Chris' Birthday

Chris had his birthday at the beginning of the month while his parents were here (we got to go to Mexico while they watched our children). I am 3 weeks older than Chris, so for those 3 weeks, he LOVES to talk about being married to an "older woman". I decided to get my revenge and put the "40" candles on his cake (he is only 36). Needless to say, he was not amused, but his mom loved it.

All the kids with their dad.

Hailey and Alyssa making use of one of the boxes...I know what they are getting for their next birthdays!

Poor sick girl

We are in the throes of sickness at our house. I stayed home from church with 3 of my feverish, flu-ridden children. I was sitting next to Alyssa on our big chair when I realized she had completely fallen asleep. Poor girl is just not feeling well at all.

Little helper

One night after dinner, it was Hailey's job to clear the table. As she was wiping it off, I saw Alyssa run towards the bathroom. I didn't think too much of it until she came back with a HUGE wad of toilet paper and started wiping off the table with it. At least she's helping (I guess).

The other half of the wad is on the floor and out of sight.

Carter turns 11

Today is Carter's birthday. I think that as your oldest gets older, it's hard to watch them grow up. I can't believe he's already 11!! He's turning into such a fantastic person and it's amazing to see the person he's becoming.

He opted out of cake and instead ordered brownie sundaes. He really took advantage and loaded up his bowl knowing this is one of the few times his mother wouldn't give him a hard time about how much sugar he was eating.

Carter and his gifts. He got several Scout things (including a sleeping bag) in order to get ready for some big campouts next year.

The Cubs jersey and the glasses were from my parents. Baseball is a passion of his and it's fun to watch him play and get interested in all of the stats. He plays for the White Sox-something he's embarrassed to admit-he would much rather be a Cub! Last weekend he got to stay in a hotel with Chris and go to a Cubs game to celebrates birthday. Then, we celebrated as a family on Sunday which turned out to be fortuitous because he is home sick today with a fever, sick stomach and sore throat. Poor kid has felt miserable all day. Happy birthday buddy!

Easter 2011

We celebrated Easter this year in between rain and thunder storms.

Grant with his basket after he found all of his eggs.

Chris and Carter trying out our new technique. After boiling the eggs, we used crayons to decorate the eggs. The crayons melted and made for some cool decorating.

Andrew with his "diver" egg. They had a lot of fun playing with the eggs after making them.

Hailey and Chris with their eggs. Hailey's was a girl egg with braids and Chris' was a pirate. I was a little concerned when Hailey wanted her egg to be married to Chris'. When she finally put them in the refrigerator, she said they were in there kissing. I said that her egg was trying to reform the pirate. :)

Andrew finding his eggs outside.

Cute Hailey

Alyssa was so funny once she realized what we were doing. She was ecstatic about finding these eggs (especially the plastic ones with jelly beans!)

Funny Alyssa

I just have a couple of pictures of Alyssa that I thought were cute.

She discovered that she could fit into our cabinet and play peek-a-boo. Hours of entertainment.

She was totally out tonight-gone. It took awhile to wake her up.

I'm working on giving her more independence and let her feed herself some pudding. Big mistake.

Conference tents part 2

I'm a little late in posting, but we had another positive Conference experience with the tents. The candy sure helped too.