The Eggs!

I know that I'm a little behind, but at least the pictures are starting to show up! Here's the beginning of the Easter Pics...

Every year we have a big Easter Egg hunt at my parents house. We invite a few friends (and so do each of my brothers) and it usually ends up being a pretty good crowd. To get ready for that we make lots of "confetti eggs". This year we colored around 12 Dozen! (That's not counting what my two sister in laws colored for the event!) It took a while, but the boys had a great time!

Stay tuned for the pictures of the actual event, then you'll see all of these eggs put to good use!

Our New Toy

We got the kids a trampoline! These pictures were taken the day that Joe and my dad were setting it up, they hadn't gotten the enclosure up yet. I had the kids at my mom's house for the morning so that it could be a surprise. It happened to be Easter weekend (we ordered it online and that's when it arrived) so the kids thought that the Easter Bunny had brought it :-) It didn't help that we used a trail of Easter candy to lead them to the backyard when we got home so that they'd discover it...but we did explain later that it is actually from Mom and Dad and G&G Lodge as part of their birthday presents this year. They don't care where it came from, who are we kidding!


They have loved it, but unfortunately we've had SOOOO much rain they haven't been able to be out there as much as they'd like. If Spring could just stick around for more than a day or two, that would be great!!

Oh yah, and almost as cool as the trampoline....

...were the boxes!!!

Tea Party!!!

This was just a Sunday afternoon. While I was making dinner, I could hear Joe playing with the kids in Abby's room. This is what I found...

...a Tea Party!!!

I would love to say that it was all for Abby's benefit, you know since tea parties aren't exactly a "manly" passtime, but the boys were having just as much fun as her! Of course, they were sure to tell me that they were having hot cocoa at their tea party. Funny kids!

The best Mother's Day Ever!

I had a great Mother's Day this year! It was fun that the boys really got into it and found ways to make the day special. Joe made me my favorite breakfast and got me two beautiful Fuschias to hang in the front of our house. The boys picked out a windchime and wrote in a card for me. It was all very cute!



After church, Sam made me a PB sandwich for lunch and Andrew helped by getting me some chips and water to round out the meal.

This was as we were getting ready for bed. I was trying to get a picture with the kids and the cards/gifts they'd made...but it didn't work out so well! Abby didn't want to stay put!

She let me know that she was NOT happy about getting her picture taken!But, nothing cheers her up like some ice cream!

Here's the coconut cream pie that I made for "the big people" dessert. It was a new recipe and was soooo good!

We wrapped the day up by playing cards (and eating pie!) with my parents. It was a great day. I felt very loved, appreciated and so lucky to have such a great family!

School Carnival

I am playing catch up with all of the pictures and events for the past few months, in case you couldn't tell! This was back in the beginning of May, Sam's school had a carnival complete with lots of bouncy toys and games. The weather was very questionable, threatening rain, so Abby and I opted to have a girls night and Joe took the boys to the carnival. I sprinkled a little, but turned out to be okay and they had a great time!

Sam decorated this cake to enter into the contest (and to get free carnival tickets!) He was pretty proud of it! Here are few random shots of the bouncy toys, Andrew may be a little small, but it certainly didn't hold him back!

Joe said that the jousting was the funniest part of the whole night. As you can see, Andrew had a hard time just holding on to the big stick, let alone swinging it to knock Sam off. I guess that he learned pretty fast that falling off was the fun part and just started diving off the platform whenever Sam swung at him. Sam looks a little bored with the whole thing! Funny boys!

She's Contagious!

One of Abby's most endearing characteristics is her laugh. She has this deep chuckle that just makes me smile whenever I hear it!

A couple of weeks ago we were at the grocery store and I was playing with her and tickling her as I walked down the aisle. She was laughing so hard, it was really cute. A few minutes later a lady walked around the corner and said, "Excuse me, was she just laughing a minute ago?" I said that she was. "Oh, well, I was on the next aisle over and I found myself smiling for no real reason. Then I realized it was because I heard her laughing!" Then she leaned towards Abby and said, "Thank you for brightening my day!"

I'm so grateful for my happy baby girl!

A beautiful thing!

This picture was from a few weeks ago, but I thought it was cute so I wanted to post it. This is how I found the kids that morning after I was done cleaning up breakfast. Sam has taken off with reading and was putting his new skills to work! Very cute!