Easter weekend

This year for Easter we headed to Omak to spend it with our family. The kids and I headed over on Thursday morning and Ben followed on Friday afternoon. He was originally going to ride over with the Scott and Kimberly but they ended up getting the flu and couldn’t make the trip so he headed over on his own. We had such a fun time! On Saturday morning we took the kids to the community egg hunt and they got lot’s of little prizes and had a blast. I ended up getting sick on Saturday afternoon and didn’t do much the rest of the day. I tried to help color the eggs but that’s didn’t go so well. Then Sunday morning we got up and went to a church breakfast with Grandma and Grandpa and went to their Easter service. After that we headed up to Papa and Mamaw’s and eat a huge, wonderful meal at the winery. Everyone was there, it was so great to spend it will ALL of the family (that was in Omak). The unfortunate part about Sunday was that Ben got the flu that I had the day before. So he didn’t get even one bite of the lamb, ham, deviled eggs or anything else that we had to eat. The kids and I actually came back home on Sunday night but left Ben there to sleep off the flu and he headed back on Monday. Other then being sick part of the time we had a great Easter and felt so blessed to be with so much family! Here’s just a few of the pictures that we got. I have to say…I’ve got the cutest kids on the planet!!! I know you might disagree but that’s ok, I can still think it.

Here the kids are hunting for the eggs they colored the night before and a few that Mamaw stuffed with candy! It was a super fun hunt and there were a ton of very good hiding places. Here are some of the egg coloring. They always have so much fun making the white eggs turn color. Sarah was the most patient of them all…she let hers get really pretty and dark. Real quick side track – do you notice that Sarah’s hair is a bit shorter? She got a haircut on Saturday afternoon. Mamaw has a friend who is going to open up a salon in Omak just for kids and she said that she would cut Sarah’s hair. It turned out super cute. I didn’t actually have my camera but Aunt Crystal took lots of picture and I will try to post those soon. Ok, now you can go back to looking at the boys coloring their eggs.

We are still eating chocolate bunnies and lots of other candies from that weekend but I guess that just comes with the territory!

Two quick things....

Today is our good friend Scott's birthday and we got to celebrate it with him at the Melting Pot. My mom and dad came to town also to celebrate with us. Ben and I had been to the Melting Pot for desert before but never for a whole meal. It was so fun and the food was great as well. I always have a hard time choosing what kind of meat I want when I go to restaurant but here I got some chicken, 2 kinds of steak, shrimp, lobster and sausage. It was perfect and I am still totally stuffed! Here we are, waiting for the chocolate.....YUM!!
We left all the kids with out long time babysitter Amanda. She is one brave girl and my kids love her. She has babysat for us since I was just pregnant with Sarah. Since we moved to our new place we don't get to see her as much but it's alway so fun when she comes.

Well, that's all I have for tonight. I am a bit distracted due to my favorite TV show being on right now. If you don't know what it is, it's 24! We love this show and we are so excited that it is back on this season. Can't wait to see what Jack Bauer is up to this season.

I mentioned yesterday that we were starting a project. It is well underway and hopefully in the next couple of days I will be able to show you what we are up to. I'm sorry, but now I'm signing off to watch 24....

My AWESOME kids!

When Ben and I went to bed last night, way too late, we thought to ourselves "how nice would it be to sleep in?" So, we thought we would try something......



We set bowls, spoons, cups and cereal out on the table with this note...



We didn't know if it would work or not but heck, it was worth a shot. At about 7:15 or so I heard them all up and walking around, the pretty soon I heard Jacob say "shh guys, be quiet!" I could also tell that he was filling their glasses with milk and they were all talking, very quietly with no fighting. Next thing I knew it was 9:00 and I was waking up totally rested. I really did wonder what everything was going to look like downstairs and I held my breath as I walked down the stairs and into the kitchen. To my wonderful surprise, the table had been cleaned off, the cereal had been put away and all of my kids were in the basement playing their DSi's and watching a movie. I honestly thought the day would never come that I would be able to sleep in again but I was wrong and my kids totally stepped up to the challenge of 'letting mom and dad sleep in'.

I hope you are all having a wonderful weekend so far. We are about to start a big project that I may be able to blog about tomorrow. Check back soon!

My new hobby....

