EASTER

I started my Easter blog a few days after Easter but haven't finished it yet. I thought I would hurry and post what I had and then add to it later. So here you go....

April Fools and our Backwards Dinner

The first of April came WAY to soon!! I didn't even have the chance to figure out any neat pranks to play or fibs to tell. Kaiden was going to be with his dad so he had a great one planned but the timing didn't really work out so he still has it for next year....

I wanted to come up with something funny for Paul but by the time I had really thought about it, I was already at work. It would have been funny to do something to his truck but it would have been really hard. I would have had to run home, get his truck keys, drive to his work and then all the way back home, plus get everything done before Bunko that night. I decided that I would have to wait until next year to pull a fun joke on Paul, so I have something for next year too...

Akoy and Kove were going to be with us so I wanted to come up with something fun for them....After racking my brain all day at work, I decided on doing a backwards dinner where we would have dessert first and the real dinner last. I knew the boys would think this was pretty funny. As I was getting everything ready I thought it would be even better if we had to eat with something different than the normal fork and spoon. I started grabbing a bunch of random utensils and other cooking items out of my kitchen drawers. I came up with a BBQ fork, an oven mitt, a big spoon and a few other random things.

When I told the boys we were going to have a special April Fools dinner, with dessert first, they all started laughing and Kove said, "April Fools! Right Kristen?"

I told him that we really were going to eat dessert first, he was SO excited. He got a funny look on his face, laughed and said, "We really get to eat dessert first? Really?"

When Paul noticed that there were no silverware on the the table he started getting on the boys for not setting it right. When I told him that I had taken all the silverware and that everyone had to draw out of a hat the type of utensils they were going to use, Akoy and Kove thought that was even more funny. Kove kept saying, "This is April Fools huh Kristen? We get an April Fools dinner."

Kove drew out the knife and Mexican sombrero (which was one of the harder ones) Akoy got the huge spoon (and then we added on a cute little red cowboy hat and the Cat-in-the-Hat hat for Brayden because Kove didn't want to keep his hat on by himself) Brayden got the HUGE BBQ fork (which turned out to be pretty hard too) and Paul got the fork and oven mitts (which wasn't too hard at all) I was lucky because I didn't have time to find any other utensils and was rushing around making sure all the food was out and had to hurry and eat to get to Bunko, so I got to eat with a regular fork.

Each new food that the boys had to eat was so funny. Akoy did fine with his spoon and dessert but had a really hard time with his salad. Kove ended up resorting to a fork because he couldn't eat anything with his knife and Brayden figured out that it was easier to stab each corn kernel because his fork was too wide. I think that our backwards dinner was a big hit so I think that we will make it an April Fools tradition. I feel sad that Kaiden missed out but hopefully next year both of us will be able to pull some big pranks and have him home for dinner...

Basketball and Baseball

Here are Kaiden's basketball pictures as promised.....I remember when Kaiden was almost eight and in his second year of "real" Junior Jazz basketball. He had fun the first year he played, he wasn't as aggressive as the other boys but he had fun. The second year he still wasn't as aggressive and didn't really hustle but seemed to still like it, until we were half way through. He started complaining that he hated basketball and wanted to quit. I told him that he had committed to play that season and I had paid for him to play, so he had to at least finish out that season then he could choose not to play anymore.

The crazy thing was, after we talked and he agreed to keep playing until the end of the season, he actually had to miss 2 games because he had to go up to Primary Childrens and have sugery. He was there for a week and then he had to recuperate for another week. During that time, he started missing playing basketball and couldn't wait until he could play again. He was a little timid when he came back for his first game, because he had stitches and bandages on his stomache, but he did great the rest of the season. He became a little more aggressive and hustled a lot more.

The next year he was excited to play again. He did so much better than the years before and was even one of the better players on their team. He was running up and down the court instead of just moseying a long at his own pace. It was so neat to see become more agressive and really hustle to get the ball and make the plays.