Keeping the flame alive

For a minute there... I thought I was going to have a year of peace in my heart when it came time for the infamous Sunnyside Talent Show.

It was not to be.

You got this, Megan!

5 things

I perodicaly feel so overwhelmed by the enormity of the task of keeping up this bloggie. I am currently supposed to be finishing my CHRISTMAS posts and my birthday posts from LAST YEAR.  How can I face it??? I am barely keeping clean clothes on these kids, people. It can't be done!  Well, maybe it can be done...if I trade blogging time for catching up on episodes of The Good Wife.

It can't be done!

But I truly don't want to give up on this blog. So I think I will try a new low-key approach.....

I call it "5 things".

I will right 5 things that happened or crossed my mind that day. It should provide a little structure to my posts and help take the pressure off me when I stress about recording the minutia of our daily lives.

1. Mark and I ran the Tough Mudder on Saturday. It was so fun.

 SO FUN. We got to spend the entire day hanging out with each other, jumping in mud, running, falling off of things and laughing. I am so glad he talked me into it. I have a few sore muscles and a fat ankle, but I'd do it again. And now I have my own orange headband. I won't lie. I am crazy proud of myself and it is so fun to have something else to talk about than what I cooked for dinner. Kinda forgot what that feels like.

2. Family Home Evening crashed and burned in a major way. Laney dissolved into tears because she wasn't on the team she wanted (we played a game of wiffle ball). Anna dissolved into tears because she didn't hit the ball the first time...she's 3!!  Megan kept saying "Strike 1, Strike 2, strike 3....and I'm out" in a sarcastic voice and then huffing off because she insisted she was incapable of hitting the ball. Ethan was picking on the others and Mathew....well, Mathew was good...guilty by association, I suppose. It turned the whole night into torture. I kept looking at the weeds in the flower beds longingly, wishing I were pulling them out instead. I am positive it would have been more fun. Definitely more spiritually rewarding. Kids...when you grow up, remember that FHE can and will be hard a lot of the time. It just is. Keep on keepin on. Every once in a while you get a real winner and overall you are glad you did it.

3. Ethan sat me down and asked me if he could buy a sword to display on his wall. He seemed all nervous and when I said "yeah, sure", he breathed a big sigh of relief. Turns out he has been trying to get up the nerve to ask me that for 2 weeks. HUH. Weird.

4. I did 45 lbs on my overhead squat today. That's 45 lbs more than I could do when I started.

5. Mark bought me a Chrome book today....just because I mentioned that I'd like to have a way to keep up with my blog. He is the sweetest.

Kinda made me feel bad for getting miffed that he didn't notice that I mowed the lawn today.  err...

Bunny toes

"LOOK MOM! I got bunnies!"

Sometimes it rains

And sometimes we really start thinking we should invest in some sandbags.

Please stop!

Overhead

Every year we see the Great Blue Herons fly in and land in the creak beds by Indian Creek Trail. I love them with their long legs and graceful necks. 

Last week we spotted one flying over the neighbor's house. 

I couldn't help but try to take a photo....but of course, it could never do the bird justice. 

Project hand-me down bag

We sometimes find bags of girl clothes on our doorstep. 

Because when you have six kids, people stop asking if you could use some clothes. They just know you could.

Sometimes we keep them and wear them and sometimes we just take them to Saver's with all of our old clothes.

And sometimes we have a fashion show.

Oh. It's Easter alright.

I really like Easter. 

It's so green! So fresh and fragrant! We get to hide stuff and find it and the baskets are so cute and I get an excuse to buy things for my kids!

We had an egg hunt at the Terry's house with a gaggle of little girls.

Everly was into it!

Totally into it.

And now we will begin my lifelong battle with this girl to not eat too much chocolate.

It's going to be super fun. I just know it.

We decided to ditch the plastic eggs for our family egg hunt this year.

It's time to go old-school

Learning the fine art of drawing on a white egg with a clear crayon.

Ethan going for a polka dot effect.

We were ON TIME to the Dallman's Annual Egg Hunt this year! (no easy task)

And because we traditionally like to celebrate every single thing at least 4 times before we ACTUALLY celebrate that thing.

We finally arrived at Easter Morning.

 In lieu of tons of chocolate this year (a glimpse of the future), we had a treasure hunt for various toys hidden around the house and yard.

Legos!

Bowling!

Whiffle ball!

Each child also had a particular color of egg to find somewhere in the backyard with a WHOLE DOLLAR inside. Color co-ordination kids to eggs? Yes. It is what prevents egg hunting from turning into a fight, people.

I would like to let our future posterity know that all Mark and I need to be happy is a holiday themed snickers and a tub of jordan almonds. Respectively.

Please make sure you check on the strength of my teeth or dentures before bringing the almonds, however. That would be cruel.