Easter Weekend

Kiddos all ready for Easter Mass.



Busy Easter weekend....On Saturday morning, we went to the Easter egg hunt at StoneCrest Mall.

Before the big Hunt!

Taylor went straight to work and

filled her basket very fast!!!

Colin didn't pick up any eggs....but was so excited to see the Easter Bunny!

After the egg hunt, we came home and colored eggs.

Very bright colors!!!

The finished product. We ended up taking the basket of eggs to my friend Laura. She LOVES hard-boiled eggs...Tim and I don't care for them.

Easter morning, we woke the kids up, so they could find eggs before church.

Tay's goodies...

I found one!!!





The Easter bunny even put eggs on all our boxes!! She could hardly reach them!!

Their loot!!

Colin got a Lightening McQueen sleeping bag.






After lunch on Sunday, I took the kids to Laurie for an Egg hunt with my friend Laura and her daughter Kayla. It was a lot of fun!!

Taylor again, took right off and picked up as many eggs as possible! However, there was nooooo shortage of eggs for any kid that was there.

This was just some of what she collected. I had some in my pockets, Kayla had some in her pockets, and Laura had some as well.

Kayla and the kids.

Playin' at the park...

We had a beautiful weekend! It was sunny, windy, and warm both days.

The dogwoods are bloomin'!! They are sooo pretty!!!

Now, this coming week is going to be a busy one. Tim's last day at Osage Beach is the 5th. He will take his inventory to Des Moines on Wednesday, then he'll head to his parents house. The moving company arrives Saturday to load up our stuff. My parents are coming down on Thursday to help out on Friday. Monday, we close on our house, then we can start the unpacking process! So, it might be awhile until I can post again...so until then....

Love to all!

Happy 5th Birthday Taylor!

Well, my Baby Girl is 5!! We've had a busy weekend. We went to Pirates Cove on thursday, since it opened back up. Friday was Taylor's Birthday. However, she had a small fever and didn't feel very good most of the day. So on Saturday, we celebrated with dinner at Chili's and bowling. All I'm going to say about the bowling is that Colin and Taylor both beat Tim and I. See the pic of the score screen! Of course, they got the bumpers up when it was their turn! They both had a really good time. Saturday, I had also taken Taylor to the Clinic. She has pink eye... you will be able to tell in some of the pix! I felt so bad for her, but she didn't let it ruin her chances to open her gifts!!





Argghhhhh Matey's......

Her poor little eye! But she was sooo excited to get 3 new pairs of shoes. Her feet have grown since Christmas. She is wearing size 12 now!!!

At least I beat Tim!!

My baby doll!!!!

I let her open one gift on her actual bday....Cinderella III! She loves this movie.

HAPPY 5TH BIRTHDAY TAYLOR!!

My B-day Weekend

My parents came down on Friday for the weekend. On Saturday, we just HAD to go to Miner Mike's! Even though it was my Birthday, we went for the kids! Ha! Taylor won 1000 tickets on one game alone! I couldn't believe it and she was so excited! We had to ride the train, play Deal or No Deal, and of course, Skee-ball! Since last summer, we had saved all our tickets and finally turned them in on Saturday. We had a grand total of 8,500(+) tickets! We were able to pick out the Wii Mario Cart game! We are loving it. Yes, it probably would have been cheaper to just go buy the game itself, but Taylor was super excited to get it. (Plus, it's better than getting all the little 'cheap' stuff that ends up breaking before you even get it home!) We grilled out Sat. night, followed by cake and ice cream!
Sunday we met Tim at the store for breakfast, then went to the park for awhile. My folks left when I had to go to work at 2. It was a fun weekend and it was (as always) great to see my parents!!!!
As of right now, we are closing on our house, April 12th. The date seems so far away, but I know it will be come up on us very fast. In the meantime, I've been packing as much as I can. I am however, dreading the 'deep' cleaning of this condo. You know, just the neccessary cleaning when moving out of a place. Plus, it makes it a little hard, when you still have to live in the place and have 2 kids running around, tearing things up! We are going to miss living at the Lake (especially the heated pool...oh yeah, and all our friends we've made!!! hee hee), but are very much looking forward to being closer to family! Just another chapter in our lives that God has chosen for us.

Valentine Treats

They kids received a couple boxes in the mail yesterday. One from Jenny and one from mom and dad.


Treat bags from Jenny!


Colin: "Eeeeeee......candy!!!!"




He is definitely my boy....has the sweet tooth!!!




Gifts from Grandma and Papa





His puppy Lucky....he's been into 101 Dalmations lately!






Taylor's reindeer Val (like Valentine!!!!)

As a family, we haven't been up to too much lately. I've been packing things here and there...mostly things we don't use on a day to day basis. Boxes are starting to pile up in corners. We went up to Cedar Rapids the first week of Feb. to house hunt. The first day we were there, we went thru one house that is owned by a director that just moved to Columbia, MO. It was a little smaller that what we wanted. Then we drove around looking at neighborhoods, and hunting for houses.
We ended up at a Real Estate office and received some print outs of homes in our price range. We then drove around the looked at them, to put on our short list. I would then the next day walk thru the houses with Fred (tims dad), the kids and the realtor. Tim had to go to a meeting in Ottumwa...so he left it up to me. I narrowed it down 3. So Tim was able to walk thru them the following day with the realtor and myself. Overall, we decided on the one for us!!! We hope to make an offer soon!!! Just praying everything works out!!

Taylor is really enjoying Pre-school and doing very well. She knows her shapes, numbers, letters, and even writes her name, along with, Tim, Colin, and Becky. We are very proud of her!! She can count to 30, she follows along very well with instructions from the teachers and gets along with all of her classmates.
Colin is all boy!! He is just a funny little guy! He talks very well and is saying the darndest things at the funniest times. Of course, he picks up alot of it from Taylor, Tim, or myself. We saw a commercial for The Family Guy episode where Stewie is saying, "ma, ma, ma, mommy, mommy, mommy, mama, mama, mama, etc. etc." then Phyliss (not sure of her name...the mom in the show) and she yells, "what". Stewie then says "Hi...." and giggles. He is always asking me to say 'What', then he'll start saying, "Mom, mom.....Hi"!!! Its too funny!!
Well, that is a quick insight to our lives for now. Hope all is well and Happy Valentine's Day!

Funny faces

The kids have been quite silly lately. We built a fort with some big blankets the other day and they can't stop talking about it! They opted to take a few candid shots!