It must be spring....

Yesterday I heard a noise I haven't heard in awhile....the lawn mower!! Yes, Chris mowed the lawn for the first time yesterday and even put down the first helping of fertilizer. Oh it is going to be a loooong season for him! :) I cannot wait for the green grass though!! We have buds on some of the plants already too! Yahoo!!!

Easter 2008

Happy Easter!! Warning : this is going to be a long post with a TON of pictures..but it is so worth it!!! Enjoy!!!

Our Easter morning started with the kids waking up to find their colored Easter eggs in the hallway, down the steps and all over the main floor in the house. They loved finding all the eggs and wanted MORE! Ryan got mad that they didn't have candy in them too! :) It is funny that they will walk right by their baskets and not even care about them. They are only worried about the eggs. Then they did go back to their baskets....no surprise there.

<- Pretty eggs!!

Hailey wanted to pose for a picture for EVERY ITEM in her basket!! She would sit there, hold the item up next to her, smile and wait for me to take a picture!! :) Ryan's best moment came when he found "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" DVD in his basket. He starting THROWING things out of his basket...until he could finally get the movie out. Then he had to point and tell us which picture was of the girl that was a "bad nut"! It was funny!!!


I did let them eat one piece of chocolate before we went to church. Ryan wanted Chris' cadbury creme egg ('ohhh there is FROSTING in here!!') and Hailey started on her chocolate bunny!


Okay...hold on....here come the pictures of the cutest kids in the world (to me anyway!!). How BEAUTIFUL does Hailey look!?!? And, Ryan, well he is just ADORABLE!!! :) Gotta love 'em! :)


Hailey had to lay out her whole outfit on Saturday morning! She had it all planned out...but couldn't decide on which purse to use! :) She loved twirling in her dress and wearing her new white shoes too! Such a little GIRL!


Ryan, on the other hand, is ALL BOY! I wasn't sure if he would wear the tie...but he did! He said he was just like Papa Buckhouse!! :) And he loved that his pants matched Chris' too! So HANDSOME!!!


And one of all of us using the self-timer on the camera. :)

And, a few of the kids together too :)

After all the pictures we finally got to go to church!! After church, there is ANOTHER egg hunt outside. It is separated by ages and they always do a great job with it!! Hailey and Ryan BOTH filled their buckets! More candy and toys!!

You would think it would be over, but not yet!! When the kids got home they found out that the Easter bunny left them NEW BIKES in the front yard!! Ryan was so excited to get his first bike...and a "motorcycle" too! (he told me today that he wishes his bike didn't have petals...but was a real motorcycle. dream on little boy!!)

Back inside for MORE Easter baskets. Thanks to Tim for the confetti filled eggs!! Oh, and the kids were FIGHTING over the recorder too! :) Ryan went right for it! :) Hailey's favorite out of these was her Hannah Montana pink glitter lipstick (as you can tell in the picture below). Ryan was also happy to finally have his own copy of the "Elf" movie so we can watch it at home now too!! (he was quoting the movie in the bathroom during church and didn't know he was getting the movie from Grandma and Grandpa after church!!)

Finally we were able to have our lunch!! Clay, Marjie, Brian, Catherine, Doug & Doran were all over. And, a friend I scrapbook with (Jill) and her children (Camille and Jantzen) came over as well. It was great to have some kids for Hailey & Ryan to play with!! After a big, yummy lunch, we had one last egg hunt in the backyard. Between Doran and myself we had TONS of eggs!! All 4 kids had fun getting them (even little 1 year old Jantzen!).

What a fun day...but everyone was exhausted when it was all over! And I am exhausted from this post!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

I have to include one last thing...a video of the kids!!

Potty training update

We are SO PROUD of Ryan! Something must have "clicked" with him last week...no idea what it was, but we are happy! This weekend he wore underware all weekend long and only had one accident a day!!! Saturday he went from 9:00 am until 9:30pm with NO ACCIDENTS! And, he even had to hold it until we got to a bathroom on Saturday afternoon after the Easter egg hunt!! Sunday he did great again (went TWICE during church alone!) and only had one accident that day too. Now he needs to continue to do good at daycare. Oh...the end of buying diapers/pull-ups is close!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Practice" Easter egg hunt

Saturday (3/22) we woke up to a few inches of snow...couldn't believe it. We had planned to take the kids to one of the many Easter egg hunts in town, but we weren't sure if that would be a good idea with the snow and cold or not. We changed our plans and decided to go to one at 11:00 (instead of 1:00) and it worked out GREAT!!! The church that put this one on did a great job! The shoveled out an area for the egg hunt, and had 5 or 6 different egg hunts based on ages. They also had free cotton candy, popcorn, and snow cones (funny to see those with snow all over too!). And there were carnival games and bouncing inflatables too! What a fun time! The kids played a few games, ate a few treats and then it was time for Ryan's egg hunt. He did good, got a few eggs and then told Chris "I have enough eggs"!! :) About 20 minutes later Hailey got to go. She said the same thing too...and we didn't want to get in where there were kids pushing and shoving for eggs. When we got back to our spots, she did share some of her eggs with her friend too that didn't get as many as she did (ahhh...what a nice friend you were Hailey!!). It was fun...and the kids enjoyed themselves. They were now ready for Easter Sunday!!!

First there were some games....


Then, Hailey waiting or her turn at the eggs!! and look at all the eggs they had! The church provided over 14,000 eggs for the hunt!!


Ryan during his egg hunt (with Chris); Hailey getting some eggs; sorting candy and toys after we got home (they actually didn't mind putting their stuff together!!).

Swimming update

I just have to brag again about Hailey...and swimming lessons. So, she started level 3 two weeks ago at Rocky College. She didn't want to go to level 3...she likes the level 2 teachers and is comfortable there. We finally talked her into trying it. The first night was hard!! She didn't want to do things, didn't know HOW to do things, and there were 14 kids there instead of 8-10! So, it was a mess and she didn't want to continue. She tried it again on Thursday and did much better and was DIVING too!! Last week she made even more improvements. They make the kids swim across the width of the pool. Hailey has only gone a little ways before so I was very nervous for this. Wouldn't you know...our little princess did GREAT!!! She almost made it the whole way, but got a little off course. She didn't give up though...kept going, took a break with her teacher, and then swam back to the edge! I am very proud of her and it is so much fun watching her grow and learn how to swim so good!! :) Keep up the good work sweetie!!

Dyeing Easter Eggs

After all the cookie decorating we still had to make time to dye the Easter eggs on Friday night (3/21). We thought we had enough eggs with 3 dozen...but they sure get done FAST!!!!!! The kids both had fun...and so did the adults. Ryan was spilling and splashing dye all over the place, but it was still a good time!! Hailey was drawing on her eggs with the crayon, dyeing the eggs 2 or even 3 colors, and adding stickers. She likes to "bling" her eggs to the max!! :)


Don't these look GREAT?!?! :)


A little video from Ryan during the egg dyeing process....

and one from Hailey too (talking a little "babyish" I might add too).