Easter (OVERLOAD)

We started Easter off the night before by coloring some hard boiled eggs. The girls LOVED it! I know the girls look homeless but it was the end of the day and we had to undress them so they didn't stain their clothes.

On Easter sunday the day started out a little crazy! Our church starts at 9:00 a.m. and I had to give the talk in sacrament meeting (ya I know, it's Easter what the heck?). We have a hard enough time making it to church by 9:00 a.m. but now I had to be there at least 15 minutes early in order to get a seat. So, our Easter activities had to wait until after church. After church we had our neighbors take a family picture of us in our Easter clothes at the Spokane Temple. We are so lucky to have the Temple in the same parking lot as our church, it's AWESOME! I love seeing the Temple every week. Here is one of our fam pictures and the other is of course at the top of my blog. I had to pick between the picture of Brynlee sticking her tongue out and Tayson smiling, or Brynlee with a frowny face and Tayson smiling and looking away. The joys of family pictures. Here is the other picture I decided not to use.

I don't want pictures mom!

After church and lunch we FINALLY let the kids have their Easter baskets. Kamryn was dying to get her Easter basket. Their Easter baskets were full of goodies, toys, swim floaties, shoes, books, kites, and presents from Gma North, etc..... gotta love the dollar store!

Cutest Easter bunny ever!


Later on that night we had all our friends over for a BIG Easter dinner and Easter Egg Hunt for the kids. It was so much fun!

Left: Polly, Mauressa, Misty, Ashley, Erin and Me (being attacked by Tayson).

All the fella's.

Left: Tyson, Taylor, Levi, Nick, Aaron, Bryce, Adam, Nate, Beau, Shay (not pictured).

All the ladies.

Top Left: Misty, Me, Becca, Heather, Paige, Ashley, Polly.

Bottom Left: Erin, Kedra, Mauressa.

Kids (well some of them, there were way to many to get them all to sit down so I got a picture of the few that were sitting).

Left: Kamay, Kamryn, Kate, Abby, Pierson, and Teagan.

Sneaking some food and making a mess of herself.

MMMMmmmmm.............cookies!
Last but not least, the Easter Egg Hunt. I tried to get a picture of all the people but there were so many of them that I couldn't fit them all in the picture. It was crazy and so much fun for the kids. The weather was terrible (of course we wouldn't expect anything less of Spokane really) it was cold and rainy all day (that's why Kamryn's hair is wet in all the pictures).

Softball Champions

Woo Hoo! They did it, they won! Just wanted to give a shoutout to all the guys who played softball and tell them congratulations! This is the second year in a row that the guys have beat all the other teams. It is so fun to go to the games and cheer for the guys, we are truly gonna miss watching them play. The night of the championship game was SOOOOO cold! We were all FREEZING our buns off. We were in a rush to get to the game and so I forgot to grab blankets. Poor Tayson was so cold and crabby because of the TERRIBLE weather, but in all we had a good time.

Busy, busy, busy!!!!

My little man has gotten so big and so busy lately. He loves to play in the fridge, in the drawers, climb on things, play with pots and pans, and he loves going to the kiddie table to beg for some food (Lil' begger). He is growing up so fast. Even though he is so busy and getting into everything he is still so sweet and pretty mellow!

Softball

Taylor and all of his buddies have been playing softball for a month and a half or so and I figured it was finally time to take some pictures. The kids and I love going to the games to cheer for the boys (ok really we do it just to get out of the house and talk with other moms and play with the kids). It has been fun going to the games, especially now because it has started to warm up a little. Tayson thoroughly enjoys being in the fresh air and being able to pick up dirt and leaves to put in his mouth. The girls love playing with the kids. The boys have done so well and have their last game on monday. They have made it to the championship game and we want to wish all the guys good luck! Hope you all win (if they win they get a T-shirt and Taylor is in need of a new shirt)!

More bragging......

I was going through my camera and found a few of these videos that I did not post the other day with the other video's. So sorry you have to hear me brag some more about my kids. I am just so proud of my kids, just as every mother should be! Make sure to pause the music at the bottom of my blog.

Since before Kamryn was 2 years old Kamryn was able to recognize the titles on her DVD's and pick the movie that she wanted to watch. We can ask her to go get a specific movie and she can walk right over and pick up the movie (the way our DVD's sit in the drawer you can't see the picture on the DVD it is mainly just the words). She recognizes the letters on the movies. Pretty cool! I think we are gonna start trying to read in the next little while.

Kamryn has been able to count to 10 since she was 18 months old and can now count to 20 and count to 10 in Spanish.

Tayson likes to watch Baby Einstein sometimes and gets excited when he watches it. He screeches at the parts he likes in the movies (this was taken before he was crawling).

Can't Imagine.....

I can't imagine not waking up to this sweet, beautiful face every morning! Every morning I am so anxiously woken up by this big smile and these big chubby cheeks. Tayson wakes up just smiling at me and running his little fingers across my face. He is the best thing to wake up too! I could lay next to him and cuddle him all morning if I had the chance to do so. Being a mother is best thing in the WORLD!

Snow in April

Oh, boy! I woke up this morning only to find 4 inches of snow on the ground. UUUGGGHHHH!!! Love snow, just not in April! This is the tree in our front yard. Pretty! Although I think it would be much prettier with some big green leaves on it(hehehe).

Making snow angels.


Posing for the camera.


Brrr.....it' freezing!
Snowball fight!

Mommy and Tayson (kinda hard to take pictures one handed).



My sweet little Tayson!

