Easter

This year we decided to go to the Good Friday Easter service at church, instead of attending a service on Easter Sunday.  We met Grams, Papa and Aunt Jamie and attended the service together, which rarely happens these days.  On Saturday morning we headed to Papa and Grams' house for a cousins Easter egg hunt.  On Easter morning, we read the Easter story together in big Sister's Jesus Storybook Bible after the kids opened their Easter baskets.  John and Big Sister went to brunch at John's aunt and uncle's house on Sunday afternoon, but Little Bud and I stayed home because he was having some "people overload" issues and was seriously in need of a nap after all of the weekend festivities.

Big Sister and I had fun making our own egg dyes this year.

The dyes didn't work as well as we'd hoped, but it was an interesting process,

and Big Sister was excited to see the colors develop as the vegetables cooked down.

Easter baskets from Papa and Grams

It's not often all of the cousins get together,

they so enjoyed playing together :)

egg hunt!!

Easter baskets!

(notice Little Bud has the Ariel water bottle in his basket-

when I saw it at the store, I knew I had to get it for him; the kid loves the Little Mermaid!)

Frozen Party!

A few weeks ago Big Sister was invited to a sweet friend's "Frozen" themed birthday party.  It was such a cute party, and they even had a craft station where the kids were able to decorate crowns (Big Sister thought that was the bomb.com).

After careful deliberation, Big Sister decided to wear her Belle gown to the party (because going to a princess party is so much more fun dressed as a princess!!).  

Music on Main

Every summer our little town hosts "Music on Main" on Friday nights.  A few weeks ago, John's brother played with his band, and we had a fun night listening to music and chatting with family and friends.

Big Sister working on her photography skills again ;)

Big Sister took these photos herself:

Then she wanted me to take a few photos of her looking cute and dancing :)

Stay-cation 2014

John decided to take a week of vacation at the end of April/first week of May. We talked about going out of town, but in the end we decided to spend the week at home, relaxing and doing some fun family things right here in Birmingham (we also finished up a few projects that have been lingering around here at home).  Unfortunately, the first 2 days of our stay-cation were filled with thunderstorms and tornado warnings, but the weather cleared up on Wednesday, and we spent lots of time outside the rest of the week.

On Tuesday (during a break in the bad weather), John and I took Big Sister on a day date to the McWane Center (thanks to Grammie for taking care of Little Bud!).  I was amazed how easy life is with a 2/1 parent/child ratio ;)  We had a great time checking out all of the exhibits.  After we finished up at the McWane Center, we headed for lunch at Chuy's (Big Sister requested quesadillas) and capped of the day with a trip to Steel City Pops (blood orange is Big Sister's current "favorite flavor" - we can't WAIT for them to open up their drive through location closer to our side of town!!).  

Wednesday afternoon we picked up Big Sister and Little Bud's cousin at the bus stop after school (with her parent's permission of course!) and headed to Desoto Caverns.  We bought season passes last year when John's grandparents were in town, and it was a good investment.  We've been 3 times, and the kids LOVE it (well...Big Sister does, Little Bud gets frustrated waiting when there's something he's too little to do - although he excitedly said, "bumper cars!" as soon as he saw them - he can talk so much more than he lets on!).  It's a much better experience than a play place like Chuck E Cheese's (it's never very crowded and all the fun stuff is outside), but it's on the same "fun" level for the kids.  

All in all, it was a great week.  We enjoyed spending extra time together as a family, and we were all sad when Monday morning rolled around and John had to head back to work...

Big Sister decided to fly her kite on Monday morning before the storms rolled in

fun at the McWane Center

headed to Chuy's

Desoto Caverns

John opened the pool, but the water is SUPER COLD after the long winter we had

Big Sister asked to go on a "boat ride" in her sand box lid since the water was so cold

(she dragged the lid over herself, I guess she remembered doing the same thing last year)

John finally finished drawing Big Sister's Small World art...

now we just have to paint it!

On Saturday morning, we had a surprise visit from a sweet friend from 

Finland; it was so great to see her, even though the visit was quick.  

Thanks for coming to visit us Katri!  

On Sunday, we hosted John's brother's fiancee's wedding shower at our house 

(hence the last minute house projects we had to finish up during the week).

Big Sister has been excited for months about having 

such an important (and girls only!) party at our house.

Courtney is definitely one of Big Sister's favorite people!