Chores...

 So as a family, we have been working on dividing up the daily chores.  For now each boy has 1 chore that they do every afternoon and when the laundry gets done, their second chore is to put their own clothes away (folded or not folded is up to them :-)).  Cooper's current chore, which he came up with, is to go throughout the house and check all the trash cans in the bedrooms and bathrooms to see if they are full or not.  If they are full, then he takes the full bag out and puts a new empty bag in.  This includes Kaylee's diaper trash can!  Jaxton's current chore, also his choice, is to clean up the living room (which is doubled as our playroom most days) and put everything in its place.  Sometimes the trash cans are not full, so Cooper has a very easy job.  Other days, they all are full.  Jaxton also finds that some days, his job takes him 5 minutes if we hadn't played in there much.  And other days, it takes a half an hour.  As they get sick of these, we will switch them up and come up with more helpful chores around the house.  While they are working, Kaylee and I usually clean 1 bathroom in the house, and if the boys are still working, we will clean another area of the house that needs attention.  Kaylee loves to clean! I couldn't help but take some cute pictures of her helping out.  It's pretty sweet.  However, the other day I was busy cooking dinner in the kitchen and she was exploring in the laundry room.  She found a container of cleaning wipes, opened it, took one out, and went straight over to the potty to clean it.  She knew exactly what to do!  When I heard the potty flush, I ran in there and whisked her away from the potty, which made her a bit frustrated with me.  Then I realized what she was doing!  She was already mad at me, but I tried to tell her thank you for cleaning the potty, and we went back to it and I helped her wipe just the lid of the potty.  What a great helper!! Of course we washed up real good after that!! 

Jaxton's Preschool Fun

 Jaxton's preschool class has been full of fun activities this spring.  First, his class took a fun field trip to Sweet Art Country Kitchen, a big baking store that has a large classroom kitchen in the back.  The instructor gave directions and supplies to each child to decorate a cupcake to make the frosting look like grass and jelly bean eggs.  They each got to make a milk chocolate mold candy pop with colored chocolate too, and a bird's nest out of a candy chocolate mixture.  Oh yummmm!

 I was able to help out in Jaxton's preschool classroom Easter party.  We had a small Easter egg hunt where they each had to find only the 2 eggs that had their first name and their last name on them.  They played the classic egg on a spoon game and relayed around some cones and back.  They decorated these little easter baskets and got to eat an easter snack.  Fun Fun!!

 Last week, Jaxton's class went on another field trip to Matea County Park, which is almost literally in our back yard.  It was quite a chilly spring morning, but super fun!  Our naturalist park ranger took us on a nature hike through the park to learn about all different forms of nature that live around Fort Wayne.  He taught us that birds do not have a sense of smell.  Thus, if you take one of their eggs out of their nest, and put it back right where you found it, they will never know.  So he took out an egg and let us see how tiny the birds eggs were.  Fascinating!

 In the forest of the county park are these bushes.  I forget what they are called exactly, but they are basically a basil-garlic plant that grows out of control in Indiana.  When you pick a leaf and rub it together into a ball and then take a sniff, you smell a strong smell of garlic, kind of like pizza.  I actually found a couple of these in our woods later that day.  He told us to come by whenever we want to take some basil-garlic home with us to cook with!  I may seriously take him up on that offer!

 The guide also found this random plant that was brought to Indiana long ago to use in bed mattresses.  It sticks to everything!  He had a lot of fun tossing these plants at the kids and they'd just stick right on their shirts.  And the kids thought it was so funny and strange!! He also pointed out deer tracks and all the kids were marveling at them.  But Jaxton sees deer out his back window every week or so and we find tracks in the woods all the time!!  I love that we have deer behind our house and nature in our own backyard!!  What a fun and interesting field trip.  We both learned a whole lot about the nature in our own city and had a great time spending the morning together, just he and I.  

Spring is Here!!

 The weather has warmed up and we have been taking advantage of that!!  This was our first trip to the park this spring, and being outside just puts everyone in a good mood! Kaylee is absolutely loving the baby swing!!  Look at that grin!! And the boys have been experimenting with climbing on our own swingset at home and they were having fun on the parallel bars at the park!!  

