Dying Easter Eggs

 Since we have late church, we dyed our Easter eggs that morning before church.  It was a nice way to spend time together and talk a little bit about Easter and Christ's sacrifice for us.  The children enjoyed making their eggs their own.  Each had a different idea of what they wanted to do!

As usual, each child got their own dozen hard boiled eggs.  :)  That makes for a lot of eggs, but since eggs are one of the few things that I can eat, I have really enjoyed having eggs for lunch every day!

This year we got dye that had glitter in it too!  That was really fun until the end when Amber accidentally dumped the entire cup of blue, sparkly dye all over herself!!!  The dye all came out (thankfully) but I still keep finding glitter in her hair!!

For me, the funniest part of the egg dying was Evan.  Every time he put an egg in to dye, he would shout, "DIE egg!!  DIE!!!"  I tried explaining that this was a different type of dying, but he still didn't really get it.  It was really funny though!

It was a great and relaxing morning at home!!  Happy Easter!

Easter Morning

I meant to get these up this past week, but our computer was having some trouble.  I think that Barth has it fixed now!  :)

The kids woke up first thing Easter morning to their basket full of goodies!

Everyone liked what they got.  There were coloring books and word searches and best of all......candy!

Katelynn liked all of her goodies.  No candy for her.  Just some yummy rice husks and some new shoes and socks!  :)

Checking out the loot is one of the best things about Easter morning!

Since we have church in the afternoon, it was a nice, easy going morning!!

Weston is getting so big!!!  He still enjoys his basket even though he is almost done with middle school!

Brian and Aaron especially liked the peeps that they got!

Happy Easter Morning!

Happy Easter!!!

 I will post more pictures later, but for now, Happy Easter!!  

A Perfect Spring Day

Today was a gorgeous day at last, and we thoroughly enjoyed playing outside all afternoon long!!  I snapped a few pictures with my phone and wanted to share the afternoon with you!  Katelynn had fun trying to get my phone from me!!!  

I am not positive, but I think she might have curly or wavy hair.  Look at the way it flips up in the back.  Every time she wakes up from a nap is is crazy with some curls and all over the place.  I think that it would be fun if it ended up being kind of curly.  I think that time will tell.  :)

More of those sweet curls in the back.  She almost never crawls anymore.  She walks where ever she wants to go these days.

She certainly is a sweet little girl and getting to be so big!!!  It is hard to believe that she is now 10 and a half months old.  Before I know it, the end of May will be here and she will be turning 1!!!!

And in 2 weeks this young man will be 14!!!!!  It is sooooo hard to believe that my baby is getting to be so old!  He is definitely taller than me now.  He is probably at least 5'4" or taller.  He still likes to play outside with everyone though.  I do love this time of year.  The grass is so pretty and green and the trees are just starting to get their leaves.  I am glad that it seems that Spring has finally sprung at last!!  This past winter seemed to last forever!

Aaron and Brian were busy playing some sort of magic wand game together.  As you can see, most trees still do not have their leaves on them.  They are just starting to get their buds.  This was such a hard winter here that it killed off one of my lilac bushes as well as all of the bushes going down the slope in front of the house.  We are hoping to get some yard work done tomorrow while the weather is nice!!

Smile for me boys!!  :)

Evan and Amber were playing lava out on the swing set.  They didn't have a hot lava monster like we did when we were kids.  Still, it was fun to watch!  It was 70 outside, but Evan really wanted to wear one of his favorite robot shirts.  He never complained of being too hot, so he must have been good!

Swinging is always fun.  Right as I took this, Evan fell off the swing.  He was just getting on, so it was more like he tried to hop on and then kept on going backward.  We had to stop for some hugs and magic kisses before he went back to playing.

All better.  He tries his best to pump like his big sister.  :)  He hasn't quite gotten the hang of it yet though.  I bet he figures it out by the end of the summer.

Aaron telling me to check out something over in the "woods."

Brian telling me something about his scootering!  He loves to ride Aaron's electric scooter.

All the time that I was taking pictures, Katelynn was at my feet playing happily with the basketball.

I do love that sweet smile!  She is understanding so much these days.  Evan has a favorite veggie tales cd in the car that has kids songs on it.  Katelynn gets soooo excited when she hears the music for "If You're Happy and You Know It" coming on!  She claps her hands at the right part, kicks her feet when it is time to stomp, and throws her little arms up high with gusto when it comes to shouting hooray (although we sing it the"Texas" way and sing it yee-haw.  Now Evan wants me to sing the "Texas" version of every song that plays on the cd.  It's pretty funny.)  Katelynn helps me call the other kiddos sometimes.  She even makes sounds that sounds like their names.  She makes a sound similar to Evan, and Aaron, and sister, and bubby, and Brian.  She is going to be a smart one!!

Brian always has fun with the scooter.  He told me that when he rode down low like this, it was like he was driving a car.

When he was done, he told me he was so good that he was sure he could drive our van.  I told him NO WAY!!!!  :)  He just laughed!

And really, there is nothing better than having a sister!!!!  Amber loves to play with her sister and Katelynn loves to be doted on.  Katelynn really enjoyed the wagon rides that Amber gave her this afternoon.  That has been one fantastic wagon!  It is now 13 years old.  I can remember when Grandma and Grandpa gave it to Weston when he turned 1.  Boy that seems like so long ago!

