An early Easter at Grandma's

Since my sister is going to be in town for Easter we went down to Phil's mom's house for an early Easter. Chase went with Phil to get her an Easter Lily. On the drive down I turned around and Chase was just sniffing the flowers like crazy. It's hard to see here but the flower is covering his whole face.

 About 10 mins. later I turned around to tell him something and saw this. He was totally covered in pollen. ha!

 When we got there we did a quick Easter egg hunt before the heavens opened and it poured rain!

 Chase and Ty were pretty ruthless. Hurry, hurry!

 Eliza got the hang of it really quickly.

 And Chase was pretty proud he found the very last egg!

 All the cousins.

 Aunt Marie brought cupcakes for the kids to frost and it was a hit. They had fun both decorating and immediately eating!

 Licking fingers is a no no Chasey! Oh, well...

 Marie gave Eliza a cupcake and a frosted spoon to work with. She just licked the spoon instead!

 Then chowed down on the cupcake of course.

 Messy little piggies!!!

 It's amazing how different boys and girls are. These 2 gals just sat here and painted for close to 20 mintues. It was so cute. My boys won't typically sit that long. Unless for a movie or a video game.

 Phil was having fun snapping pics. Her round cheeks remind me so much of Chase's at that age.

Thanks Joellen for a yummy lunch and fun treats!

Pretty Princesses

This probably isn't noteworthy to most, but on our trip to the Great Wolf Lodge Eliza said the word "princess" for the first time and I almost died. So cute coming from MY daughters mouth and with MY daughters little lisp. Which by the way she has b/c I cursed myself by mocking poor Lexi.

ANYWAY. Lucy was over the other day and these 2 were a hoot playing dress-up. It's impossible to get a good pic of these 2 together b/c they move so much. But I hope I captured the cuteness of this.

 Do you see the high heels?!?!? Lucy is a bit upset here b/c Eliza wasn't sharing her pom-poms too well. I tried to have them each have one, but a cheerleader has 2, duh!!!

 Rah rah!!

Let the Easter festivities begin!!

Last Sunday we got our Easter decorations out (all 5 of them-the kids were pretty disappointed) and the next morning I came downstairs to this. Super cute little bunnies! And somehow my kitchen was clean. Magic.

Starting tomorrow we'll do our "week of Easter" where each day we read about what happened to Christ each day before his Crucifixion. I hope to remind my kids that it's not just about bunnies and eggs-which I'm still confused by to this day! :)

 Chase's preschool had a "spring" party and it was also silly child week. So that day was "crazy hair day." Well, I had no clue what to do w/ a boys hair and I couldn't find hair dye. So I used acryllic paint to do a bunny and an egg. He loved it. Until that night when we washed it out. I'm surprised he doesn't have bald spots. I might never do that again. I figured the worst case scenario was I'd shave his head. Luckily it didn't come to that.

 Here he is at school heading to the Easter egg hunt.

 Look at all that crazy hair! Love it!

 I was able to go and help w/ the party. I love to do that. You can see Chase is a shoveler when he eats. Get as much as you can in and hope you can chew and swallow. Lots of gagging happens in our home. Anyway. The teachers couldn't believe how much food he eats.

 Doing the classic egg on teh spoon game. He's looking over at the opposing team. He's as competitive as Phil and Ty. Things get pretty crazy here when they wrestle. They must all win!!

 Run Forest, run!

 At the end his teacher Miss Dawn read a weird book about the Easter bunny. Not sure if she'd read it before. Oh, well. he liked it.

Oh, to be down on the farm again

I just love Howell Living Farm. We went there last Saturday for some quiet, good old-fashioned fun. It was so relaxing I never wanted to leave. I think I am meant to live on a big plot of land right near a farm so I can have access to one any time I want. I'd say I'd like to live on a farm, but then you have to work it ALL the time, not just when you want your fix!!

 Look at all the open space! In the fence were 8 little lambs. Just darling.

 We came prepared w/ rain boots and the kids splashed forever in the puddles.

 See Ty? Who needs a DS? :)

 Crossing the little creek to head up to see all the animals in the barns.

 This was where we learned Chase's boots have holes in them. I can't imagine how. he only wears them every single day of his life!

 Scoping out the building. This farm works as if it's from I believe the early 1900's. All the ploughs are horse-pulled, no power tools, etc. Here they were taking these logs and making them into wooden planks.

 This cow was hilarious. It mooed and mooed. Is that how you spell mooed? Anyway. We couldn't stop laughing.

 Phil and Chase hung out at the bee boxes for a while. That day they were collecting honey from the boxes. But all the swarming bees freaked out Eliza and Ty so we went to check out Bessie. That's not her name, I made that up. But Chase loved all the bees.

