Early Easter Egg Hunt

Look at these girls. Can you tell they're excited to go Easter egg hunting! So cute!

Mandy and Ellie invited us to the Easter egg hunt at her club on Sunday and we had a blast! When they say it's over in minutes, they mean it! The whole gym was covered in eggs and balloons and the hunt was over in probably less than 3 minutes! Wow, lots of fun though...

and lots of running around and giggling.

After all the eggs were collected, they were on to balloon fun.

Such sweet girls to stand with their moms. :)

And then we had to open all the eggs and find out what wonderful treasures we collected!

Then we had a delicious pancake breakfast with strawberries and chocolate chips, yum!

Look at this sweet little man. I think this is his first time sitting in the grass and he loves it!

And the girls loved the Easter crafts. Look at how concentrated they are, too cute.

And here's my attempt at getting a cute shot of both of them together. Well, kind of cute. All in all, we had a wonderful day and the weather was beautiful. I think it got up to 85 at our house! Summer is just around the corner!!

St. Patty's Day!!

Our wonderful neighbors Matt and Susan had some of the neighborhood over for a St. Patty's Day party. That meant we got to use our wagon and walk there with all the necessities. :) (Love the back view of the wagon with the beer!)

Not quite the days of bar hopping downtown but much more fun...

Here are some of the ladies with babies. (yes, that's Ty in Leslie's arms)

And after the delicious meal of appetizers, corned beef and cabbage, potatoes and salad, we all enjoyed brownies and St. Patty's Day cookies, yum!

We were actually able to convince all the children to sit for a photo. Is this the cutest shot you've ever seen?! I love it!

And here's Tatum with her new friend, 2 yr old Addison. They are just precious!

We all did a wonderful job sporting green. :)

And while the parents gabbed away, the kids all enjoyed games like Dance Idol (using the car radio) and hide and seek. Here are the littler girls doing the counting, too cute! :) This was a much better celebration than another drunk St. Patty's Day at the bar. Hope we make it a new tradition. :)

Busy weeks

We have had quite a busy few weeks. Here are just the hi lights! First, Ellie's birthday where the girls (Tatum, Ellie and Ramey) played games,...

jumped on the trampoline...

and decorated cupcakes after eating a delicious and nutritious lunch. What more could you ask for at a birthday party?!

I only put this pic in because Tatum's hair is a crack up. She hates to have me put water on her hair in the morning so if that's the case, she needs to put it up in a ponytail. Or we're left with a fro that you see in the picture above. Where did this curly hair come from?!

And here's my little 7 monther. Ty is the BEST little baby, always smiling, happy to sit and wait his turn (which with Tatum, is always last) and loves to give kisses. He loves to wave, loves to sit and play with his toys, loves to chew on everything, and he has his first tooth! I think it's just one but it's hard to get in there and see. He's growing so fast, it's unbelievable and a bit sad for me since this is our last little baby. He's been slowing down on the nursing which is sad as well because it's the end of an era. Oh, my little man, I love you!

And Tatum is a wonderful big sister. It's an adjustment for her but she's trying and such a great helper.

On Sunday we headed out to the Carlsbad Flower Fields and it was so fun! So many flowers and things to look at and do, a fun day.

Tatum loved smelling all the plants.

But it was hard to get a good picture with everyone looking at the same time. :)

They've set up a play area with the old Santa's Village stuff from Big Bear. Oh the memories!

The mushroom huggers. :)

We met Matt, Erica and baby Jack out there as well. Thank goodness Matt was nice enough to give Tatum a ride, it was quite a walk out to the fields.

Part of the reason we went out to the flower fields was to get some good shots in the flowers, just like the ones they show on their web site. Apparently, those are only available for a very high price through a photographer on site. Otherwise, you get to crouch down in a muddy ditch and sit next to the yellow tape to get a picture of the flowers. :( Not quite as I had imagined.

Here are the two boys. Only 5 months apart so they're sure to be BFFs!

And lastly, Garrett's birthday. He had gone out with the neighbors the night before so he was hurting a bit the morning of his birthday. We made him a yummy birthday breakfast and then we all wore birthday hats as he opened his presents. Later that day, Tatum and I made him cherry cheesecake cupcakes which we all enjoyed later that night. Happy Birthday honey!

It should be called Ice Draining!

First off, on a better note, here's Ty enjoying a highchair at the mall. This was technically his second highchair experience since the first one was at Claim Jumper and I'd forgotten the camera. I'm not quite as on top of things as I was with the first one. :)

He also enjoys the rice puff stars! They work wonders keeping him busy and quiet. And after one try, he figured out how to get them in his mouth! So much more coordinated than others in this house. :)

So Julie and I decided to attempt ice skating with the kids on Sunday. Correction, we were going to go Saturday but after I had talked endlessly about it that day, we got to the skate rink at 4 and it had just closed. :) So we were back again on Sunday and after waiting in quite a long line, we were in, skates on and ready to go. See those smiles on our faces? We had NO IDEA what we were in for. :)

Here's one of the many photos that didn't turn out too well since there's plastic around the whole rink and it's hard to take pictures through. This is also one of the rare moments Tatum was not between my legs. For the most part, she stood in between my legs, my hands under her arms and her feet shooting out in every direction. Both Julie and I were in UTTER pain due to the horrible skates and being bent over, dragging our children around the rink. This smile is ALL for the camera. :) I don't know if the video link will work below but if so, you will see a small glimpse of what I'm talking about. And please note the look on my face at the end of the video, that's true feeling. :) Anyway, the event ended when we got half way around on our second lap and Tatum fell. I guess it caught her off guard because she said she had to pee and I said we had to get around the rest of the rink to get out so we could get to the bathroom. She said no, I DID pee. WHAT?! Oh yeah, on the ice people! Thank goodness she was wearing thick jeans and a few layers, not much trickled out onto the ice. But that was the end of that and we don't have any plans in going back anytime soon. :)

Tatum's new camera

Tatum LOVES to take pictures and was always trying to steal my camera, so she got her own for her birthday! She's still trying to get the hang of it but here are a few of the 124 pictures that she's taken that were actually good enough to put on here. As you can see, some of us are NOT a fan of being photographed... :)

but otheres are fine with it. Like this gorilla at the zoo...

or this bench. Who doesn't need a picture of a random bench? :)

This was at the Wild Animal Park.

And this was a self portrait. But, unlike her mom who is notorious for self portraits, I believe this one was due to holding the camera backwards. :)

Daddy working in the front yard.

Oh, here's one of those self portraits of Mommy. We were playing dress up and I thought my crown / head piece was quite beautiful. :)

Here's the princess blowing kisses to all her fans. :)

And here's her biggest fan. And I mean that in love, not in size. :) We need lots of work on our aiming but she might just be a famous photographer one day.