Look at those cheeks!



Mr. chubber chubsWeeeee this is fun!

These next two pictures are my favorite! Tayson LOVES his big sis Kamryn. Anytime she comes around he lets out a big laugh and grins real big for her. She plays on the ground with him, tickles, kisses, hugs, and adores him to death and he loves every minute of it. The two of them swinging together was so cute. He would look over at her and just laugh. So precious!

In all it was a fun day!

Activities with my kiddies

For FHE we made Temples out of sugar cubes and frosting with the girls and they absolutely loved it. Kamryn also loved to hear that someday her Prince will take her to the castle (Temple) and she will wear a beautiful white dress and look like a princess and live Happily Ever After . She talks about it all the time. We also are so lucky to be able to attend church every week which is in the same parking lot as the Spokane Temple. So we have the privelage of seeing the Temple every sunday and the girls love it.

Our next door neighbor gave us Amish Friendship Bread and so the girls and I made Bread. It was DELICIOUS! It takes 10 days to make and 9 of those days are just squishing the heck out of the dough in a plastic bag. So fun for the girls.

Painting is the messiest and funnest activity for the kids to do, not so much for mom's. I made sure to buy washable paint so it would wash out of their clothes.

And of course we had to play with playdough and make all sorts of fun things. Pizza, cheese, shapes, ice cream, etc.... They loved it and we have a little kit that has playdough scissors and playdough cookie cutters and all sorts of tools. It was sure fun for them and Tayson too! I snuck out for a second and came back to find that Tayson had climbed up to the table and grabbed a big chunk of play dough and of course took a HUGE bite out of it. Every kid has to eat playdough at least once right?

For FHE this time we decided to make Easter sugar cookies. Look at those bright colors! Aren't they so fun?


The finished product. MMMMmmmmmm..........tasty!

Painted our toenails in hopes that spring would come faster so that we can show them off (it didn't work).

Last but not least.....we made these cute little hamburgers out of Nilla Wafers, York Peppermint Patties, and Frosting. Super easy and so fun for the kids and they loved eating it too! Try it!

Ready or not, here I come!

Tayson has finally got this crawling thing down. He has been rocking back and forth and has taken quite a few crawling steps but would give up and just do the army crawl. But he has now found that he can get to what he wants a whole lot quicker if he just crawls the right way. I can't believe he is old enought to crawl and old enough to climb onto things and make a big mess for me. He has gotten so active lately and loves to pull himself up on things, open cubbards, pull books out, pull toys out, and make my life even more chaotic than it already is. He is lucky he is so cute. He always lets out a big smerk for me when I tell him "no, no" and it just melts my heart and makes things all better (especially cause I get so frustrated sometimes). He has got me wrapped around his finger for sure!

Just bragging........that's all!!!!!!

Sorry for the overload on video's! I had so many things I wanted to video but can't get the kids to hold still long enough to get it all in one video so you get to watch all 50 billion of them. The girls and I have been bored and busy and I wanted to share what the girls have been learning in the last little while. I know I am biased because I am the mom of these cute kids but I am so proud of each new thing they learn and do. I love teaching and playing with my kids and there is nothing more rewarding in life than to see your kids succeed and do the best they can at whatever task comes their way. Make sure to pause the music at the bottom of my blog to hear the video's. By the way, this is mainly for Grandma's and Grandpa's who don't get to see what the kids are up to.

Kamryn just learned to do summersaults and is so excited about it!

Kamryn has been learning her shapes and loves making shapes of everything (including her fingers) she recognizes the shapes on everything now too. She has also known the sounds of the letters since before she turned 2 years old.

She is also currently learning her colors and doing a great job at it. She recognizes quite a few of the colors and constantly asks what color her clothes are.

She also loves to color and is learning to color inside the lines, but her favorite thing to do is draw her shapes and smiley faces. She is so good at it and I love to watch her. In just this last month she has been learning to write her letters and I am amazed at how well she does. She can write about half or more of the alphabet and has done most of them by herself without our help.

Brynlee too is learning new things and has learned to do a few shapes with her fingers.

Tayson too is learning a lot. He had been on all fours and rocking back and forth for at least a month and a half and we thought any day he was gonna take off. And then he decided he couldn't wait any longer and took a few crawling steps and then gave up and just army crawled. So he has been army crawling for like 2 and a half weeks and we keep telling ourselves he is gonna take off any day now. But he is still content just army crawling everywhere. He will still take a few steps and then gives up and just does the army. He is getting so fast at it too!

Ok, so I am not a neglectful mother even though this video may seem so. Taylor was bathing Tayson and saw Tayson blowing bubbles in the tub and thougth it was hillarious. So we pulled out the camera to video him and of course once the camera comes out he sucks in the water and doesn't blow bubbles as well as he was before. But we did catch a few bubbles and it is so cute. He is such a happy baby and LOVES the tub. As soon as he hears the water his chubby little legs get moving and he hurries as fast as his little legs will let him get to the tub. He screams when we take him out of the tub and he throws fits if we won't let him in the shower with us. Silly kid!

Brynlee can now count to 10 and almost knows all the sounds the letters make. She loves to sing her ABC'S and it is now so fun to see her make the sounds. She is so smart and busy and I get so much joy out of seeing her learn new things. For all of you who know Brynlee you know how busy she is and it is so hard to get her to hold still long enough to teach her anything. So I am just as proud of myself as I am her because I have gotten her to hold still so I can teach her. She has got the cutest little voice and I can't help but smile when I hear that sweet little voice. She is so cute!