Easter Sunday

After a really fun day at Nana and Papas, we headed home late and got the kids right to bed. Luckily we set out the easter baskets and eggs for the easter bunny to fill and hide that night. With some advanced planning, we're sure the easter bunny wasn't up too late getting things set out and eggs hidden.

Despite the late hour we got them to bed, Zach was still up at 7am on the dot and had a hard time waiting for his sister to wake up. We finally gave in to his complaining around 8am and woke her up to head downstairs to see what the easter bunny had left.

Zach was delighted with his new set of legos and easter basket full of a book, movie, socks, mp3 player, and lots of candy!



Hailey was all smiles at her new doll stroller (she literally wore her old one out!) and easter basket full of the same things as Zach, all pink and girl-themed of course!



Jeremiah and I didn't want the easter bunny to have all the fun, so we bought the kids a few things too. A hula hoop and packet of $5 McDonald's gift certificates were also a hit. Here are the kids with their hula hoops.


They absolutely loved them! Who would have thought a hula hoop from the dollar store would have been such a hit? They both immediately started hula hooping around - Zach had the right idea and go better and better with each try. As for Hailey, she really tried hard, but did more of a body shake while holding on to the hula hoop. It was really cute, so I got them both to do it together while I took a quick video, so that I could post it for you all to see.



After some pretty heavy hula hooping, the kids finally noticed the easter eggs scattered around the family room. So they grabbed their easter baskets and started gathering up the eggs the easter bunny left them. We left out sports eggs for Zach and eggs with flowers, squiggles, and stripes for Hailey, so they were easy to keep separate.

They ran around the room giggling as they found eggs is random places. Here's Hailey showing me an egg she found by the computer desk.


And here's Zach showing me an egg he found over on the bookshelf.


Zach thought he made quite the haul with his 16 eggs - he remembered from last year that the easter bunny puts candy in the eggs, so he was quick to share this with his sister and began opening up his eggs to discover all the candy.


After finding all 16 eggs, Hailey was more than happy. She got even more excited when she found out from her brother that each egg had candy in it!


Between all the candy and treats from the previous days Easter Party and with what the easter bunny left them, we have candy coming out our ears! But the kids are enjoying it all. We sure had a fun easter and can't wait for the holiday to come around again!

Hope you all had a very HAPPY EASTER!

Easter Party

This year to celebrate Easter, Nana and Papa had a big Easter Party at their house on Saturday. With all the grandkids (and their parents), it was a full house, but a really fun time. Nana had all sorts of activities planned for the kids.

After lunch, we started out the festivities with breaking a pinata. Here are all the kids eagerly awaiting their turn to have a whack at the egg pinata.


It was decided that it would be best to take turns youngest to oldest, to make sure everyone got a turn. Here's Hailey taking her turn - I have to admit that this girls got good aim - she hit the egg time and time again as she swung the bat around.


Here's Zach on his turn. He had that thing spinning and was whacking the egg so hard that I was sure he was going to break it before the last grandchild had a turn. We had to stop him fairly quickly as we saw cracks start to become visible on the outside. Another whack or two and he would have opened it up - a few years of recreation baseball really makes a difference!


As predicted, a few whacks from the oldest grandkid and the egg burst open showering the ground with a whole TON of candy. The kids were all giggling as they raced to pick it all up and put it into their easter basekts.


After the pinata activity, the kids headed out back to find easter eggs. Nana had certain eggs for each child to find, so I was busy trying to help Hailey find her specific eggs and didn't get a chance to get any pictures. After 4 special eggs that were turned into prizes and 14 other eggs filled with candy, they made quite the haul.

Next the kids headed back out front to play the bunny bean bag toss that Uncle Bubby and Afton had made for them. Zach was really great and got the bean bags through the holes in the cardboard almost every time.


Hailey did pretty good too - I would say she made it more than half the time - not bad for a 4 year old!


While the kids were playing with the bean bag toss, Nana was busy getting stuff ready for cupcake decorating. All it took was one call of all the kids and they ran in from outside to decorate their cupcakes. I think there was more eating of the frosting and candy than there was decorating, but each of the kids came away with at least 2 or 3 cupcakes a piece.



