Finally, some nice weather!

Before I start with the nice weather stuff, I am happy to report that my Kermit has gone and done a pretty brave thing...he baby sat his sisters.

Pause.

I know!!! Isn't he the coolest?

Here is Rambo paying him for his first babysitting job. What a cool kid, and he did a great job. We weren't gone too long and I had an undercover mom nearby incase he needed someone quickly, but he didn't. He did the whole thing by himself!!!

What did he do with his first payment??? He bought a squirt gun. I love Rambo's face in this picture...let's just say he doesn't like to part with his money, but we figured-hey, I'd rather pay my own kid than someone else's.

Now, back to the weather. We have really been loving getting back outside and playing. But we are still okay with rain and cars, lots of cars.

This was before we ever cut the lawn for the first time of 2011. The girls and I decided to go outside and make bird nests. I remember doing this when I was a kid, I loved it, we used to make them so big they would go all the way around us. We sat outside all night making little nests for their stuffed birds.

Cute little birds, cute little girls!

Then, Smalls thinks this is the greatest thing ever, I put my exercise trampoline outside for her to jump on-she flipping loves it! And I don't have to worry too much about broken arms-although we did end up in ER just for dying eggs...hmmmm.

She would jump and jump and jump, and then off the tramp and yell, "TA DA!!!"

Here is a close up.

TA DA!!!

Here is Tink's castle. Our sandbox sand was all wet when we first opened it up, it was perfect for sandcastles, so she made a whole ton of them and let Smalls come along and smoosh them. She can be a sweet big sis when she wants to.

Smalls loves to crawl under our sandbox cover and be a turtle. She has tried to crawl around with it on, but it just doesn't work, so she has to be a "sleepy turtle." I tell you, this one, she's got brains.

And looks.

She hates to come inside.

Don't worry, I kissed her so much that she finally cheered up. I couldn't leave her that way, I just thought it was cute how sad she got from coming inside. Sweet baby.

We are so glad the weather finally decided to shape up!!

Easter Weekend 11

Holy cow!

So after our egg dyeing episode, our weekend got a lot better.

I had to start with my Easter "sign".

My friend Christy and I painted these cute cute Easter signs together, we have been drooling over them since right after Christmas, and we finally got them done just before April and can I just say how happy this makes me!? It's sort of dumb how stuff like this makes me in such a good mood-but there you have it.

Onto more important things!

Saturday afternoon the Edwards came over and had their egg hunt with the kids.

It's so cute. They start them out with an egg, and in the egg is a picture of something in the house, or the mailbox, or the car. Once they go to that spot, they find another egg with another picture in it, and so on until they find the basket with the goodies in it!

Tink wasted not time, she got right down to business, she was the first one to every egg, but she let everyone have a turn. When I say she "let" everyone, I mean it, it was hard for her to calm down, she loves this type of stuff!

Here they are, giving the basket to the Edwards, and what was inside???

Chocolate bunnies of course!!

Kermit (that dashingly handsome boy in the middle) got a bunny in a race car made of chocolate. How cute is that? It's much more masculine that a bunny with a pink bow and flower is what I say!

Hugs for our sweet sweet adopted Gramma and Grampa!

I love to decorate the night before Easter, and hide all the eggs and candy and all that, it is sooo fun. It is way funner than being in the ER all night.

Look at the happiness!!!

Jellybean art.

This was Rambo's idea.

Every now and then, that man has a good idea.

Easter morning!!!

We hid all the plastic eggs inside and all the hard-boiled ones outside.

We had a few casualties, but we managed.

FOUND ONE!!!

MOOOOOM, I CAN'T GET IT!

Smalls will help...

Never mind, just get them out of the plants.

Our fish made it without one single solitary crack.

Tink still will not let me "devil" it.

Now why is Kermit not out there finding eggs???

He CAUGHT us!!!

No, we were not doing that.

Rambo and I were hiding eggs and having a good old time, when Rambo hollers (at midnight in the backyard!!!) "ETHAN'S IN THE KITCHEN!!" And we hit the deck-not that it mattered, he had seen everything!!

So, the next morning, we talked about how it is impossible for a little bunny to come around and bring AND hide eggs and candy and baskets. They are just not capable of it, they need all their feet just to hop. Then we told him not to spoil it for the little girls, and he was like a pro! He got all into it, he talked about the Easter Bunny all day long, and how lucky we were that the bunny came to our house.

He can be quite the sweetheart. Love him.

"No, London, you cannot go to church like this."

That's better.

And still, she would not smile, just smirks, that's all I get out of her...what will I do when she's a teenager???

Daddy and his pretty girls. Check out Smalls, all the Easter candy you can handle still do not compare to the deliciousness of Goldfish crackers.

Yuck.

My HANDSOME men.

The sweetest Easter kiss EVER!

And that's a wrap!

Easter is really growing on me, I like it best of all so far.

the end

Dye Hard!