Yesterday I showed you a couple of my digital scrapbook pages and today I thought I would show you the rest of what I have done.

First let me tell you a few things. My friend Kimberly is who got me started. If you get a chance stop by her blog and see her pages too....she's done some really neat ones. I was pretty skeptical at first. I thought the pages looked great on the computer but I really wondered what they would look like once they were printed out. I was very surprised at how beautiful they look when they are printed and as soon as I saw a few I realized that it was something that I would like to switch over too. It had been over 3 years since I had done any real scrapbooking the traditional way and I really think it's because of the time. I would dread getting everything out, set up and then cleaned up and that doesn't include that fact that I have four kids that would be trying to "help". With digi scrapbooking you can do just a bit at a time and save wherever you are at and come back to it when you have finish cooking, cleaning, changing diapers and whatever else might take you away. Plus, I can sit on my couch, watch TV with Ben and still scrapbook!

Ben got me Adobe Photoshop Elements for Christmas so that is the program that I am using to do all of this and then Kimberly gave my an online class from http://www.jessicasprague.com/ for Christmas. I would have been totally lost without that class. I have only taken 2 of the 4 classes so I know there is still so much to learn but I am having so much fun and can't wait to do more.

Ok, so now you can look at the pages....

I hope that answered your questions Katy (and whoever else was curious). I would happy to answer more if you have more. I will keep posting more pages as I get them done but for now, that's all I've got!

Our new family toy….

I realized today that I didn’t tell you about our new toy. For Jacob’s birthday we decided to get a new basketball hoop. It’s so fun to have. With four kids, three of which are boys, we know that it will get a lot of use in the next few years. I have to admit, even I have enjoyed it some and Ben has really enjoyed it. Here are some pictures that we took the first night that we had it. As you can tell…all of the kids were getting into it.

Who knew Sarah could dunk huh?

Easter 2009.....a little late.

So I know that this is really late and a little out of order but here's our Easter. It was a little bit of crazy year but also a lot of fun. I was on the worship team singing this year. We had a couple of extra practices and also had to be at the church at 7am on Sunday morning but it was really fun to be a part of the service. Since I had to leave the house at 6:30 in the morning I missed the kids getting the Easter baskets first thing in the morning so Ben took pictures for me. They had fun and all got new sun glasses. Here they are...Here they all are dressed in their fancy cloths. Ben did a great job getting them all ready didn't he? I was so impressed...he had to get them all dressed totally by himself. I did fix Sarah's once they got to the church. He's still not real sure about the whole hair business yet.


Right after church we had the kids hunt eggs. It was great to have a big yard and it was a little chilly but not raining and that's what mattered. Scott, Kimberly and the kids spent the day with us. We had a great dinner but I didn't get any pictures. Taking pictures is really hard to do when you are the one cooking :)

Here's Sarah and her beloved "Gott" or "Gock". She really does love him....she always makes sure to say hi and bye to him.

And last but not least....Zac doing his favorite past time. I couldn't resist taking this picture of him. Quite a big day for a little 3 year old that goes and goes and goes!

Jacob's 7th Birthday....really??

How is it possible that this baby....
could turn into this kid over night? I mean really, shouldn't it have taken at least, I don't know, like 7 years or something?
Yes it's true, Jacob turned 7 years old on Wednesday. He was so excited when he went to bed the night before. He could barely fall asleep. We started the day off with a pancake, bacon and eggs breakfast. I made Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny pancakes (the kids' favorite). After that Jacob had to go to school. His teacher does this V.I.P. week with each kid and she tries to make it the week of their birthday. So, this week has been great for Jake! He's been the "special" kid all week long and was able to take pictures, take something to show and tell, read a favorite book aloud to the class and last but not least.....EAT CUPCAKES!!! (those pictures will be in another post).


We had a special birthday dinner that Jake got to pick. When I asked him what it was that he wanted me to make for dinner he had to explain it to me but I finally figured out that he wanted Tater Tot Casserole. It was nice for me because it's a super easy dinner and we had 5 extra people here. It was a great night of good food, presents and great friends. Here's few pictures of the evening.




Here's a picture of my cake decorating attempt. It sure tasted good! Jacob is going to have his first real "friend" party on Saturday and I am going to buy a decorated cake for that one :)