Happy Easter !

Ready, set, dye! Here they are ready to dye their Easter eggs.

Max helping Lucas. Lucas did way better than I would have guessed. He ended up with colored fingers, but still did pretty well. He didn't even crack an egg.

Sophia writing her name on an egg.

Max and Henry

Alex and Timmy working together.

Ta-da! Almost all of the eggs are done.

Easter morning. Up and ready to hunt for eggs here's everyone after they found the eggs. Everyone got a book, a small squirt gun, and the boys got a lego mini figure, Sophia got a small My Little Pony.

All dressed up and just home from church. Sophia sang in the children's choir at the 9:15 mass, so we went and heard the choir do a very nice job.

At our house the Easter frog also makes a stop. He hides rocks, instead of eggs and leaves weird gifts, like canned goods nobody wants. This is the first year any of the kids have taken more of an interest in the rocks than the toy the bunny left. Luke played with these rocks for a very long time. He filled a grain truck, dump truck, anything that would hold a rock.

We were so glad to have our friend, Rebecca join us for Easter. We ate ham, played lots of board games, and watched a couple movies she brought over. All as we watched it snow all day long! It was a great day.

I had to get a picture up of Alex and Max cutting strawberries for us.

Alex's birthday !

How could such an important event not be included in the March 2015 post ?! Well I guess it just needed it's own post.

On Alex's actual birthday he went with Randy to watch Max's drug quiz competition.( Max's team did very well with a 2nd place.)  Here's Alex opening his gifts that night. It was late enough everyone else was in bed.

We were out shopping as a family one Saturday when we saw this shirt, Alex had basically just said this. We almost got it for him that day but it wasn't in his size, but when Randy and I went shopping, there it was in the right size!

This is the next day, as we celebrate with cake as a family plus Madisen, Sophia's friend.

Here's the birthday boy on March 31, officially 14 years old. Happy Birthday, Alex!

March 2015

Henry turned 6, March 13! Here he is lining up his smarties and enjoying birthday ice cream.

Happy Birthday Henry!

March 9- 13 Randy was in Pennsylvania for work. It was a week long training in rigging that proved to be a good time. He got home on Henry's birthday, so here's everyone welcoming him home and looking at all the goodies he got (a bag, shirts, little notebook, ect.) The second day Randy was gone was a very sad day at our house. Our less than 1 year old cat, Dodge died. Understandably, it was really hard for the kids.

Everyone stayed up late to watch a movie for Henry's birthday!

Henry and his cake. This is a mindcraft cake Henry designed and I tried to create.

It's our family tradition to listen and dance to the Beatles birthday song on our birthday.  Here's Henry, Sophia and Tim dancing to part of that song.

The next day Henry had his birthday party. Here's his friend, Jack, Tim, Henry. Luke, his friend, Francesca, Madisen, Sophia and Max. They played games, ate cake and just played.

The following weekend, March 19 (Thurs.) through the 22nd (Sunday), Randy and I went to Portland, Oregon - alone! Randy was going anyway for work, and this time I got to go too! Kathy and Dale were very generous and looked after our kids while we were gone. We got to Portland on  Thurs. at noon Portland time (3:00pm at home) and we hadn't eaten so we were starving. We found a great place to eat called Henry's Tavern. We also saw the show that night.

We didn't take nearly enough pictures, but on Saturday we walked the path along the river. It was a pretty walk. Portland was warm, and lots of the flowers were in bloom. We walked all over the city and got caught in the rain a few times.

Portland is the city of roses and they have a rose festival every summer. During this festival volunteers learn how to row these great dragon boats.

What you're looking at is the ceiling of Kells, an Irish restaurant we ate at. All over the ceiling are rolled up dollar bills. We were told they stay up their because of Irish magic. If you donate $1.50 a waiter will fold the change and bill up just so, and toss it up and it sticks to the ceiling.Well we had to see i,t and it did indeed work. Once a year they scrape off all the money and donate it to the local children's hospital.

We took in all kinds of sites. Here I am when we visited the Oregon Historical Association. We also got to see the Art Museum, the farmer's market which was really cool. At the market if you got food from a vendor you were given a real plate and silverware (no plastic) then vendors had tubs with their names on them in the area of the market to return the plates and silverware, right next to the compost can (instead of trash can). Very cool. We also got to see our friend's farm, an hour outside of Portland.They live on a beautiful farm on top of a hill, where you can see Mt. Hood. These friends are trying to be totally self sustainable, it was very interesting to see their animals and garden. For supper we ate a turkey they raised and butchered and veggies from their garden, and had a great time together.

