We celebrated Alli and Evan's 3rd birthday this past week, which is still unreal to me. I can't believe they've actually been around for three years. It still seems like I should be saying they're 18 months old. But, anyways, it happened and it was a very small, informal, nonstressful event, which made it all the more fun for me, and probably them, too. There's a little girl at church who is the same age as them and her birthday is the day before their's, so on Sunday we went to lunch with them and a few other people with kids around the same age and the kids all had cupcakes and sang and the 3 birthday kids blew out candles. Then on Monday night, which was the day before their birthday we did our thing at home (I have school on Tuesday nights). They each got their own birthday cake to put candles in, because they shouldn't have to share. They're 2 different people who happened to be born on the same day, so why should they have to share everything? They shouldn't in my opinion. Plus, that way we get to buy a white cake and a chocolate cake, and then we get the best of both worlds. So, we sang again, and they blew out candles again, and we had cake and made a mess, and then we gave them their presents, which you can see them riding in the pictures. Evan's telling everyone he got a new bicycle, and Alli's saying she got a new 4-wheeler. Close enough. Throughout the week grandparents filtered in and out bringing gifts and more excitement. So, they had a few days of birthday, which was great with me, because like I said before, they got all kinds of excitement without planning a ridiculous party that they won't even remember. So here we go into the 3's. I know everyone is well aware of the terrible 2's, but in my experience the 3's come with a little more head-strongness (if that's a word) and a greater awareness that they really can say no. Mom's response may make them regret it, but they'll try repeatedly just to make sure they can't get away with it. But, along with the stubbornness comes a hilarious vocabulary. Evan came up to me in his little tiny 3-year-old voice and said, "Check this out, mom." It was so funny, but I can't believe they're already transitioning from "mommy" to "mom" (sniff, sniff). Alli was in the bathtub last night and stuck the big cup that we rinse them with on her foot and said, "Look, I have a pirate foot!" She's so witty. One of Evan's favorite phrases is "that's not fair," which he uses quite frequently and is generally followed by a nice deep growl, and Alli's conversational skills are soaring. She'll carry a conversation alone for 10 minutes as long as someone is sitting there nodding. She nods her little head and points her finger and rolls her eyes. She's so animated. Whoever coined the phrase (or word) bittersweet was so insightful, because it's so true about so many things. I'm happy that they're growing up and becoming more independent, and with twins, independence is a wonderful thing, but just knowing that they'll never be babies again makes my heart hurt a little. Wow, I'm about to bring myself to tears.

Well, last night, as the Easter Bunny was delivering little treats to the kids, his car broke down in our driveway. Not really. Seriously, though, Andy purchased a 1970 Chevelle which happens to be the most horrible shade of pink you can imagine. He's planning all kinds of changes and upgrades, not the least of which is changing the color. For now it's the eye-sore of the neighborhood. I love when the eye-sore happens to be sitting in my driveway. Anyways, Easter has been all kinds of fun. Mom and Steph and Jose (Steph's boyfriend) came over and colored eggs with us, which didn't turn out to be near as exciting as Alli and Evan had hoped. Drew is at an age where she's ok with sitting and waiting for the color to be perfect, but Alli and Evan thought they needed to be touching or stirring or something constantly. We got it done, though, and set out for the back yard to hunt eggs. They had a blast. Mom brought over a bunch of plastic eggs that she put prizes in to hunt with the real eggs, and of course when Drew popped open the first plastic egg with a prize, her response was, "Awesome!" So, Evan responded by unknowingly cracking open a real egg, and saw the perfectly round hard boiled yolk, to which he responded, "Awesome!" and popped the whole yolk in his mouth. UGH!!! Surprisingly, he chewed it up and swallowed it as I was gagging in the background. They woke up this morning to even more candy and little surprises in their baskets and had jelly beans and chocolate for breakfast before church. I didn't care because it meant that I didn't have to fix anything, and it's a holiday. They're allowed a couple of days a year to have pure sugar as a meal. So, anyways, we got everybody all dressed up in their little Easter outfits and snapped pictures in front of the dogwoods, which I thought turned out absolutely adorable, but I always think that. After church we went over to Andy's grandparents for lunch and ate way too much and let the kids play outside and torture the poor old dog. The weather is so nice today. It's warm and breezy and just cloudy enough to give relief when you need it. His grandmother has all these pretty potted flowers sitting around, so of course, I had to take more pictures. Evan ran off chasing the dog when I took the first one of Drew and Alli, and then cried because he didn't get to be in the picture (an indication of a serious need for a nap), so I had to take one of him, too. We left soon after to come home to a fake-grass, candy wrapper covered house and take a good long nap.

Finally, after a completely crazy week, I've got more pictures. Being the coach's wife is a lot more work than I realized. I've been back and forth getting uniforms, making phone calls, etc. Andy's been great about getting stuff done himself, except that he transferred this week to a new headquarters, and it's a night and day difference compared to where he was working, plus he's the guy in charge now, so everything falls on him. But, we finally got all the uniforms in with all the right sizes and numbers, and played our first game last night. The kids were so cute to watch. The first time Drew was up to bat, she was the last batter, and instead of getting outs, they just let all the kids bat and run the bases. So she got to make a homerun and she got way ahead of the kid who batted before her. She beat him home. It was pretty funny. She had a blast, though. She was so nervous yesterday morning. I usually get her backpack and everything together while she's eating breakfast in the mornings, but yesterday she would hardly eat, and when I asked her what was wrong she cried and said she was nervous about the game. It made me want to cry because I was (and still kind of am) exactly like that. I got nervous to the point where I wouldn't sleep at night. But, once she got there she was fine and had a great time. The rest of the pictures are of us playing outside. The ones of the kids flying through the air are of Andy tossing them up. They look a lot higher than they are. It's finally warming up around here. We even turned the air conditioner on today. I'm glad though. I hate cold weather, and we all got nice and sweaty today playing outside. I think the kids would have a heat stroke before they'd complain!