Easter Fun!

There are some things that come with Easter that you can not skip.  It is a must that we dye Easter eggs.  This year Easter weekend was full of things no Easter related that I had to do,  so finding the right time to dye the eggs was a little tricky.  It ended up that I prepared the eggs and then left the dying to Ryan and the kids.  When Josh found out I was not going to be there he was concerned.  "Who is going to take our picture with our eggs?"

I told him that I could take one when I got home.  When he was finished with his eggs he started asking Ryan where I was.  He wanted to eat one of his eggs, but he didn't want to until I had taken a picture of him.  This is really funny to me, because Josh is my child who hates getting his picture taken the most.  Ryan offered to take his picture, but Josh insisted on waiting for me.  I loved that he didn't want me to miss out on the whole activity.  When I got home I quickly took his picture then he happily enjoyed an egg. 

 

Josh was really into Easter this year.  For a couple of weeks before the big day Josh asked if the Easter Bunny was going to hide their baskets this year.  When I told him yes he began planning where the Easter Bunny might hide his.  When he would think of a good spot he would tell me and ask me if I thought that was where his basket would be.  He came up with some really good spots, so I knew the Easter Bunny was going to have to be tricky with him. 

Saturday night the kids put out their baskets.  Joe made this fun Easter basket at school out of a milk carton. 

Easter morning the hunt for the baskets began.  Valerie was still asleep when we started the hunt,  but she was one of the first to find hers.  After 45 minutes of looking and Ryan and I finally giving in and playing hot and cold with the kids.  Everyone found where their baskets were hidden.  That Easter Bunny was really tricky this year. 

Valerie's was in her easel.

 

Joe's was on the food storage shelves behind a few boxes of cereal.

 

Josh's was under a pile of clothes in his room.  The Easter Bunny decided that Josh would probably not think to look in his own room, and he was right.   

Emily was the last to find her basket.  She kept hoping that it would just jump out at her.  But the Easter Bunny had other plans.  Her basket was hanging on the coat rack under her dads coat. 

 

The baskets were found!

 

After the kids loaded up with sugar we headed off to Church were my favorite part of the day happened. The kids got up with the primary in Sacrament Meeting and sang "If the Savior Stood Beside Me."  I love that song. 

 

To finish off our Easter Celebration we headed to Grandma's house.  She always puts on a fun Easter party and this year was no different.

 

After a great dinner, the kids had an Easter Egg hunt where they got to find special eggs just for them. 

Then we all played a few rounds of Easter Bingo. 



 

Grandma had some prizes for the winners, so it was very serious.

 



We all had fun, and it was nice to get to visit with everyone. 

 

I love holidays.  I am a little sad that the next one is not for a while. 

 

Happy Easter!

I love you 97%

     A few weeks ago I walked in the room and heard Joe and Emily having a conversation about tattoos.  Emily was telling Joe that he should not get one. (He is nine, he was not heading to a tattoo parlor......yet.)   That it was bad for his body, and that the prophet of our church has told us not to get tattoos.  Then she told him that if he got a tattoo I would not love him anymore.  That is when I had to step in.  I told them that no matter what they do I would always love them.  I admitted that if they chose to go against what we have taught them that I would be disappointed, and probably sad,  but I would always love them.  Then my helpful teenager chimed in and added.  "Yes, but you will love him less.  Like only 97%."   

     I then turned to Emily and said, "Your Grandma has a tattoo, do you love her less?" 
Granted her Grandma's tattoo is the size of the head of a pin and she has it as a result of her cancer treatment,  but I was trying to prove a point and it worked.  I had left Emily speechless.  I asked her again.  "Do you only love your Grandma 97%?"  Of course she answered no.   I did explain to my kids why grandma has a tattoo, and I also talked to them about the reasons the prophet has asked us not to get them.  But still hanging in the air was the question would I love them less, like only 97% if they chose to do something I had told them not to.  I tried my best to tell them that I would always love them no matter what, but I could still tell that Emily was doubting me.

     My children are still young and the rebellion stage in life (at least I hope it is just a stage) is just beginning to show, but I do know some great mothers who have experienced their children going against what they have been taught. Some in big ways.  One thing I have seen with these mothers is that no matter what their child does.  Even though they are sad or disappointed they all have still loved their child just as much as they did before.  They still want their child to be happy, and they do what they can to keep that relationship with their child.  I have seen some of the hurt and frustration, but I have also seen that they would still do anything for that child.  These mothers are a great example to me.

    But being the mother I am I couldn't help but play the 97% card a few times with Emily over the next few weeks. "Mom I forgot to do this!"  "Oh no Emily you better fix it or I will only love you 97%."  "Mom I messed up on this in school today!"  Ought Oh!  I guess I can only love you 97% today."   This was all done in fun with both of us laughing, and sometimes Joe would jump in and help.  I thought I got my point across though at how funny it was to tell someone that you only love them a certain percent.     

