An Easter Egg Hunt

Today was an awesome day. We were invited out to the Terry and Melanie's for an Easter Egg Hunt. I took advantage of their beautiful property to take lots of pictures!

I let Dada dress up today. I just thought it would be cute to see her running around in a beautiful dress. Call me crazy, I know!!

Brother wasn't in a mood to get pictures taken today. He seems that way lately. Hopefully he will grow out of that!!

The big boys weren't in a mood for a picture either!! :)

Melissa and Hannah!


Hannah and Noah

Finally, they were off!

The kids took off looking for all those eggs! I wonder if they found them all.

Victoria and her cousins.


Once they found their eggs,

they had to go through their loot to see what they got!


I thought this was sweet of the little one showing her goodies to her uncle!!

Let me tell you a little story about this picture! Jared threw an egg in the creek, wondering who was going to fish it out. Well, when I looked down to the creek, I saw most of the kids down there with sticks, trying to get it. Brother all but fell in trying to get it! So save the kids from pnemonia


Next it was time for cupcakes. I didn't get a picture of the cupcakes, but they were so cute. They had green frosting on them that looked like grass. Then they had jelly beans on top of that. They really were adorable.











As soon as Eli saw his cupcake he couldn't wait to dig in!

Dada thought the cupcakes were delish!!




Dada and her crush Jared!














I love this picture. You can see the love and joy that Jared has for Dylan.

Melissa, Me and Heather.

Joanna and her family.

















My wonderful family!!

Next, it was time for wagon rides.

The kids were patient while waiting for their turn in the wagon.

Some of the kids even got to ride up front.














I know that Dada loved this!


I love this swing! :)


I love this man!


Isn't this bike cute? I wonder how old it is.


Terry and Melanie, ThAnK YoU so much for opening your house up to all of us. We had such a great day today.

I miss this....doin nuttin

Yesterday Tancy and I decided to go to the park. The park wasn't that great of a park to tell you the truth. But there were these great pine trees right next to it that made the kids day!


The collected pine cones
and pine branches.

Then they used the playground as there "fort."










It was "Boy" against the "girls." The Boy, would chase the girls around and try and steal there pine cones and branches.

He would sneak up on the girls and when they weren't looking would grab their stuff and run away.

Even the little Guy got into the action. He just didn't realize why he was stealing the girls branches!!

They played that for a while, and then went for the swings. There weren't that many swings, so Dada went for the baby swings instead. (Notice the cowboy boots with the sweat suit!! She picked her outfit out that day!! I am choosing my battles.)

Even Tancy wanted to swing!!

While the playground wasn't that great, the park was beautiful. So we decided to take some pictures.





If you noticed the absence of Brother, and the presence of Elisa, that's because Joanna and I switched kids the night before. She had the boys and I had the girls.




I feel like I have missed out on so much of this little guys life. He is talking really well now!! And he is potty trained now!! He is growing to be a great little fella! It's amazing how much they grow in the winter!! Isn't he just the cat's meow??

Isn't this a great picture of Tancy's family?!?!








I really missed Brother being there yesterday.


We had such a fun time yesterday. The weather was a little chilly, but it was nice in the sunshine once you got moving around.

And yes, Beth, we did miss you!! :-)

Choir Practice

The other day, I walked into the living room to hear the kids in the middle of "choir practice!!" ( I actually could hear "choir practice" throughout the entire house but wanted to check it out anyway! ) Dada had a Patch the Pirate cd BLARING in the cd player!!
One of the funniest things to me, was that they then started dancing to Patch the Pirate. (If you don't know anything about Patch, the music isn't something you can really "dance" to!!) So it made me laugh to see Brother all out shakin it!!

Brother left choir practice when his friend came over. Why play choir practice, when you can play guns and ride bikes with your friend, right?!?!?! Dada was in there quite a while though. She was singing her heart out! It was such a joy to listen to.