 We took a bike ride too, the first real bike ride we've been able to take on an actual trail with the boys' Christmas gifts from Santa!  They love to ride!! They don't get tired as quick as they used to on their little trikes! Their bikes are so much smoother.  They were pros!!  It is fun to watch them experiment and try new things, and to do well at what they attempt!! Cooper kept looking back behind him to see me.  Every time he did that, his handlebars went with his head and he turned his front wheel.  He fell hard!  I helped him up and reminded him that "mistakes are wonderful opportunities to learn," and he figured out what he learned from that experience: Don't look backwards when riding.  It was fun to see him connect with that, and he tried hard the rest of our ride to keep his head forward.  

Easter Sunday

 Easter Sunday was a special one.  As a tradition, the Easter Bunny left baskets on our front porch.  Inside, the kids found new church shoes, new white shirts and ties, and Kaylee found a beautiful Easter dress, white shoes, and a flower for her hair.  What a great way to celebrate Easter and show respect for such a meaningful holiday.  The boys had been complaining left and right about their shoes getting too small (back in December).  But they made it till Easter!!  So they were actually quite thrilled to find new church clothes!  We were able to get substitutes for our classes in our ward and we joined the Kendallville Branch for church.  We were joined by Nate's sister Melissa's family and Nate's brother Nick's family and Nate's other brother Mike's family.  What a special day!  The boys happily went to primary with their cousins, who altogether tripled the numbers in primary!  And Grandma Routsong got Kaylee to sleep during Relief Society.  It was nice to be with family all weekend and to listen and learn about Christ's resurrection and the promises it gives to each of us.

 After we came home from Kendallville, we had to end our Easter week with a small Resurrection lesson.  We had been talking about resurrection all week, but today we got to make some "resurrection rolls."  We took Pillsbury crescent rolls and laid out the triangles.  Then we took a large marshmallow, dipped it in melted butter and rolled it in cinnamon sugar.  Then we placed it on the crescent roll triangle and rolled it up and pinched the sides together.  The boys loved doing this!  The marshmallow represented Christ's pure  (white) body.  The butter and cinnamon sugar represented the oils and spices they would embalm his body with after he died.  The crescent roll represented the tomb they placed him in.  We baked these in the oven for a few minutes and when we took them out, we cut one in half, and this is what we found:  The marshmallow had disappeared.  Just as Jesus had risen and left the tomb, so had the marshmallow!  It was a neat analogy and a yummy Easter treat!

Routsong Annual Egg Hunt

Grandma & Grandpa Routsong have an annual Easter tradition: a giant Easter Egg Hunt for the kids.  It is always something to look forward to!  This year, they changed it a little bit, which made it a lot more fun and actually took a little longer.  Each cousin got a certain color that they were to find.  There were 12 eggs of that color hidden somewhere around the house and if they saw an egg of a different color, they were to leave it there.  So Jaxton went looking for only orange colored eggs, and Cooper went looking for all the shiny metallic eggs.  Kaylee went looking for pink ones!  The big cousins loved taking their hands and helping them find their eggs and helping them reach the ones that were up in the trees or on top of tall bushes.  It was a whole lot of fun!! In the picture are all the cousins except the Gregory family who were not able to come.  From left to right: Lauren, Kaylee, Jaxton, Kipton, Cassidy, Katie, Ash, Ryan, Jared, Cooper, Madison, & Jack.  

 We got to meet Baby Kipton for the first time!! He is the newest cousin in the family, Nate's brother Nick & Carissa's son.  He is about 8 months here, and Kaylee really took a liking to him.  He wasn't so sure about her, but I think she liked that he was just about her size.  :-)

 So here went the easter egg hunt, everyone searching for their color!  Here is Cooper with Madison.

 Jaxton with Lauren

 Kaylee with Grandma

 What a beautiful day and what a beautiful girl!

 Jaxton with his findings!!

 Cooper and Ryan opening up all their eggs to find treasures inside!! What cute kiddos!

Easter Fun!

Happy Easter!! Again, we filled our Easter week with all kinds of fun Easter, spring, and spiritual activities to spice up our holiday!  The start of it all of course were the Easter packages Grandma Hutchinson sent!  Kaylee had her very own package to open, which she loved!!  And the easter grass, though messy, was a hit for the kids!  I guess they got practice cleaning it up afterwards....!  Thanks Grandma for all the fun!

