so very patient, that we opened Easter baskets right away. Thanks so much to Nana for sending so many Easter basket filler that we were able to fully outfit 4 baskets! So, in preparation for wanting to discuss the Christian symbolism associate with the typical Easter things (eggs, bunny, etc), I looked up some things online about how Easter started, and how it turned into a Christian holiday. So I was ready in case they asked any questions about why we claim to celebrate Jesus's rising from the dead and do the "secular" Easter things. I am embarrassed to say that the subject DID come up. The husband started the conversation with "so, do you know what Easter means", and I thought....oh good, I looked it up. What I did NOT do, was start with saying that we celebrate Jesus. So I start giving my little history lesson, and he pushes farther, and I finally get around to saying we are celebrating Jesus raising from the dead. So embarrassing. But he did not seem to notice and we all proceeded in discussing what we believe about Jesus versus what they believe about Jesus. A good discussion.
While the men grilled the food, the boys and Aya dyed eggs. Luckily, Yannick was not particularly interested in the eggs and wanted to go outside and play. That was great, b/c we did use vinegar with the dye and it did stain fingers pretty well. I am not sure Aya has ever dyed eggs before, but she seemed to have a good time. They were nearly done when the food was, so we cleared it all away with 4 eggs left to do later (Art definitely wanted to dye some!). Lunch was delish!! Art's chicken was so yummy - he had marinated it overnight, and the fried rice turned out well. It was the first time I had made it. Then I used some of my red velvet cupcakes I had frozen after my birthday for dessert. They had also brought M&Ms which I put out. she remembered that I love the dark chocolate and brought those. So nice!
Art and I decided ahead of time that we would let the boys skip nap. We did not know what time they were planning on going home, so just to be safe, we had a few things planned. Before we put Yannick down for a nap, we had an Easter Egg hunt with the 4 kids. So fun! Then nick was off to bed, and I had a little sticker craft for the kids. Shortly after that they left to go home. Her sisters were at home - one recuperating from surgery and one taking care of her.
It worked out well that we did not make the boys nap before church, though there ended up being time, because we all got one more egg to dye. I wanted to make mine the prettiest egg, and Art, Z,W wanted to make the ugliest egg. Harder to do than it sounds. Sometimes it goes from ugly to pretty again, which would send the boys into a panic. :) It was a nice time. I won the prettiest egg because I had left mine in the blue dye after lunch. HOWEVER, later in the evening, Zachary stole the title of prettiest egg away from me because he sneakily kept one of his eggs in the blue dye the entire time we were at church!!! Tricky!! After eggs it was time to start getting dressed for church.

Silly Boys

This evening we went to the park before dinner. The boys and I were playing freeze tag. Little Nick is just starting to learn the rules for this game, but does not get the concept of "unfreezing" other players. I froze W then took off after the other two. I was able to tag Z just as he was attempting to unfreeze W. They were both yelling for Yannick to come tag them. He, confused, just sat down next to them. So cute. Later, he realized there should be some contact, and, much to Wyatt's chagrin, started tackling the frozen party. Poor Wyatt got demolished a few times. A fun time in the park!

Desparate to be big

Yannick just cannot stand it that Wyatt has a gymnastics class and he doesn't. This was proven today. He kept asking me "Bubba class" (his name for Wyatt, despite him being able to say 'wyatt'), and i would say "yes, Wyatt's class". He would respond with "no, my class". He kept trying to sneak through the door to join. I told him that he could not go on the carpet b/c that was Wyatt's class. Here he is attempting to inch his way onto the carpet in a very pitiful way! He spent a good 10 minutes on the floor like this. Nutty kid!

Zachary Belt Test

Last week was Zachary's first belt test. It did not seem very "test like" because they did their skills in groups of 3. Zachary's skills were quite good. Except for his form which he does not really know yet. I have not been able to video it so he can practice thanks to a little toddler who feels karate time is the best time to throw tantrums!

Tonight he got another chance to do the form by himself. Not so great. He does not know all the moves, but the ones he does, he performs well and crisply. Two other people in his class were eligible to test. The week before, they did a pre-test, which Poppi was here to watch, to determine if they would be ready to test. Zachary was the only first-time class member to be ready. The other two that were ready had had at least one semester of karate before this one. They knew the form before Zachary's first class. We were very proud of him. He practices all the time, when he is not playing four square! He is serious and attentive during class and wants to excel.

