Thursday, April 28, 2011

it's all in the..........tongue?

Ethan played his first soccer game on Wednesday night, and it was windy and cold, and miserable to be an observer, but the boys all had a great time. There weren't any award winning photos, but while I was scanning through them, I noticed something. The tongue. It's in SO many pictures that I decided to do a whole post dedicated to it. I'm sure this will be another thing he hates me for later, but it's priceless.





Jaymee has photoed him enough times, I'm sure she can attest to the tongue being in and ruining several of her shots as well. Haha.

Let's hope this is a habit that doesn't stick around.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Game 7

Tonight is game 7 in the Chicago Blackhawks vs Vancouver Canucks series. The last 3 games the Blackhawks have won to keep themselves in. The winner tonight moves on, and the loser goes home. We will be glued to the t.v., biting our nails, and rooting on our team. I can't wait!

GO BLACKHAWKS!
In case you don't know, during the NHL playoffs, players and fans grow their "Playoff Beards", hence the new header photo. :)

Monday, April 25, 2011

3 days of Easter

Saturday evening was egg coloring. We tried a few new things, and our eggs turned out so fun. First thing we changed was the type of dye. We used kool-aide! It was so bright and smelled good too. Haha.
We also took crayon shavings and melted them into water and dunked the egg in. The crayon stuck to the egg and made a really cool design. 
Then we also tried dripping rubber cement onto them and dunking them. When you rub off the rubber cement, it leaves bright white lines. Not very kid friendly though. There was also the regular color on the egg with a crayon and dunk them. We had so much fun. 
These are the eggs that were dunked into the melted crayon.  
After egg dying, we opened Easter baskets on Skype with Grandma and Papa. The boys each got one of these. They are punching balloons shaped like animals.  
They are totally disturbing and gross, but the boys had fun with them.  
The kids stayed up pretty late, and slept in on Sunday. They were excited to dig into their baskets when they got downstairs though.  
CANDY! 
I like Elliott's technique. This is how I would get to the bottom of the basket too.  
Then the hunt for eggs was on.  
It went pretty quickly except for that one egg. There is always that ONE egg. This one was in plain sight, but we all overlooked it for several minutes.  
I made this shirt for Elliott to wear on Easter. I couldn't resist. It's SO him.  
Ethan wore his new helmet all morning. He's so goofy.  
In the afternoon, we took the boys out to the fort to an egg hunt. They had a great time.  
And the weather couldn't have been more perfect.  
After the hunt, they got to collect their prizes. Both of them got more than enough. 
We couldn't keep them inside if we wanted to. I was pleasantly surprised to see Elliott riding the razor scooter at mach speed. His 3 wheeled scooter broke, but we didn't want to replace it, and now you can see why. He is just like his big brother when it comes to coordination. He caught right on to the 2 wheeled scooter.  
Lucky for us, Jason was off today, and Ethan didn't have school either, so we got a whole extra day together. This was the view from our front door this morning. Who doesn't love sidewalk chalk? 
"I draw picture Mom" Wonder what it was.......... :) 
Ethan writes on everything. Not sure why but this says "Stop, look at my eyes".  
And the BEST thing about sidewalk chalk.............Sidewalk Chalk Butt. :)  
Also, on a springy note, my flower bloomed today. YAY!  
I was definitely bummed we couldn't spend Easter in Billings at Erica's annual party, but we had a great time just the four of us.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

a letter

Friday, I woke up to Ethan saying "Do you like this Mom?"
Ethan wrote a letter to the Easter Bunny. It says, "Dear Easter Bunny, please hide eggs only down stairs. Love Ethan" Next to the drawing of the rabbit it says, "petter coten tail".

Ethan has worried for days that the Easter Bunny would hide the eggs both upstairs and downstairs, and it wouldn't be fair to Elliott. This was his brilliant fix to that problem. He tacked it to the wall so the Easter Bunny would be sure to see it (ya know, in the dark while he's hiding eggs and filling baskets in the middle of the night. haha). Man, I love this kid.

Friday, April 22, 2011

our "pets"

For Ethan's 5th birthday, Abby and Chris got him this ant farm. It took us until now to actually get it out and order the ants (oooops). After several weeks of waiting for the weather to be warm enough for the ants to live in the mail, they finally arrived, and we put them in their new home.
Both boys love watching them crawl around and dig their holes. The ants creep me out and I even had nightmares about them taking over our house last night. I hope they die soon. :)  
Now to get ready for Easter weekend. YAY!

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Big Sky State Games 2011

This past weekend was so much fun! The boys and I left of Friday afternoon and headed to Billings. When we pulled into town, Ethan said, "It feels good to be back in Billings." I had to agree. It did feel good. Helena is definitely our new home, but Billings will always be special to us.

We stayed at Erica's house (thanks again so much), and the boys went to bed soon after we got there.

Jason had to work Friday night, but made it down on Saturday to watch Ethan's first game against his former Billings teammates. It was such a fun game to watch, and so nice to see our Billings family. It felt so strange to be back in that rink with our new team, but still with the same old people too.
Ethan played so well. It's been awesome to watch him improve this season. 
Ethan and Tyler were on each other the whole game. We are going to miss competing against him next season.  
And Denim too. He was a great mentor to Ethan, and so much fun to watch play. 
Ethan has gotten much more aggressive, and had several shots on goal. This one went in so smooth. I love watching him play hockey. He had 5 goals for the tournament. That is a record for him.  
Ethan played 3 games on Saturday, and Elliott did amazing (considering he didn't have a nap) so we treated them to ice cream.  
Sunday morning, bright and early, Ethan had his 4th game in 2 days. They played the other Helena team. Another awesome game to watch. 
The kids were all playing "All Out" for a chance at winning the championship and being that they all play together all the time, they held nothing back. It was some amazing hockey. 
They did win that game and moved onto the championship game. They lost and took 2nd in the tournament. I couldn't be more proud.

Our weekend didn't end so well, our suburban died, and we crammed into the car for the ride home. While it wasn't ideal, I love my family, and I didn't mind the drive home at all.

Friday, April 15, 2011

soccer begins

Last night was Ethan's first soccer practice. The practices are at the soccer fields, and not a school, so to keep Elliott occupied, I brought his soccer ball too. He and I had a great time kicking the ball around for the hour, and I'm quite impressed that at 2 years old he can dribble a soccer ball while running. :)
Ethan did great and was so excited to be there.  
Elliott tried to do some of the drills that another team was working on. They put one foot on the ball then switch quickly and try to not move the ball. It was so funny to watch him try. 
And, this picture is not exciting, but look how gorgeous it is here. We are surrounded by mountains. 
Now it's off to Billings for a weekend of hockey. I can't wait!

Thursday, April 14, 2011

it might be..........

I realize it's not even Easter yet, but dare I say, it might be Spring? Well at least we've had a couple nice days. :)

Elliott LOVES being outside. He's working on catching.
Please note, throwing a ball and trying to take pictures is NOT easy. 
His face is a lot cuter when he actually catches it, but he blamed me and the fact that I was taking pictures for him not catching it, and the camera was banned from playing catch with us. 
He is a terror on his scooter. He goes all over the place, and at 100mph.  
And he loves every second of it. 
Just look at that smile! 
He's also very dramatic. He was tired of me taking his picture, so he decided to act like it was really hard to push his scooter. Haha. 
I think between him and his scooter and Ethan with his bike, scooter and skateboard, that poor sidewalk is going to get worn out this summer. We are definitely looking forward to a lot more warm and sunny days.