I never want to discourage her from singing. When I was a child, I LOVED singing. With my whole heart I would belt out these same Patch the Pirate songs. If you know, anything about me, you know that I DON'T have a good voice. (I have inherited that trait from my Dad. He can't carry a tune for all he's worth.) Anyway, somewhere along the way of growing up people in our church started making fun of me for singing. So, finally, I stopped singing. I never ever want to discourage Dada from singing. She is making a joyful noise, and I know the Lord loves to hear it.

I will have to add this side note. When we are on our way to church, which is 30 min away, listening to her singing the SAME Christmas song over and over again becomes quite the chore and not necessarily a joy!! :) I have to pray for patience on those days!! Though I still don't want to squash that joy of singing and praising God!!


Brother really enjoyed having his friend over for the day. He was been BEGGING me for months to have him over. We were finally able to do it. Brother wanted his friend to help him with his Lego Star Wars game. His friend is a little older then he is and is much wiser when it comes to video games. So Brother couldn't wait to play the game with him.

After the video games were put away, the nerf guns game out. I have to say, the boys were in no mood to get their picture taken that day. They were way more interested in shooting Hunny.
Dada on the other hand can always be counted on for a picture!!

trucks, cars and the park

Today was a rough day for me. I think that I was just running on steam. Since it was nicer yesterday, we spent a good bit of time outside. While it was worth it, I think it just wore me out! So I paid for it today.

Jared and Dylan were also able to come over for a visit yesterday.
Brother pulled out all his trucks and cars and even pulled out his car garage.

Dylan loved seeing the cars go round and round the garage ramp!!

My kids thoroughly enjoyed playing with Dylan. Brother also pulled out his nerf guns. BOY, did Dylan like that!!
I think he shot everything in the house. If a dart would go behind the couch, he would say....I lost it. When Brother would find the dart, he would then say with glee..... He found it!! They way he said it was just adorable!!

He kept coming over to me asking me to load his gun. And then he would point it at the ceiling and shoot, and giggle with glee!



We also enjoyed spending time at the park with Dylan.
He made a bee line for the slide. He did it over and over again.

I think that Hunny had the most fun. He was running around chasing all the kids.

The kids would wait at the top of the slide for Dylan to run around the playset for another turn on the slide.


I love seeing Hunny with the kids. He takes such a joy in them.

After Dylan got bored with the slide, he ran straight over to the teeter totter.
Dada hopped on also and was surprisingly gentle with Dylan on it. Normally, my kids are standing on it jumping up and down like maniacs. (They learned that from the older kids that play at the park. The kids that are way to old to be playing there! I wasn't happy at the park that day. But that's a whole different post!!)

Take some time and enjoy the great outdoors today. Try not to let your circumstances get the best of you today.

Easter Eggs

Happy Tuesday. I just want you all to know that we only have 2 more days till spring break. I'm not at all excited!!!

Yesterday, we decided to color Easter eggs. The kids have been begging me to do it since I walked in the door with the kit. I tried to sneak it in, but Dada saw it. I was trying to avoid the whole begging to do it till I was ready to do it.

We each called dibs on our favorite colors,

and waited anxiously to see how they would turn out.


The kids kept checking to see when they needed to come out of the dye. They wanted the perfect shade of pink and green!!







I was so worried that Brother would spill the dye all over the place, or that his hands would be stained with the dye. I don't think he could keep his hands out of it!!

The kit that I got was pretty cool. It had glitter pens, and 3D stickers, and crayons that you could decorate them with. Dada had a great time with the stickers!!

Brother liked the glitter pens.

Dada took a while to decorate them with the stickers. She wanted to make sure each 1 was done just right!!


He also couldn't wait to eat them!!

Overall, we had a great time, and we only had 1 casualty!!!








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While I was fixing dinner, Dave and Brenda stopped over for a minute, and ended up staying for dinner. We had a nice visit with them.

The kids loved playing with little Sydney!!