Family Pictures

Since we are very rarely ever all dressed up and in similar colors for that matter, I thought that we should try to get a few pictures together. . .

brothers

max (10)

sam (9)

lucy (6)

the girls

me and my man

we finally got my cousin to take a picture of the whole family

. . . well, we tried

It is hard to get a picture of all 5 of us smiling and looking fairly decent. 

This is actually pretty good for us!

Easter Morning!

Alleluia!

Before I get to the Eggs and Baskets, I want to touch on the real reason for this holiday.   Holy week was very touching for me this year.  I am so lucky to work at a Catholic School where I not only get to talk about my faith, but I get to celebrate it daily with a group of 10 and 11 year olds (as well as co-workers) that are filled with an amazing faith of thier own.  I love that I get to play a part in making Holy Week a meaningful time for my students and me, and its all part of  a days work!

. . .and now to the eggs and baskets :)

Lucy's basket after the egg hunt through our house!

Believe it or not, Max has talked me into adopting this little kitten.

Those that know me well, know that I am not an animal lover and especially not a cat lover.  How could anyone resist this little face though?

Max named him "Midnight" and he is so excited to bring him home from the Hakalas for good very soon.

Max and Sam with Midnight in his new kitten bed.

I went over to Christy's house early Easter morning and picked Midnight up for a little visit with his new family.  We brought him back a few hours later,  he still needs to be with his Cat Mommy for a little while longer.

Max was so excited to wake up to see his new kitten!

Sam has been really into Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ever since he spent the night at Ellie and Jack's a few weeks ago.  All he wanted for Easter were some Turtle action figures. Lets just say that the bunny looked EVERYWHERE, including ebay, and couldn't find them anywhere.  Luckily he seemed just as happy with this costume.

Lucy got a Zhu Zhu pet. 

She was so excited!

The kitty liked the Zhu Zhu pet too, we were all just cracking up watching midnight play with it and chase it around.

My three kiddos on a happy Easter Morning, we are so blessed!

P.S. Pancho and I were both there, I just tried to keep our "we just woke up" look off of the Blog for all to see.

Making Cookies and Decorating Eggs!

Lets start with the first question that you may have when you look at these pictures.

Yes, Lucy has a black eye (she likes to call it a red eye).

She was running and playing outside with her brothers, she had one of Sam's "home made" light saber's in her hands as she was running down the street with it.  She accidentally planted it in the ground and ran right into the other end of it (OUCH!). The end of it went right into her eye!  Luckily, she is very tough, and was over it and back outside playing within 5 or 10 minutes.

Every year, we dye eggs and make easter sugar cookies.  I must admit that in past years, I have made cookies and frosting from scratch.  With my busy schedule this year, I switched it up a little bit.  The kids seemed to enjoy store bought "all you have to do is slice and cook" cookies just as much.  We put some food coloring in a jar of frosting and we had an afternoon of fun!

Some of their masterpieces!

 

As I was watching the oven and baking batch after batch of cookies, the kids were all decorating away . . . kids meaning Pancho too!

frosting + food coloring + sprinkles = FUN!

A cookie and a black eye, what a combination!

The Next Day

. . . and now for the Easter Eggs!

The boys got a kit that had everything they needed to make their eggs look like little monsters . . . very fitting!  They had a lot of fun making these little guys.

Max's Monster and  Dog

Good job Max

 

Lucy preffered to make cute little eggs covered in stickers!

Sam's favorite was this little dog that he made!

Meeting up with Friends . . .

We raced back from Sunriver to meet up with some of my very best friends for a Spring Break playtime at Putters.  It is always so much fun for me and my kids to meet up with this awesome group!

Me, Christy, Liz and Leticia

friends for many years, so many memories between us

. . . and our offspring!

We have a whopping 12 kids between us!

Natalie (oldest) and Geneveive (youngest) are missing from this picture and we have an added friend of Gabrielle's, but we captured most of the kids in this picture.

These kids are almost like cousins, they have known eachother since birth!

. . .still in Sunriver, park and sledding on the last day!

Ok, I know that there are only so many Sunriver pictures a person can take, but can I help it if I love pictures of my family having so much fun together?  I find that I am enjoying my family vacation time even more now that I am working full time.  Every minute is so precious and every memory so important to me.

Lucy is so proud of her new found ability on the monkey bars.

She tells me that she practices every day at  school.

Sam was loving the park, a great place to let that ADD go wild!

Lucy waving at me from the very cool Merry Go Round.

Daddy pushing Sam on the swing

Sam was the main "pusher" of the Merry Go Round, the little kids loved him!

I tried to push the kids on the tire swing . . .

. . . but Daddy did a much better job!

What a beautiful day!

We had such perfect weather while we were there!

Me and two of my favorite people

(Max was skiing with the Franssens on this day, we missed him)

Sledding . . . So fun!!!!

I must admit, I was having an absolute BLAST sledding with my family!

Max had just finished skiing all day, he was a bit tired.

Father / Daughter snow angles . . .

so cute!

We couldn't have asked for more perfect weather.

The boys had a crash landing.

Sam and I were tied for the most enthusiastic sledders,

We both went up and down that hill at least 30 times.

 I got my workout that day, but it was so much fun!

Sam liked the crash and burn at the end the best!

We were sledding after the mountain had closed, but it looked so beautiful that I had to take a picture.

Lucy had to wear my gloves because hers got too wet.

Like I said, I was having a little too much fun for a 40 year old Mom.

Sam even tried surfing!

One last beautiful picture . . .