So after the solo attempts at the form, the 3 of them stood up in front of the class to receive their award. He was told he would either receive 1 stripe, 2 stripes, or a yellow belt. We felt pretty sure he would not get the next belt, which is fine, but he did get two stripes. He is very proud! We are proud of him!

He was so excited about it that he wore his uniform and newly striped belt to our bible study group tonight. :)

Wyatt training with the Lasers

The coach of Zachary's soccer team, the Lasers, said it would be fine for younger siblings to attend practice. Wyatt could not go last week because he did not have any shin guards. Cleats are not required but shin guards are. So today we made a trip to Goodwill for something else entirely. While there, I thought, lets just look and see. They had one pair of cleats, and they were Wyatt's size! Then I thought, no way will they have shin guards. Yes way! And for $1. :) So here is Wyatt decked out and ready to join practice. He was so so excited. He wore his shin guards to nap time. He was quite proud to show Z once he got home.

This is the best part. We left it up to Zachary if W should attend practice or not. It is his team, and he may not want his brother there, which is totally reasonable. We were pleased that Z was eager for W to be there with him! Yea good brothers!

Yannick and I did not attend practice w/ them and Art bc he has had a rough few days of temper tantrums and it just was not worth it. Wyatt told me later that he enjoyed practice a lot, but does not want to do it again. WHAT?!?! Really, he just did not want to do the drills bc they are too hard. He only wants to do the scrimmage game. Seems reasonable. These kids are 2-3yrs older than him; seems reasonable the drills would be difficult. So next week, he can just do what he wants, even if that is only playing in the scrimmage at the end of the practice.

Blast from the Past

Last week, we watched Cars for the first time for Yannick. It has been probably two years since we've seen it (we have seen Cars 2 more recently), because both bigger boys think it is for babies (which of course it isn't!), but really because they are into other things now. Well, after watching the movie over 3 successive days - Nick is just not yet into watching an entire movie, even if it is about "goes" (his word for cars), ZW developed a renewed interest in their old Cars toys. They have been reenacting the final race where Chick Hicks bumps The King, and other parts of the movie. It is fun for me to watch them playing with those toys since they have not had any interest in them for a long time...not when there are legos and Star Wars, etc to play with.

here they all three are in the playroom playing with Mater, Lightning McQueen, Chick Hicks, King, Sally, and whoever else we have. Nick is just happy to have a playmate with his beloved "goes".

Switching seats

Today Yannick insisted that he get to sit in "Zachy chair", so after we dropped Z off at school, I let him sit in Zachary's backless booster seat just for fun. I did not drive anywhere, but just let them sit in the car a bit. Wyatt did not want to be the only one in his regular seat, so he sat in Yannick's seat. Wyatt was pensive at the idea that Yannick's carseat used to be his carseat when he was little, AND, that it was also Zachary's carseat too! Eventually Yannick screamed out "MY CHAIR", and kicked Wyatt out of his carseat.

Zach's cool shoes

So Zachary's poor shoes are in bad bad shape. There are sizable holes on the bottom. He has some cute slip on converse type shoes but he does not like them. I have been looking at goodwill for a pair for him, but no luck. At this age it is often difficult to find his sizes since boys are so tough on their clothes and shoes. So this means.....NEW SHOES....oh the horror!! :) Well, I looked at some on Amazon, hoping to not spend too much money. Then I consulted him, and we looked online at Amazon and Payless. He decided he wanted Black running shoes. Payless had a pair he loved for $14. I was about to order them online but decided to call the Cupertino store to see if they had them. Indeed they did, so after church, we passed up the opportunity to grill out with some friends, and went to get his much anticipated new shoes. He loves them. He wanted a cool picture of them, not just him wearing them, so here they are Monday at school. He even wrote about them in his March journal at school.

Sleepover

Tonight was the promised sleepover night. Tonight was special because our entire family of 6 was in the room! Dexter even made an appearance and DID NOT LEAVE. I was elected to tell the story tonight - a continuing story about three dragons - Zero, Water, and Biter. After the story and everyone quieted down, Dexter came and joined Art and I on the mattress on the floor. I always feel strange about us all being in the same room. Like if someone walked in on us and saw two empty Queen beds in two empty bedrooms, and all of us in one bedroom. Big kids in bunk beds, the toddler in his crib/toddler bed, and the two parents (plus the cat) on a mattress on the floor. Must be quite a sight.

