Easter 2008!

Easter this year was spent in Turlock, CA. I took the kids to see Nana and Papa for spring break in hopes of having Ronny get some work done on his last preliminary paper. (We are searching for the light at the end of the tunnel, we know its there somewhere!) We arrived late Friday night after having a great drive down. In the anticipation of our arrival Nana and Papa prepared eggs for dying on Saturday afternoon (timed around Ben's nap time!). Much to the kids delight they had prepared 2 flats of eggs for the kids to dye. They were delighted! They thought wearing Papa's medical gloves was pretty neat, however in the end the gloves became more of a hassle. Sam loved dying the eggs but once they were all done with the first color he decided playing with the new dog was more entertaining. More on that later.

Nana and Papa's church is bright and early at 8:30 a.m. Sunday morning so we waited to have the great hunt until after church. However the Easter Bunny (Nana) left a few surprises in their baskets when they woke up, including new sandals for each of them. Have I ever mentioned how much I love Saltwater Sandals? In my humble opinion they are the only sandals worth buying for 4 very active children! Here are a few pictures of the Easter festivities. I do hope to put a slide show together soon.

Joseph's New Do

Joseph was in need of a haircut and decided he wanted to be different than his brothers this time. He also promised to sit still. (He didn't do too bad.) He said he wanted to be able to spike his hair on some days or have it flat on some days. This is what we came up with. He's such a ham when it comes to taking pictures!

Ben's 2nd Birthday Pics

Here is a sample of the activities on Ben's Birthday. On Saturday we took the kids to McDonald's for lunch for his birthday as well. We sang to him there and then an older couple decided they also wanted to sing to him so they came over to the table and sang to him as well. Ben didn't quite know what to do with that and just looked at them really confused. It was pretty funny!




Ben watching "Signing Time" before getting ready for church.











We had a ward activity directly after church so Ben wasn't able to take a nap until almost 4:00. When he woke up he came downstairs and decided he wasn't done sleeping yet so he went back to sleep on the couch. What were his two brothers doing while he was sleeping, having an exhibition wrestling match right next to him. Apparently this didn't bother Ben.







Ben waiting to blow out the candles. (Mom trying to keep the fingers out of the cake!)


Mom gets distracted and the fingers go in the cake!



Time for presents!

Ben's Elmo Cake

This is Ben's Birthday Cake. Today he is 2. While I was making this Ben did everything he could to get his hands on the cake and the frosting. At one point I had moved the cooling cake over to one of the counters. Not remembering Ben had a growth spurt this week, I turned my back on him and the cake. When I turned back around Elmo was missing the hand that was holding the present. I looked at Ben, he had crumbs all over his face, then he sweetly looked up at me and asked for "more cake Mom?". Its a good thing this was his cake and not one of his brother's! So I did the best I could to fix the cake but Elmo did loose a limb. I'll post more pictures of him blowing out the candles tonight when we dig in.

February in Review!

February has come and gone without one blog from us. So much for the New Year's Resolution. Here are a couple of highlights from our month.
1. Valentine's Day - Charley, Joseph, and Sam all had Valentine's parties at school. For family night that week they all worked hard in writing out their valentines. Sam did an especially great job and worked for about 30 minutes straight which is saying something! Ben had a great time eating the candy that came home!

2. Girl Scout Cookie Season. This week brings to a close the long month of selling Girl Scout cookies. I volunteered to be the cookie coordinator for Charley's troop, not realizing everything that was involved. Charley did an amazing job this year and has sold 185 boxes. Way to go girl! She also volunteered to help out at booth sales when she wasn't even signed up. (There is a story behind that which we will save for another day.)

3. The stomach bug strikes again! I'm pretty sure this was not a highlight but everyone came down with a nasty stomach bug last week which put our schedules out of whack for a time. As you can see by this picture of Ben falling asleep in the middle of the floor (note the peanut butter jar!). We are happy to report it didn't last more than a day and everyone is feeling much better!

4. Ronny had the first of what we hope to be many phone interviews for an internship this summer. This one happens to be with Bosche and if he gets the job he will be in Pittsburgh for the summer. We should find out in a week or two. We are hoping for a few more interview dates with other companies soon.

March is now here and we are looking forward to Spring Break in a few weeks.