 The kids checking out the piglets. They are so cute when they're younger.

 Phil snapping shots of his girl. I love this guy in teh background. He's always here and can tell you anything about this farm. A wealth of knowledge.

 We were able to help made feed for the animals. They dry out the corn cobs and then you pick off the kernels. They grind it up to feed the pigs and chickens.

 The kids loved doing this. Especially Chase. We coudln't get him away from it. He totally could swing it on a farm. Maybe he was supposed to be a pioneer. But they didn't have movies so it's a tough call.

 We went into this warm cozy barn to look at all the freshly hatched chicks. They too are so cute when they are small. I guess humans are the same. I was a super cute baby. Puberty hit and let's just say, well, let's not say...

 This just kills me. We had a picnic and these 2 ran off to check out these birds. We look over and Chase has his arm around her. He's so protective of her. I hope it continues!

 If the boys are around, Eliza is not too far off!

The Great Wolf Lodge

After a long cold winter and Phil's busy season we like to get away for a bit. And this year we decided to again do the warm, close Great Wolf Lodge w/ the Meyerson's. We thought we'd surprise the kids and do it for Chase's birthday. We'd told the kids that we weren't doing a party for Chase, we were doing something much cooler. So when his birthday came and went they were a little confused. But we told them to keep holding on. So 2 days later we didn't take them to school. They were only slightly concerned/confused. Then we met up w/ the Meyerson's and were on our way. We stopped at 5 Guys on the way and the kids were just totally stumped. I had to pack the cooler w/ food for our stay so I told them we were doing a picnic. So when we stopped for lunch they just didn't get it. I told Ty he was doing a half day, so as we drove further and further away he wasn't understanding how it would work out. The kids all thought we were going to a really neat playground. And in a way we did!!

 Phil w/ 2 happy babies!

 This is their first reaction to seeing the sign for the Lodge. Ty missed it, but Chase saw the pic of the wolf and started yelling, "The great wolf lodge!!" And then my camera batteries died and I missed all the rest. DANG!!!!

 Inside! Eliza's reaction is so funny. She wasn't sure about the water shooting up.

 But then she warmed up to them!

 Sorry, another pic of Liza. Her little chubby legs just kill me.

 2 cute girls taking a break from all the water.

 The next morning I took Chase and Eliza to get him a wand to do the magical quest all over the lodge. This was Aunt Jessy's b-day gift to him. You go on this quest and wave your wand at all these things and they open, glow, talk, etc. Sort of weird, but all teh kids seem to love it!!

 Lucy having a hard time. I think she was sick of the lifejacket. Who can blame a girl?

 But a quick hug and all was well again. 

 Literally grinning from ear to ear. He LOVED this wave pool! He's getting so comfortable and brave in the water.

 Now in love w/ the water spouts.

 Is Lexi 15 now?!?!?

 Daddy and Liza having a snack while I did the waterslides. LOVE them!!!

 Cute couple of kids.

 This is Jenn. Pretty sure she'll be ticked I posted this. She made it across no prob-lem-o.

 So did Ty. He's very slow and his moves very calculated. 

 A sleeping and should-be-asleep couple of gals. I'd read reviews that the Pocono's lodge has trouble w/ the fire alarms going off. Last time we went-no issue. This time however, it went off at 5:45am and my family was awake for the day. SHOOT ME!!!

 The boys played basketball for hours.

 Spider-dork.

 Pretending to be asleep. She does this all time and it cracks us up!

 I was sitting w/ sleeping Lucy and she kept creeping away and looking back at me w/ this guilty face. Hilarious.

 Getting ready to leave. The big kids did the wand again and Chase was just done. he was a tired hot-mess. This pic is for Jessy. We asked him if he wanted to do the wand and he collapsed. He was asleep literally 1 second after he got in the car.

 Quick group shot in front of the snuggy fireplace. I want one at home, maybe not this massive however.

 Proof I was at the lodge. Mom's are NEVER in pictures. I just showed Phil this and I think he got my point. 30 pics, 2 of me. LAME!!

 Ty's souvenier was one of those squished pennies. He loved it.

 I'm pretty sure his body language says it all.

 I'm not sure why I was trying to get a pic of my 3 kids right then. All 3 of them were exhausted. And this was the best of the 5 I took!

Woops-this ended up in the wrong spot. I just love how lady-like she appears here. A few hours later I snapped a shot of her w/ her legs up on the table. Classy gal.

This trip was awesome and was made better by having the Meyerson's there. We were able to switch off watching the little ones to get optimal watersliding in. Thanks for coming guys!