Marchy March March and Easter

As most of you know, I do not like St. Patrick's Day. Why do we all celebrate a holiday that has nothing to do with our religion or culture? I just don't get it.

My sentiments are not being adopted my kids however. They dressed up and were nerdy about wearing green and leprechauns and pots of gold and pinching all day long. (He changed into this after school. There's no way I'd let him go anywhere wearing Sarah's pj pants.)

We have this book "We Help Mommy" and part of the book the little girl makes a pie for her dad. My kids looove this book (I do too. Good luck finding it.) and think making a treat for daddy while he's at work is part of helping me during my day too. I let Henry have a chunk of bread dough and he made it into a roll for Justin.

Oh I love Easter!!
We do the sameish thing every year: Egg hunt at my mom's house with all my family and ham dinner on Sunday. That's how I like it and that's how it will forever be as long as I have a say.

Hey kids, stare into the sun while we take your picture. Don't squint. Look at the camera and smile.

The boy in the blue shirt behind Hayden is Andrew, my cousin Brian's son. I feel like my sister Mary in NC would want to know that. You're welcome.

There's not much to say about the following pictures. It's the same kids, same baskets, same plastic eggs every year. The kids are just getting bigger.

Henry's basket is a little small so I volunteered to carry his excess eggs in my jacket pockets.

Erica figured out pretty quick there was candy in the eggs and was more determined to get the candy than gather more eggs. She thinks my job is to hold all the wrappers.

I don't do the Easter bunny or buy my kids presents. You get candy and cousins on Saturday and new church clothes on Sunday.

How much do I love this kid? He loves to dress up. He wears a vest and tie every week to church now.

She's pretty sweet too. She was nervous going to church this day because she doesn't like to see the pictures of Jesus on the cross.

I'm sad Sarah's eyes are closed in this one.

Erica is at this stage (well it's been going on for a year so maybe it's a personality trait, not a stage) where she creates a huge mess with anything she eats. I have to wash her hands and face, change her shirt, wipe down the table and chair and then sweep after every meal and snack (or at least I should) I'm so glad it's warming up outside as she will be taking more of her meals outside.


Sarah left this note for Justin one morning. "Henry told me to write snicker."

A Decade of Love: The Proposal

Since I wrote extensively of how Justin proposed five years ago. You can read that here.

Today, I'd just like to mark the occasion by sharing every last picture taken that day in chronological order.

Before he proposed.....

And after he proposed......

I wish I could remember what I'm showing him here.

And then like the next day or something.

Yes that is a Christmas tree back there.

I forgot my ring for the first few days and had to run back to my apartment and put it on before I headed to class. Everyone I knew stopped me and asked to hear the story and inspect the ring which was fun. No one asks to see your ring after you're married. Isn't that weird? 

Henry and Erica do cute things and I get in over my head in the kitchen

Last week was Nadine's birthday. Henry thought she needed a new vase for her new house to put flowers in from her new garden. I showed him dozens online and he picked one out. Then he wanted to make her flowers for her new vase. He's making her some violets "because they're purple."

Here it is at her house! I'm glad she found some stems.

Erica is getting goofier (and driving me more crazy) every day. Here she is dipping her potato chips in her milk. She dips anything into everything. "Ah dip it." Right after this she picked up her toothbrush and brushed the chip.

She says funny things. Here are my favorites.

Sorrys = cereal

That's a muff = that's enough

"Goodness, Mama"

"Mama I miss you" while I'm in the shower. She lays down by the door and says this over and over.

Big cuties= Oranges

Bickey = Mickey Mouse, Blankie, or Henry (most often Henry)

And nearly every night after we tuck her in, she cries in a panic and we have to go in and see what's wrong. You never know what it's going to be.

Sun: "My booger fell out my nose" and handed me a booger.

Mon: "My bed is broken" She had pulled the sheet up the mattress side like 2 inches.

Tues: "My foot stuck" She had gotten her foot through the ribbon collar of her teddy bear and couldn't get it off

Wed: "My button broken" The button on her footy pjs came undone and she came unglued!

And she's trying her hand at negotioting.

Erica: Ah fruitsnacks?

Me:  No fruitsnacks.

