Easter Evening

We did Easter a little differently this year. Addie and I dyed eggs on Friday with a little help from Lucas. The Prewitt aunts sent two dye kits, tie dye and glitter eggs. We opted for the tie dye eggs. We’ll save the other for next year or maybe we’ll just dye eggs again some other time outside of Easter.

Now there’s an idea. I am still in the PE review course and so on Sunday I had to get up and out to class. I didn’t get to go to church with the bunch on Easter Sunday but I did manage to dress the little munchkins all in their Easter attire before I had leave them for most of the day. So I don’t really know how it went at church. Well I do know a little. They church family sort of surrounded Kevin to help him with the kids. That’s awesome. When I got home from class, I hid eggs in the backyard. Then I came in the house and quickly explained "getting warmer" and "getting colder". As you maybe can imagine, Addie was all ears with clarification questions. Lucas was jumping up and down on his hands trying to keep from running out the back door. The hunt was really fun this year. We finally have something in the backyard to hide eggs around. And the big kids are big enough to understand searching for rather than pick up eggs right out in front of their face. We dyed and hid 19 eggs and Addie and Lucas each found about half.
We moved Emaleigh's pack and play to the backyard and gave her two plastic eggs and she was pleased as punch. She crawled in circles hollering to the kids, "hey you dummies, can't you see the egg right there on the ladder!" and putting the plastic eggs one by one in her mouth with her two teeth.
At the end of a long day the evening hunt was really fun. Then we moved the party inside for some hide and seek. I actually got my whole self under the crib. All of the housework is behind. I had nothing to wear for work today, I looked like a clown. But this month has been so stressful and I am so happy I have the smiles and energy of three lovable silly kids to help me take a break from worry. I hope this never ends.

Corpus Christi and a Great Birthday

I had a great 34rd birthday. Kevin and the kids surprised me with a trip to Corpus Christi. It was awesome. The kids had never been to the beach. The weather wasn't really beach weather but I was so glad we went. They loved digging their toes in the sand and chasing the water back and forth. We collected some tiny sea shells to bring back to Mrs. N. Kevin and I took turns holding Emaleigh until we realized she didn't want to be held, for once. She kept making this silly face that I think is just for the beach because I never saw it before or since.

Addie tired quickly of chasing water back and forth and had the bright idea to make sand angels. The neat freak in me (just a tendancy or preference not an actual description of my environment) started to say, "you're going to get sand on everything!!" And then I realized thay was why we were there. Lucas didn't like the beach as much, but I hope he changes his mind when it's warmer and he can actually get wet. I love the beach. Most of our beach vacations when I was little were to Gulf Shores and Destin Florida. The kids now are asking to go to Aunt Jennys and Uncle Nates Beach.

After our quick beach visit, We went to the hotel for a swim with cousins and then Aunt Ginny and Uncla Shane took all our kids to their house for the night and we had a no kids date. Kevin and I went to Outback for dinner. We talked about us a little more than we talked about our kids and remembered back when we were dating why we liked each other. That was a nice reminder. I love my big huge family.

Emaleigh's the Baby with the Brand New Tooth

Who's the baby with the brand new tooth? Emaleigh's the baby with the brand new tooth! Everybody now. Our house has been filled with quite a bit of singing here lately.

First of all there is just the fundamental amount of singing that has been present pretty much since Kevin and I became parents. We primarily sing Laurie Berkner as that was the music we like on Noggin's "Move to the Music" segment.

She taught us songs like "Victor Vito" and "Song in my Tummy". Everyone who was present for our wedding might remember the Victor Vito song. When Addie was really little it always made her smile so we used it during wedding photos and everyone learned it. Addie was used to hearing mommy and daddy sing the song but the wedding was the occasion she got a chorus singing,"Hey Victor, Hey Freddy, let's eat some spaghetti!" Well that song is still commonplace and we quickly bought three Laurie CDs and added about 50 others to the regular rotation. And we've been singing all of these for four years now.
Also with the addition of Sirius radio in the van we now have a pre-set to Kids Stuff sirius 116. So we also regularly sing Trout Fishing in America, Dan Zanes, The Wiggles, Uncle Rock and Debbie Derryberry among others. So that’s all about singing kids music.

Then there’s the American Idol phenomenon. I tried to not get hooked on this show, but it crept it. And now the kids like watching it too. This year we started a new game. I can not take credit for the American Idol game but I love it. The kids totally made it up during the early weeks of season 8. Addie steps up in front on the rest of the family and sings her head off. It is usually a song made up by her. She displays her range and her falsetto with the best of them. You know the song has ended only when she opens her eyes and stops singing, grins ear to ear, puts her hands by her side and waits for the judge’s feedback. Kevin, Lucas and I always give feedback similar to what we hear from Randy, Paula, Simon and Kara. “I think you have a good tone, you’re the total commercial package”, “We got a hot one here”, “ You have a great range”. And then we tell her if she’s going to Hollywood or not. Usually yes! Everyone gets a turn to sing. We almost always end up with a road trip to Hollywood.

And lastly there’s our new GREAT babysitter, Nelly! She has taught the kids to not be afraid of flushing the toilet. When the toilet flushes it is like it is singing because it is so happy for you going in the potty like a big kid. So dance along and sing, “Shake your booty to the toilet dance”. The fist time I heard, FLUSH, then Shake your booty, I laughed so hard I cried. Nelly has taught them many songs. The first one that really alarmed Addie Belle was “Emaleigh,Emaleigh don’t you cry, cuz if you do I’ll poke you in the eye”. Addie didn’t understand that is was just a rhyming word and not really a threat. It sure was catchy. We all sang it thru Valentines day. Well the current Nelly song is “Who’s the baby with the brand new tooth, Emaleigh’s the baby with the brand new tooth” The kids sing and dance along and Emaleigh claps her hands and grins as if she’s proud to have finally pushed that irritant through her gums.