 Grandma sent egg decorating supplies in the package, so the next day, we decided to dye eggs.  Kaylee didn't actually get to participate in this one...but she had more fun than anyone opening up all the eggs Grandma sent and finding goodies inside to munch on!  It kept her very busy (and quiet) and entertained while I helped the boys out with dying eggs! 

 I found this awesome idea on pinterest to use a wire whisk to hold the egg in, so that it is easy to dip into the dye and easy to pull out (rather than those cheap wire holders or even spoons when the eggs just fall right off).  The whisks worked wonders!!  We also put hole punch stickers on the hard boiled eggs before we dyed them, so when the eggs were dry, we peeled off the stickers and there were little white circle designs left on the egg!  Fun!  After each dying about 6 eggs, Cooper was determined right then and there to eat 2 of his favorite ones!  And he did!  I never knew he liked hard boiled eggs so much!

 Every evening of the week of Easter we spent talking about something that actually happened to Jesus on the last week of his life.  Each night we talked about one event from the scriptures and had some kind of activity related to that event.  On Palm Sunday we talked a lot about Jesus' Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem and how the people waved palm branches towards him and laid flowers and garments on his pathway.  The next day at the kids preschool during their "chapel hour," the preschool had an awesome display of this very story.  They had a backdrop of the city of Jerusalem, a donkey set up, and palm leaves, flowers, and clothing on the ground.  It was an AHA moment for my boys, who knew the story really well by now!  I think they surprised the teachers at their knowledge of the story of Christ's Triumphal Entry!  Another night at our family time, we washed each others' feet, just as Jesus washed his disciples feet.  One evening we spoke of His death and used the glove activity to teach how the body will separate from the spirit, and then be reunited with the spirit when we are resurrected.  Another night we talked about the last supper, and Passover, and how it was a special holiday for the people in Bible times.  So we imitated a Passover meal with foods that may have been eaten on that holiday.  A plus was that we ate on the floor!!  We made "unleavened bread" or flatbread, had white rice, lamb on skewers, berries, olives, spinach leaves, raisins, and hard boiled eggs.  It definitely was a unique meal, but it was a lot of fun to learn about the Passover and what it may have been like!

 One evening we put together some goodies and went "Egging!"  We got white donut holes and pretended they were bunny tails.  Then we made colorful cupcakes with easter sprinkles (from Grandma's package) and filled some plastic eggs up with candy.  We took the goodies to a couple different families homes.  Nate took 1 boy with him to each house up to the porch where they left the goodies, hid some plastic filled eggs around their front lawn, and left a sign out front that said "You've Been Egged!"  I taught the boys what egging really was, and how we would "trick" our friends by telling them they got egged.  But then they would find our goodies and see that we were playing a fun trick, not throwing raw eggs! They thought this was super fun!  

 We had an Easter egg hunt picnic.  Cooper was in charge.  He helped me fill up plastic eggs each with different picnic lunch items: tiny BP&J sandwiches, grapes, cheese, apples, and crackers.  Then he was in charge of hiding all the eggs (6 eggs for each of the 4 kids).  He loved it!!  It was fun watching his little strategies to decide where would be the best place to hide them!! When he found a good hiding place, he would put 3 or 4 eggs in that same place, since it was such a good place to hide them!!  Cute boy!

 The boys then got to go find their eggs.  They each had to have 1 of every color in order to complete their picnic lunch.  Once they found them all, they settled on the grass (THATS RIGHT, WE HAVE AMAZING GRASS, FINALLY), to eat their picnic.  It was a ton of fun!

