Spring Break for Mommy and Daddy

I'm a bit behind on my blogging but I just downloaded a bunch of photos and videos from my camera, video camera, and cell phone.

Let's start with Spring Break. The boys went with Nonna and Poppi to Phoenix for 9 days. That's right 9 child free days! What did we do? We cleaned. We deep cleaned each of the boys' rooms. We cleaned out the closets in our room as well as each of the boys' rooms.

The crown jewel of cleaning week was the playroom. It started out looking like this:There were toys, books and buckets everywhere! You could barely walk in the room without stepping on something. It was crazy! We started by sorting the toys and we gave away about half of them. We also gave away about half of the books. Here is part of the giveaway pile:Then we took the remaining furniture and toys out of the room and shampooed the carpets.One of the boys' favorite toys is their dress up clothes. They play superheroes, pirates, firemen, cowboys and knights all the time. I figured I should wash them while the boys were gone. The clothes line of dress-up made me laugh. What must the neighbors think of us with this clothes line?
After all the cleaning and organizing, Here is the finished room:
Don't worry. We did take a night off from cleaning and have a date night while we were child-free. We had a delicious dinner at the melting pot. Yum!
It was nice to get some projects done but after 9 days I was ready for my boys to come home. I missed them like crazy!

Karate Kae

Kae started karate last September. He was immediately in love with his karate outfit. We started at a small dojo in town but we switched to a more kid focused dojo after a few months. The new dojo has 40 minute classes twice a week instead of a 60 minute classe once a week. It is a much better fit for Kae's attention span (or lack there of). After about 6 weeks at the new dojo, Kae got to go to belt testing.

He did great! He earned his first belt promotion! Kae is now a gold belt! He is so proud!

Izee wants to do "ra-tee" just like brother. So Kae gave Izee his old white belt.

Spring Picnic

My little guys LOVE picnics! They ask to picnic almost everyday that it is warm and sunny. They even ask on some days that are not so warm and sunny.
They love sitting in the grass and eating sandwiches,
They love taking a break from the eating to play on the playground,
and they even love climbing trees (with a little help from mom).

Happy Easter

We started our Easter celebration on Saturday at the church Easter egg hunt. It was supposed to take place in a local park but the snow moved the egg hunt inside.
The Easter egg hunt started with a short devotion.Then the hunt was on.After the egg hunt their were fun crafts. The kids made Easter cards, planted flower seeds and decorated cookies.
Sunday morning we got all dressed up in our fancy clothes. After church the boys got their Easter baskets (with new sun hats) and then headed outside to hunt eggs.
Kae was super sweet while they were finding eggs. He would find one and then help Izee find one. He said he wanted to make sure his brother had lots of eggs too. So sweet!We ended Sunday with a delicious Easter dinner and some Easter basket cake.

Happy Easter from The Howells!

Funnies

Kids really do say the darndest things! My boys are always saying funny things. But yesterday was a particularly funny day.

In the morning Kae told a young woman who was smoking outside the grocery store, "Smoking is yucky. I'm not going to smoke when I get bigger." I'm glad he isn't planning to smoke but just found it funny that would go right up to a stranger and say that.

At bedtime Izee told me through his sobs, "Daddy say no more tv! Daddy not make me happy!" It was hard not to laugh but he was so upset and so serious. Daddy didn't make him mad, but daddy didn't make him happy. LOL!

The funniest part of the day was the Children's sermon at the mid-week service. Here is the gist of it:
Pastor shows them a box of matches: "Do you know what this is?"
Kae: "Chocolate!"
Pastor: "No, they're matches for making a fire. Should I light it?"
Kae: "NO!"
Pastor: "Ok, we won't light it." Then the Pastor pulls out a lighter. "What if I make fire with this?"
Kae: "NO! We don't make fire inside. Except for lighting candles. You can light a candle if you want to."
Pastor: "OK, I'll light this candle over here." Then he pulls out a box of lighter fluid. "What is this?"
(silence)
Pastor: "This is lighter fluid, it is used for making fire in a grill."
Izee: "I HAVE ONE OF THOSE!"
Pastor: "That's good."
(At this point, Izee stopped listening, and proceeded to jump around on he steps at the front of the church)
Pastor: "Now what makes fire in nature?"
Kae: "The SUN!"
Pastor: "That's true. What about a bit closer, like in a storm?"
Kae, spinning in a circle: "A tornado!"
Pastor: "How about lightening?"
Kae: "Oh, yeah."
Pastor: "We're going to be listening to a story about fire today. Let's say a prayer first."
After the prayer the kids return to their seats.
As Kae was leaving to go back to his seat: "You should read the story now."

Usually during the children's sermon there is light laughter from the congregation. Today, however, there was all out laughter. I was laughing so hard I was crying. After church, most of the congregation came up to us and told us how funny and cute our kids are. They are!

Super!

All my guys (both big and little) are super!

Really Big Boy Room

Kae moved out of his crib about 2 years. He got a toddler bed or, as Kae called it, a big boy boat bed. In case you don't know, a toddler bed uses a crib sized mattress but doesn't have the walls of a crib. Recently I noticed that Kae was getting too tall to fit on his little mattress. So now he has moved to a twin size bed or, as he calls it, a really big boy bed. (He doesn't mean that like a really big bed, but rather that he really is a big boy now.)

Kae's nursery had an ocean theme. He had the crib bedding, rug, lamp, etc. with the cartoon fish to go with the ocean theme. When he got the new bed we took out all the cartoon ocean stuff. Kae loves his ocean room so the room is still an ocean room but a little more grown up now. He still has an ocean mural and fish hanging from the ceiling. Instead of cartoon fish drawer pulls on his dresser and cartoon bedding he now has blue drawer pulls and blue bedding.

Kae loves his really big boy room!