Our Easter weekend was truly an Easter weekend. It started on Good Friday. We went to my friend Anna's house. She is the most creative and best organized person I know! She didn't even pay me to say that. She also has three of the best behaved children I know. Case in point, her daughter McKenna was telling her something that her son Caleb did. Anna told her to tell Caleb to come up so she could talk to him. Caleb obediently came. Rori came to tell me something that Liam did. I told her to tell Liam to come to me. He said, "No, Never!" That's my boy! Anyway, Anna did an Easter egg hunt for the kids and she, smartly--why didn't I think of that--assigned each child a color of egg to find. She had filled each egg with goodies. The kids had a great time and talked about the Easter egg hunt the rest of the afternoon.

Liam and Caleb--not a great picture, but we were getting ready to leave and I did my best :)

Rori and McKenna--they get along great and Rori loves McKenna's long beautiful hair!

I already wrote about Easter Saturday. So on to Easter Sunday. The kids got all dressed up for church--as did I. I actually wore a bright green skirt and heels. I think I looked like an Easter egg, but there are no pictures to prove it. It's best that way. I also only got a couple of pictures of the kids because it was beautiful outside so I wanted outside pictures. Unfortunately it was also windy and my skirt had a tendency to blow up. Not a sight for the neighbors. Also, my heels were getting stuck in the lawn while I was trying to walk. I was cheaply aerating the lawn :)

                         Here's Rori practicing for Riverd.ance!

We have a rule that all males in the family must wear sweatervests. It's Bill's rule, but I think Liam rocked it :)

Brendan did not get dressed up for Easter, so no pictures of him either... It was the first Easter, that I remember, in a long time that we had such beautiful weather!

Hello Gorgeous!

Last summer I was pregnant with this adorable guy

Unfortunately he did a number on my back and my feet while I was carrying him. So I was forced to wear these

I affectionately call them "Birkenstops."

This summer, I will be wearing these!

Chubba Bubba

It was warm the other day and Brendan got to wear just a onesie. Normally he is in Sleep n Plays. He wanted to know if it made his thighs look big?

He's a little insulted that you would say that

Because can you do this?

He didn't think so

Easter Saturday

We had Easter at our house with my family on Saturday. We did Saturday because my sister's husband had to go out of town on Easter Sunday. I have always dreamed of being a good hostess. My vision is making the perfect ham, with delicious sides, a lovely tablescape, and me, perfectly pleasant and polished. This is the way it went...a large ham--so large I could barely fit anything else in the oven and get the door shut. Cranky words were said. I sent Bill out at the last minute to buy chinet plates because I decided I didn't want to do dishes after. The kitchen was 80 degrees which made me crabby and not a pleasant hostess. I had one child (Liam) pulling on my leg crying and whining, another one (Brendan) pooping on his clothes, and Bill in the background saying "hey look at me, pay attention to me!" He was also asking me to make Brendan's cereal. Martha Stew.art I am not. How do people manage to have everything ready at the same time, table set, drinks poured, and guests happy? We are not a well oiled machine at my house! Fortunately my family all understands and are similar. At least we could all rejoice in the fact that He is Risen!

When a 4 year old feeds a baby

This is what it looks like when a four year old feeds a baby...

And this is what it looks like when your sun rises and sets with your big sister, Rori Rose

For Lisa

My college roommate commented on my last post and it made my day. Well, all comments make my day! I LOVE comments!  Lisa and I don't get to talk very often but I think we have some great memories from college. We talked on the phone last fall for the first time in forever, but it was like no time had passed.  Anyway, I was going to post about "my chair" when we got a new one, but I hope she would appreciate seeing it now :) That and I have no idea when I will be able to part with it. I think Bill wishes he would have thrown it out while I was on bedrest with Rori. That's when he disposed of my other college treasure--my 1990's macintosh computer, which we saw in a museum while we were in Washington DC. I'm still bitter about that one. 

When I was a freshman, I didn't have any furniture so my grandma gave me her lazyboy recliner. I love it because it rocks, reclines, and its the perfect size. It was a joke with my roommates that if I was home, my rear end was on that chair. I am not sure if anyone else ever got to sit on it while I was around. Like I said previously, it has my perfect rear end print. Sadly, it's on it's last legs. It is a complete eyesore. There are marker stains, a new rip in the seat, the arms are so worn there is no padding left--just wood under the fabric. Yet, it's been with me through college, being a newlywed, and rocked all of my babies. I have such wonderful memories of this chair

It has definitely seen better days. So, yes, Lisa, the chair is still alive, but I fear there will be a day in the near future, when I come home and find her on the curb, and all I will be left with are the memories...

Treasure Hunting

The only piece of furniture Bill and I have purchased for our house is our couch. Everything else has been given to us--and it's all in fabulous condition. Well, in fabulous condition except for my Lazy Boy recliner circa 1982 that has my perfect rear end print in it. I'm not calling my rear end perfect, but a print that fits my rear end perfectly ;) That chair is a whole other post--which I will do someday if I get a new chair... Anyway, about the couch. We were fairly young and inexperienced when we bought the couch. It is the world's stupidest couch. I regret buying it, but I refuse to buy a new one until everyone is potty trained, no longer spits up, and stops spilling. This couch shows watermarks--when we clean it, it leaves a ring where the water dries. The cushions don't come out so you can't flip or fluff them. You have to pull the back cushions out or you fall in the cracks. While these are all annoyances, nothing is more annoying than when you lose something in it.

The first thing we ever lost was the remote. We had been searching for days and then I wondered if it had fallen in the couch. We tipped the couch to the front and heard, clink clack bang. There was something in there. However, the lovely design of the couch included fabric covering the bottom. There is no way to get whatever fell inside the couch without cutting a hole in it. So we did. And out came our remote. We have lost varying things and gotten them out by tipping the couch and working to get the items to the hole so we can pull them out. Recently, Rori lost her cartridge game for her Leap.ster. We searched everywhere we thought it could be but couldn't find it. Bill never wants to tip the couch and look for something--he finds it inconvenient ;) So on Friday while he was at work, I tipped it. It's quite heavy, but I've been working out, you know ;)  I heard, clankety clack, clankety clack. There was no way that I could hold the couch up and finagle all the things I could feel through the fabric over to the hole (I haven't been working out that much!). So, I proceded to cut several slits in the couch bottom. It was quite the treasure hunt. I found an Ariel mini doll, a Snow White mini doll, a Lightning McQueen car, two barettes, my night face lotion that I had been looking for that Rori had swiped, the Leapster game, and a bunch of dirty kleenexes! Can I tell you how much I hate this stupid couch?!  Anytime something is missing, I'm pretty sure the couch ate it! Thank God we got hand-me down furniture in the rest of the house because if we had picked out the rest, with our skills, I think I'd have to burn it all and start from scratch!