Happy Birthday Ella & Josh!

Do you think Josh was excited to go to Pirate Island for his 9th birthday? We had a great time - our first time there and loved the atmosphere, were pleasantly surprised that the food was yummy & reasonably priced, and of course had a great time in the arcade (although it could have been a little less cramped). We will definitely go there again.

Mark was really excited to get his boy some "GEAR" for his birthday. I have a feeling Josh was excited too!

It's always fun to get something you were hoping for!

More gear - a headlamp - think he likes it?

Percy Jackson books - he wasn't expecting - he LOVES to read

More fun at Pirate Island...

Ella hit the jackpot on this game and it gave her 100 tickets! She was thrilled!

Ella also had her 5th birthday two days before Josh's - this girl had been counting down to her birthday for MONTHS! So much fun!

She wanted a strawberry cake with a heart on top

We celebrated her birthday at Chuck E. Cheese's. No pictures, but we had a great time (especially since we didn't eat there!) and then had play time with a cousin. All this made for a fun-filled week of Spring Break! We also headed to the zoo on Friday - I'll post if I can get the pictures off Mark's phone!

Spring Happenings

Last Friday night we dyed Easter eggs. Nothing too fancy but the kids had a great time. There's something a little magical about traditions. The Easter bunny comes to our house each year on Saturday instead of Sunday - helps differentiate between the bunny/eggs/candy stuff and the real Easter celebration. We don't really do egg hunts...but the bunny does hide the kids' baskets in the house and they have to find them...Josh figured out the "truth" about the bunny this year and thought that was pretty funny - luckily he can keep a secret! (but he made sure to inform me that he definitely believes in Santa)

Everyone feeling baby Bryce kicking in Mommy's tummy...around 25 weeks I think

A few weeks ago we had a tractor in the backyard digging a trench for Mark's water feature (his dream is finally coming true!) The boys sure loved watching & sitting on the tractor...Ammon still hasn't stopped talking about it!

More posts to come soon for Ella's & Josh's birthdays!

Updates...

Seems like life has been pretty mundane lately, but I guess there have been a few fun things to post about. Last week Mark's sister Heidi had her birthday and she requested that we all go bowling. This was a fun outing (sans Mark who had a late work meeting) and the kids had a blast. Josh totally beat me (although he did have help from the bumpers) but I guess all that Wii bowling has paid off for him! But in my defense, bowling while prego did seem a little awkward.

We recently learned that Ella's best friend, Gracie, will be moving out of state in a few weeks. We are really sad but trying to get in as much play time as possible before they go.

Ella came up with this number on her own one day - she came upstairs and announced that she was a sunflower!

Couldn't believe the huge snow storm we had last week...getting all these kids ready to play in the snow first thing in the morning was quite the task but they sure had fun!

Mark decided the kids should help him stain a bar stool. Don't mind Ammon's pink shirt - we grabbed it out of our rag box for him! Mark is always great to involve the kids in things like this. I don't always love the messes, but at least the memories are made!

In February the PG library had this great little "Fancy Nancy Tea Party." I took the girls and they had a fun afternoon of fancies and sweets.