Happy Easter

We had a lot of fun this Easter season. The kids hd spring break the week before Easter so we did some Easter crafts, went shopping, had a picnic at the park with Josh and just really enjoyed sleeping in every morning and being together. Here are the kids dying their Easter eggs.
They made beautiful eggs that we put all around the house. Hopefully we will find those eggs before they rot and get stinky!!!! haha

The kids helped with the Easter dinner (that we had early on Friday because my mom and dad were here then) by helping with the Easter cake. They asked if we could make one like the one Grandma makes...white cake, white frosting, green grass (coconut) and jelly beans. After burning our first batch of "grass" in the toaster oven, everything came out great!!!

Yummy cake!!!

The kids enjoyed a nice time at the church's Easter Egg Hunt on Saturday. They got to help plant flowers outside the building. Now they have had practice, they can come do my yard!!!

The primary also set up an Easter photo booth for the kids. They got to choose Easter hats and headbands. They were all really cute!!!! Here is Blake sporting the Easter Bunny look.

Jamie and Gabbie planting flowers....

This was Blake's first Easter Egg Hunt that he participated in and he really had fun!!! In fact when it was over, he kept running to find more eggs. He didn't even know they had little treats inside them! What a bonus!!! The older kids ran WAY TOO FAST to get a good picture of them hunting eggs. Oh well...maybe next year!!!

Our Family on Easter Sunday....

I hope you enjoyed your Easter and had time to ponder on what it truly means. We are so blessed to have a Savior that loves us!! He died for us and was Resurrected! He lives today and loves each of us. Josh and I were able to give talks at church today. There were so many people there...it was a little scary but truthfully I was happy to share my testimony of a Savior that has done so much for us!!!

You can visit lds.org and see a beautiful Easter message by one of our living apostles - Jeffrey R. Holland. He shared this message last week at General Conference. His message is combined with wonderful footage from church movies and pictures of Christ. Hope you enjoy it!

It's always fun at Grandma's house!

We spent the first weekend of April at my Mom and Dad's. My brothers, Keith and Danny, and their families came over on Saturday. We missed my youngest brother Jason and his family. Hopefully we'll see them soon!
Grandma made cute Easter Goody Bags for the grandchildren. And hid them in the front yard. They were packed full of good stuff! My kids LOVE their cousins!!! We also had fun flying kites on a totally windless day! The kids had to work very hard to keep their kites in the air. Even Blake gave a try and was so cute "running", until he got tied up in the string!!!

A trip to Grandma and Papa's house means getting to hang out downstairs. Papa has a whole room dedicated to model trains. This has been a big hit for many years. It is fun to see the "train room" grow! The latest addition was a table cut down for the kids and a Thomas the Tank Engine track set up for little hands to play with. No wonder my boys LOVE trains! They get it from their Papa!

Josh took us on a nature hike by a local lake. He likes to take his bike and ride the trails. It was beautiful!! The end result of the trail was enjoying the lake.

This was a fun wooden bridge on the trail. Josh likes riding it with his bike. We had fun on the trail! The kids really had a good time except when they were scared by a deer running out behind them!!!

We always look forward to our trips to Mom and Dad's!! We wish they could be more often. We go every 2 or 3 months right now. In the summer we will be going more often so we can help out with the family garden!! We are excited for that adventure!

Here we grow!

We are finally taking the "plunge" and adding on to our house. We decided in January to do this and it has taken a while to refinance and get it started. We are adding an 18x17 room to the back of the house with a closet and bathroom. We will use it as a playroom right now for the kids but eventually it will be the boys' bedroom. My dad (seen above with Madison) is helping us with this project. Lucky for us he is a general contractor. He lives in Burlington, NC but will come when needed to help with the house. A couple of my brothers will be helping as well. Especially with the framing and insulation.

We plan to "break ground" with the new foundation next week.

Dad, our kids and Josh have already cleared out the shrubs around the deck to make room. I saved our hosta and put it out front. We were able to replant most of the shrubs.

Lucky for us, we have a photographer documenting this fun family project (Jamie!!).

Dad and Josh hacked off some of the deck to make way for the new room.

To be continued.........