Dying eggs!

A major part of Easter weekend!

We love to dye eggs, I bought an 18 pack thinking my kids would get bored! No such luck.

I had to go buy another package of eggs last night-18 eggs, and we boiled and dyed them all!

Smalls was working diligently to make a purple egg.

Beautiful things happening here.

The whole scene-like my coke? That's not the only one I'll be having tonight...

These next ones were taken with my phone, I've never blogged phone pics before, so I'm sort of experimenting.

Tink and I had fun coloring all kinds of things on our eggs before dyeing them, we made a fish and a rainbow, and lots of flowers. Kermit made the earth. I'll do close ups tonight when I'm playing the part of the Bunny himself...

Now, onto the good stuff.

Sometime between this picture and the next, tragedy struck. Smalls tried to climb into our kitchen stool with Kermit, and it just didn't work out. She fell off the chair and bit a hole in her lip! It looked like it went all the way through! There were holes on the inside and holes on the outside- not at all what I pictured "dyeing egg night" to be!

Tink and Kermit started bawling, so it made Smalls more upset! And the whole time I'm hollering "EVERYBODY CALM DOWN!"

It was a very "Eastery" scene.

I needed to talk to Grandpa, he'd know what to do!

Kermit ran frantically through the house searching for the phone (and seriously folks-he looked like Kermit-arms flailing and everything.) He found the phone, and started chewing me out because I was "too calm" for the whole situation. I told him and Tink to just go make a special egg for Smalls, and they felt that was the greatest idea-yes, she needs an egg! and they set to work.

The thought of calling Grandpa was very intriguing to Smalls-she is such a Daddy/Grampa's girl, so she calmed down so I could talk. First call-we got Nana, who was very sympathetic and sweet, but said I should call Grampa. We called His phone and He was very sympathetic and very calming and told me to get Rambo's opinion, so I dialed Rambo, he said to call our family doc, and the family doc told us to go to the ER-yikes. I panicked, but just for a sec. I kept telling myself, "I can do this, I can do this, this is not hard, I will figure this out."

After making some phone calls to find many people out of town for Easter weekend, and panicking a little more-followed by a good pep talk to myself, I finally got a hold of my good friend Megan! She came over and sat with the kids while I took Smalls in.

THANK YOU MEGAN!

I tried taking a picture of her at one point to send to Grampa, and this is the best one I could get. She kept sucking all the blood off her mouth! GROSS!

When we got to the ER, she was super excited about the fishies in the waiting room, and she was happy to show anyone and everyone her "booboo", she was just a good little patient. Rambo came down from ICU to see us, and that lit Smalls up, she is so in love with him.

We had 2 nurses look at her and each one said it looked like she'd bitten all the way through, and then the doc came in and she got a good look at her and said that she had just bitten her lip with her top and bottom teeth, so it did not go all the way through! I was so relieved I started giggling, so Smalls started giggling.

So many of the staff came in to see her, it was so sweet. She sweetly said hello to each of them and pointed out her booboo with her sweetest sad face she could make.

It was quite a night! And Smalls was bushed! Here is her when we pulled into the driveway last night at 1 am.

Dyeing eggs should not be this hard, hopefully this is not the start of a new tradition.

Sweet little girl.

Hopefully the Easter Bunny can come tonight.

For Crying out loud in a BUCKET!!!

My friend Nettie. I love this girl, I have known her from the dawn of time (Sophomore English-Mr. Goate's class-same thing).

We had a great weekend with her and her girls, who happen to be the same ages as my girls! Exciting stuff!!!

We talked and ate, and talked and let our girls get filthy dirty in her fun FUN backyard. We baked cookies, and ate some more COMPLETE JUNK, and talked more, and laughed, and talked some more. We could talk till the cows came home, and they are not home yet.

Imagine that!

Our little girls took an on-line art class together, and it just so happens we got to be in an art show with all our creations. But before the art show, we had to HAD TO go to the tulip festival!

Here is all of that.

We arrived at the gardens, which are amazing! The tulips were not all even opened and still I was amazed-AMAZED!

There we go, girls on a mission. We were so prepared-well, Nette was. We had a picnic with all kinds of amazing yummy things, and we had the wagon for tired little 2-year olds, and we were ready. After we went potty, corralled all the girls, paid admission, checked cameras, and went into the gardens, this old stinker of a lady told us we would have to eat our food outside of the gardens-Whatever lady. So we had to haul all the little girls back out to the outside of the admission place and eat in the "front yard".

Here we are eating. I love that Tink is just chowing down, but Madelyn stops to give us her cute little smile. She's like a professional.

Eating in the front yard did not bother Izabel one bit.

SEE!!!

She was rather excited about the whole thing. I could have taken her home with me, I love this smile....LOVE IT!

How beautiful is this? I have never been here before-let alone for the tulip festival! It was gorgeous. I love that Tink ran ahead so she could pose for me. Doesn't this just look like little girl paradise?!

