Aside from Carter’s birthday on Friday, we still had a great week! We were busy, but busy with all good things, and we had some days of beautiful weather which made it great!

One afternoon, we were all out in the yard and we met a butterfly. It wasn’t just any butterfly, though; it was a monarch butterfly. It seemed to be sick and/or dying. 🙁  It wouldn’t fly away when we came near it, but rather hovered just enough to move slightly out of the way. We watched it for a long time and then went back to playing. But as we were playing we realized we might step on it or run it over so we decided to try and help it scootch out of the way. Instead of fluttering and moving out of the way, however, it decided to land on my shoe, then the skin on my foot, then climb up my leg, then land on my finger, then climb up my wrist! It was way cool! I had to push it off my hand and into the garden! I feel so famous!

Fay and the butterfly

After all the butterfly excitement subsided, we just went to playing on the swings and stuff. Everybody had so much fun just being together outside! It was quite joyous!

Carter wanted to swing with Portia and hold her hand! <3 <3 <3

I LOVE it when they all play happily together!

Something very exciting happened this week!!!! We got this ottoman:

KSL classifieds find.

Isn’t it great?! So much potential! Josh and I worked together on it and turned it into more than just potential!

After the magic

AHHH!!! Isn’t it GORGEOUS?!!!!! I have been wanting an ottoman like this for so long, and now my dreams have become a reality!

Anyway…

Yesterday we took a trip down to Monticello to visit my grandma! It was really nice to see her and hear lots of stories about her life that I hadn’t before. I am ashamed to say we didn’t get a picture of her; but she got a picture of us at her house, and I will share it with you.

And on top of all that, we had a super fantastic Sacrament Meeting today! I don’t mind weeks like this at all!

Birthday boy with his Cars cupcakes!

This dude turned 3 years old today! It was enormously fun to watch Carter get into the birthday spirit! He kept declaring how much he loved all his gifts, and would respond with a super enthusiastic “free” whenever he was asked how old he was! I love this kid so much!

Let’s talk about Carter these days!

And even though Carter is all about cars these days, I can’t find a single picture of him really playing with them. Not even from today when he got loaded with cars! I will repent, and you will see Carter with cars!

Carter opening a present this morning.

Another thing Carter loves is music! He knows all the words to the primary songs (and I just let him perform with the primary even though he’s still in nursery), loves to listen to and sing songs at home. He will sometimes just sing or hum to himself, just like Fay does. It makes me so happy! I heard once (on an I’m a Mormon video, I think), “kids can’t really be cranky or sad if they’re singing” and I think there’s a lot of truth to that. So I’m glad my boy loves his music!

Carter put these Mickey Mouse ears around his waist and called them his drums. He then proceeded to rock out on them!

Recently Carter–who was my best napper in the whole world–has decided he will. not. nap. I think he genuinely doesn’t always need a nap. He was having a hard time going to sleep at bedtime for a couple of weeks, and that’s when I started allowing him to skip naps. But it quickly became apparent that he still needed them some days. He doesn’t usually get all that grumpy, which is a beautiful blessing, but he just falls asleep at random times in random places, and there’s nothing anyone can do to wake him except go put him in his bed. Once he’s been “put down” he will wake right up because he doesn’t want/need a nap. He’s fallen asleep on the couch, multiple times sitting at the dinner table, and one time sitting in the middle of the floor.

He’s so sweet and sleepy!

Carter is getting to that age where he just thinks up the wildest things to entertain himself. Today, he wanted to get in his bed and put every blanket he owns (he just got two new ones today) on top of him. He just grinned and giggled the whole time he was there. Sometimes he wants to run in circles around the couch forever. Sometimes he wants to line up all his cars and just look at them. The other day, he decided I needed to be his bed, and he just laid there on me for like 5 minutes.

He was so cute, I couldn’t kick him off!

We love our boy so much! I’m so grateful he’s been mine for three whole years, and infinitely grateful he will be mine for eternity!

Looking seriously studly on Easter Sunday. Hey look! A car!

 

This Easter season has gone by so quickly! How do things keep doing that?! But we have had lots of fun, including, but not limited to:

• Decorating the mantel (picture below)
• Fay decorating her mantel a jillion times (because Portia keeps coming and ruining it)
• Dying Easter eggs
• Easter egg hunts around the house and yard
• Two epic family Easter parties where we all got more goodies than we know what to do with!
• Reading seasonal books
• Wearing our spiffy Easter outfits
• Rejoicing in the Atonement and Resurrection of Jesus Christ! (best part!)

Here’s the photographic evidence!

The mantel! Special thanks to Shauna for the ADORABLE little bunnies, and Lacey for the beautiful Eastery quotes!

Egg hunt #1 for family party on Monday. We dyed the eggs then had a hunt right then!

The 2 year old cousins at the Muhlestein egg hunt. They did this themselves which made it just that much cuter!

I guess we were all having too much fun to take any pictures at the Monson Easter hunt. But it was definitely awesome!

Spiffy Easter outfits. I made my dress, and I feel like it looks a lot better in the mirror than it does in this picture… I don’t know which one tells the truth.

Spiffy outfits for the rest of the family. Portia was in hers for approximately 7 minutes before she stained it with candy.

ALSO!!!! Fay totally read this entire book by herself this past week! It was her very first book to read all the way through! I’m so proud of my big, growing-up girl!

The two highlights from this week included a trip to the farm and General Conference!

On Wednesday of this past week the kids and I went with some friends to Wheeler Farm. I had gone to Wheeler Farm on a field trip when I was in first grade and vaguely remembered seeing some cows being milked, but I honestly didn’t know what to expect–especially since admission was free. Well it totally did NOT disappoint! It was like the funnest outing we have had in months! A big part of the fun was hanging out with friends (for me as well as the kids), so thanks friends!

The kids sitting in the cow ride. We were cheapos and didn’t pay to actually ride it. 🙂

All three kids loved seeing the different animals, and there were quite a few! Even some babies! When we talked about it beforehand, Fay’s one desire was to see chickens, and we did! We also saw giant rabbits, giant turkeys, normal sized cows, horses, and sheep, and two calves and some lambs! It was so fun!

I didn’t think to get any pictures of the kids with the animals. But here they are looking super cute on this quaint hay truck.

Then we had General Conference this weekend! The things I love about General Conference are: all the things. I had so many beautiful insights and special manifestations of Heavenly Father’s love during this conference, and I just feel like I’m ready to go another 6 months!

We had one session of conference with friends and the rest were just us. The kids honestly did really good all things considered! Fay paid more attention this time than she ever has before, and it was special to talk about the messages with her while they were going on. I love my girl! And it is such a joy to see her developing her own testimony of Jesus Christ.

Conference is Cool!

Also, Josh went and did Priesthood session and man partying with his dad and brothers, and I decided we needed to do some fun stuff too! I asked the kids what they wanted and they decided on a picnic dinner, a craft, and to read a ton of stories! The kids seemed to have quite a bit of fun, and I definitely did!

Picnic dinner. Portia can put away burritos!

Then our bunny craft for Easter!

Fay did just about everything herself for her rabbit! I only helped with poking holes for the whiskers and cutting out the nose.

Carter and I did this one together. I made the ears look more like cat ears than bunny ears, but he was still pleased.

No pictures from the story time, but it was good with lots of Eastery stories. I’m getting so excited for Easter! This will be my first legit Easter mantel, and I better get crackin’ because we’re only two weeks away!