Theoretically, tonight should be a night of excellent sleep, because we got to bed with the kids, and are usu asleep before 9pm. Tonight however did not work out like that. I was sharing a full size mattress with TWO snoring beings. And Dexter had jammed himself between us, so I was getting crowded off the mattress. sheesh.

Also, it should be noted that I was wearing my footie pjs over my regular pjs. The boys thought this was HILARIOUS. I don't think they had ever seen my footie pjs. yannick kept pointing to his footie pjs and to mine. We were twins, though mine were not Buzz & Woody. :)

I tried to take a picture of Dexter hogging up all the room with Art, but I woke Art up with the flash. He was less than thrilled. :) Made me giggle since I could not sleep with all the snoring.

Birthday Party!

Sadly, I have no pictures of this day. Such a shame. I am posting the entry anyway...maybe the host will send some pictures my way eventually. Today we went to Zoe's 3rd bday (though I inscribed her book w/ 4th bday wishes...sheesh) party. A princess party where guests were required to dress up. So our family of course took it to the next level. Yes, it is just dumb that we don't have pictures, especially after my description, but hopefully I will get some. Zachary was a knight, though he refused to bring his sword (odd!), Wyatt was The Hulk, Yannick was Superman, and their parents, yes we dressed up too. Art was a bit more subtle, wearing his Holland Lion shirt. It has a large lion face on the shirt, then you can lift up the entire shirt which becomes a huge lion mouth. Art wore this to Zachary's soccer game yesterday and roared at all the kids. :) Which he did again today. I went a bit overboard and wore a fancy dress that my mom made many years ago for Joel and Emily's wedding in, what?, 1999 maybe? Sheesh. And the icing was that I wore my tiara from my wedding. Oh yes I did. AND, I never took it off the entire party, despite all the other moms in jeans and yoga pants. I do have to admit that I was not totally at ease being so dressed up around a bunch of strangers, but hey, they were probably just jealous anyway. :) One lady told me that she wished she had worn her wedding dress...I did not tell her about my wedding party I threw where I opened the door for all the guests wearing my wedding dress. Want to let the crazy out slowly. :)

That said, it was an enjoyable party. Their neighbors brought over their personal bounce house which livened things up for all the kids. The catered lunch (gourmet tacos) was G O O D!! All 5 of us enjoyed ourselves. And we all met some new people. Zachary was just thrilled that for once, he wasn't the oldest kid there!

The thing with having church at 4pm, is that sometimes we forget that it is Sunday. Art asked a couple of the guys what they were doing the rest of the afternoon, and they said "uhhh, church". Duh! We were all pretty tired from the party. I think even Z took a nap.

Fun times!

Notes with Zachary

One day, Zachary left me a note in the kitchen that said "The cows want electric blankets, they are cold. From Duck" This is going off of a favorite book of ours Giggle Giggle Quack by Doreen Cronin. In it, Duck lives on a farm with many other animals, and writes notes to Farmer Brown's brother who is taking care of them while Farmer Brown is on vacation, so the brother will think they are from Farmer Brown. Very cute. Why we don't own this book, I don't know, but thankfully we have the library close, and can get it any time.

So Zachary's note set off a series of notes back and forth about these electric blankets. A few weeks later, I left a notebook out with another note to duck, and Zach wrote back in the notebook. I would like to continue doing this with him in the hopes of when he is older, giving him a way to "talk" about things that he does not want to talk about, since he hates talking so much. A mom at MOPS does this with her daughter, leaving the book under her pillow, and the daughter putting it under the mom's pillow. We'll see if it works out.

This exchange went on for several pages where I tell Duck that electric blankets are expensive and ask how much money the cows have, and how with only $80 they will have to share, and Duck saying they all want their own, and me telling Duck that the cows had better get a job, etc etc.  He has no idea how much I love it all!

