The InDeeds of Life: April 2013

Easter Video Fun

Just a fun video from our Easter Egg Hunt this year. Courtesy of my very skilled-with-video-editting Uncle.

Easter came early

I was mistaken...I have one more March post to take care of. Who would've thunk Easter could be so early!!

We celebrated Easter with my side of the family. There was delicious food (including a plethora of desserts), lots of pleasant small talk, and, of course, and Easter Egg hunt. Officially the first for both Hibou and Papillon.

First though, there was a little book reading with Grandpa while we waited for food.

And a little piano playing after dinner to aid the digestion.

Papillon dyed a few Easter eggs.

And also helped Aunt Mimi get comfortable for her afternoon nap.

Hibou was obsessed with the eggs.

So much so that she wouldn't let go of the two in her hands.

And so had to eat her food like a bird.

Papillon, being the only one of Easter Egg hunting age, scored a LOT of eggs.

Once she got the hang of finding them, she loved it.

Hibou found 2, and then didn't know what to do when you handed her a third. She wanted really badly to hold it and would look from the 3rd egg to one hand and then the other trying to work out that mental puzzle.

Easter morning before church we took a few pictures (of everyone except Mon Amour...sorry Mon Amour). Both girls had mixed opinions about this photo op.

A good one of us girlies!

A noble attempt at a Sisters picture.

A little better...sort of.

Many thanks to a good friend of ours who gave us the dresses. Papillon was in love with hers. So much so that she insisted in sleeping with it next to her bed the night before Easter. And in the morning she came out of her room holding her dress and proclaimed "today I can wear my pretty dress and go to church and show my friends and they (will) be so excited and we can sing songs about...about...dresses!" Dress-worship aside, it was super adorable.

While Mon Amour is away...

...tons of stuff will happen. Mon Amour went on a 2.5 week trip last month. It was epically long. Not officially his longest trip, but definitely felt like it. I don't think it's ever felt so good to have him home.

That said, lots of fun things happened while he was gone. And I am way way way behind on blogging, so time to hit the gas and fly through this stuff!

While Mon Amour was away....

....some super fun friends visited! I love this baby.

She and Hibou are 3 months apart and live many many miles apart, but are still becoming best buds.

...we had some tasty tasty Chick fil a...

....everyone gets excited about this...

...and enjoyed it with a fun friend.

....hung out with Grandpa (obviously!)

...played on Aunt Mimi's phone (also a must!)

....celebrated Nana's birthday.

...played with some cousins (my cousins technically)

...looked cute.

....made princess magnets with nana.

...snuggled with Aunt Mimi.

...practiced our smiles.

...and our headstands.

...fixed a massive plumbing issued. (Side note: garbage disposals are waay more trouble than they are worth!)

...play at the playground with Nana (on a cold cold day!)

...compared translations of the Bible with Grandpa.

...smiled some more.

...experimented with bubble beards.

...and bubble masks.

...had ice cream with Grandpa.

...and lots more things.

It was busy times.

Done with March happenings...on to April. We'll catch up eventually...maybe.

3 Years Later...the shed

Believe it or not, we have lived in our House in the City for 3 years now. Yikes! How did that happen so quickly! We knew when we bought the house that we wanted something "move-in-ready" - cause odds were we weren't going to do a lot of things to the house. And as we expected we have done next to nothing by way of significant improvements or changes. We painted Papillon's room pink...that's about it.

It's cool though, if something bothered us, or was broken, we'd fix it or change it (we actually have some sweet plans for redoing the basement this year!) But our house is lovely just the way it is.

That said, there has been 1 thing on the to do list since the day we moved in. And it's been haunting me on and off for about that long. And finally, we did it! We finally finally finally cleaned out the shed!

When we moved in it was full of the previous owners stuff that they had left behind. They had moved halfway across the country, so things like bags of potting soil, decorative rocks, and other random outdoor paraphernalia was not high on their list of things to pack.

For three years we have simply added our stuff on top of theirs. Shoving things around to make space as necessary and really having no idea what was inside.

Last weekend, with the help of some friends (who own a truck!) we cleaned it out!

Some of the stuff we got rid of (either to the dump or via freecycle)

Potting soil, mulch, "worm castings", fertilizer
Bug killers, weed killers
A boatload of asphalt repair stuff (you'd think our driveway would be in better condition for all the DIY driveway stuff they had bought)
Propane stove thingy
Small cabinets with the drawers essentially nailed shut.
Random pieces of gutter
A frog gigger - I what you would do with this tiny tiny pitchfork; but our friend (the one with the truck) knew exactly what it was. He is an avid Frog Gigger. How random.

Some stuff we are not getting rid of:

Lots of garden edging - time to edge in those gardens and keep the grass out!
A solid wood, interior door that actually fits in our door frames. This was hugely exciting cause we really want to replace one of the doors that is falling apart. But we had learned it's a custom size so it would cost us like $250. We just need to put some paint on the one from the shed and we will have saved ourselves $250!!
A TON of mirrors! It's actually kind of creepy how many mirrors we have - why did the previous owners have them??? Big sheets of unframed mirror. I don't know what we are going to do with them yet - but we felt like we should keep them. What should we do with them? Thoughts?

It feels so so so so good to have the shed cleaned out. We have so much space now! And so much less junk!

Hibou Randomness

Prepared to be underwhelmed by the quality of the following photos. One is sideways, and one is super blurry...oh well, they had to be posted.

Hibou is growing up fast these days. I am gently working on weaning her, but its been a little tricky and may take some time. Mostly cause seems to be kind of picky about other beverages. Milk she generally hates. Juice she is also not a fan of. Water from her sippy cup - sometimes she'll go for it.

The only thing she'll consistently drink....water from my cup. Iced up really cold, of course.

You may recall that it wasn't until recently that Hibou figured out how to crawl. And we are still not really even close to walking. She just started pulling up on things this week...and promptly fell on her head, landing on a block and getting a large bruise on her forehead. But before she was pulling up to a standing position, she was doing this:

Headstands. It was hilarious. She would spend a lot of time like that - head down all the way to the ground. Legs straight as sicks. Up and down and up and down she would go.

It's good practice I suppose. One day she'll walk.

Bubble Baths

A while ago I tried to introduce Papillon to the joys of bubble baths. She loved taking baths, and she also loved bubbles. I figured it would be a win win. To my surprise, she was totally freaked out by how the bubble stuck to her and she couldn't make them go away. She kept whining and telling me "wipe it off, wipe it off". So we shelved the bubble bath idea for a while.

Until about 2 weeks ago, I decided to try again. It was a totally different experience - she loved it! Bath toys are totally unneccesary when bubbles are around. We make bubble beards, bubble band aids, bubble shirts, bubble soup. She "washes" Hibou with the bubbles. Its amazingly fun times.

Despite her crabby face, Hibou really does love the bubbles and doesn't mind being smacked in the face with a handful of bubbles (how else would you put a bubble beard on your baby sister?!). She is only said cause she wants to play with my camera.

Bathtime is such a fun time around here. After I wash the girls they get to sit and play and play and play while I sit next to the tub reading a magazine. It's a great way for all three of us to unwind.