The Fun Jar

My Mom had this great idea. Its called The Fun Jar. I cut out a bunch of circles out of colored paper and put different ideas of fun things for the kids to do when they are need of some mommy time. There are simple things like blowing bubbles and playing hide and seek or there are more involved things like crafts and going to the park. Then I painted a jar to make it look like a fun jar. It took awhile to get enough ideas to put in but finally I got some in there and we were able to try it out.

Our first Fun Jar activity was painting rocks. We found some nice size rocks in the backyard and got out some washable paint and went crazy.

The kids really liked it and Elena had paint everywhere by the end but Patrick actually had some nice looking rocks by the end of it. I'm excited to see how the fun jar works on those crazy days.

Elena keeps going out in the backyard some days and says "Paint rocks, paint rocks"

Our big 4 year old

Patrick turned 4 today. It feels so strange to have a 4 year old. It still feels like to me that he should be 2 maybe rather than 4. We wanted to celebrate his birthday with a small family party and one friend. He of course chose Caleb so when I told him that Caleb would be coming because he was family than his next choice was obviously Roegan Cola. So we invited the Colas to join us. That morning we had planned to go to the temple for our friends Larissa and Mikey Taylors sealing and then come home for Patricks party. Jesús and I had a wonderful time at the temple, I got to wear one of my new dresses.Then we waited after the sealing for Larissa and Mikey to come out

They looked amazing and happy
Jesús and I headed back to Bakersfield and stopped on the way to eat at an Italian restaurant called Buca di Beppo. It had great food and a fun atmosphere. After lunch we quickly made it home to get ready for the party.
Patrick was the happiest little boy opening up all his presents, he kept yelling Thank you!! And I have always wanted one those.
The boys loved playing with Patricks new presents.
Patrick got this really cool police officer costume and he hasn't taken it off since except for church. Maybe someday he will be like Matt Gates! I bet he would love to see him in his uniform.
Saturday night I went and got Patrick a birthday balloon so he would have it Sunday morning when he woke up. The first thing he told me was "Mom! Thank you for my superheros balloon!"
After church I wanted to get a picture of the kids in their Sunday clothes for Patricks birthday.

A few things

Here are a couple things I wanted to post about Elena's birthday.

Here she is showing off her new shoes.

Here are the kids being cute for pictures

I curled Elena's hair for her birthday.

We were getting ready to go one day and Elena needed help with her shoes so Patrick offered to help.

The kids always do better with a bag of popcorn and an Icee at Target, this is how happy it makes them.

I wanted to get a picture of how curly Elenas hair is after her baths. I love it. I wish I had her curl.

She loves to play with her kitchen that she got for her birthday. She made sure she had on her pearls too.

Elena wanted to get all her fun princess stuff. She got her pearl necklace on and jewel bracelet and I helped her put her tutu on and she put on her new Princess shoes from Trish. We walked around like this for a while.