no more toothpaste that tastes like candy in this house!

T filling up the backpack with food

First watermelon juice of the season.  Never mind we are wearing long sleeves.  Summer MUST be coming

T brought this bouquet for me.  He knocked on the door and held them out with a huge smile and a "these are for you, Mom!"  I think I already got my mother's day gift

W in her dress and high heels

T said "It is such a nice day to wear a dress!"  They were pretending it was warm out.  T's high heels are two pieces of dollhouse furniture

T thinking

The train they made

our Easter pic!

I found another one!

I found lots of candy, Mom!

On the egg hunt

No time for pics.  On the egg hunt

E's first egg hunt find

He found another one!

Yum!

The Easter bunny came while we were at church.  He hid some behind the couch, in plain view through the window from the driveway.  As soon as we pulled in, the kids could hardly wait.  W retrieved them.

These ones were in Papa's water glass

Passing on my favorite Easter traditions.  Notably special dinner and chocolate bunnies

The end of Brianna's scavenger hunt for the Easter baskets

Finding the stair clue

Finding the clue on the door

finding the clue on the potty

Brianna giving them the first clue

dying eggs for the first time

watching the tablets dissolve

To prep for easter, we did an advent calendar.  It was very exciting.  They couldn't wait for Easter.  They remember last year.  They told me how things were going to go down.  To a tee.  Including that the Easter bunny comes while we are at church.

We did have an egg hunt after church, as well as dinner with some friends.  We ate a ton of deviled eggs.  And we parked really far away at church.  Lots of attendees at the next door church, too. 

The day before Brianna and Shawn made a scavenger hunt to find their easter baskets.  They totally grasped the game.  It was lots of fun.

Remember the comment about the pink tire from the last post?  I went outside after cleaning up a poop diaper and lo and behold.  I had blue, green and yellow colored tires.  I saw some other chalk drawings on the car, but it doesn't show up nearly as well as on black tires.  I can't tell if it is T because the color isn't right for W, but the detail in fully colored in is W.  Hmmmm.  So we went to the carwash.  I guess it is time because technically winter is over.  When we were at the carwash W got very excited.  "Look mom!  Do you see that car?  It has pink tires and the tires are supposed to be pink!!"  Someone had purplish pink rims.  I've never seen them before, but they are real.  You should order some for your car the next time you are on Amazon.  Maybe that will be my brother R's next bday gift.  I'm sure he'll really appreciate them.

E can eat an entire banana.  I thought it was a fluke the first morning he did this. I gave him an entire kid bowl of rice cereal.  It looks like so much food to me.  He was still hungry.  So I gave him a few bites of banana. Then a few more.  Until he ate the entire thing.  He has done it about 5 days in a row for at least one meal.  I think he is growing.  It would explain why he fits just fine in his 18 month pjs.  Or the extra tooth.  He's up to 8 now.

E loves to crawl pushing stuff.  He usually gets a book or the broken table top from the dollhouse in his right hand and crawls with a huge smile on his face

T is a very good nurse.  W had a bday party where "only girls are allowed".  T didn't seem too bummed in the slightest.  He was very prepared to stay home with Papa.  He got Papa the paper, rolled up the blinds on the window, got a table from upstairs next to his chair so that he could play memory (Thomas matching) and didn't want to "bump Papa's body" so he didn't hurt his leg.  It's pretty cute how well T can take care of someone.  He also seems to know what E needs most of the time. 

I can't find a library book.  I really don't have a clue as to where it is.  I have looked for and organized all the toys for a good 3 weeks now.  How could it disappear?  I was mumbling to myself that the kids have a secret stash someone in this house that I don't know about.  W heard me and said, "oh yeah!  I have a secret stash.  It is under the couch!"  Too bad I already know about that one.  I had already checked

T has the corner market on all stuffed animals.  E loves to snuggle soft things, so I gave him Boris the bear to snuggle one day, thinking it was unclaimed.  Not so.  As soon as T saw E snuggling with it, he suddenly remembered that is the one that came on his fourth bday.  It is true, but seriously???!!  Now I know he has a good enough memory to remember where all the toys go even though every night he says he doesn't remember where the toys go.

