Anyway, our weekends have been spent doing yard work and house touch ups. We've been wanting to restain our fence but it seriously has rained and rained and rained this month. There haven't been three consecutive dry days for us to complete the project. To make it all worse, Clark power washed the fence to get the old stain off so the boards have been exposed to all the moisture and are warping. In our six years of living here, it has never rained this much in the spring. Rivers are over flowing and lakes are full.
Because of all the rain, the grass gets long really fast so we are mowing every weekend. I typically mow the backyard while Clark trims the front and then I deliver the mower to him and he finishes. This last weekend, however, we were low on gas and I did NOT want to go get more so he said we could get the whole lawn done if I did it fast. So I started the engine and ran my little tail through the whole backyard! Let me tell you, IT WAS HARD! Burning lungs, nausea, legs about to collapse, etc... I think of myself as a pretty fit person since I ride our spin bike several times a week but holy cow, I felt pathetic trying to run while pushing the lawn mower. I probably looked pathetic too. So I finished the back and did the side yard and just went right on to the front. I was NEARLY done when the mower died. Darn! So close. Clark ran to the gas station and he finished the small patch of grass. Oh the adventures of lawn mowing.
This month for Alphabet Preschool we did W, X, Y, and Z. We are officially done! We cheated on 'X' week a little though and opted to go to an indoor trampoline park for some eXercise! It was pretty eXciting! It's been fun to do this every week with our friend and perfect for the kids this year. I think we'll do a review next week and have an end-of-the-year party after that. Why not right?
The only pictures I took this month seem to just focus on Zachary so I guess he's the subject of the rest of this post!
One day he and Leah were playing in her room and they called me in there to take a picture. I think they were proud of the story they'd come up with about princesses and pirates playing together. Zachary has ALWAYS been great to sit with Leah and incorporate her ponies and princesses. He gets into the storylines, participates in tea parties, and really gets in Leah's world. When they get into their groove together, they usually can play for quite a while without fighting. It's awesome. Of course the next day he bans all princesses from his ship and Leah is devastated. Ha! Four-year-olds can be quite fickle.
In preparation for selling our house, we decided to put the bunk beds together. The boys were ecstatic and couldn't wait to have their first 'sleepover.' With the exception of a couple nights, I'd say it's been a big FAIL. I really have no patience when it comes to bedtime so having to deal with their hyper shenanigans was frustrating. I was having to go in there every five minutes and start threatening. Eventually they'd fall asleep (like all kids do who share a room) but it would just put me into a foul mood. Midnight bathrooms trips inevitably turned into them talking and turning lights on. Once we solved that problem, they would start waking up super early and fetching around. Caleb is an early riser anyway so it was really throwing Zachary off. It's been about a month and I finally threw in the towel. Caleb is now on a mattress on the floor in the playroom. When we show our house, we'll hide the mattress away and make his bed up. Zachary has been super proud to be on the top bunk so he has stayed up there and our nights have been quiet ever since.
Our friend in the ward gave us around 24 Friend magazines that we have thoroughly enjoyed. We've read through all of them and I've just recently given them to the kids to color in, complete the activity pages, and cut pictures out. EVERYDAY during quiet time Zachary takes all the magazines, cuts out pictures and makes collages. He is incredibly proud of his work and I'm starting to think it might be therapeutic and calming for him. He's the only one who does it. He loves to find pictures of Jesus and Joseph Smith and is particularly proud when he finds a big temple picture or CTR picture. He recently found a picture of a boy with a CTR ring and requested that I take a picture of him with his CTR ring. He's awesome. I also took a picture of all the collages he's been working on these past couple weeks.
Zachary can be difficult to handle when he feels he's been treated unfairly. Like I've said before, four-year-olds are all about equality. Him in particular. So when he senses any sort of inequality, he questions it and usually turns it into a big ordeal. On the flip side, however, if he is receiving any special treatment, he is the HAPPIEST, kindest, most helpful boy ever. Luckily I can use that to my advantage right now with things like making him think that pulling wet laundry out of the washer is special treatment. Only HE gets to do it. So he does it and does it happily. I just think it's hilarious and he stays busy for ten minutes or so!
He really is a sweet, funny, quirky boy. He's always thinking, analyzing, and asking thought provoking questions. Like "If the Holy Ghost can be with all of us, are there a lot of Holy Ghosts?" And just when I think he never listens during scripture time, he prays at night and says, "Please help me to prepare for baptism," or "please help me not to do things that Satan wants me to do." Seriously.....so sweet. He certainly has his extremes and challenges me daily but I can't imagine life without him.
I'll end with this gem from Leah. A couple weeks ago we babysat a couple little boys for my visiting teachee. Once she came and picked up her boys, Leah quietly said to me, "Is that Mama going to have another baby?"
I said, "I don't know, why?"
And she said, "because she doesn't have any girls. Every family needs a girl!"
So true, so true.