Kaylee Girl

Kaylee Joy, Now almost 15 months old!  How time flies!  She is absolutely beautiful.  The most beautiful little girl!  And she is growing up so fast and learning so much!  She brings joy into our home in so many ways!  She is talking so much too.  She has told me several times now that she needs her diaper changed.  I always ask her "Do we need to change you?" and I pat her bum.  So she will look at me and say "Change You" and pat her own bum!  Its' a trademark!!  She also loves to climb...she has figured out how to climb stairs like a pro!  She is so very fast! And she enjoys climbing up onto the fireplace and exploring the ashes and wood in there!  Oh goodness!  Kaylee has lately been experimenting with stools.  She attempts climbing up on the stool in the bathroom to wash her hands, but everytime since, her attempts have been unsuccessful and result in a tramatic fall.  But she keeps on trying!!  I try to keep the laundry room door closed, because otherwise, she just loves going in there and finding things in our cubbies.  Usually she will find goodies the boys brought home from school in their school bags.  She will sit there and work on opening packages, or bring them to me and say "bite? pease?" in her own cute voice.  Or she will get to the markers and crayons, find a piece of paper in our piles in our cubbies, and go to work coloring!  Needless to say, she is in to everything!  She is in explore-mode!  And messy, yes, though it is so fun to watch her explore and learn!  

 Now only a mother could love a face like this one!  Refried beans everywhere!  What a cutie!

 We took a bike ride one evening at the elementary school across the street.  We still don't have a infant carrier or a bike trailer to pull behind our bike yet, so she brought her own trike and spent her time waddling around exploring with her helmet on!  Since she's really good at walking and running now, she had to find a new skill to master.  So she would take my finger in her hand and make me help her step up the curb onto the sidewalk, walk a few paces, and then step down the curb.  Up and down the curb we went all the way around the parking lot.  This was something she was seriously interested in figuring out, and it was tricky!  She's got the determination of her daddy!

 Speaking of Daddy, she loves her daddy!  She gets so excited when he comes around.  If he is in his upstairs office, she follows him there.  Peeks in at him, goes in over and over and over, just missing him!  Nate will make her "fly."  He will throw her up in the air and catch her and she gets nervous, but loves it.  So he will fly her up one time while she squeals in laughter and smiles.  He will ask her "More?" and she will immediately shake her head no and say "uh uh, uh uh" as if to say "no way! that was too scary"  But then he'll throw her up again anyway as she squeals in delight, followed by an "uh uh, uh uh!"  It's pretty funny!

 Here is Kaylee with Grandma Routsong, whom she has gotten to know well.  Luckily, her stranger anxiety problems were very short lived, lasting only a few months.  Now she is pretty good to go to anyone and even be left without me around.  Jaxton never had any stranger problems or separation anxiety.  Cooper had a very very bad case of it.  So Kaylee is kind of inbetween, having a short lived bout of it.  I'm sure glad its over with.  It is fun to see her enjoy herself with Grandma and Grandpa and feel comfortable and happy with them!!

 Who is the shopper in our family?  Oh yeah, its Nate.  No, Tara does not shop.  And who has become quite the bargain shopper with a little encouragement?  Yep, Nate!!  Nate will stop in at Von Maur in between alarm jobs to check the sales racks, where he picks up great deals for both he and I.  He buys me all my clothes and shoes!  Amazing hu!  On the flip side, I would never attempt picking out an outfit for him.  It just wouldn't fly.  Anyways, he is so excited to take his little girl shopping!  What a sight!!  I'm sure she will love shopping with dad, who will cave in and buy her anything her little heart desires!! No, I'm training him NOT to do that!  But I'm sure he'll be tempted to!  

St. Patrick's Day

 Green Eggs & Ham?  Yep, only for St. Patrick's Day!  I've been finding all sorts of fun ideas for holidays, and decided that it was time to actually put into action all the ideas I had found.  So we did!! The entire week of St. Patrick's Day, we did something fun related to the holiday every day!  So we made green eggs!  The boy's were a little leery, but thought they were cool!  We also put green food coloring in our milk.  They also thought this was neat.  Whether it was pregnancy or what, I'm not sure, but I could just not bring myself to eat green eggs or drink green milk.  It just made my stomach churn! Not that it would have tasted any different!  So I made myself a couple of regular yellow eggs, just for my stomach!  The boys put their green milk in their cereal. They loved it!!

 We used cookie cutters in our sandwiches almost every day of the week.  And I attempted to make Irish Corned Beef & Cabbage.  It was very very easy in the crock pot, and actually tasted pretty good!  It may become a St. Patrick's Day holiday meal tradition! 

 I found that we could make anything routine extra exciting just by adding food coloring.  So we added a bit of green food coloring to the master bathtub!  I was afraid to add to much because I didn't want to stain the tub, or the kids!  But they loved having a light green bath!!!