March

Meet my pet rabbit, Maliya. She likes to eat her salads with NO dressing. At all. And she got strangely excited that I let her eat carrots for her afternoon snack.

 A boy and his cars are not easily separated. The boy commands me to play cars with him every morning, as soon as his sisters go to school. Previously, he just wanted me to sit with him while he played, but recently he has started demanding that I line his cars up...and he does NOT like it when I don't line them up correctly! I've got a tiny dictator on my hands.

When he saw that I was taking pictures of him, he wanted a turn taking pictures of me! He didn't do too bad!

A boy in a bucket!

A girl in a bucket! She didn't come back out, very easily. Yikes!

 Cars, cars and more cars...

  

 Until Katie gets home. Then he plays house and they fight over who gets to push the stroller and hold the baby doll. Sometimes they play house very nicely together, though.

Or, they run off with my phone. That's always fun, too.

 I went on a field trip with Rachel to the Planetarium.

 Hayden was not a fan. Until the end, when he discovered this teeny, tiny play area!

 Katie has been working REALLY hard at learning how to wink. After practicing for weeks, one day she excitedly told me "I can do it now! Mom, I can wink!" So, I pulled out my phone to document this all important milestone, and she showed me her new talent:

...NAILED IT!!!

 Checkin' on the coffee cake. Cookies and coffee cake are always better when dad makes them.

 We had a major morning project, Mar 11th. We ripped up a bunch of grass by the front of our house (it's supposed to be a flower bed...), then hauled dirt up the street in wheelbarrows, (the hill never seemed so steep as that morning...), and used the dirt to build up the flower bed area. It was a lot of work. 'Push it.'

 Then we went to help Camille with some things and take her boys and our older girls shooting. But Brian's car wouldn't start... Again, we found ourselves pushing heavy things.'Puh-push it REAL good!'

 "Yo, Luc, that guy botherin' you?"

"It looked like he was LEANIN'!"

 Frustrated that this was happening too often and at rather inconvenient times, we traded it in. We are all lovin' the replacement:

But probably none of us love it quite as much as Hayden. He did a lot of crying, the first few days, any time Dad would drive away in the truck and not take Hayden for a ride.
Life is rough. The struggle is real.

We went to a birthday party for my little niece, Sylvia. There was music, dinner, dancing, a pinata, and BLUE CAKE! 

 Toward the end of the party, any time anyone asked Hayden anything, or said anything to him, his response was "Blue cake!" He was not ABOUT to be distracted out of that deliciousness!

 Happy Birthday to me! Yay!

I celebrated by taking my kids (the ones that were around) out to lunch with me. That morning, Brian had gotten the kids up and ready for school, for me. He did a great job! He only forgot the part about packing lunches for them. :) So, when Rachel called me to say she didn't have a lunch I told her I would take her out to lunch. When Maliya called to say she didn't have a lunch, She excitedly asked if she could eat a school lunch. I said yes. That's why she wasn't with us. But I took her out for lunch without Rachel a couple weeks later.

That night, I also had my family over for a pie party. You know...cuz it's pie day.

 I love that this kid gives me all the loves I could ever ask for!

 Grandma and Grandpa sent him a giant birthday cookie! He was over the moon excited and kept saying "I get the whole entire thing!" (But, really, he did share.)

 For St Patrick's Day, the 2nd graders wrote about who they thought was worth more that gold, and had to bring a picture in. I found these two on the school wall by their room and snapped pictures.

 Maliya was in the elementary school play! She was an extra orphan and she love, love, loved it!

It was great to have her cousin, as well as some good friends from school be involved with her.

 And we loved having Grandma and Grandpa and several aunts and uncles come see the play!

That weekend, we finally got to celebrate my birthday with my little family. Hayden and I celebrated together.

 He got his first Book of Mormon,

 Clothes, a puppy bank, and a blue stroller and blue baby!!!

 I got, among other things, a thing to check kids' ears! Yay!

Katie lost her second tooth!!!

"Cleaning" the garage.

 Fun with neighbors!

My little goofball...

When your dad takes forever at the bank...

 Katie and Hayden and I got to go meet Shayna's little baby! They loved being able to hold him!

 We went to the Middle East Feast!

And to the Renaissance Academy Skate Night.

And played toddler chess. Haha. Fun with cousins!

 One day, as I found myself waiting for Costco to open so that I could go in and get my shopping done before having to go pick up Kindergarten carpool...I just had one of those weird realizations that I am a mom. It's still weird.

 And, before everyone left town for Spring Break, we had to have Maliya's birthday party!!! Moana themed. We started with a seashell craft, gluing SHINY glitter all over them. So fun. So...glittery.

 Then we had BOAT SNACKS!

 And pinned the nose on Pua.

 Had a glow in the dark ring toss,

 And a 'heart of Te Fiti' bean bag toss,

Then we opened presents. Her friends all did a great job treating her well, and Maliya just ate it up!

 And we finished the night off with some SHINY crab cakes ;)

AND, Maliya also got her very own giant birthday cookie from Grandma and Grandpa, too!

Whew! What a month!