It is.

It totally is.

All that beautiful yellow! Again, Madelyn is the only one smiling for us. Love it!

How sweet is this? My favorite 5 year old and my favorite flowers, does it get any better?

I say no.

And what is that on her eyebrow you ask...no, I don't beat her (regularly) that is chocolate folks!

I love this picture. I love that Smalls just sat right down to be photographed. Tink took some coaxing, but how cute! And how about that necklace?! Her and Madelyn found a BFF necklace, and Madelyn got the cupcake half, while Tink got the lollipop, they are super cute little necklaces.

More of that...too sweet. I love Smalls.

And all the gang! I love that Tink is trying to do a heart on her face, she kills me. Smalls had been up walking around and when we said, "Come back and do a picture!" This is what we got. I love it! her and Izabel have the same idea of posing for pictures.

Here is the hill we climbed, and the girls rolled down it. Smalls went up the entire hill and then proceeded to climb the stairs. I had to run all the way up there to tell her to roll down it, and here's what I caught. It's a whole sequence, so stick with it.

How 'bout that? Did you feel it? Like you're just rolling. Good stuff.

This was just me and the babies. I loved it. They are on a bridge trying to find fishies. I think Izabel found one.

Here's all the babies on the bridge. I love this picture! I especially love the little girls trying to peek over the bridge. It's just all over the place PRECIOUS!

Here they are. I could just eat those 2 up! I love Izabel in this picture. And Madelyn and Tink are diligently looking for fish...go girls.

And Smalls in the rear. We had to say, "Come on little ducky." It worked in Moab and it's working here!

I love this picture. Their little pose cracks me up.

We are off the see the Secret Garden.

Wanna see what these cute little girls are looking at?

A GOOSE!!! There was a goose up there laying in her nest. The girls loved this!

Cute Aunt Nettie and Smalls on the fountain.

Izabel and Smalls kept shushing us all through the Secret Gardens, and saying, "Ssssshhh it's secret." I think it's the only time Smalls has ever whispered.

We got her to do her ssshhh face once more so I could take a picture of it.

The girls at the Italian gardens!

I love how Madelyn and Smalls are all posed and cute. Tink is just being Tink, and Izabel could care less about the camera, she wants to see the water!

The girls had to stop and put rocks in their pockets. Of course.

I love this picture. Look at that cute little bum! Don't you just want to pinch it!?

I did.

Okay, I loved these daffodils! They are so cute, they are miniature daffodils, they're only about the size of a silver dollar! I loved them! I will definitely be on the hunt for these bulbs in the fall! They made me so happy!

Here's how this picture went, "MADELYN! YOU GET UP HERE AND PICK THIS UP! For crying out loud in a bucket, you don't leave your trash on the ground!"

This is Nettie's signature phrase.

Me and my ladies at the waterfalls.

Crazy girls. I love them

And they're mine all mine!!!

If you need these pictures as your wallpaper, I understand.

Had to stop and throw rocks in the pond.

I love this. Everything the big girls would do, the little ones would try. Look at Smalls holding on for dear life, but she did it. She proudly announced it too, "I DID IT MAMA!"

Izabel was done, she wanted to push the wagon.

This whole scene...I loved it. Nettie trying to take Izabel's picture while she's walking along, looking at the brochure/map thing. It was just cute. And our big girls sitting on the bench like such ladies.

I loved these daffodils too, they look like they have tissue paper in their centers. I would have missed them entirely if Nette hadn't pointed them out. I was on Aubrey duty, that girl would have run to freeway if I didn't chase her, she was all over the place.

Pretty, pretty, pretty.

And now, onto the

ART SHOW!!!

First of all, this was Smalls favorite painting for obvious reasons, she got to drive her cars through it (it was a whole section on texture). They kids got to show their favorite painting and talk about it at the show, this was Smalls fav.

And here's her table! It turned out cute cute cute.

When Smalls got to present her painting, she was not one bit afraid. She held it up and I asked her why she liked this one, and she said, "This one was my caars."

I was beaming.

Here was Tink's table. I love that we got yellow! Her table was so happy and cute.

This is as posed as Smalls would get, don't you love her mustache of frosting? I do, it just makes her all the more delicious!

And Tink. We started out this night on a bad foot. She was not a happy camper poor thing. She threw a fit of epic proportions about having to change into her happy yellow dress. And after I allowed her to live...yikes-and threw a cookie or 3 at her, we were ready to go. She happied up and we did have a good night.

Here she is with her favorite painting, and a smile.

Or was it this one? I can't remember, I liked all of them, she's such an artist.

Thank you Aunt Nettie for letting us stay with you!

In high school, we always said we would have sleepovers as mommies, and she and I actually do it! I love her more than my luggage, and I'm so happy we are friends forever!

Smalls keeps asking me to go to Madelyn's house!

Can't wait to see you again in May!