Happy Easter

We had a great Easter weekend!
Between the two Easter egg hunts from Grandparents, and the Easter bunny stopping by Sunday morning, it was a wonderful, crazy, sugary holiday.

Carly searching for her purple eggs

My handsome boy!

The Jenkins grandkids, after their successful hunt

Here's the best picture I got of the kids in their Easter finery. The sun was so bright, Luke couldn't even open his eyes.

We moved to the shade, but obviously it wasn't any better, nobody could look up and Luke's eyes were full on watering. I guess we'll try again later, at least you can still see how cute they looked.

My bright-eyed baby girl

The Dawson grandkids with their loot

I'm not sure what the sad face was for, but cute anyways

Carly with her baby Tabi (short for Tabitha (I have to name my girls' babies the names Ben wouldn't let me use for our children) She takes her baby EVERYWHERE, and I'm always finding bits of food in Tabi's mouth, kinda gross. Carly's a good momma.

quilting + birthday + Kael

When Luke was born, I decided instead of a tied quilt from my Mom, I wanted a hand quilted one. My Mom thought I was being overly ambitious, but being the sweet, loving, lady that she is, we did it. We quilted a crib size quilt for Luke, then she bound it by hand also. When grandchild #2 (Abigail) came along, my Mom decided that we had to finish what we started. She decided that she'd do a quilt for each new grandbaby. All us girls come to help for each quilt. I love that each of my kids have a special quilt sewn by Grandma, Mom, and Aunts.

Here are my kid's quilts. Luke's on top and Hailey's on the bottom. Luke's, being the first was really simple, just big squares, but on each one we get a little more brave with the patterns. On Carly's we did circles, and different material for the binding. Each quilt looks better and better.

My Mom, Shannon, and Jessy, working on our 8th quilt, for baby Kael.

Although we are no experts, our stitches are getting considerably better with each quilt.
Sometimes, it's surprising that we actually get any work done, while trying to watch the kids. I love getting together with these guys to quilt.

One of the days we got together to quilt, happened to be Shannon's birthday. So of course we celebrated.

We made Kael's quilt just in time, because this sweet guy decided to come a little bit early. Jed and Shannon had their little guy last week, and he is oh so handsome!

cruisin'

Ben's Grandma Ruth took his parents and all of Larry's siblings on a 2 week cruise to Hawaii. So lucky! They came back so tan and relaxed looking, now I'm just itching to go somewhere.

The kids were so excited to see their grandparents after such a long trip, especially when they realized their suitcases were overflowing with surprises.

The three girls got matching outfits from Mexico

The girls in their little grass skirts. When Abigail saw this little bikini top, she thought she was supposed to wear it under her shirt. So funny.

complete with coconut bra, the girls wear these outfits all the time.

And why is Luke wearing a coconut bra? Well, when the kids first saw them, he thought they were gorilla muscles. He especially loves his coconut monkey bank, because it smokes a pipe. My kids have watched too many old looney tunes, because they think it's cool to smoke pipes and cigars. Luke thinks that cigarettes are bad, but pipes are cool. At least we got it half right, we'll have to keep working on it.
These kids are lucky to have such fun grandparents!

before & after

We've had this beauty since we got married... and you know how it goes, I loved it then, but now I'm wondering what I saw in it. It's been through a lot, 5 moves, 4 kids, & 3 different T.V.'s just to be specific. It was a little dinged up. We wanted to get a new entertainment center, but we were waiting to get a new t.v. (about time we joined the 21st century)
Ben's brother, Eli, moved to Iraq for his new job. We're so sad to see Eli go, but he's excited for new opportunities. We love him and miss him.
There are of course a few reasons why we love Eli:
1. he's the best brother/brother-in-law
2. my kids love their Uncle E
3. he's so helpful, whenever we need him, he's there.
4. he lets us borrow his cool stuff
5. when he gets tired of his cool stuff, he gets new cool stuff... and who gets his hand-me-downs?

Okay, so the t.v. wasn't free, but he did give us a screamin' deal. He wanted to get rid of some of his things before he left, and the T.V. was one of them. Yea for us! I decided in all of my cheapness, it would be better to try and make this entertainment center work for us. Ben took out the upper cupboard, glued on a piece of wood, made shelves in the bottom cupboard, I primed, painted, and glazed it. I had previously measured the e.c. and the t.v. with my arm, so I was really glad when we put it in, and it actually fit.
Not sure if I would do it again... it was a lot of work. But it was a lot cheaper than buying a new one. The total cost was 30.76.

I followed the steps from my favorite blog, allthingsthrifty.blogspot.com

My Luke is SIX!

Luke turned six years old on Wednesday. I love how grown up he is becoming. He is the best brother to all his sisters. He loves going to school and reading. He loves to draw, and play with friends. He got two parties this year, the regular party with Grandmas and Grandpas and his first friend party.
his Grandparents watching Luke open his gifts

He is starting T-ball soon, so we gave him all his equipment.

Luke's favorite gifts were the Legos. Both Grandparents gave him Star Wars Legos, and he was beyond excited.

Bad Mom moment:
I cut the cake up and started handing it out, when my Mom reminded me that we hadn't sung Happy Birthday or had Luke blow out his candles. I can't believe I forgot, but luckily Luke was just too anxious to get back to his new Legos that he didn't even care that there were pieces missing.

His friend party was Star Wars, of course.
Luke's really into Star Wars lately. He loves General Grievous, or any of the other bad guys. Whenever I ask why he doesn't like the good guys, he tells me that they're not as good at fighting.
Here's all the kids in there 3D glasses, eating pizza.

the kids each made their own lightsaber and then went on a secret Jedi mission to destroy the deathstar. I was trying to make the clues easy enough for the kids, but apparently I made them way too easy, because one of the kids told me so.

Here's Abigail taking a swing at the deathstar

The victorious Darth Vader

We ended with another game, cake, and presents. The party turned out great, but it's going to be a long time before I do another bday party.
We're lucky that Luke has lots of friend that live in our neighborhood, close by. They're always out playing, switching back and forth between yards.
Happy Birthday Luke, I can't love this guy enough!