     After a few days the joke died down a little until we were done with it. (or so I thought)

     Then this week at our monthly week night Relief Society meeting,  they had a therapist who specializes in Pornography addiction come and speak to us on the subject.  It was a really good class.  I have been to other classes on Internet safety and how to try to prevent your child from seeing pornography,  but in this class we were brought right into the mind of an addict.  How it starts when it becomes an addiction why it is such a big problem and how to handle it if it happens in your family, and also ways to try to keep it from happening. 
   
     He said that as a parent it is hard to control everything your kids see.  We need to do everything we can to try to have them not see it,  but we live in a world now where pornography is rampant and there is a good chance they will see something somewhere.  One of the big things he said in preventing it from going from an accidental sighting to an addiction is to talk to your kids about it so that if they ever come across it they know what it is, how we feel about it and to come and talk to you about it.     If you have already laid the ground work hopefully they will come to you, and then it can often times stop it from going any further.

    With Emily and Joe I had already talked to them at their own levels about sex and perverts and things like that,  but I couldn't remember talking specifically about pornography.  So I decided to talk to them a little about it .  I told them that I had gone to a class that talked about the dangers of Pornography and asked them if they knew what that was.  They both said yes and started telling me what they knew.  They knew what they needed to, so I just told them how important it is to come and talk to me if they ever saw or heard anything like that or if something made them feel uncomfortable, so we could talk about it.  I ended by telling them that I loved them and that I didn't want them to look at pornography.  I must have gotten too serious for Joe because then he came back with some smart Alec remark about it.  So I told Joe that if he ever went looking for those kind of pictures he wouldn't see the sun.  Then Emily, right on cue chimed in, "Yeah and she will only love you 72%."

     We all laughed at that comment.  I joked back that with the tatto that would bring it down to 69%.  Then Joe and Emily started giving percentages to other things and adding them up to see how low my love could go.

     I really hope they do not believe that.  Hopefully they know that a mothers love is bigger than any problem.  I also hope that I never have to prove my love in this way either.  For now I will just try to show them that I do love them 100% all the time, and sometimes I love them even more than that.     Like 107%.
        

    

Another Mystery Solved

     Do you remember the Fabreez commercial that was on T.V. where the mom is cleaning up all of her kids toys and spraying the Fabreez.  Then after she picks up the last toy she turns around to look at the nice clean room and instead we see the room exactly how it was when the commercial started.  Toys everywhere?

     I had two reactions to this commercial.  Some days it made me laugh out loud and other days it made me want to cry.    I could totally relate to this mother.  Cleaning has never been my favorite thing, and as a mother of young children It always feels like when I do clean someone is right behind me undoing everything I just did.  (because they usually are) 

     I clean the kitchen, someone is hungry.  I make a treat, my family eats it all.  I mop the floor, someone walks on it while it is still wet.  I do the laundry, the family wears their clothes.  I have my kids clean the toy room.......if you have seen the commercial you know how that goes.  It never ends.

     I know, this is what being a mom is about and that is how it is, but occasionally I find myself asking WHY?   Why can't I have a totally clean house for just 5 minutes?  Why am I the only one who can see the dirt?  Why can't I have cookies in the cookie jar like my grandma does?   You know those need to know, life changing questions. 

     The answer to this question is because we have 6 people living in this house, and 4 of those are children, but that never seems to really ease my mind.

     Well today I think I discovered the real reason WHY.

     Cleaning the bathrooms is probably my least favorite job.  There are many reasons why I don't like it, but the most frustrating thing for me about cleaning the bathrooms is that it seams like no matter what, as soon as I am done someone immediately goes in and uses it.  Even if there is still a dirty toilet that I have not cleaned yet.  There is something about the clean one.  WHY? 

      I have found the best way to avoid this problem is to clean them when most of the family is gone.  The only down side to this is the bathroom is one of those chores that my kids like to help with.  As much as I do not like it, they love to clean it. So I would be without the extra help, but if they are not home the toilets stay cleaner a little longer.  (I know I am crazy.)

     I do still have one helper at home and that is my three year old Valerie.  Today she happily helped me clean all three bathrooms, and like clock work as soon as we finished with the first one, amazingly she had to use the potty. Which one did she use?  Of  course the one we had just cleaned. 

   We headed to the second bathroom which is just a half bath and quickly cleaned that.  Luckily no one was inspired there.  Then we headed into my room to clean the master bathroom.  After we got most of it done Valerie lost interest, and went off to play.  (She really only likes using the scrub brush in the toilet and spraying the mirror with the Windex).  I continued cleaning.  When I was done mopping the floor and just putting everything back where it goes Valerie came back in, and this is the conversation that followed,

 "Mom did you use the potty?"
"No"
 "Why not?"
"Because I don't need to right now."
"But it's clean!"
"Well, I want to let it be clean for a few minutes."
"Why?"

