Happy Hunting

Our Easter started with a visit from the Easter Bunny on Saturday. Sundays are just too hectic these days, so we asked the Bunny to please come early...and he did! Imagine that! Here are the chillins enjoying their Easter loot.


My neighbor, Rene, made them each a little stuffed animal. I am not a fan of stuffed animals...wastes of space if you ask me. But these things were so stinkin' cute! I saw the patterns and asked her to make them for me.

That afternoon we went to my cousin, Kevin's, house for the Annual Biggs Easter Potluck (he has an absolutely amazing house by the way...we'll attribute that to his wife, Kelly). I love these things! Talk about good eats! Everyone brings something and with a family our size you can just imagine the plethora of food. I consider it a challenge to sample everything! And then there's an Easter egg hunt for the little ones. Just look at the anticipation!

And then melee ensued:

We got a picture of all of the counsins' children. I can't believe this thing has been going for so many years. I remember doing this egg hunt when I was a kid. Aaaah the memories.
Here's the lady who started it (far left), my cousin Kathy. We did skip it last year, but other than that, this is the first year it wasn't at her house. The family is just getting to dang big!

Sunday evening we had Easter dinner at my casa. Then my mom put on an Easter egg hunt for her children and then the grandchillins. She may have overdone it, but it was a lot of fun!

We didn't think any of the kids would find this egg. At least not without help. But leave it to the youngest! Brielle found it all on her own! Pretty impressive hunting skills at one and a half years old.

And Yowza! What's this? A little Easter Keester for you all! Every time I tried to take a picture of my kids hunting, my sister, Kendra, walked in front of the lens. She did this at Kevin's and at my house. Just thought I'd embarass her a little. What are big sisters for?

We hope you had a Happy Easter!

Silence...sweet silence.

Grayson has lost his voice! Should I be excited about that? Here's what he sounds like:

He's actually a bit better in this video because I waited too long to do it. It's been kind of nice. Although the other day he got out of the tub and slipped and fell. Bret went in there to find him laying on the ground crying...but not really crying. More like miming a cry. That was kind of sad. But ooooh, the quiet around here (when there's not another soul around for him to torment, of course).

I hate downloading videos. After getting Mabel rolling and putting that on my blog, I swore I'd never do this again, but you just had to hear his voice! I got the Noah's ark book out to get him talking without looking at the camera. Plus I like the way he says "lion" and "elephant". Two for one on this video! But it appears we have a bit of work to do on his recognizing animals.

Boys will be boys

And girls will be confused as to why...

Yes, that is the fort in the background and yes, I'm still blogging stuff from Spring Break. I'm a little slow these days. The fort has long since been torn down. A moment of silence if you will.

The Evolution of a Club

It's Spring Break so for my sanity's sake we have spent A LOT of time outside. Aiden and the neighbor kids (actually, neighbor Mike) assembled a fort. They have spent much of their time in that thing thus far. It looks like the Ericksons have a hobo living on the side of their house.

The kids have also changed the name of this fort/club about 100 times. Okay, only four that I can think of. It started out as:

A modest 2 bedroom clubhouse. They were all given the secret code which was written on their forearms. In marker. Awesome.

And there's nothing like sitting in "The Kids Club" and sharing a box of Apple Jacks! Looks more like it should be called "Transient Town".

It then changed to "The Masters". They grabbed some more pallets and added a room. Then Shelby (neighbor girl with some drama on her, she's truly hilarious...we "adults" love to goad her) came out with a bowl of tuna fish and a slice of bread. They devoured this inside their little shack (all 10 of them?) which inspired the name:
As you can see, they still have openings for members. Are you a tuna lover?

Should you join, you must abide by their rules:I of course, am not able to abide by rule #5, so I am not eligible. I love the word freakin' too much. But I say Frickin'...do you think they'll discern the difference? The boys then broke off from the girls and named their club "The tuna, doughnuts, and video game lovers". Do you think there's some copyright infringement going on?

