Easter Morning

The bunny came to visit the boys.  They were thrilled to find goodies in their baskets.  Jack and Ewan are over the moon excited with their Leap Pads.  Sean likes his crayons and tub toys.  And of course they all like their chocolates!

After breakfast Daddy his eggs in the backyard and the boys found them all (with just a little help).  Mommy and Daddy weeded the garden.  Ewan and Jack helped for a couple minutes.  Someday maybe we can get them to help longer!!

Sean checking his basket.

Sean enjoying a coconut Dove egg!

Jack multi-tasking:  reading a book on his Leap Pad

and looking for chocolate!

Ewan ready his book.

Getting ready to hunt eggs.

FINALLY A Long Weekend

Friday Josh had off work and it could not have come soon enough.  Since he worked the previous weekend it was 11 straight days of work for him.  That also means 11 straight days of me alone with the boys for LONG days!  Needless to say we all needed some family time.

Friday was relatively calm.  We had breakfast at home.  Then I took the boys for a walk while Josh did taxes.  We have some southern boys....they kept complaining about how cold it was.  It was in the upper 40s which was indeed chilly compared to the 80s we've had lately!!

After lunch I took Jack and Ewan to the gym for some pool time.  After we played and worked on their swim skills I took them to the babysitting room and got my own workout.  We went home and then enjoyed a little down time before we headed out to Lowe's and Home Depot to look at faucets for the kitchen and then dinner out and flying planes.

Saturday began with our usual farmer's market breakfast.  We do so love to eat there....the biscuits and gravy are a favorite as are the grits and scones too.  We got some goodies for dinner and headed home.

I took all the troops to an egg hunt in the neighborhood and Josh went to get wood for the kitchen bar.  The boys all had great fun hunting for eggs.  Sean knew what was going on right away this time; as soon as he found his first egg he opened it to see what was inside!!  When we got home I emptied all the eggs and put the loot away....Sean cried the whole time because he wanted to eat more candy (he already his his limit of two at the hunt)!

That afternoon they played hard outside.  Sean finally took a late nap but the older boys stayed outside and played or tried to help Daddy work on the bar (nothing as fun as having the table saw and other tools out)!

Jack and Ewan designed their own mountain bike circuit in the yard.  Jack wants to practice to he can go mountain biking with Daddy sometime.  They did pretty well.  They both crashed once or twice but it did not slow them down much!

We had a YUMMY dinner of lime cilantro pasta (from the farmer's market) with butter and cheese (both also from the market), salad with strawberries and a ginger pear dressing (lettuce from our garden) and wild sockeye salmon (also from the market, via Alaska obviously).  YUMMY!!!

 Obviously it was a busy couple days and the boys slept well that night!!!

Let the hunt begin!

Run for the eggs.

Sean is having lots of fun!

It's almost worse than Halloween!!  Notice the good stuff

separated out for Mommy and Daddy.

Stuntman Ewan!  ER here we come!!!!

Having fun on their mountain bike course.

WEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!

YUM YUM!

Flashback Friday - April 2009

Here is Jack hunting for eggs in the Children's Garden three years ago!  Time sure does fly by.  He certainly does look a lot like Sean at the same age.

Egg Hunt

Yesterday our play group had our annual Easter egg hunt and potluck lunch.  Needless to say the boys had lots of fun, in particular Jack.  Sean followed me while I helped hide eggs for the bigger kids.  This came in handy for him....while the big kids were hunting eggs Sean ran off to find the eggs they missed!!  He was proud of himself!!!!
The little kids were all adorable trying to fill their baskets with eggs.  Sean knew what was going on; as soon as he found an egg he opened it and tried to eat the treat, wrapper and all!

Jack is in a league of his own.  After nibbling on lunch all the kids were off to play, mostly in the sandbox.  Well I know my Jack well so I already  put all our eggs away, he did not know where.  Yet somehow every time I checked on him he had something in his mouth.  I am not sure where he was finding them or whose eggs he took, but he ate LOTS of candy.  I really do not want to know how much sugar he ate yesterday! 

It was a rough time...meltdowns about getting into trouble with the candy, no naps for Ewan and Sean, coming down from sugar highs.  It was a long day for Mommy!!

I Think I See A Skunk......

This is what Ewan looked like when he came downstairs this morning.

Any guesses??!!

Birthday Boredeom

Somehow the older you get the less exciting birthdays can be.  This year I was going to get a new dishwasher for my birthday.  Wow, how thrilling!  Ok, maybe not.  But it is something I "need" and want.  We getting new granite counter tops for our anniversary (also exciting, right?!) so we thought we might start phasing in stainless steel appliances.  I HATE my dishwasher so this was a good place to start.

Well yesterday we just had the downstairs AC repaired which was a big expense.  Plus I've been thinking that I really don't want to waste my birthday on a new appliance.  So out goes the dishwasher for my birthday.  It can wait.  It's not like I desperately need it.  Kind of like the I-pad....I really want one but don't need it.  How can I justify the expense for something like that?

So it's back to clothes.  I really need/want lots of them.  So that's what I think I'll get for my birthday, well that or gift cards for them.  After all my husband and my mom are the only people I trust to pick out clothes for me.  Mom already got some on her trip to Seattle so I know she is done. 

Better yet, my parents are giving me the best gift ever.  They are taking the boys to the mountains the weekend of my birthday!!  That's right, a weekend with no kids.  We can go out for a nice quiet adults only dinner.  We may even go to Charlotte to look at granite slabs.  How exciting is that??!!  Hey, it's the small things that count!!

Zoo Day

Today was another beautiful day in South Carolina.  Josh had to work so the boys and I headed to the zoo.  We got there around 9:45 this morning and it was already filling up.  By the time we left at 12:15 it was packed!!

We enjoyed all our usual favorites:  feeding the giraffes, the petting zoo, the playground, the penguins, riding the train and carousel....  Fun was had by all!