It was a lot of fun checking out restaurants and coffee shops. We took multiple trips to Powell a huge book store. It was 4 stories high and took up the whole city block. The store had used and new books, side by side, row after row it was a great place to browse and do a little shopping. This picture above is from our last day in Portland. We had a map that was a bit misleading and so we took a few extra turns up a very, very, very steep hill. It was a long walk, and we never even made it to the museum we thought we were going to. It also started raining, it was crazy! And we were tired, but we were already checked out of our hotel ( we were taking the red eye out at 11pm) and so we had no where to just sit. So we decided to take the trolley to see some a lot of the city while we sat.

One last look at Portland.

The Monday we got home was the night of the cubscout Pinewood derby.  Henry and Max had a lot of fun racing.

On Tuesday Dale and Audrey arrived. We had so much fun. We hung out a lot, one night they got the kids McDonalds and the adults went to Dinosaur Bar-B-Que. It was a great time! Saturday, Audrey, Kathy and I took Sophia shopping and she got new shoes for Easter/1st Communion. Dale and Audrey stayed all week leaving bright and early on Sunday.

Tuesday night Henry and Sophia made their Easter hats for the Easter party at school the next day. Henry's is an Easter basket, and Sophia's is an Easter bunny.

February 2015

In February it began to snow, and just kept snowing all month. We had a total of 59.9" of snow and it was cold!!! Below zero many days. We broke lots of records and had a number of snow days and late starts it was a crazy month.

This was a Sunday and it wasn't so cold that day. The kids played a long time, loving all the white stuff.

Sledding down the piles of snow at the ends of our driveway. We had no idea the piles would be taller than Randy by the end of the month. In fact they got so tall the snow blower couldn't throw the snow over the piles of snow any more.

Randy clearing paths so the kids could play in the yard.

An awesome snow wall, mostly made by Randy.

We were excited to have Sara, Oliver, Parker and Julia out for a long weekend over Valentine's Day weekend. Here are Parker, Timmy, Henry, Oliver and Sophia exchanging Valentines.

Cousins playing in the snow together. Olive, Henry, Luke, Julia and Sophia on the small hill at the end of the driveway.

There was also much lego playing and coloring done. Here is Luke, Parker and Julia but all the kids took turns at the table.

YEA!!!!!!!!!!!!! We all LOVE Aunt Kathy's Valentine's cupcakes!!

WE REALLY LOVE THEM!!!

We love them so much we've made frosting mustaches - Look at us, look at us, look at us!

The purple room (Samantha's old room) upstairs at Aunt Kathy and Uncle Dale's became the place to run and play hide and seek. Here are some munchkins playing together, Luke, Julia, Parker and Timmy.

While the children ran wild we responsibly played lots of Scrabble. Every once in a while being sure to holler, "Go upstairs if your going to be crazy" or "Don't hurt each other!"

Of course a weekend together includes some ipad time in their jammies.

January 2015

After home on a Sunday the following Friday Alex, Max and Randy took off on a camp out. While they camped Henry and Timmy camped in our front room. Sophia snuggled in my bed with me and Lukey was still in his crib.

The boys built with legos as I put Christmas decorations away. Here is a dragon Henry made, Timmy added a little to it as well.

Henry, Sophia, and Timmy played play-dough for a LONG time while Lukey took a nap. Then Sunday the campers came home from a fun, but chilly weekend.

The next weekend was Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend. So with the extra day off we switched rooms around. Lukey went in with Henry and Timmy and being the only girl, Sophia got her own room. The older boys were a tad jealous until we told them, if a new baby ever comes along Sophia will have to share her room with it. They quickly decided they'd rather share a room with each other.

This is the mirror she used her Christmas money to buy.

Timmy checking out the new room. (You'll see the changing table remains in Sophia's room.)

On her new bed! Some friend's of ours gave us this bed a few years ago when their daughter outgrew it and thought Sophia might enjoy it. They were right, she loves it!!

Of course, Luke wanted to check out the bed, too!

January 26 (a week after Martin Luther King, Jr. day) was the cub scout space derby. Henry is painting his rocket camouflage, while Luke and Timmy are enviously watching,wishing they had a rocket to paint and making towers out of the paints.

Randy teaching Max how to stain his rocket. Neither boy won the overall rocket race, but they both won an individual race, and had fun.