Look at that look of joy on Katelynn's face!!  And Amber is having just as grand of a time pulling her.  I am so thankful for these happy, good days.  I am so thankful for the sweet family that Heavenly Father has blessed me with.  Fourteen years ago when I was having Weston and having to have a c-section, I was told that it was highly unlikely that I would be able to have the 6 children that I had always dreamed of because they didn't think that my body could handle that many surgeries.  But the Lord blessed me.  He led me to a place where big families were more common and blessed me with doctors that were okay with me having that many c-sections.  He blessed my body to heal so well after each surgery, that during my 5th c-section, my doctor said that if he didn't know better, he would have thought that it was my 2nd.  And even when I had Katelynn, the doctor's said that my body looked fine to have more children.  I don't think I will, but hearing and remembering that helps me to remember how good the Lord has been to me and my sweet little family.  I am so richly blessed.  Perfect days like today make me thankful to be alive.  Thankful for my sweet children.  Thankful for my good husband.  Thankful for my parents for giving me life.  Thankful to my Father in Heaven for my many, many, many blessings.  Thankful to my Savior, Jesus Christ, for His atonement in my behalf that makes it possible to live with those that I love forever!  What a wonderful, miraculous gift!!!  Today I am thankful above all else.  Very, very thankful!

Some final beach pictures

Warning:  This post contains a LOT of pictures!!! :)

 I only took my camera out to the beach on the final day that we were there because I didn't want it to get all sandy and ruined.  And I actually only took it out in the morning.  The morning was the best time at the beach because we were usually some of the only ones on the entire beach.  Others would start coming out around 11 or so.  By 2:30 or 3 when we headed back out, the beach was usually pretty full.  Evan loved building sand castles!  He had so much fun with that!

 What he enjoyed most was building them with me.  He would have me make a castle with my castle mold, and then he would come and destroy it with his castle!  He thought that it was quite the fun game to play!!  :)

 Katelynn loved the sand and especially the shells!  We kept having to fish them out of her mouth!!!

 One of her new favorite things to do when she is really excited about something is to throw her hands up in the air like this!  I think it is so sweet and fun to watch!

 Aaron was almost always one of the first ones in the water once the rip current went away.  And once he got out he froze since he is such a skinny thing!!  :)  He did have a grand time with the boogie board though!

 We all really enjoyed being there on the beach and having it almost totally to ourselves in the mornings.  It was so nice!  Most of the time (except for the very first morning when we went out really early) we headed out to the beach between 8:30 and 9.  We would stay out till lunch time and then come in for down time and nap time for the little ones before heading back out.

 Katelynn loved mastering her walking skills while we were there.

 And she loved the mud!  :)

 Brian had a lot of fun.  He really enjoyed looking for sea shells best.

 I wanted to include this one because it shows a little better how our hotel is right next to those big homes that are right behind the kids in some of the other pictures that I posted.  The part with the fence right behind Barth is the condos, and you see the houses right next to it.

 Amber showing me one of the pretty shells that she found on her walk with Daddy.  I have a bunch of pictures of her posing with her sea shells.  What a cutie pie!

 Aaron trying to decide if the water is going to be too cold for boogie boarding.

 More of those pretty shells.

 Aaron found this cool little crab shell while he was out beach combing with Daddy.  I wanted to take a picture of it to remember it by.  It was a good thing I did.  About 10 minutes later he lost it and never could find it again!

 The first few days that we were there it was too windy to use our shade tent, but the last few days it was perfect for it.  It was nice to have it since every morning that we were there Katelynn took a nap in it.  It was nice to have her protected from the sun during that hour!

 Here is Aaron next to the cool tent!  You can see how the beach is totally clear and free of people behind him. It was like we had our own private beach.

 Looking for shells with Daddy!  More people were starting to come out to the beach.

 Isn't that just beautiful?!?

 Amber and I dug out this big long tunnel.  So fun!

 Family picture time!

 Weston buried Brian totally in the sand!  So fun!  I buried Amber's legs

 He looks like just a floating head on the sand!  :)

 I also made a cool tunnel with Evan.  You can just see it next to him at the corner of the picture.

 Good thing we always wore shirts down to the beach.  Aaron had been in the waves and was now freezing!  I buried his feet while he warmed up!

 Barth enjoyed the waves and beach a lot!!  I was glad that he booked this fun trip for us and took the time off of work so we could all enjoy the time together as a family.

 After seeing Brian get buried all the way, Amber decided that she wanted to be buried all the way up to her head too.  Weston was a nice big brother and buried her too!!

 What a little sweetheart she is!

It was a great week at the beach!  That afternoon we had a bit of excitement.  They kept shutting off the water to the building since they were repairing a water pipe out at the street.  We had water on and off during the day.  In the afternoon, after we had played on the beach for a bit, we went to the pool.  Katelynn was done before the other kids, so Barth took her up to the room to get her dressed.  Around 6 or so, I took everyone else back up to the room since I still needed to run a few loads of laundry (we had a washer and dryer in the room), get kids bathed, and get things packed up so we could leave in the morning.  As we headed to the elevators, I heard the generators running and thought that it was odd.  When we got up to the room, Barth told us the power was out again.  We decided to get everyone showers before the hot water in the tank went cold only to find that the water was off again too.  Once it did come on, it was only a trickle.  We showered the kids in trickles of water with no electricity!!  It was an adventure for sure.  Eventually the electricity did come back on, but the water didn't regain it's regular pressure till the next morning!  I am so thankful that we were able to go on our fun vacation!!!  It was such a great spring break!!!