Next they made some candy carrots. They filled carrot shaped bags with candy and tied them off to look like carrots. They turned out really cute. After that, all the kids settled down in the family room to watch a movie while us adults rested a little bit. When the kids got restless, Nana pulled out all of the egg coloring supplies and we all helped the kids color and put stickers on hard boiled eggs. I had meant to get pictures of these last few activities, but my hands were busy almost every second, so I didn't get any to post. But let me tell you, the kids had an absolute BLAST doing all the easter activities and playing with their cousins. It sure was a fun day and they are still talking about how much fun they had!

Thanks Nana and Papa for a really fun Easter Party!

Ridin' Around

The weather has been really warm the last little while and it couldn't have come at a better time. The kids have had cabin fever really bad this year and have been aching to get outside to play and ride their new bikes they got for Christmas. It has been fun to watch them ride up and down the street and into our little cul-de-sac.

Hailey got a new princess bike for Christmas, complete with training wheels (which she doesn't exactly love), pink paint, and the little frillies hanging off the handle bars. She loves to ride around and I'm sure it won't be long before we have those training wheels off - she's just sure that she's old enough and can handle her bike without them.


Zach got a new big boy bike for Christmas and absolutely loves it. Even though he rode his old bike without training wheels, he thinks this new one is really spiffy - he loves the green color and assures me that he goes much faster on this one than his old bike.


The two of them also take time to ride their scooter while they're outside too. Even though they've had them since Christmas of 2008, they still love them.


Zach can ride his scooter much faster than I think anyone his age should, but he's amazed me with how much control and reaction quickness he has.


Hailey of course loves her princess scooter. She just can't get enough of pink! I'm grateful for the 3 wheels on her scooter since she tends to pay more attention to what's going on around her then to where she's going sometimes!


Of course their favorite thing about riding their bikes is when their dad is home and comes out to ride his bike with them.


They usually go for a longer ride down the side street (which I don't let them do when they are by themselves) when Dad goes with them. They are definitely quite the trio to see riding down the street!


And of course I couldn't help but post a few videos of the kids riding their bikes. This first one is of Zach riding his bike super fast to show Uncle Taylor:



And here's one of Hailey - this isn't the best video, but you can see that she really is good at riding her little bike!



It's ironic that I'm finally finding time to post these pictures today - they were actually taken last Saturday - of course today it's snowing and it seems like the winter is never going to end! Hopefully today is one of the last snowstorms of the year because we are all anxious to be outside more and riding around on bikes and scooters!

Best Dressed Kids

I just had to take a picture of Zach in his new suit on Sunday. He was so excited about wearing it. He kept telling us he wanted a suit for his birthday - just like his Dad's. So after searching for the right color and size, we were able to find one. I have to tell you that he looked so sharp! In fact, as soon as we got it on, he wanted to head right over to the church to show his Dad who was in morning church meetings. Luckily, it was only about a 15 minute wait until it was time for us to head over and he ran right to his Dad to show him how he looked.

Doesn't he look sharp? Once he saw himself in the mirror, he said "I look just like a missionary - just like Uncle Taylor!" His uncle is currently serving a mission in Oklahoma City and he thought he looked just like him. I couldn't help but smile.


And Hailey was feeling left out, so we had to take a picture of her too - what a cutie!


And since I promised Nana, here's a picture of her jumper that you wanted to see. This was from the previous Sunday.


I have to say that I have the best looking kids around. Aren't the good looking and cute? I sure think so!

Zach's Birthday Celebration - Round 2!

Since we decided to wait until the weekend to celebrate Zach's birthday with family, it was like having a whole other birthday - dinner, presents, and cake/ice cream a second time - who wouldn't be happy about that?

I didn't get any pictures because I was busy cooking, but Zach wanted pancakes for his birthday dinner. Not the typical dinner you serve to everyone at a party, but everyone was a really good sport and Zach was ecstatic to have what is currently one of his favorite meals. He must have been happy, because he ate 4 big pancakes all on his own!

After dinner and some playing, we opened presents. He got ...

A new Uno game from Aunt Holli, Uncle Jon, Jacob, Jackson, Jocelyn, and Mylee ...


A new Trouble game from his sister Hailey ...


A new set of sheets, some legos, and some party poppers from his Nana and Papa ...


A cubs shirt from Uncle Jedd and Aunt Awa (Kylie) ...


A nerf target/gun set from Aunt Afton and Uncle Bubby (Michael) ...


And a new soccer ball, suit, and white shirt from Jeremiah and I. Here he is with all his loot - boy did he score big time!