I had kicked the kids out of the kitchen to finish the Easter dinner prep.  E didn't like it.  He was blubbering away and trying to suck his thumb on Papa's lap. So T said "E wants his blanket to snuggle with, so I will go and get it for him".  I heard his feet slap slap down the hall while he went and fetched E's blanket out of his crib.  E was much happier.

E and W and T are getting better with each other.  Probably because E is more fun.  The big kids were throwing blankets down on his head and he would pull them off, laughing hysterically.  Everyone was having a rip roaring time. T took it one step further and got underneath the blanket with E.  That was even more funny!!

T and E also had their first light saber fight.  E really likes wielding long sticks.  He looks like a sitting drum major with a baton.  He uses the broom, Papa's crutches, the pool noodle light saber.  When T started hitting E's light saber with his, E started his adorable baby laugh.  It was great!  Of course it was no longer funny by the time I got my camera out to record.

T really doesn't like "soggy things" so he is always wanting E to go away.  T jerked his foot away once out of E's slimy finger grip, but E thought it was so funny!  Not exactly T's desire for E to stay nearby but I think they both liked playing with each other a bit.

T and W sang in church for Easter for the first time.  W got a little distracted by looking at all the people.  T sang every word.  Melted my heart!!  So cute!

T surprised me the other day.  One of his joy school friends stayed and played a bit after everyone left.  Together T and the friend loaded up their wagons with pinecones and moved them all over the yard.  What surprised me was how much fun T had doing that.  He couldn't stop talking about it for about 10 minutes.  "we worked really hard.  Look!  You can see where were we working!  Look at all those pinecones" and much more repetitive commentary on a job very well done.   

Later that day T asked a good question.  "Mom.  Are you weeding? ..... (long pause) or are you mossing?"

I've always known what observers kids are, but this week I was shown it again.  We got in an elevator this week and T commented "Oh!  this one is different than the doctor one".  Later that week I got a full work over.  T gave me a dental check up.  He grabbed a piece of material and grabbed my tongue and said "let me just check your cheeks"  Then he got a wooden drawer out of the doll house that looks amazingly like those plastic things they take Xrays with.  He shoved it in and said "be still" and then took it out and said "ok".  But I stopped the dental check up at him trying to clean my teeth with a comb.  Way too uncomfortable.

W thought this was great play, so she put on make up, using exact hand and arm movements getting it out of the "container".  Then she gave me a shot.  She held a metal looking piece from off of the truck against my thigh for a short time and then very professionally whipped the "needle" off and held a piece of cloth in the same spot to stop bleeding.

Today was the first day I called poison control.  I went downstairs and found two completely empty tubes of toothpaste on the floor.  First of all, why did they bring toothpaste downstairs?  To sneak eat it, obviously.  I knew the Thomas toothpaste was technically safe because there were no warnings on the back, plus the ingredients aren't too bad. But the back of the mint toothpaste said to call poison control if anything more than a pea sized amount was swallowed.  T was acting fine and I almost didn't call because I knew that there was only about a teaspoon left in the tube, thank heavens.  But then I decided it might be a good idea to call to teach all of us a lesson.  I told W and T that they are not supposed to eat things that aren't food for a reason.  Now I needed to call poison control to find out if he needed to go to the hospital to get the stuff sucked out of his stomach or if I had to give him something to make him throw up the toothpaste.  I wasn't sure.  They were both very quiet and attentive sitting in the chair together while I called.  They are never quiet when I'm on the phone.

Poison control is very user friendly and fast.  She asked me all the info she needed to see how much is too much for the size body.  Apparently with that amount and his size, drinking milk and eating bread was enough to only let him have a stomach ache.  The calcium in the milk helps by binding to the flouride.  Good.  No extra emergancy room visit in my course of motherhood yet.

After they drank their milk and ate bread, they both claimed they needed to go to the bathroom to go potty.  "The potty came out white.  It looks like toothpaste Mom."  I just hope they learned to not eat things that aren't food.  E hasn't learned yet.  He loves to try to chew on bark and rocks at the playground.

T and W were playing walk on the treadmill with crutches.  They can push the belt by walking on it together and holding on to get it moving.  Looks funny to me.