Happy Birthday Christina!!!

We celebrated Christina's 35th birthday a little bit early this year - She had chemo on her actual birthday, Friday, the 29th, so we went ahead and celebrated on the 27th. We all met up at Mom's for dinner and chocolate/peanut butter cake and cupcakes. I love this picture - It's the first picture she has let me take of her (or anyone take of her) since she lost her hair due to the chemo. She is happy. She is smiling. She is beautiful. Happy Birthday Christina! I look forward to helping you celebrate many, many more!

Easter At Grammy & Papa's

We spent the evening at Don and Darla's house with Doug's side of the family. It was great to see everyone and we spent a lot of the evening outside. The kids played basketball, rode bikes, goofed off, threw the frisbee for Lucy and even got a game of baseball in. Love getting pictures of all the kids together. Doesn't happen very often and it's hard to get everyone smiling. It was a successful day for pictures though. :) Good times.

Easter At Mom's

Anyone see the egg?? It took them all a little while before they found it! It almost touched Rachel's head as she looked for it! So funny.

We headed over to Mom's house for Easter lunch with my side of the family. It was good to see Uncle Brian, Christopher and the girls, and I was so happy when Christina came a little later. She had not been feeling well and I was glad that she felt good enough to join us. It's just not the same without everyone there. I wish someday that Amie's family will be able to join us during holidays as well. The kids had fun hunting Mamaw Easter eggs in the yard. It was so funny to watch them all - there were several eggs that would be right in front of them and they would search and search. I love this last picture of Mom... She rarely smiles like that- and I love it. :)

Hunting Eggs

Soon after the kids had bellies full of candy we headed outside to hunt the eggs the Easter Bunny had hidden for them. So cute to hear the squeals of delight every single time there was an egg found...

Easter Morning

The kids were so excited this morning when they woke up to see what the Easter Bunny brought for them. It was so cute when Rachel and Noah came to the door of our room to tell us that the Easter Bunny had been there. They actually waited for me to get Kate and let Phoebe out before they explored their baskets. Noah was excited to find a basket full of Easter candy - jelly beans, peanut butter eggs, a chocolate rabbit and also a box of Origami fun. The Easter Bunny must have known how much he loves Origami lately. :) Rachel and Kate were happy to find sweet baby bunnies tucked in their baskets with their candy. I loved hearing all the ooohs and ahhhhs over their goodies and they got to enjoy as much candy as their tummys could hold on this day (very unusual at our house). I loved seeing the look of sheer joy on Kate's face as she looked through her basket pulling out goody after goody. Her squeals of delight and giant smiles made my smiles just as big. Rachel loved her bunny best, but what girl doesn't love chocolate too!? So, so cute. After lots of jelly beans and a few chocolate treats they settled in to watch the Mickey Mouse Easter special before they went outside to hunt the eggs that the Easter Bunny had hidden for them.

Springbrook Easter Egg Hunt

The kids were so excited about the Easter egg hunt at Springbrook park today. They rememered the excitement and fun of the hunt from last year and were ready to go again this year. It was so cute to watch them all as they waited to hunt. We arrived first, with Mamaw right behind us and Uncle Chris and the girls arrived not too long after her. We sure missed Aunt Chrissy this year, who had stayed home, due to not feeling well. As soon as everyone was there, we all had to split up due to having kids on three different age group fields. Doug and Chris took Noah and Emma over to the 6-8 year old field, while I had Rachel and Chloe on the 4-5 year old field and Mom had Kate and Lydia on the 0-3 year old field. There was a countdown from 10 (which the kids totally went on 7!) and the hunt was on! All the kids did a really good job collecting eggs and when they had all been turned in for prizes we divided the candy up between them all equally. So, so cute watching Kate do her first hunt. She was so excited to see the Easter Bunny and kept calling for him to please, please come back over and see her before the hunt. During the hunt she understood that she was to pick up the eggs and put them in her basket and from that point on she was on a mission. The rest of the kids scrambled around like ants. I laughed because it was Doug's first time going to the hunt and I think he thought I was kidding when I said it started at noon and would be over at 12:02. It was a lot of fun and I know the kids enjoyed themselves. I know I did!