Easter 2011

Mom-Mom and Poppy came to visit again for Easter!! (They came for Easter 2 years prior, too) We really enjoyed having family around to spend the holiday with... It also meant someone else could do the egg decorating with the kids!! Yay!!
We took a walk down the street to the "little playground" and I attempted a nice picture of the four:

The Easter bunny came!!! Madeline had a nasty stomach bug last Easter so really didn't get to enjoy any of it. It was nice to see her so happy Easter morning :)

Ethan was pretty thrilled too:

Madeline LOVED her new Rapunzel doll!!!

Ethan loved his candy!

Madeline and Ethan, Easter morning:

The kids saw a bunny shaped pancake mold one day when we were at Jo Anns...couldn't resist:

We got ready for Church and headed over. Afterwards, they held an Easter Egg Hunt. WOW were there a lot of people!! Can you spot anyone from our family?? They're there!

Although the hunt wasn't challenging, the kids still loved it. When leaving Madeline said, "that was the best Easter Egg Hunt ever!"

Ethan usually is uncomfortable around large crowds of people, but the egg hunt was too much for him to resist:

...but every time he'd find an egg, he would turn to find Poppy and grab hold of him:

Madeline couldn't have been more comfortable (Doug went ahead and snuck her into the 5-7 yr old group since there were much less kids there, heehee):

Liz took a family shot of us inside our Church:

After Church, we went back home to play outside and have another Easter Egg Hunt. First we had to set up the new grill Marmie and Pop sent for the kids:

Then Poppy hid a bunch of eggs for the kids. Not sure who had more fun...Poppy hiding the eggs, or the kids finding them!

Found one!!

The New Easel

April 20, 2011
My parents sent Madeline (and Ethan) a new art easel for Easter. How perfect of a gift is that for our budding artist! I had her wait downstairs while I put it together so I could make it a big surprise, but our sweet, why-would-someone-break-rules, good little girl, just couldn't wait for me to get it finished, so I welcomed her in to help me get it together. It worked out great because she helped me arrange the colored screws in the best way :) Once it was all together, and while her brother was napping, Madeline got to work:
I eventually went downstairs to do some cleaning, but she called me up excited to show me something...she loves her sun (but I had a hard time at first figuring out what she was doing):

TA DA!!!

GREAT JOB MADELINE!!

Lemonade Stand

April 18, 2011
Our neighborhood was holding it's Annual Spring Neighborhood Yard Sale and we decided to participate (along with a few of our friends who came over to join us). Madeline really wanted to set up a Lemonade Stand at the yard sale held in the Fall, but it was just too darn cold! So when we told her she could do one this time, she was THRILLED!! Daddy set her up a table, helped her make some lemonade, and set her up. Everything was perfect....but we only had a dozen paper cups! Oh well, it would last a little while, right?!? Sure enough, she used up on 12 cups within the first hour or so. So, we learned, and will be more prepared for the next one.

We couldn't believe how many people wanted to buy lemonade from her!! I think every person who came up the driveway bought a cup...and half of them left her a tip too!! Even if a person didn't buy a thing from the yard salers, they still didn't leave without grabbing some lemonade. GOOD JOB MADELINE!!

Goodnight Ethan

April 11, 2011
Ethan's nightly routine is: Brush teeth, use potty, pick out story, read story, say prayers, turn on fan, get sung a lullaby, hugs and kisses, turn on music....
then get out of bed and play for a little bit:
but we let him because he eventually tucks himself back in and goes to sleep:

Just a Picture

April 9, 2011

Doug doesn't grab many pictures of me with the kids, so I was excited he got this one :)

I Get My Muscles From My Dad!

April 7, 2011
We get a lot of awesome hand-me-down clothes as well as some that we borrow. One of the coolest pieces is this shirt for Ethan. It definitely was calling for a photo shoot.
Ethan didn't understand how to show his muscles, so Madeline helped model:
but seriously, all she wanted to do was hug her Daddy:

...and get a ride around:

Ok, NOW he's ready:

Check out those guns!!!!

Doug was laughing so hard at watching Ethan try to show his muscles that he could hardly pose himself:

Good times.

Catching up

Going to try to catch the blog back up. I was considering just picking up from today, but since this blog serves as our family's scrapbook (how I'd LOVE to make real ones, but that's just not going to happen!), I want to go back and try to include some of the things we've done over the past two months....so here we go...