We now have two 3 yr olds in our house.  On Saturday Ian turned 3!  We asked him what he wanted to do and he wanted to play on the playground and go to KFC so that is what we did.  The kids really love KFC they get chicken nuggets, fries and since it was such a special occasion we let them each have a fruit drink and an ice cream cone. 
We will celebrated with all the kids friends in a couple of weeks when we have our big joint birthday for the boys.  It was nice to celebrate as a family this weekend. 

We've been practicing with Ian to say he is THREE now and show 3 with his fingers.  Elijah overheard us and said, "Hey I'm three too.  We are twins now!" 

Ian's favorite color is blue.  In March we moved him into his big boy bed and he potty trained the same week.  I finished his quilt for his bed in time for his birthday.  He loves to play with cars, color and read books.  He still loves to eat and play with our little kitchen.  Over the past year his baseball skills have taken off too. 

                  Happy 3rd Birthday Ian.  We love you and are glad that you are in our family!

My Artist

 This is baby Rapunzel and the King and Queen.

This is a picture of one of Ev's friends.

Ev drew these pictures all on her own.  I love her attention to detail.   

Catching up

To catch up we've had some big things happen around here.  Some of it was  sad, some of it was exciting and some of it just in between.  Over the last month we've welcomed into our lives a dryer, a car and Pizza Hut that opened last week in our city.  You may be thinking, is this lady crazy but these 3 things have revolutionized my world.  Let me tell you about the exciting these that happened.

First- My clothing dryer- I had been telling Todd for a while now, "if  I only had a dryer life would be so much easier!"  :)  I am happy that we can now dry our clothes and they will go back to their original shape for the most part.  Picture if you can 5 people's laundry that may take anywhere from 1-3 days to dry depending on the weather.  Thank you Jesus for the dryer.

Please don't be mad at me, kids don't use car seats here and we are looking for booster seats for the kids off the Internet cause you can't buy them here! 

Second- We got a car.  We have lived here for 5 years without one and as our family has grown it is harder to get around with public transportation. (Mainly when I want to go out with the kids by myself.) The kids have really gotten use to holding each others hands when we walk anywhere.  They've done well when we are on a side walk and cars still think it is the road, and they've done well crossing the streets with me and even in my few attempts to get me and three little people on a public bus before it takes off. Public buses don't wait for you to find your seat if you are the last one one it starts to move and closes the door on you even if you are not all the way inside and then you learn how to walk to the back of the bus and find your seat while the bus is moving.  Now you probably don't want to picture us crossing the street.  If I am really nervous I will carry Ian and have Ev hold onto my pocket or purse and then I hold Elijah's hand.  Never mind that no one obeys traffic laws around here or yields for pedestrians, even pedestrians with 3 little kids. Some of the mindset here is you are out for yourself so do whatever is best for you.   So with this all said you can see how having a car makes it easier on us.  Although Todd is the only one with a driver's license and I refuse to drive here so we are limited to if/when he is available to take us places.  It is still better than nothing.

Third- Pizza hut opened in our city.  Let me just remind you all we have is KFC.  So having Pizza Hut is amazing.  We finally have a new place to go on date night!  Pizza Hut is pretty expensive since we live in the west and everything has to be shipped to us.  But I am just happy to not always have to make my own pizza. :)

He is Risen!

 Resurrection Rolls

 I didn't get a family picture but this one is the closest I got.  Ev's hair wasn't brushed or braided yet, oh well maybe next year! :)

After teaching the kids about Easter for the past 12 days I asked them to explain to me what they learned.  I got some great info out of them both deep, meaningful and funny.  Thanks for the laugh Ian.  Sorry, Jesus isn't a marshmallow now. 

The best was hearing Elijah say in his loud voice, "He is risen!"  "The tomb is empty."

Fantasy Baseball Profile Evangelia Lambert: .302, 28 HR, 106 RBI

We are working on her stepping straight, but not bad.

Quick craft

Today is a holiday so I got the day off of school.   I realized I haven't done anything fun for myself in a very long time.  But I needed a project that would only take minutes. Thanks to looking at blog about Craft Weekend.... I would love to go to this if I lived in America I found a fun and easy craft to do.  I didn't have silver wire on hand so I worked with what I did have and was pleased with how it turned out. 
I chose a pink bead to represent Evangelia, a clear on to represent Hobs and a blue one for Ian.  I followed this bird nest necklace tutorial and after about 5 minutes my creation was finished.  This would be a great project for mother's day. 

Preparing for Resurrection Day

We have been leading up to Resurrection day by sharing in detail the story of Jesus' last days before he was crucified and the reason behind Him dying on the cross for us.  We are using our Resurrection eggs opening one every evening and going into detail about the meaning/story.  This year we are hanging the small symbols from the resurrection eggs on our tree made out of branches we collected outside.  This year we made an "mountain tomb" from Noel Piper's book, Treasuring God in our Traditions and we will make Resurrection Rolls on Sunday morning. 

Like Christmas we wanted to take out the "us" of Resurrection day and focus on Jesus and thankfully as we live in a country that doesn't commercialize American holidays so we can teach our kids the true meanings of holidays like Resurrection day.  No Easter bunny, plastic eggs, and fancy clothes here not that those are bad but we really want the kids to not be distracted by those things and think of candy and hiding eggs as the meaning behind Resurrection day. 

Having our "mountain tomb" out has lead to some great discussions with our babysitter/helper.  I have been able to share with her the real reason why Jesus died on the cross for us. 

 Jesus is still in the works, Ev made him out of clay and is planning on making a crown of thorns and some more things to add to him before we put him on the cross.

We add the symbols to the tree after the story is read. 

Todd and his Dr. Pepper

Dr. Pepper is not consistently in our town, so I bought a couple...or more off the internet from the Chinese version of ebay. Well worth it. Hopefully I wont drink it all in a month...or less. Looking to buy some cereal off the internet next week :)

They dont even like it nor know why I took a picture with it. Just didnt want to be left out.