Plants Vs. Zombies: A 4 Year Old's Perspective

While mommy has a volleyball game my boys are lucky enough to spend time with their Uncle Travis.  They both love their Uncle Travis and I'm so glad that the boys get two-on-one (one-on-two?) time with him- he's great with them!  There a lot of special things that they like to play together, but one of Jack's absolute favorite things to do with Uncle Travis, besides playing Train & Tree-ctor (a tree-ctor is a Lego tractor that has Lego trees growing on it- it's really quite a sight), is playing Plants Vs. Zombies on Uncle Travis' computer.  Watching Jack "help" Travis play this game is absolutely hilarious.

Basically, the game is that zombies are attacking your house, and in order to protect your house you have to plant magic zombie-repelling plants in your front yard.  They have things like blovers (clovers) that "blow away the flying zompies" (thanks to Jack for the description), a Fume-shroom that "shoots goo that when the zompies eat it they lose their heads" and a bunch more (full list here).  Even when Uncle Travis isn't here, Jack is thinking of this game- he is constantly making up new plants and ways that they can get rid of the zombies.  He loves talking and thinking about this game, and it's hilarious to listen to him!

Here is a video of Jack talking about the plants in the game.  He came up behind me while I was searching for the full list of plants and got so excited and wanted to look at the list, so I got a movie of him talking to me about it. (I'm standing and holding the video out to the side at hip level- so that's why it looks like he keeps talking to a random spot behind him).

Here is the video that I was originally going to post here (before I got the video above). I started taking this video because I wanted to record how Jack pronounces Jalapeno (which is a plant in the game), and we just kept talking from there.  It was cute, so I wanted to share!  He just cracks me up how he's thinking so hard about the game!

Bunny Ears Are Yummy!

In April I bought some smocks from a friend's Etsy shop, as they were desperately needed!  When I ordered them from her I mentioned that I'd like to take some photos of them for her Etsy shop, and she said that it would be great!  So, one late afternoon in early May while Jack was engrossed in one of his new birthday gifts, I decided that it was the perfect opportunity to take those pictures! I grabbed Sam and his smock, grabbed a chocolate bunny sucker (the easiest messy-but-non-horrific-looking food that I could find- I didn't want to turn away her customers by grossing them out!), and headed to the backyard to take some quick photos.  I ended up taking a ton, as I couldn't help taking pictures of my Sammy modeling the smock as well as the smock itself.  So, you get some new Sam pictures (as though there aren't an abundance of them on this blog anyway, right?  Ha ha!).  Enjoy!

 (Note: I am not responsible for the chocolate cravings that you may experience from looking at these pictures!)

This is his "I think I've had enough chocolate now, but thanks mom!!" face.

Thanks so much for the smocks, Steph!!!

Wordless Wednesday

 

Two Birds Kids With One Stone iPod

Jack loves playing games on mommy and daddy's iPods...

And Sam loves to watch him play!  If it weren't for these awesome little devices, mommy would never get lunch made!

(He's playing the Blowfish game- one of our favorites!) 

Sam Face

This kid's face

melts my heart.

Whether he's smiling or being a goofball, this kid's face brings me joy!

Church Rain, Eggs And Family!

Easter Sunday was much the same, and also quite different from last year.  We started the same way... a sunrise service (sunrise, 10:00AM, same thing, really) overlooking the ocean.

Unfortunately, a major difference between this year and last is that this year it rained!  We ended up having a very short service due to the rain... perhaps next year we'll be sure to have a backup plan?  In any case, Jack didn't even realize that church was cut short, only that we were there at all- and that's what's important, right?

Once we got home, Easter resumed according to plan!  My family came over and the boys got to hunt for eggs!  Jack was really into it , Sam was into it for a bit, and Luke wasn't really into it at all- he had just finished an egg hunt at his church, so he was pretty much over it for our hunt.  When I opened the blinds to the patio door and Jack saw the eggs, he was so excited!  Their baskets were on their picnic table, and they went there first.  Inside Jack's basket was an egg-picker-upper thingie, and he used that the whole time!  That was a great idea, since not only did he love it so much, but after he found the silver (money) egg, he declared the hunt over and I had to pick up the rest of the eggs!  Even though Jack was really into the egg hunt, apparently the Easter Bunny left too many for 3 kids to hunt- especially when two of those kids are 1 year old!

And of course I had to post a video of Sam's first egg hunt... okay, his first egg hunt that he actually participated in!

After the egg hunt the boys went through their loot!

And then, here is where our Easter one again differed from last year in a major way: we didn't go to my aunt's house!  This year we went to my mom's house for lunch- we had a great time!  The boys absolutely love going to grandma's house and of course the adults love having conversations with other adults for a change!  Of course, we had to pause our adult conversation when it was time for another egg hunt!

Or course, the boys were pretty much egg-hunt-ed out, so they really only hunted a few each before finding other things to do.

We had such a great Easter!  And the best part?  We were ALL there!  That's right!  All of my parents' kids were there...

All of Amy's family was there...

All of my family was there...

And of course, we had to get a shot of my parents with their boys, too!

 And of course, I have to end this post with a big HE IS RISEN!!!

BTW, I'm Looking For Egg Dye Recommendations

We were so excited to dye eggs this year!  Jack had gotten some egg dye for his birthday, so I boiled a bunch of eggs (we were at the stage in the kitchen remodel that we could hook the stove back up, so it was the first thing I cooked!  I still didn't have a sink to wash the dish in, but I had a stove!) remembering from last year to write DO NOT EAT TIL EASTER on them, found some Big Red Cups (the cute little glass cups I like to use for egg dying were packed away still- I was so bummed about that!), and called up grandma, grandpa, grammy and Auntie Mimi and Luke and invited them over!  I remembered from last year that the little dyes take forever to dissolve, so we took care of that before they got there...

When the colors were ready to go and our friends weren't here yet, I let Jack go ahead and start... he was so anxious and excited and I felt bad making him wait longer!

After he put his first egg in, they got there!  He was so excited to see them, and he had a great time showing off his egg dying skillz

Luke was so excited to come to our house!  So excited that he wasn't really interested in dying eggs... he just wanted to play in our backyard!  That was fine with Jack since that left more eggs for him, but he couldn't help getting up once to join Luke on the slide that he outgrew long ago!

Sam enjoyed egg dying!  He did pretty good putting the egg in the dye gently, and he even grabbed the spoon to try to get it out... though that's kind of hard for a 14 month old to do.

After he had dyed one egg, he decided that playing was more fun. so he got down to join Lukers.

The last few years I have loved the way our eggs turned out, but this year the dye was kind of lame.  The colors were barely there- so pale they couldn't even have passed as pastel.  The water looked pretty, but the eggs were coming out much the same as they went in no matter how long they were in there!  

So I ran in the house and dug through a box and found my food coloring and we had a little lesson in primary colors and color mixing.  The colors ended up kinda funky still, but at least we could see some color!

When we were done dying I had Jack dump the colors out onto the rocks, which he really enjoyed!  He said he was dying the rocks!

Jack had a blast dying the eggs, and I had to laugh at him.  As soon as we were done and all the eggs were back in the carton he announced "Okay, now let's go hide them and look for them!"  I told him that he had to wait til the next day (Easter) to do that.  We didn't end up hiding and finding those eggs, we usually opt for plastic eggs on Easter morning and real eggs in the afternoon at my aunt's house, but we didn't go to my aunt's house this year.  More on that in my next post, though.  Regardless, egg dying was so fun, and it was nice to have hard boiled eggs in the house again!  Just one of the many things I missed about having a kitchen!