     For me this was an "Ah Ha" moment.  I now understood my three year old in a whole new way.  I now understood how she saw my cleaning.  To her I was not cleaning so that things could be clean.  I was cleaning so that she could have a clean canvas to get dirty again.  The world now makes so much more sense.  Now if I can just get her to see it my way. 

    

My Favorite Holiday

Thanksgiving is probably my favorite Holiday.  I have lots of great memories as a kid getting together with my cousins for the entire weekend and just having lots of fun together.  Now that I am older I still love it.  I love having a holiday that is all about being thankful. The celebration of it means getting together as a family and spending time together, and just being grateful for each other and all that we have.  

 

 

This year our family has been very blessed and I am very grateful for all that we have.   

 

This Thanksgiving we were blessed to be able to spend it with most of our Bolander family  at the Grand America Hotel.    

 

This is my favorite Thanksgiving Feast.  No cooking or clean up, and lots of tasty food to enjoy until you can't eat anymore.  Everyone gets to relax, and enjoy each other. 

 

 

After the meal we stopped by the toy shop where the two youngest Bolander's had fun playing on the candy organ.

 

For an even bigger treat this year, Grandma Bolander got everyone rooms at the Little America for a couple of nights so we could spend the weekend together. 

 

 

For Black Friday Grandma planned an activity for us at City Creek mall.  We were each given a person to shop for and $10 dollars to find them a gift.  Then we divided into teams and went shopping. 

 

 

After our group made a purchase, my little shopper Valerie insisted on carrying the bag.  she didn't get very far with it.  It was almost as big as she was.

 

 

At the unveiling of the gifts it was fun to see what everyone was able to find. (Some of the groups may have crossed paths with each other)   

 

 

After shopping it was time to swim.  After all you can't stay at a hotel and not swim. 

 

 

At least not when you are under 12

(Emily stayed in the room and took a nap)

 

 

 

We finished off the weekend with a visit to Temple Square. 

 

 

It was a fun Thanksgiving Holiday!

 

 

  Thank you Grandma and Grandpa Bolander for making it such a memorable weekend for our family. 

Monster Bash- Garden After Dark

Garden after dark is a Halloween activity we always look forward to.  We get to go with Grandma and Grandpa Bolander.  It is when we do the dry run of our costumes, and we always love the fun garden activities. 

 

 

This years theme was Monster Bash.

 

 

We started out by painting our pumpkins so that they would be dry by the time we went home. Emily and Valerie painted a nice dragon pumpkin, and the boys painted a pirate pumpkin.

 

 

the next stop was in the children's garden where the kids colored werewolf masks. As a finishing touch they glued wolfs bane (moss) on them to keep the werewolf's in the garden away from them.

 

 

After the children's garden we headed down into the garden where we made a special potion to keep vampires away.  Then we headed over to the pond where we made floating lanterns to scare away the ghosts.   

 

 

 

 In the rose garden there was a mad scientist helping to make torches for the angry mob to go after the monsters in the haunted forest. 

 

 

The haunted forest is always the kids favorite part of the night when we get to go through the black lights and watch their creations and costumes glow.  

 

Once again the garden did not disappoint and we had a lot of fun kicking off Halloween there. 

Making It Ours

I thought that when we moved into our new house I might have a little extra time to catch up on a few things that I had let fall behind.  One of those things being my blog.  I don't know why I was thinking I was going to have any extra time. 

 

 

We have really been enjoying our new home and have been having fun making it our own.  We began our projects right away by tuning the kids rooms into their rooms.  Josh's room was first  on the list for good reason. 

 

 (I didn't take pictures before we started painting, so the before pictures of the rooms are ones I took of the house while we were looking at it to buy it.) 

 

 The room we had picked out for him was a little girly and we needed to change that.  We started picking out paint colors as soon as we found out we were moving. I was hoping to be able to get in and paint the week before we moved,  but things did not work out that way.   Before we even moved his furniture in we took the wall paper off so that Josh could stand to be in the room. 

 

 

 He really wanted his room done.  As we were going through the process of buying the house and we would drive from our new house to our old one to check things out we would pass Camp Williams.  Josh loved driving by there and seeing the display of tanks, helicopters and other Army machinery they have out by the road.  Josh decided he wanted an army room.  It took a few trips to the store to find the right color green, but Grandma Bolander finally helped Josh find the perfect Army green.

 

 

Josh's Grandpa Bolander showed Josh how to paint and he helped in his room every chance he got.  He was really anxious to have it done.  After the paint came the accessories.  We found some fun camo sheets and a helicopter sticker to go on his wall.  We might add a couple more things, but for now Josh is a happy boy.  He loves his room and he really likes that when he looks out his window he can see the fire station, and watch the fire trucks. 

