Easter Weekend

Well we are back home and the laundry is going, the kitchen is a mess, and mommy has alot of work ahead of her today . It was a great Easter Weekend in Ohio, Saturday the weather was just beautiful!! The kids even got to find Easter eggs outside. Saturday was Nate's side of the family, its amazing how much the family has grown it such a short amount of time!! Grandma & Grandpa's house was filled with noise.

On Saturday, Lily and Mommy also went to go visit my grandma Aggie in the nursing home. She doesn't recognize us and isn't quite herself anymore, but she sure enjoyed spending time with her great granddaughter Lily! At the end she was even telling the nurses that Lily was her great granddaughter!! It was great to see grandma smiling and in a good mood.

Easter Morning was quite exciting for the kids, I believe Xavier woke up everyone upstairs when he saw what the Easter bunny brought!! His ultimate gift was the first three dvds of Star Wars!! All the kids got flip flops, sunglasses, jellybeans and Peter Rabbit chocolate Easter bunny.

{the loot}

{Rosetta, Lily, Megan, and Jack}

{Lily and her cousin Jack}

Mommy had everyone showered, dressed, and dolled up for church. Boy was that exhausting!!! But I think we make a cute family!!

{the kids with Grandma and Grandpa Blankemeyer}

{Rosetta and Mason-- she wants to babysit sooo bad!!}

{what a doll!!!}

Lincoln on his Easter egg hunt. He did not want to come inside after the Easter egg hunt, he is Mr. Independent.

Awww... so cute!!!

He is in search of an egg!

Faith had a good time hiding the Easter eggs again and again for the kids to find!

{Rosetta and her Cousin Faith-- they got along really well at Easter and I think they wore each other out!}

{where's my eggs at mom!! -- wait till next year she will be ready to find them!}

Lincoln and cousin Jacob needed a breather after the egg hunt.

Look at these cuties!!! {Lily and Mason}

Nate got a little Mason time -- now that I think about it I don't think I even got to hold the little man. I am going to have to get double time next time we are home!

This is what it looks like on the way home.

Coming off a sugar high.

Way Way too much excitement.

The lull of the rain putting everyone asleep.

Mommy's blissful time!

We stopped at a McDonalds that overlooks I-80 -- it was really neat. We have never stopped there before, maybe because it is the most overpriced gas stop around!! $4.29/gallon

We are now home..... time to get to work.

I wish there was more time...

more time for everything... more time for family, more time for sleeping, more time to watch the kids grow up..more time for spending it with my children...time is going by way to fast..it seems to be going by much faster as I am getting older. Is anyone else feeling like this? These are the moments that melt my heart... daddy playing with the kids. He got suckered into the playdoh chaos that overcame our house on saturday.

They were making all kinds of cakes, cookies, and ice cream cones!!! On sunday we had the kids AWANA awards ceremony. The two younger kids got a picture with Cubbie Bear. We are so proud of Rosetta, Glorianna, and Xavier for doing so well.

The kids enjoyed the weekend... we had a blast and it just went too fast.

Here comes peter cottontail

We are all ready for Easter!! The kids are ready for 24 hours of too much sugar, jelly beans, chocolate Easter bunnies, Easter egg hunts, and seeing family. We went to go see the movie "Hop" at the movie theater on Friday and the kids loved it. "E.B" Easter bunny for short was a funny bunny who poops jelly beans. You could hear Xavier's laugh as loud as could be when that happened on the screen. The best thing was when the kids got home from the movie and were palying upstairs I heard all the kids yell "mommy come here quick!" I was hoping no one was hurt, but out in the yard was a bunny and they were all jumnping up and down in excitement. It was priceless!!!

Mommy is the middle of packing and making sure we have everything for the trip, but I couldn't resist getting an impromptu photo session in the kids bunny ears. It might be a little hectic on Sunday and I didn't want to miss the beautiful sunshine that lasted on a fraction of a day yesterday. We will be "hopping" home to Ohio soon....

Hello Spring!!!

Has it been that long since I last blogged? Seriously I always tell myself I am not going to wait that long to blog and then 2 weeks go by... ugh! So last weekend we decided very last minute to go home to be with family during a rough time. It was my first car adventure with all four kiddos and I couldn't ask for it to go any smoother -- oh I guess it would be awesome it someone else would have drove the entire 9 hour trip but that is asking too MUCH! {Grandma Judy with mason and lily} It was grat to see the little babies that are growing up way too fast. Mason and Jack have changed so much since the last time we saw them. {Aunt Kathy and Mason}

{ 5 months old }

Mason is so laid back compared to miss lily who doesn't sit still!!

Glorianna surprised me on monday morning. She brought up an 100 piece puzzle and said she wanted to do it. I was not so excited because this means mom will be doing the puzzle but to my amazement she didn't want mommy to help! She did the entire puzzle with help from mom for maybe 10 pieces!! Daddy thinks this assures him an engineer in the family! ;-)

{grandma Judy reading a book to the kids}

When Cat in the Hat is on there is no distracting these 4!

We made it back to Iowa without a hitch only stopping one time -- mommy wanted to get home really bad and the kids weren't complaining! On Wednesday we took the kids over to Amber and Colt's house to celebrate his 2nd birthday!! The weather is turning so nice they even got to play outside in Colt's new sandbox. {xavier having a blast in the sandbox}

{daddy and lily}

This was lily's first adventure in the grass. I think I see lots of grass and dirt in her mouth in the future... LOL.

The kids were so full of energy with the warm weather we had. Here is xavier doing his signature handstand, and if you haven't seen him do it the next time ask him to walk on his hands. He is just so athletic.

This weekend we were able to be outside in wonderfully warm weather. I even heard the kdis say it was TOO HOT!

We got the squirt guns out and cooled off.

{glorianna}

There were lots of stroller rides in the last week. Lily is just a content little baby in the stroller and usually falls asleep.

Of course mommy wanted to be in the pictures too!!! Lily just loves to see herself in the mirror and touch her own hand.... so fascinated by the girl on the other side.

We enjoyed a cookout with some friends last night and Lily's buddy Brody came over to play -- aka look at each other! hahaha

And on saturday night we went over to our friends the Carter's to watch tangled. Lily got to see her friend Cullen.

{Cullen checking out Lily's face!}