Weekend Wrap- Up Part II (Easter)

(After writing this I realize now I should have done perhaps a Part III to break it up a little! Lots of photos to share. :)

After getting home Saturday night from the birthday celebration, I knew we'd be tired and rushed on Sunday morning to get ready for church (plus, Kent had nursery duty so we needed to be there even earlier than usual) so Kent and I hid eggs that night. He's such a good sport. :)

Isn't this what the Easter Bunny looks like at your house?

The egg hunt was all but postponed until Kent had coffee in hand.

Be still my heart.  Kael NEVER wants to dress up but he chose his own outfit for Easter church.  How handsome is he? Now, Kylee on the other hand, was well prepared for the event.  One day a few weeks ago my mom and I took her to the mall for a girls' day and she tried on ("had a fashion show" in her words) nearly every dress in the store

My, my that bump is getting big!

I LOVE our tradtion of having an Egg Cracking Contest with the dyed eggs. It's extra fun now that the kids are old enough to participate.  Everyone picks and egg and you crack/tap/wait for (depends on your strategy) your opponent's egg.  Whichever egg doesn't crack moves on to the next round. We set it up tournament-style so here's how it broke down this year...

Below: Tam takes out Kael's orange egg. Kael wasn't too upset because he had beaten Grandpa Terry (in an above photo) in the "practice round".

Next up: short vs. tall

Grandpa Terry takes the controversial win over Grandma Ama. She wasn't quite ready when he "attacked".

Above: Kent was reigning champ and has won the contest for several years now.  As you can see, he isn't too pleased with his first round loss this year.  Below: When you lose, you have to throw your loser egg as far as you can off the deck down to the creek.  Tam lost so Rob is letting her know where her egg needs to go. :) When all was said and done, Mandy was crowned champion this year!

After the Egg Cracking, Kael had an idea that will likely begin a new tradition: the classic Egg on Spoon race. Boys vs. Girls.  Boys won.  Like 5 times in a row.

This is what an egg looks like after a few races.

You all play baseball with your leftover eggs too, right?

Then the egg hunt begins!

Look at those ups!

That is one full basket!

Matching jammies! Above and below! :)

Too much candy? Too much fun? Nah....

These last few photos are a little out of order but I got them from my mom's camera and had to include them.  Below is what will most likely be our last photo all dressed up as a family of four!

If I cropped the below photo to show only our faces, I think it would be nearly impossible to tell us apart!

Ha! I love this picture below! Mine is coming in three weeks, hers is coming in October!

We're pretty normal....

....and really really fun!

Hope your Easter was wonderful and your week is off to a great start!

Weekend Wrap- Up Part I (The birthdays)

I have so so so much to write about but I think it'll be easier to show pictures.
We started off the weekend with Kent's brother and mom coming to hang out Friday night. We went out for pizza and they stayed the night.  Kael and Kylee LOVE it when people stay over at our house.  Saturday morning we picked up breakfast pizza and donuts then kicked it into high gear and tidied up the house for a showing.  Later Kent's dad joined us and we had an egg hunt for the kids and Cindy got them some much needed spring clothes and shoes!

Went out for lunch then later we headed to my family's to celebrate the April birthdays.  We hunted for mushrooms, opened presents, ate (Kael's favorite) stuffed crust pizza and played outside.

It's not easy to make mushroom hunting look this good.  See above and below.

Kael's verdict on how the morels taste.

Kael loved his new scooter!!!

Is there anything cuter than a baby on a scooter?

His favorite color is still orange, which is why I changed this blog layout last year around his birthday time to an orange background....which means I haven't updated it in at least a year!

I wasn't fast enough to keep Brooklyn's little fingers out of her cake!

Look at that perfect little handprint she left in the frosting!

I was not expecting any gifts for me at all so imagine my surprise when I was showered with all this! My family is the best! There were all sorts of adorable baby clothes, robes for me, flip flops, lip gloss and everything you could possibly think of that I will need when I'm in the hospital with the baby: travel shampoo and toothbrush, a new notebook and pens, thank you notes and stamps, nail files, hair ties, a bucket of candy and even some cashews and a sports book for Kent. :)

Thankful Thursday

I'm thankful that I got to have another ultrasound on Monday! My doctor said I was measuring small but I think really he just wanted to make up an excuse for me to be able to see the little guy again! And by little, I mean he's already weighing in at a solid 6 lbs 8 oz.

I'm thankful for fun plans for the weekend.  Aunt Tammy and Uncle Rob will be back in town and I'm looking forward to celebrating some of the April birthdays and Easter with them and the rest of my family. 

I'm thankful that some more options have opened up for us for houses.  There's a specific neighborhood we'd really like to live in and thought all of the lots were taken, but it turns out there are several still available.  Now, if we can just get this house sold. :)

I'm thankful my morning started off like this:

I'm thankful for a daughter who helps me "fancy it up" around the house.  I had gotten out some Easter baskets that had colored grass in them from last year so Kylee took each little strand of pink grass and tied them to random places around the house.

I'm thankful for all of the craziness that comes along with spring.  Besides celebrating tons of birthdays, expecting a baby, and selling a house, we're also just starting to get into Little League for Kael and slow pitch games for Kent.  The weeks are literally flying by!

Hope you're finding lots to be thankful for today!

April

Happy April everyone! I think I said before in a post awhile back that October was my favorite month but April is definitely up there too. I love spring.  And April happens to be my birthday month, which I look forward to celebrating but have decided that I like being 28 perfectly well so I think I'll just turn 28 again this year. :)
We have LOTS going on this April: Easter, Kael's (7th!!!) birthday, my niece's first birthday, my birthday, my mother-in-law's birthday and hopefully we will be welcoming a baby this month! The official due date is April 30, but both Kael and Kylee came late so I'm not holding my breath.  And that's just for our immediate family! We also have several friends and cousins with birthdays this month so it's going to be a busy April!

We had a great weekend.  We had two realtors schedule showings for Saturday at our house which meant that by about 9:00 Saturday morning we had the house clean (thanks, Mom!) and the yard mowed (Kent did that Friday night) so we were all ready for the weekend.  Kael woke up at the crack of dawn on Saturday morning so he and I headed to Hy-Vee to pick up coffee, donuts and a few groceries.  We were actually there before Starbucks even opened if you can believe it. 

Later I got the chance to sneak away and have coffee with my sister, then off to meet Kent and the kids at the Easter egg hunt.  It was freezing, per usual.  I swear, no matter what it is always chilly the day of the town egg hunt! The kids didn't seem to mind and Kael even won a prize! He picked out a blue soccer ball he was quite pleased with.  Kylee was equally pleased with her candy. :)

Saturday night was spent here with some friends and a super cute baby.  I love that her mom is so cool about letting Kael and Kylee feed her! Looks like I'm going to have some good helpers.

This morning Kael got to sing at church.  I remember when I was a kid and got to sing on Palm Sunday!



He's there in the blue, singing his little heart out. :)

After church Kent washed the cars while the kids had a water gun fight, then we met up with my parents and looked at a few houses.  When we got home Kael and I just kind of lounged around while Kent took Kylee on a bike ride- they've had some fun Daddy/daughter bike riding dates lately and today they discovered a new park out in Boulder Brook.

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!