 

During the painting of Josh's room Valerie decided that she wanted to help paint too.  Luckily she discovered her love for painting before we got too far into the projects and her artwork was on a wall we were painting anyway.  I think I would have cried if she would have painted a wall we had already painted. 

 

After that we tried to keep a closer eye on her.  There were a couple more artistic additions from her,  but luckily nothing too major. 

 

The next room was Joe's.  His room started out just a plain tan that is the same color as the rest of the house.  Joe was the first of the kids to pick out his color.  He wanted a blue room for BYU.  We went to the store to look at paint samples and I have to say I was really excited when he picked out his blue.  It is not really a BYU blue,  but Joe didn't care.  When he saw it he wanted it. 

 

 

It is called cobalt blue and I love it.  I couldn't wait to paint it. I know it is a little bold for some people.  For example when my Grandma came to see my house I don't think she liked it.  Her first response when she opened the door was Oh! OH!  But Joe loves it and I love it.   It is a perfect color for Joe and really goes with his personality. 

 

Joe also loves the view out of his window.  If you look you can see the Y on the mountain

 

Valerie's room was next.  It was going to require a little more work than the boys because it had this nice stripe around it.  That had to be sanded off.  I am not sure what kind of paint was used to make that fun red stripe, but whatever it was did not want to come off.  Luckily Ryan's parents have an electric sander I was able to borrow that made the work a little easier.   Once the stripe was taken care of the painting could begin. 

I bet you can't guess what color Valerie wanted her room to be?

 

 

She picked Sexy Pink for her room.  which is about the color of the pink in her blanket on her bed.  I just couldn't bring myself to do that,  so we went with Billowy Cloud.  a very light pink....almost white.  When she is a little older I will let her pick a color for her room, but at two I just wasn't quite ready for her to take the reigns on this.  Valerie was with me every step of the way while I painted her room.  She had lots of advice and told me every day that I was not doing it fast enough.  I was really glad when I got her room done.  She was too, and she slept better at night too. 

 

     When we bought the house we planned on finishing a room in the basement for Emily.
My brother-in-law Andy (Ellen's husband)  is a builder and they were coming to visit this summer.  He had agreed to help us (meaning we buy the stuff, feed him food, and tell him good job while he does the work)  finish a room while they were here.  We did help where we could,  but he did most of it and we are very grateful. I can't say thank you enough. 

 

 

 

After we got the Sheetrock up Andy had to go home. 

I am proud to say that I did a lot of the mudding.  However the one thing I did learn is that when we get ready to finish the rest of the basement I think I will save up a little longer and hire someone to mud for me.  That was not fun, and I can tell that a beginner mudded in a spot or two.   :)

 

Luckily for us Andy was nice enough to come back at the end of the mudding and help us get the finishing work done too.  That was very nice of him, because if he had not come back I don't know if we would have done it right.   

 

 

 

 

Andy got us to this point and then he had to go back home.  Emily was so excited because it looked like a room.  Then it was time to pick out the paint.    Emily also wanted a blue room.  I was a little hesitant about blue,  because it is in the basement,  but she has daylight windows so we got some paint samples and tried them out. We decided on this blue.  I can't remember what it is called,  but it is a brighter blue. 

 

 

Having a three year old helper while painting an unfinished room without the carpet in it is a little less stressful.  Valerie helped me with this room too,  but she painted the floor. 

 

 

Our next door neighbor is a carpet guy so when we were ready he came and installed the carpet, and Emily moved in.  I took this picture before we really got her totally moved in.  She is very happy to have four walls and a door that locks again.

 

I am glad to have these projects done.  The rest of the house will eventually all be painted,  but I am thinking we will wait to do that until after the Holidays are over.  I am still trying to decide what color I will paint it.  I am glad to have the kids settled into their rooms and that they all have a space that feels like their own.  Thanks to everyone who helped us.  It has been a lot of work,  but very worth it.   

 

Halloween Cookies

Halloween is always so full of sugar,  but I always like to add a little bit more by making sugar cookies some time in October.  While the kids were out on fall break I decided this was the perfect time to do this activity. 

 

I always let the kids have their own portion of dough.  These then become their cookies.  I keep some for myself  for sharing.  It is so fun to watch the kids make their own.  Sometimes they come out looking like the shapes of the cutters,  and other times the kids make their own shapes. 

 

 

the kids carefully place their cookies on the pans so they knew exactly which cookies were theirs for decorating.  This year they really got into the decorating part, and tried to make Vampire faces on their cookies with the candy corn.  They asked me when they were done which one I thought was the best.  I thought they were all great.  I will let you decided what you think. 

 

 

Valerie didn't get into the contest, but she got plenty of frosting and candy on her cookies too.