A few days later, Zachary's class was studying pond life and the life cycle of various pond animals.  A guest speaker came to the class and showed all the 1st graders several animals.  Midway through this unit, Zachary wore a shirt he had received from MiMi years ago from the Chattahoochee Nature Center.  This year it finally fits him.  His teacher LOVED his shirt.  She made him stand up and show it to the class and see how perfect it was for their unit.  He loved loved being singled out like that, which is a big change from just a year ago.  She later sent me an email asking if the extra attention made Z uncomfortable.  She knows about his struggle with social anxiety, but he loved it.  So much so that HE suggested I take a picture and send it to Mrs. Kemp so she could have it.

His shirt has the life cycle of a frog on it. Very cute. Thanks MiMi!

As an aside, during the first week of school, Mrs. Kemp was just floored by Zachary...not because of his performance etc, but because he has a doppleganger. She showed me a class picture from several years ago of a little boy that was nearly exactly our Z. So odd. No real relation to this story other than a small tidbit I want to remember years later.

Poppi visit - Friday

What.a.day. Zachary skipped school today and we all (minus Art) went to Happy Hollow in San Jose. A bit pricey for a normal family outing, but nice for a special occasion. A young kids's paradise though. Rides for kids: carousel, swings, small roller coaster, mini free-fall type thing, plus a few others. Z and W did everything that was open. Y wanted to do some things, but once he got up to the ride, he just couldn't do it. Too scared I guess. He did ride on a ladybug ride that went up and down a bit and around in a circle (like the Dumbo ride at Disney), but was in tears some of the time, despite Wyatt giving him hugs and holding his hand. Poor little guy. Just can't quite hang with the big boys. There was also no shortage of playground type areas. I am sure we did not see them all. I tried to steer us clear of the playgrounds since we have access to so many, and concentrate on the things we don't have like the rides and the zoo.

We started at the carousel, which they rode twice, Y sitting in the benches instead of on an animal. Still, he rode it! Then over to the ranch area which had a small petting zoo area where you could walk around to feed and pet goats (which Z did), then you could feed and pet some Shetland ponies through the fence (which Z and W did) and see some large sheep and cows etc. Then over to see the wallabies...which were surprisingly small. I had thought they were nearly the same size as kangaroos. There were a few other animals in that area that I think we missed b/c Wyatt called a potty break. From there we went to the rides. Started off with the roller coaster. Z thought it was a bit scary but fun, and W thought it was super fun. Poppi went with them the first time and I did the second time. Then off to a giant ropes and slides playground for a bit. All 3 enjoyed that, though I had to stay with Y the entire time. Another potty break, diaper change, and we were off to the rides. The frog jumper once w/ me going with them and once them alone. Then the ladybug ride twice. Going on a Friday is brilliant. No lines anywhere. A few of the rides they got off then got right back on. After some rides, we stopped for lunch. A packed lunch for ZWY, and a purchased one for Poppi and I. Next time, we'll all bring lunch. Not really worth the $. Then more rides, a few attempts at Y going on a car ride, and the big boys going on the Frog Jumper free fall 3 times in a row, once when they were the only kids on there. Then FINALLY off to the zoo. First a great view of a napping jaguar, then the meerkats were so so cute. It must have been near snack time for them, bc they were very curious, coming up to the glass to see if they were getting anything. Fun to see them approach us like that. Several other animals including a giant tortoise, a parrot and some macaws, a turkey vulture (which W knew right away bf we even read the sign - thanks Wild Kratts!), the largest rodent in the world (don't remember its name, but it looked like a giant guinea pig)...could have been in Princess Bride's ROUS. Then we were shocked to get a 30 minute warning that the park would be closing at 3pm. Woah, was it really that late?! 3 more carousel rides, and we left as the park closed. No surprise Y and W fell asleep in the car. Y stayed asleep. Z and W were forced to lie down for a short rest while Poppi and I tried to recover. Poor Poppi has had a bad back his entire time here. Not pleasant to walk around for 5 hours!!

Now the kids are having screen time (W on the wii, Z on the GameBoy then the iphone) while I type this up on the ipad with my cool new keyboard I got for my bday!

Art will be home late again tonight, but this time for fun. Apple is having one of its Beer Bashes, and I have encouraged him to go to it. They start at 4, so he could still be home at a reasonable time. Last one had Brad Paisley doing a set...don't know yet who will be playing at this one. Jealous I can't go when we have a babysitter here! ) No outside people.

Tonight we plan on watching Cars, specifically so Y can see it for the first time. I hope he loves it.