Easter Saturday. . .

Art, Eyes and Eggs. . . AND an April Fools Joke Backfires. . .

Like I said in my previous post, we had a very busy spring break. It wasn't stressful-busy, just something-going-on-every-minute-busy.

Take Thursday, for example. April Fool's Day. Not a fan of April Fool's Day. We woke up to snow. Not a fan of snow, especially in April. Megan stayed the night and I had errands to run so the girls had to get up early even though they didn't get to sleep until after 3 a.m. Which means I didn't get to sleep until after 3 a.m. We managed to get to swimming lessons in downtown Boise (almost) on time after which we dropped Megan off at her house, ran a few more errands and then picked Steph up for lunch. After a quick bite to eat, we dropped Zach off at home and I took Gloria and Steph to horse lessons (between Meridian and Nampa). It was a blustery, snowy, cold afternoon and the horses were restless. It was good lesson in spite of the weather but I was more than ready for it to be over. After we unsaddled and put away the horses, I dropped Steph off at a friend's house near State Street and headed back into downtown Boise to (quickly) finish up some work at the shop. I don't think I made it back home until close to 8:00 p.m. and I still had to boil the eggs that I had promised the kids they could decorate. I was admittedly cranky by this time.

In the meantime, I had encouraged Zach to finish the picture he had been working on for Tony's birthday that he started in February so we could (finally) give it to Tony at our family Easter gathering on Saturday. I was happy to see that he took me seriously and had made some good progress in my absence:

Unfortunately, he got a little off track when Gloria arrived home. I had been in the garage helping Rob replace a part on my truck when I walked into the kitchen and found this:

Yep, he painted her eyelids to look like this:

Kind of creepy, wouldn't you say???

Turn-about is fair play, so he let her paint his eyelids, too. . .

You really had to be there, I think, to get the full effect of how weird this was. . .

I had to order them to smile for the camera because they frightened me just a little bit. . .

They kept striking strange poses and I kept taking pictures. Don't ask me why. . .

I finally corralled the kids back into the kitchen to decorate their eggs and I went back into the garage to help Rob. Thankfully the kids are old enough to read and follow directions (since I was too tired and cranky to help) and they came up with some pretty cute Easter Eggs:

Like I said, it was a busy April Fool's Day but I had (mostly) avoided getting pranked. Gloria had been trying for three days to fool me. I had plastic spiders on my counters, the scary stuffed monkey in my bathroom and a flying (plastic) bat in my cupboard, but none of these things really surprise me anymore. She finally tried the rubberband-on-the-kitchen-sprayer trick but when I asked her to run water over the boiled eggs for me, it backfired.

I didn't even know what she was planning so I think I was as surprised as she was when I turned on the water and she was the one that got sprayed!!!! Again, maybe you had to be there, but it was just what I needed to get me out of my cranky mood! I laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed!! Luckily, she laughed, too!

What a day. . .

Spring Break . . .

I'm sitting here at my computer on Sunday evening feeling very thankful that Spring Break is over. I don't consider myself a real structured person but I'm looking forward to getting back onto some kind of a normal schedule. Normal for us, anyway! Last week was filled with early mornings, late nights, bad weather, multiple trips to Boise and back, swimming lessons, sleep- overs, driving lessons, sleep-deprivation, horse back riding, quizzing, paperwork and preparing for Easter. Some of this I've already blogged about, some of it was too much of a blur to get a mention and the rest of it will all show up here eventually!!!


I'll start with the swimming lessons! Every year for the last 5 years or so, with the exception of last year, the girls have taken spring break swimming lessons at the downtown YMCA. It's a great deal- $15 for five 45 minute lessons - and the girls always have fun swimming together.

I dug up some pictures from past swimming lessons. Gloria took her first lesson when she was only 7 months old and has been swimming like a fish ever since. . . I love this picture:


This is Megan and Gloria in 2007:

And 2008:

And 2010:

It was an exhausting week . . .

For once I'm looking forward to Monday . . .

Gloria and Diamond. . .

We convinced Stephy to give up one of her spring break days to come and hang out with us on the farm. I even bribed her with lunch!!


Gloria was given a different horse to ride today for reasons unknown to me but it turned out to be a really good thing. This is Diamond. He is the horse I rode back in November on the Thanksgiving trail ride. He's a beautiful, gentle horse.


Diamond and Gloria made a perfect pair. . .


I've never seen Gloria ride with so much confidence. . .

Since Gloria has an extra year of experience under her belt, Kim often uses her as an example. Today they continued to learn about jumping and Kim set up the arena in such a way that one person at a time trotted their horse through the center of the arena, "jumped" over a log on the ground, rode to the fence and turned to the right, trotted back to the other fence, back to the center and over the log again, this time turning in the opposite direction. Kim had Gloria repeat this pattern over and over and Gloria and Diamond really rose to the occasion.

She was pretty happy about the whole experience!!

On another, somewhat related, note. . .

This is Jenna. Last week she ended up with a pony that ran away. With her on it! He took off at a dead run right into the open field. She ended up being thrown off but wasn't hurt. She was a real trooper today and walked and trotted her horse as though nothing ever happened.

In spite of the crazy weather (rain, snow, sunshine, hail and wind all in the span of an hour and a half!) it was a good, good day at horse lessons. I guess we'll have to bring Stephy more often!