Later, neighbor George from across the street said we could have some of his citrus if we would come pick it. And so we did! I needed some more lemons for juicing and freezing to get me through the fast arriving Arizona summer. We found some peculiar fruit. What does this remind you of?

That's right! A fish. Yeah, yeah, they don't look exactly the same, but you get the idea. By the by, this is Swimmers, Aiden's current obsession.

And check out this mammoth amazon lemon:Okay, so the picture doesn't do it justice, but trust me...this thing is huge! It does dwarf Mike's hand though.

10 YEARS

So today is officially ten years of wedded bliss! Anyone who's been married that long knows how true and untrue that is. I just got back from my breakfast at Crackers & Co. with my hubby and it did not disappoint. Bret has taken the day off work today to spend with me, that is my gift for today (best one, I must say). I've decided to borrow (steal) from my sister's blog and list ten things I've loved about my marriage and Bret throughout these 10 years:
1) We are an eternal family.
2) Bret's ultimate goal is to make his family happy.
3) Bret is a great provider. All of our needs are met and then some.
4) We've built up a Heaven on earth with our 3 little ones (this changes from day to day depending on the chillins) ; )
5) He does everything he can to allow me to play volleyball at the church every Thursday.
6) He used to go to the trouble of cutting out my section of the newspaper from his section that he takes to work. Now my comics/puzzles are separate from his sports, but he always remembers to leave them home for me!
7) I love, love, love his blue eyes (and that all of my kids have followed suit).
8) He's a do-er. The man cannot sit still. This can be a double edged sword, but I'll take it over the alternative any day!
9) He keeps our yard looking immaculate and has turned out to be quite the green thumb (I wish I could say the same of me about my house, but no). I love laying out on that grass and watching my kids play!
10) He's not too shabby on the eyes. Too much? I don't think so!

Happy Anniversary, Babe!

Bret, Bret, Bret...

Everyone knows how I love surprises....er, uh love ruining surprises. Bret has pulled off another! Our 10th anniversary is quickly coming and he is doing the 10 days of our anniversary leading up to the actual day. Collective awwww! I woke up last Wednesday to a dozen red roses and a card. The day after it was chocolates, the next some pedicure gift cards. Saturday I scored an i-tunes gift card, and Sunday was breakfast in bed.

This morning he called to tell me he forgot and will give it to me this evening, unless I get to it first! Just kidding. I know he's worked hard on this, so I'll let it be a surprise, but you just don't know the temptation I'm fighting right now. It's almost as if he wants me to find out. He left the list of gifts open on the computer and I closed it without looking. Anyone who knows me, knows how difficult that was. Maybe he really wants me to find it...I should be looking for that gift right now, just to make him happy...really, I should. Or maybe I'll go make him some snickerdoodles to belay the temptation. He'll have my decision when he gets home...will there be snickerdoodles or not??!

He's a Big Kid Now

Our little Aiden is growing up! On Saturday Bret taught Aiden how to ride his bike without training wheels. He picked it up in like 2 minutes! I originally tried this about two months ago on his big bike but Aiden was having none of it. I decided this was a Dad's job so I left it to Bret.

Bret thought it would be better to try it on his small bike first and work his way up to his bigger bike. So far, Bret was right (and you won't hear those words coming out of my mouth very often). Just look at this kid go!

Pay no attention to the fact that his knees are practically hitting the handlebars as he rides; he's riding with only two wheels! It was quite cute, you should have seen the look of concentration on his face!

And his friend, Cade, was there for moral support. And Miss Mae, catching the action and some rays. By the by, she's sitting up now all by herself! We're still waiting on the hair. She's got some growing in back as you can see, but not so much on top. It's official, the mullet is on its way. What can I say, white trash begets white trash. He he.

Now, we just have to teach Grayson to use the pedals on his trike...in his cut-off shorts...and shoeless. Hmmm, maybe I shouldn't have giggled at the white trash comment.