Clifton Turns Four!

Updates on Clifton -
He turned four!  And we had a blast this week celebrating him.
We bought him a bike for his birthday and hoped he would want to practice biking.  He has always gotten frustrated with the process of learning and quickly gives up.  But this week we had some success.

He writes his name all by himself.

Updates on McKay -
She is doing great with being a big girl and going potty.  We are at a point were she will tell us when she needs to go and we don't have to take her every hour or two.  Which is really nice.  She also has had a few dry nights.  So hopefully we will be done with diapers at night time soon.

I needed to pick up some caterpillars from the Bugs Museum so we could watch them turn into butterflies at our preschool. So we made a quick trip the Bug Museum.

Always a fun place to go.

For FHE it was St. Patricks day so we did a lesson around that.  My sister in law gave me a wonderful idea.  She was making clovers and putting their blessings on clovers and sticking them on her door.  The concept of we are not lucky but blessed.  So we did that:)  And we made lucky charm rice crispies.

And yes I picked out the marshmallows from the lucky charms and ate them!

Clifton's birthday was Tuesday.  So we celebrated!  For his special day he requested going to Chuck E Cheese and getting Costco pizza for dinner.

We had so much fun playing together as a family.

Thursday Alex had an early basketball game so we were able to go and cheer him on.  We decided to make signs.

I told Clifton the letters and her wrote it by himself.  He is getting so good.  I love watching my kids learn and grow.

Go Daddy!

Saturday was Clifton's birthday party.  This year he wanted to go ice blocking.  He told me the list of people he wanted to come and what he wanted to do and eat.  He is so big!

Clifton is very much loved!  He has great friends and we all had a wonderful time playing together.

Alex and I even got to get a race down the hill in:)  I lost:/  Next time!

Pacific Science Museum Trip

Updates on Clifton -
I got Clifton a hat that he really wanted this week.  He loves it so much.  He sleeps with it every night and hardly has taken it off.  As a matter of fact I think he only took it off for church (and that was a fight to get him to not wear it).  He sure does make buying him things worth it:)

Updates on McKay -
She is very very cuddly lately.  Wants to be with me or Alex and just cuddle.  Its actually really nice to get cuddles and to just sit with her.

Taking a nap with Daddy on a Sunday afternoon.  Cute!
I know I am late but McKay finally had her two year appointment and did so well.  She did not cry and let the doctor touch her.  Even after they pricked her!  She is doing and growing so well.  Healthy, strong, and almost catching up to her brother.  She is getting so big!

Showing off her muscles to the doctor.

Monday I set up a field trip to visit the Fire House for Clifton's preschool.  And boy was it fun.  The firefighter that gave us the tour was so good with the kids and kept them excited and entertained throughout the whole tour.

A huge hit!

Wednesday we went to Seattle with our great friends.  We went on an adventure at the Pacific Science Museum.  And of course took the ferry over and man was it a beautiful day!

I love these crazy fun kids:)  Their excitement and enjoyment in the little things make me so happy!

 The ferry ride was so much fun:)

 Ahhhh a dinosaur!

The butterflies were my favorite part of the trip.  One even landed on Clifton:)

I am positive that we could have made the trip to just see the fountains in Seattle and they would have been satisfied.  They really liked watching them go off.  A wonderful day with wonderful people.  I am so blessed!

Thursday my little preschool had a St. Patricks party.

My little leprechauns.

Saturday I got to go to my sister in laws baby shower over in Bellevue.  It was fun to get time with family.  After a morning of celebrating I had to hurry home and watch the Sounders game.

I love love love going to the game but equally love watching the game with my little family.  I love hearing their little voices cheering the Sounders on.

How we all felt after the game:(  The Sounders lost.

Go Sounders!

Updates on Clifton -

We introduced reading to Clifton.  He is very excited to read!  He is a smart boy and I love the fact that he is excited to learn.  Its only been a couple days and he enjoys it so hopefully he will keep that excitement up.

Updates on McKay- 

She went two days without a nap and if she does nap they are pretty short.  I guess we are getting closer to the no nap phase.  Which makes me a little sad.  First that she is getting so big and second because that means no nap:(

Alex spent the week in Florida for work (lucky).  But thankfully we are blessed to live in a world of great technologies.  We were able to FaceTime Alex all week.  We even did FHE over FaceTime.  It meant so much to the kids to be able to see Alex everyday even though he can't be here.

We talked about reverence and how we should use our body to be reverent.

We had one beautiful day this week and we took advantage of that!

I am so excited for summer and more sunshine!

We hate when Daddy has to leave town for work but it helps us remember how much we really do love him.

We made a cute sign to welcome Daddy home.  And we were so glad to have him back!

Saturday Alex and I got to go to the first match of the Sounders season.  We are so excited for the season to start again.  Love the Sounders!!!!

And man did it rain that day:/ (the reason for the sad faces).  It is kind of funny... we got great seats, four rows from the field!  We don't normally find seats this close in our price range so we jumped on it when we saw them.  We normal sit probably back 5-10 more rows.  We noticed if we would have sat in our normal seats we would have been dry.  It was covered. 

Oh well... I made awesome ponchos a couple years ago and we finally get to use them!  It was so fun.  And we won!  We have a ton of new players, so it will be a different season.  But I am so looking forward to more games and hopefully more wins!

The kids are just as excited about the Sounders season starting as we are.  Clifton is so excited he wants me to get his ball out and he will show us his moves.  Silly boy!  I love that they love it as much as we do.  GO SOUNDERS!

Angry Birds

Updates on Clifton -
He is a very sweet boy.  He is still a boy and is often naughty but sometimes he shocks me with how sweet and caring he really is.  I love it when he thinks to do something that would be nice.
This week Alex had some meetings at night.  When he left Clifton came up to me and said, "Here's the plan!  Lets decorate the door for daddy saying why we love him."

Updates on McKay -
She is our eater.  She has out eaten me many times this week.  And she is getting big too.  I can't believe my baby girl is getting so big.  She definitely is growing faster than Clifton.  Cliff can still wear some of his 2T shirts and McKay has grown out of most of hers.

For FHE we had a lesson on anger.  Clifton has been struggling with knowing how to handle his behavior when he gets angry.  I found the idea on Pinterest - http://thehometeacher.org/2012/02/dont-be-an-angry-bird-lessons-on-anger-management-for-kids.html.  I added a little more to it.  I explained the angry birds and then the birds that we can be to calm down like it said to do.  I just added in a game.  Alex made a sling shot out of some toys and rubber bands.  We built a tower and taped the angry birds to the tower.  Then taped the birds that help us calm down to a ball.  The kids took turns using the sling shot to try and knock the angry birds and tower down.  It was a little hard for them so we did end up to throwing the ball at the tower.

It was a big hit!  And it really has helped Clifton understand what he is feeling and how to calm down.

We were blessed with a few really nice days.  And we took advantage of them and got some much needed outside time.

I am so excited and ready for summer!

Friday Alex and I got to go on a date.  Ice skating!!!!

It was so fun.  It has been a long time since I have been ice skating.  Alex took me a few times when we were dating back in college.  We will totally go again.

Saturday we decided to go walk the docks on the bay.

Sometimes the simplest things make our kids day.  They had so much fun.  It helped that there was a ton of jelly fish out.  They loved counting the jelly fish and finding the biggest one.  McKay kept saying they are "so cute!".

That evening the preschool where I teach was having a fundraiser at the local bowling alley.

A fun time supporting a great school.