Easter 2011

Easter was very simple for us this year. We stayed home and colored eggs a couple days before Easter. The kids LOVE dying eggs, who doesn't? We were having so much fun I even dyed a couple of my un-hard boiled eggs. I didn't taste any vinegar when I cooked them but the kids had to be very careful with them. Hunter had to dye use all the colors. This is the first year he had enough patience to let the eggs sit in the dye a long time so the colors were dark and beautiful.

Kora was insistent on using the little plastic covering on the eggs but I think I bought too big of eggs and the plastic cover didn't fit.

Mylie had a great time dying eggs and was the first one done with her batch of eggs. Although, when she realized there were no more eggs for her to dye she asked for her eggs back and put them in different colors. She had a lot of brownish/green eggs but had a great time so there was no harm.

Because we had 9 o'clock church we decided to do the Egg Hunt AFTER church. Because we were waiting until after church we told the Easter Bunny to hide the eggs outside so the kids wouldn't get tempted with the eggs hidden inside the house (like we normally do). This turned out to not be the best idea we have ever had. Because the new plastic Easter eggs have little holes on the tops and bottoms most of the eggs got invaded by ants. I guess it wasn't so bad because that just meant less sugar for the kids. It was a fun day. The bottom picture was the only picture I got of the kids in their Easter clothes. Kelly's mom made the dresses. I just LOVE the fabric. They turned out adorable. Because the kids were anxious to hunt for eggs they weren't in the mood to pose for too many pictures. I'm just lucky I got this one.

Cousin Fun

I cannot believe I forgot to post about this. Kelly's Sister, Becky came to visit with her family a few weeks ago in March. The kids just LOVE their cousins and have such a fun time playing with them. So, when any of their cousins come to visit they are in heaven. It's sad that all of them live so far away, well, all but 1 cousin, Luke who they see almost every day and they love it.

The girls were pretty much inseparable the whole day. While we were getting dinner ready we looked at the girls sitting at the table and they were all holding hands. It was so adorable. I'm really sad this picture came out blurry because it was the only one I took where all 4 of them were smiling and looking at the camera.

Great-Grandpa with 6 of his Great-Grandchildren.

I love this picture. My Husband is such a ham. Tylie the cutie in her Uncle Kelly's lap. Kelly is ever the teaser and was constantly telling Tylie to stop wearing his clothes and jumping out and scaring all the children when they thought he was done playing with them. They all loved it.

Shaving

Hunter wanted to shave just like his Dad. So, Kelly put some shaving cream in his hands and let him put it on. Here is how he did it. Please know that Kelly has to shave his beard AND his head. So, when the kids see him when he's shaving it probably does look something like this....except the shaving cream on the nose.

New Laundry Room

I don't know if any of you have seen or remember our laundry room....but disgustingly ugly and messy are 2 words that would fit it quite well. Thankfully it's toward the back of the house and the only people that saw it were those who went through the garage. Unfortunately, people saw it when they went through the garage. The biggest problems with our laundry room is it had wire racks. I LOATH wire racks. I know they are cheap and that's why the builder installed them but it just can't carry much weight. Most of our closets have these and if you have kids, you know they are going to try to climb them to get to something and of course they are going to break. Hate these things! There was no way I was taking a picture of our laundry room with the junk and mess on the racks so here is a picture of just the racks.

Another problem with our Laundry room was way back in early December we had a leak in our laundry room floor. The plumbers had to jackhammer our floor out and put a hole in the wall to repair the pin size leak in a pipe. Please know that I am totally embarrassed by this picture. Who knew that in a year so much lint and junk could accumulate under and behind a wash machine and dryer? Yuck!

Yet another problem with our laundry room was the lack of light. Who would install such a tiny microscopic light in a laundry room? Well, it certainly wasn't a genius....or anyone who actually did laundry. I guess this picture doesn't do much justice. Imagine the size of a salad bowl...yes, that is how small this light fixture was.

So, you have seen the problems, here are the fixes. This project was one of my favorites (my most favorite project was working on our kitchen). It's one of my favorites because just like our kitchen remodel it has been such a huge improvement. First up, New Flooring. We had some leftover Vinyl tile from our bathrooms. The reason this has taken so long to repair was that we just couldn't agree with what to put in. I didn't want the Vinyl, I wanted to put Pergo flooring back in and Kelly wanted the Vinyl. We are contemplating maybe putting Slate in (some day in the far, far, far, far, far, far off future) after seeing some friend's beautiful Slate floor, but it's just not doable right now. So, as a temporary flooring option until Slate is doable or until we decide we want something else the Vinyl Tile was installed. It actually looks amazingly better than it did and goes with the rest of our house. You really can't tell in the picture but we grouted the vinyl tiles and they look a lot like real tiles until you step on them in bear feet in the winter and your feet aren't cold.

Second Fix, new bigger brighter light fixture. There are now 120 watts of bright light. Woo Hoo! It's amazing that I can actually see stains on clothes now and pre-treat them. Even our clothes are looking better because we have more light. Who knew?

Third and biggest fix, We installed a cabinet door to hide the kids games and added wood shelving for the cleaners and chemicals. We did add the bead board to the cabinet doors to match the kitchen. We bought door pulls but just haven't put them on yet. I love my new laundry room. No more messes. Things are more organized. What could be better? Oh, we also put crown moulding as well. Amazing how much more beautiful a little crown moulding can make a room. Love it!

The Toothless Smile Expands

Here's a picture of Hunter's latest smile. We think he looks a lot better now that 2 teeth are missing rather than just 1. I love the way he talks. If you listen really carefully you can hear a slight lisp. So cute! He pulled this one out all on his own. It wasn't even wiggly until the day it came out. It also looks like the new tooth is ready to come in. You can see the tip of it. Big tooth stage here he comes.

He lost his tooth on a Saturday. When he woke up he came to me and said the Tooth Fairy forgot to come. I told him that maybe the Tooth Fairy doesn't work on Sundays.....oops. When we got to church Hunter told Kelly that the Tooth Fairy forgot to come and Kelly told him that when he gave him a hug and kiss in the morning before his meetings he found a dollar on the floor from the Tooth Fairy and wanted to keep it safe for him from the girls. Wow, what a save Dad! Hunter actually thought Kelly was holding out on him because the last time he lost a tooth he got $2. I think the Tooth Fairy forgot she came and maybe the Daddy and the Mommy Tooth Fairy both left him money...unknowingly.

New Doors

Kelly came to me the other day and told me that we paid off our Lowes Credit card. He then told me that they included a brochure for interest free financing for 18 months. So....how did we celebrate paying off our card? By putting more on. We are FINALLY changing out our doors and our moulding. Here are 2 doors side by side so you can see the before and after. The one on the left is the after and the one on the right is the before. The ugly plain door and plain moulding is gone and so is the nasty gold ball door handle. Gone! Gone! Gone! yay!!!!

St. Patty's Day Green

Aweful picture, but it was the only one I got with all 4 kids. St. Patricks day isn't a big holiday but I decided to try to follow other mom's green examples and make a green breakfast....instead of just wearing green and doing nothing else like we normally do. So, our St. Patricks day breakfast menu was Green milk, Green eggs and Toast with Green butter. The kids loved it. Afterwards we watched the King of Green, The Grinch. Yes, it's a Christmas movie but he's also green. The kids don't mind watching Christmas movies in March. I do like the idea of catching leprechauns so I do want to try that next year. Have to save up my oatmeal canisters so we can make leprechaun traps next year.