Sneak Peek for you Karen...

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Spring Music Program.

Kendall had a spring music program at her school.  She has been practicing her songs diligently.  We all showed up on the big day to watch the performance.  Sidney found a seat next to her friend Berlin.  Berlin's older sister, Katenee, is Kendall's BFF at school. 

 

Berlin's grumpy face just was not going to cut it.  She flashed her pearly whites for the second picture.

Kendall is a performer at heart.  She gave us several poses before things got started and gave us several more throughout the program.

In full song!

Tulips in Bloom.

Spring has definitely sprung.  Our tulips have been in full bloom.  I love spring!  The bright colors bring me a lot of joy.

 

...except for when it comes to Cooper.  We have been having a love-hate relationship lately.  I have only ONE dirt flower bed.  I had planted some gorgeous purple tulip bulbs last fall.  She decided to dig all of them up.  GRR!

 

These are the only survivors.  Note that they were extras I had planted in the rock bed.  I suppose I have learned my lesson.

 

We have been out in the yard sprucing things up.  Kevin has been perusing Pinterest.  He came up with a great idea to add some color to the side of our shed.  A glimpse of it can be seen behind Kendall.  I will post more pictures later. 

Egg Hunts and Early Graduation Parties!

Easter was great as always!  We had family and friends over to celebrate the day.  Kevin BBQ'd tri-tip and everyone had a good time visiting.  We started off on Saturday night with an early graduation party.  Cody and Kyle are both seniors this year.  We had a party for them complete with "homemade" cake (shhh....) and salted cashew caramel ice cream.  Yum!

Kendall was all dolled up in her new Easter dress from Grandma Karen and Papa Mark.

 

Sidney would not sit still long enough to pose for a picture, so I had to snap one of her climbing our post outside.  Little monkey!

The kids had some excellent Easter egg hunts.  The teenagers (and Eli) hid eggs for the girls.

Once they had the green light, they were off on their hunt.

Sidney found a ton of eggs and had half of her candy eaten within the hour.

Hannah was sporting a beautiful toothless grin this Easter.

Then it was time to prepare for the boys egg hunt.  Everyone had a good time trying to hide the eggs in super challenging places.  I suspect we will be finding stray eggs well into the summer.

Asher was quite the sleuth looking for hidden eggs.

Eli was very methodical in his hunt.  I wonder how long it took him to find the egg hidden in the hose reel?

The weather could not have been better.  We lounged around and visited well into the evening.

The dinosaur that refused to come out.

Tonight we decided to go out for dinner at our favorite local pizza place.  We love this place, because there is a party room that has several arcade games and a big crane machine.  The girls entertain themselves playing the arcade games without even realizing they need to put money in.  I wonder how much longer we will get away with that?  Kevin and I take turns throwing our money away in the big crane machine.  The beauty is that we typically walk out with 2 or 3 stuffed animals that we did not need, but it is good fun!

 

Tonight I managed to get this dinosaur very close to the edge.  Kevin decided to use his next quarter to place it into the drop box.  The craziest thing happened.  While the claw was picking the dinosaur up, it got wrapped around the rope that holds the claw to the top of the machine.  So there the dinosaur dangled.  We put a few extra quarters in thinking we could get it to free up, but instead the machine completely froze up. 

 

The girls were going crazy!  Kevin had them pose in front of the machine with "sad faces".  It took more than a few tries before we could get them to stop laughing.  I wonder if the dinosaur will still be hanging next time we stop in?