Yeah, aside from all this singing we do have teeth news to share. I will try to post a baby grin photo. later. This one can keep the place in the meantime.

If You're Happy and You Know It

I caught Emaleigh checking out the kids at bath time. She loves to be where they are and she loves the bath tub so this scene was a little slice of heaven for her. She has learned to clap her hands and takes the, "Happy and You Know It" song as a cue. I wanted her to look at me for this picture.

It worked but when she clapped her hands, she wasn't holding on anymore. She fell but I threw the camera and I caught her.

This next photo is just me happy on a Saturday morning. Not many pictures of me out there. This was my Happy Valentines Day morning.

Daddy's favorite Sunday

My smart kids did this to amaze me in just today:

- Lucas noted how cool it was that Batman joined Superman in an episode this morning.
- Emaleigh clapped her hands during songs at church.
- Addie read the word "Sunday," although her first guess sounded like "Soon-day."
- I walked into the room, and Lucas had the calendar open and said, "March, April, May." I no sooner finished telling his mother how smart he was when he proceeded with "Sicktember, New member, and Ferrymerry."

Daddy Daughter Dance

Last Saturday (and Friday too to be honest) Kevin took Addie to New Braunfels for their annual Daddy Daughter Dance. This years theme was Daddy's Little Princess, which was appropriate because her daddy definitely calls her that. Emaleigh has not yet hit the princess craze but Addie Belle loves dressing up and pretending to be a princess. When she hit this phase it took an awful lot of persistent work to convince Lucas that he was a prince. He had up to that point always just wanted to be everything Addie was. But as soon as he grasped the prince concept he moved quickly on to wanting to be a dinosaur or a dog or a race car. Well anyway, I raced home from work to help Addie get into her pretty little green dress and put some little jewels in her hair to go to the ball with her dad. They left in a hurry but intime to get to the dance that was at 7pm. Only it was 7pm on Saturday. I got them there a full 24 hrs in advance. I was pretty embarrassed and upset but Addie told me it was OK, and Kevin somehow was understanding. I guess these things happen with age. I just didn't think I would start to lose my mind before my 35th birthday. Well Lucky for us, Lucas, Emaleigh and I met the rest of our fam at a litle Italian place close to home where kids eat free and made a pleasant evening together out of my mistake. But the real party was on Saturday night. The again left in plenty of time to arrive ontime. This time it was on! Kevin said Addie really had the time of her life and continuaously thanked him for bringing her there. But as excited as she was she didn't really want to do much dancing at first. she just found the prefect balloon and threw it up in the air as many times as it fell back to her. He said this lasted the first half hour and many times he tried to get her to stop and go dance before he just gave in a realized that she was happy so let it be. Before it was over they did get some dances in. She made a friend, Madeline, that she danced with some too. I will post that video later tonight. So what about Lucas and mommy and Emaleigh that night. Well I wanted to do something special for just us but I volunteered for mathcount all day that day and I was incredible tired and uncreative. So I took the lazy way out. Lucas loves movies and popcorn. So he got both. We snuggled in to watch some Star Wars together. I was loving the lovin and the movie too. Lucas filled me in on who was a good guy and who was scary. And pretty soon he had enough of being scared and wanted to watch Finding Nemo instead. We made it halfway through that movie before we both crashed. So I got to be lazy and snuggle with my little man and his baby sister. When the party couple got back home, we were all asleep in mommy's bed. Addie showed me all of her favors and they both shared their own version of how cool the dance was.

We Dyed on Saturday.

I was sitting behind a lady at a training lunch about getting kids interested in and excited about Engineering and I was drawn in by the color pattern on her shirt. I decided it had to be dyed somehow similaryl to tie dye. Then I got to thinking. It has been like 7 years since I did any tie dying. It seemed like it would be a fun family project. So I put it on our schedule for Saturday, made plans to prep on Friday night and dye on Saturday morning. I got Tulip brand dye (fabric ready and way easier to use than RIT) and picked up white T-shirts and sheets at Goodwill and headed to Grandpa's for the weekend. Addie was thrilled to play with rubberbands with me. Lucas could care less if it meant he had to put down a toy helicopter or train or car or anything that he could use a Vroooom sound effect to. Kevin and Grandpa weren't feeling well so Janma helped keep Emaleigh out of the works and Addie and I ended up doing a girl project. I watched a little youtube video ahead of time to get a new idea about how to fold/wrap the shirts for a neat swirl pattern. We really enjoyed this activity. The shrits I bought for myself from goodwill were actually new shirts and not previously washed so they didn't come out so good. But everything else was awesome. We unveiled our works on Sunday morning after the dye had 24 hours to set in. Most of the items are very purple or blue. Next time we try again I think we should use twice as much orange and yellow, those colors really glow among the darker ones. The T-shirt we made for Kevin was by far the coolest but the sheet that I thought didn't get enough dye was right up there too.
By the way, I did pay attention in the Engineering training and put the innovative methods to use at East Central High School on Thursday last week. I am sure I talked no less than every student I talked to into signing on to be a future Civil Engineer. We solve problems, create things and get to make people's lives better. Anyone else want to join?