Erica: How 'bout princess fruitsnacks?

Macey's had chicken for 1.29 lb and that's the cheapest it ever gets. So of course I bought a 40 lb box. It took me just a half hour to cut them, weigh them, bag them, label them and box them back up.

 That was a lot of chicken.

 Erica wanted to wear Dexter's "hemmet" and he was kind enough to let her. She wore it for an hour.

If I can't find my kids, they are usually at the neighbor's porch playing their made up games. Can you see Henry in his basketball shorts and cowboy boots? He went to the Bean Museum later dressed like that.

Erica is beginning to treat Henry like he's been treating her all her life. He complains about it but he deserves it.

Sunday Erica had pinkeye so she and I stayed home from church and got started on Justin's pie of the month. He chose a devil of a pie. Chilled Grapefruit Caramel Meringue Pie. I knew I wasn't going to like it because grapefruit is my least favorite fruit. I knew I was going to struggle making it because I don't have a good saucepan for a double boiler (used for the curd and then the meringue), don't have a spring form pan, don't have a microplane to get 1/2 cup of zest, nor do I know what curd is.

See my sorry attempt at a double boiler? When step 1 of 5 takes you an hour, you know you're in for it. Erica kept herself occupied by playing in the sink and dumping cups of water on herself.

32 hours later we had it for dessert Monday night.

 And the layers are bottom to top: Graham cracker crust, grapefruit curd (apparently curd is egg yolks and zest cooked until it curdles), caramel-cream-cheese-whipped-cream, then topped with 3 inches of meringue. The only response I wanted from Justin was "This is the most delicious pie you've ever made and totally worth the 6 hours it took you to make it. But please don't make it again."

He liked it but he didn't say the rest of that. I will never make it again but discovering a most delicious way to make meringue was the one positive takeaway from the whole experience.

And my nephew Peyton (right) got his mission call to Ohio! I'm so excited for him even though he's much too young to go on a mission. His cousin Tyler (left) will put his papers in next year. 

Nate and Cassandra Get Married

If February was the month of illness, March is turning into the month of injuries.

First Erica rode her jelly bean racer down our steep driveway, crashed into the road, and did this to her face and shirt.

Then I got a call from the school nurse that Sarah fell from the monkey bars and bit into her tongue. Luckily she didn't need stitches but it swelled up and hurt pretty bad for a couple of days.
Now Henry is sporting a fat lip from getting hit by a ball.

It's only March 7th? Let's hope it was just a bad week here at the Dye house.

In better news, Nate and Cassandra got married! Woohoo! (I should note that she made her dress.)

I'm all for getting closer to even the numbers in the Dye family. It's now 6-5 boys.

The brothers.

 Check out my window writing skills. And I wasn't even a cheerleader.

 You can see how nicely Erica's nose scabbed over for the wedding day.

 It didn't stop her from eating popcorn off the table. (And later off the floor)

This is the only picture I got of all of my kids at the reception and Henry is blurry, Sarah is mostly blurry, and I got the back of Erica's head. Good job, me.

It's weird to watch home videos of Sarah at 2 because she looks and sounds just like Erica. The similarities end there.

Nana and her girls.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On a completely unrelated note, for family home evening, I traced the kids' shadows and then wrote words inside about them and things that make them a boy or a girl. Later they took to decorating them.

I can't help but laugh at the hair, eye placement, and is that spitting blood?

 You can see why I don't let Erica use markers.

 Sarah rewrote all her words outside of her head then colored hers. The eye placement again, ha ha.

One morning Erica and Henry were suspiciously quiet for nearly an hour. I took my camera upstairs to catch them doing whatever was keeping them so occupied. I was prepared to see Vaseline smeared on furniture or pillow fluff all over the room. But they were doing this:

May I always be so lucky.

Random thoughts.
I put all the snowpants and snowboots away last week and it felt so good. Justin is pulling late nights again this week as he's up against another deadline. He promised me not another 27 hour workday. I'm taking Henry to the dentist tomorrow for his first ever check up. Keep your fingers crossed he doesn't freak out. I am excited for Easter because it's my favorite holiday but I don't like that it's so early. Less time to eat Easter candy.