After presents, we did cake and ice cream. I wasn't very creative in his cake this year, but he was more than happy with all the green. He had a white cake with sprinkles, green frosting, and blue and green lettering with blue and green candles on top.


It wasn't fancy, but he was happy, so that's all that matters.


Make a wish!


It was a great time. Thanks to all who braved the weather to come down - it made Zach's birthday really special. We hope all the swirling snow didn't slow you down too much on your way home! I think we're jinxed when it comes to weather and having people down to celebrate birthdays. On Hailey's birthday, there was a terrible snow storm and it made all of the travelers be in their cars almost twice as long as normal. I guess that comes with birthdays at our house! Thanks everybody for making his birthday special!

Someone at our house turned 7 years old!

That's right - look out world, there's a new 7 year old on the loose. Yesterday was Zach's 7th birthday and boy was he excited. He's been counting down the days for the last 2 weeks and he never thought it was going to come!

We started off the day with a fun breakfast - green crepes! You might remember from Hailey's birthday post in December that we had pink pancakes for breakfast. Well, back then Zach told me he wanted green crepes on his birthday and although he forgot all about it, I didn't. It was a fun surprise and he loved it!


Here's the birthday boy - completely happy with his green crepe breakfast!


Both Zach and Hailey had fun eating green food - they thought it was quite a neat experience.


At school, the birthday child gets to wear a crown all day with their name on it. Here's Zach's crown from school.


He also came home with a birthday book and a birthday certificate from his teacher wishing him a happy birthday.


Here are a few more close-ups of this birthday train. It's quite a fun a idea. He colors the train engine and then all of his classmates color a car that gets stapled to the train. It was really fun to see some of the pictures and notes that his class did for him. He really loved it!



After school and a quick round of homework, we decided to take Zach to a new place to eat. It was called Pirate Island and was so much fun! I meant to take some pictures of the neat decor, but it was really dark and I didn't want my flash going off and bothering the other customers, so I decided against it. But it sure was fun. When you first walk in, you see a pirate display with a skeleton, treasure chest, etc. surrounded by a moat of water. The whole place looks like the inside of a pirate cave and it's really neat. They also have almost a full scale model of a pirate ship. Once we were seated, the kids were enthralled with their kids menus, which happened to be pirate hats.


And what would be a pirate dinner without each child saying "arrgh!" - too cute!



They even had an arcade where you could play games. We thought about staying and playing there, but decided to move on to the Nickel Arcade we had been planning to go to since we figured we could play a bunch more games at the cheaper price.

The kids were a little bit upset figuring the new place couldn't possibly be as neat as the last place, but when we walked in the door, they were completely happy. So we set off playing driving games ...


motorcycle games ...


skeeball (where Hailey threw more of her balls in Zachary's lane than her own - hilarious!) ...


and air hockey. Of course, there was much, much more that I didn't get pictures of.


We ended up staying and playing for an hour and a half - much longer than I thought they'd last. In fact, if it hadn't been so late in the evening, they could have played much longer. They even won a bunch of tickets for playing the games and each came home with a couple of prizes.

On the way home, Dad decided we needed to stop and get a little treat, so we stopped at Macey's to get an ice cream cone. If you haven't been to Macey's and see the size of their ice cream cones, then it's definitely worth the trip. The cones that the kids are eating are their small size and are only 47 cents. The kids loved them - Hailey ate almost all of hers and Zach ate all of his plus the rest of Hailey's!


When we got home, the fun still wasn't over. Since we are having a family birthday party on Saturday, we decided to split up his gifts and give him half last night and half on Saturday. So we let him open 3 of our gifts and the gifts he got from his Nana and Papa in California.


Hailey was so excited to give him her gift - she picked it out all by herself. It's a lego set that makes a helicopter, boat, and airplane - something he's been saying he's wanted for a long time.


Here are the gifts he got from Nana and Papa in California - a fun new game, movie, and rocket balloons (thanks for that last one, by the way).


And here are the gifts he opened from us - the lego set from Hailey, a new leapster dinosaur game, and a new color wonder market set (both from Mom and Dad).


We were late getting to bed, which we tried to avoid since he had school today, but it was worth it. He had a wonderful time and could not stop smiling the entire night. And it's not over, we have more festivities and presents coming up on Saturday, so I'll be sure to take more pictures and post them.

Happy Birthday Zach - WE LOVE YOU!