April in a Nutshell

Before May gets away from us, I need to chronicle April!

These kids love to help cook!

Dressing up like Fix-It Felix from Wreck-It Ralph

I LOVE conference weekend!

This was a special moment watching President Packer's talk.

His talk was amazing and specifically resonated with both Kevin and me.  If you haven't heard it, you can watch it here.

I was feeling extra crafty and made this little sign for my bear, another sign for the table, and tried my hand at a table runner.

We watched The Sandlot for family movie night - the kids loved it, but holy cow! There are a ton of swear words for a kids movie!

Nana was on a mission to spoil my kids and sent a boy and girl Potato Head Easter Bunny in addition to some other fun toys!

We were invited to a baseball game with the Hansens and had a blast!

We even got to see George W. Bush from afar! (blue shirt next to the security guard)

 An awesome Mavs game with the Chelius'

I loved spending time with Baby Molly! She is such a doll!

Colin has stopped napping everyday, but sometimes I can trick him into a nap if we snuggle and sleep in my bed! I love getting to spend one on one time with him, especially when he is being cuddly!

A few days before Easter, Reagan had a really high temperature for several days.  She was so pathetic and sick! All she wanted to do was cuddle, but I didn't want to keep her warm so we made her a little bed on the couch next to me and watched movies and napped for a few days.

Look at how sad she looks!

With a temperature of 103.5, I couldn't leave her to attend Colin's Easter party, so thankfully Cindy was there to take pictures!

After a few sick days, Reagan was ready for a drive in "Daddy's Black Car."

She loves driving with the windows down!

After watching The Sandlot, Colin is convinced that the proper way to catch a ball is to stick your glove in the air and wait for a ball to drop in to it, just like Smalls.

While I was getting ready for Easter dinner, Reagan decided to sit at the table and wait. 

She was still recovering from her bug, as you can tell.

The Spring weather gets us out side often!

Colin requested a big carrot and apples for breakfast one morning...he can be so strange in his eating habits!

We had a fun Ladies Night Out to see Beauty and the Beast and loved Gaston!

One of the fun presents Nana sent are these magnets. Colin spends HOURS playing with them and building houses, balls, and rockets!

 

Watching Toy Story with his little buddies!

We were so excited to have my brother, Steve, in town for two weeks while he completed some flight training! We headed up to the Rockwall Harbor on a beautiful evening for dinner and a stroll.

After seeing the play Beauty and the Beast, we had to watch the Disney original! The Larsen's let us use their media room for a fun morning!

I serve in the Primary in our ward and LOVE watching the Sunbeams each Sunday! They are hilarious!

I love this little girl and she loves eating corn on the cob!

One morning I watched Isaac and he requested a big carrot just like Colin! Silly boys!

I have the most amazing friends! I wanted to buy some furniture at Ikea and so Cindy and Kaity and all of our kids headed up to Frisco to outfit my new craft room!  3 moms and 6 kids! It was a little (or a lot) crazy but we accomplished our missions! 

While I am cooking dinner, these two goofballs love to watch the picture change on Pandora...silly kids :)

Phew! Looks like we were pretty busy!

According to Colin:

• "You're the best girl ever!"
• "This was the best dinner ever!"
• "You're an awesome girl, mom!"
• "How'd your day?"
• Me (discussing the difference between boys and girls): How do you know daddy is a boy?
• Colin: Because he's handsome!
• Colin (perfectly healthy): "cough, cough. I have a cough! I should watch a show"
• According to his Preschool teacher when I picked him up from school one day he told her "That's my mom - she's beautiful!"
• "Ah! That's cute!"
• To Daddy "You're my best friend ever!"
• Me (talking about future professions): "You can be a fireman or a lawyer like daddy!"
• Colin: "Or a kitten?

These kids are keeping me busy! They are just so much fun!

Easter Fun!

Isn't Easter the best? Spring weather, Easter candy, ham, cheesy potatoes, family, remembering our blessings and the Savior? 

Love it!

We were thrilled to be invited to two fun Easter hunts!

Easter morning was a rough one (I had to sing and teach Sharing Time in Primary) and Reagan was still getting over being super sick, so the Easter Bunny came while we were at church!  

We didn't even get a picture of all of us dressed in our Easter finery :(

The Easter Bunny came!!

Colin gets a little funny with presents and new things. He takes a few minutes to warm up!

After he warmed up, he was thrilled about getting a Woody (from Toy Story)!

(as a side note, we don't normally have a mattress in our living room! We had lots of friends over for a movie night and needed extra seating and the kids loved jumping on it for a day!) 

Playing with her new chalk...

and having brother steal her chalk!

The Sharps (and new cute baby Molly!) came over for dinner, but sadly we didn't get any pictures :(

For Family Night we dyed eggs and it was a huge hit! Messy but lots of fun!

Tigers!

Super last minute, I dragged my friends to the Arboretum for the fun and free children's activities on Mondays.

Colin was SOOOO excited to get his face painted! He talked about it the whole way there and couldn't relax until he had his tiger face on!

These artists are so great and very fast! Reagan just got a heart on her arm, but Colin did great!

Both Isaac and Colin wanted to be tigers so we had tiger-Colin and Shere-Khan Isaac!

They both had fun growling at each other and all the little ond ladies who passed by!

(In a quivering, sweet little old lady voice) "What a cute tiger!" 

ROAR!!!!!!

(Colin is very committed to his roaring and uses his entire body to get the full effect!)

After being a tiger on Monday, Colin wanted to go to the zoo and see "the tigers and the dinosaurs" (I think he has the zoo and museum mixed up!) so I asked Desirae if she could take us sometime with her pass!

And off to the zoo we went with 6 kids and 2 adults! We all squeezed in her minivan (hello, musical car seats!) and had a great time!

This lion roars when you put money down his throat...Colin was a little worried!

Desirae had some extra carousel tickets and Colin could not stop talking about the "animal merry go round." He wanted to ride that zebra all day!

On the other hand, Reagan did not!

We did all the fun extra things! I couldn't say no when Colin asked to try the hurricane simulator!

Then I even let them get soaking wet in the river in the children's zoo area (because I am and awesome mom and they loved it! Of course, Reagan was drinking the water, Colin kept getting in the water after I got him in dry clothes (thankfully I had his spare outfit with us!) and between the humidity, the water, the tantrums, my patience was GONE by the time we left!

But they look so happy :)

And this is how we left! Ah the tantrums!

I love motherhood!

St Patrick's Day Activities!

This year we just had a few families over for Sunday dinner and had our tradtional corned beef, candied carrots, potatoes, rolls, jello, and cabbage. Yum!

As kids, we always had green pears with our dinner - Isaac isn't sure what he thinks of it!

Cindy brought the makings for cool lime sherbet floats! She even brought cute straws :)

 The morning of St. Patty's Day Colin got surprise cereal and Reagan had green waffles!

Colin and I made sugar cookies to take the Daddy's office and after lunch with Kevin we went in to Kevin's office and were met with this mayhem:

It's hard to tell what this is, but in the middle you see Conan O'Brien hugging Mary Kay employees! As part of his Dallas week, he filmed a bit at Mary Kay and we happened to be there! The employees weren't told until right before it happened! 

Check out this link to see what we saw! If you pan to the right of Conan, you will see Kevin carrying Reagan and me carrying a plate of cookies!