Easter

So we had an excellent Easter here. First we got up and brought the kids downstairs to see their Easter baskets. Tammy says the Easter Bunny used to hide her baskets somewhere in her house, but he always snuck mine into my room and left it by the bed. I guess we will see what tradition the bunny settles on eventually, but for now, he left them downstairs by the fireplace.


The kids were both very excited about the candy:


Sylvie enjoyed chewing on it, even though she didn't really get it opened...



They also got some bunny ears :)


Then we all got dressed up for church.


I think the best picture was this one, even though I'm only in it as a reflection:


Here's a good one of me with Sylvia:


And a great one of her with Tammy:


Since it has been raining for a week, they decided to have the church Easter egg hunt indoors, so here are some pictures of that constrained chaos:





Gideon managed to find 8 eggs this year, which is pretty good as there were 12 other kids hunting in that classroom!
Then we went to lunch with Tammy's parents' church, which reserves the Bascom House pavilion at the Shaw Nature Reserve's Wildflower garden each year. It was beautiful, despite the rain, and Gideon and I made several forays out into the garden with our umbrellas (his has Spiderman). We went out and hid in the gazebo several times. Also, Papa helped a little girl get strawberries all over her clothes. She apparently likes them. Tammy says, "more like craves them."

After that, we went to see Great Grandma Diekmann, who is recovering from knee replacement surgery. She is doing very well, and plans to have the other knee replaced after this heals up. Sylvie really likes her.

After that, we came home, had some naps, and chilled out for the rest of the evening. Here are some bonus shots from last weekend's egg hunt:



(above, left to right: Gracie, Gideon, Claire, Levi, Alex, Hunter, Tyler, Alyce, Luke)
(below, left to right: Isaac, Levi, Sylvie, Alyce, Gideon, Hunter, Claire, Alex, Tyler)


The hunt lasted about 3 minutes, and everyone had a great time.

HAPPY EASTER!!!

Checking on little sister.

G is usually the first one awake and so the other day I was being lazy and delaying getting out of bed and ask him to "go check on little sister" usually he come right back and says she's awake, but when he didn't return I decided to go check on them. I walked into find he had climbed into her bed by himself and was laying there playing with her. Super cute moment.




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A perfect potty day!

So just a few notes on a major day for G... His first whole day of using only the potty and wearing underwear with no accidents! I will say the Big Phone (iPad) has just half-paid for itself in diaper savings, because we only let him color and read books on it if he went #2 on the potty. This proved to be a powerful motivator, as he really loves reading the animated books on here.
Anyway, I just thought we'd record this momentous date, now we just have to stick with it and hopefully he'll stay accident free long enough for another train ride :)

Easter Playdate

So we try once a week to get together with one of G's friends. I have been horrible with initiating this lately with our group of friends, so I thought I would make up for it by having an Easter party. We invite all his friends over for the morning. I can say that it was so much fun. Last year G was to young to understand the whole Easter egg hunt thing, but this year he mastered it. It could be that he was scoping out the eggs as J was hiding them. He was super sweet and even shared with the girl next door who didn't get very many. I always know he had a good time when the next day he asked to have another party. :-)






Yes I love being a mom!

Thankful

I am so thankful for the way my life end up. I don't know what I ever did to deserve so many wonderful things. I have been so blessed. I never knew life could be so great with a wonderful husband and two adorable children, even if they do keep me awake at night :-)

Time Flies

So it is almost Easter and it seems like just yesterday I was preparing for our little girl to arrive. I don't know if it is having kids or if it is just life, but lately it seems like time is just flying by.

Things are going well here for us, we have settled into a routine with having two kids. G is growing like a weed. He loves being outside and has gotten to spend several days lately outside playing. I can say that is one huge advantage to our neighborhood is that I don't have to plan a lot of play dates, I just have to open the garage and it seems like out of no where someone comes over to play. I love this, my parents always built in new subdivisions and it seemed like there was never any one our age. That is not a problem on this street. The last kids count was 32 under 16.

Baby girl is now mobile. Good and bad, cute that she now will follow G from room to room, but bad that she can put all of his toys in her mouth. Looks like it will be a childproofing weekend for us soon. She has become my little buddy. She went on my last girls night shopping and I can say she was quite the little trooper. She stayed in her stroller for over 2 hours without really complaining at all, as long as she had an occasional glimpse of me she was quite content.

We are finishing up the last couple projects on the house and happy to say we will be done for the year! At least until I can think of another one :-)

We still haven't decided what to do for vacation with J's job being so busy it looks like it could be late summer. The beach is calling my name very loudly lately.

Well I think that catches everyone up to date.

I will be posting pictures soon from G's Easter play date and J's bday. Just havent had time to download them yet.

Good Night world!

Look what is growing in my garden!

-She is now crawling! Looks like we will be childproofing this weekend.

Latest addition to our family!

We have a new niece! Welcome to our world baby Leah Grace, we can't wait to meet you. If I could drive to Texas tonight I would.

Congrats to Bob, Carrie & Chloe!!




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Mall trip

So I decided to venture out to the mall today by myself with both kids. We arrived early just so we could spend sometime in the play area, I would say it was a success!


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G loved walking the plank!

Lunch date today!

Dont be jealous girls, check out the cutie that I had lunch today with all by myself.


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Popping in.

One thing I loved about college was that people just popped in, you didnt care how you looked, how you were dressed, or how your place looked. It was college and everyone had bad hair days and awful rooms.

I am starting to feel that way about our neighborhood and I am loving it. Josh has been gaming every other Friday night so I have just been low keying it at home with the kids and I am happy to say that I have had company every night. I love that they feel like they can knock on the door at 9:00 at night and come in and talk or if we have the door opens they come over just to hang out. I told Josh it is so nice just having people you have so much in common with living so close.

I dont think I will ever move.... ok maybe when the kids are married and we buy that beach house... maybe then.

Transformed room

There are only a couple of things I would change about our home and one of them is our laundry room. I am sure to most this isn't a big deal, but I dreaded even opening the door, but thanks to my great husband I now have place to hang clothes, work area and even extra storage! Winner to me.

Thanks to my wonderful husband, the room has been transformed!
All in one night even with company popping in.

Thank you babe!!