pete's 30!!!!

so we got to celebrate double on sunday! pete turned 30!!!! we had a fun time at grandma and grandpa's. mia insisted that he wear a birthday hat. welcome to having kids and here he is with his spiffy hat on (picture posted under protest) and opening his gifts. isn't he a great sport for wearing the hat though??





we had a really good turtle ice cream pie for his dessert (and yes, the kids had their cupcakes instead - see previous post). all he wanted was a wii and so he had a very wii birthday. yes, i sat in line for about 2 hours one weekend morning so we could get him one. hilarious. the really crazy part is that i was "late" to wait in line. other people had been there since midnight. i felt "lucky" since i'd only really been looking for about 6 weeks and actually came home with one. some people had been trying for months and months. insane! he can't wait to have people over and to play with all his new fun stuff. see, you're only as old as you feel and when video games are your gift you are very young at heart! =) we love you honey! happy birthday!

easter

we had a very nice easter. i found this really cute pattern online for easter baskets for the kids and thankfully got them done in time. we won't mention that the first time i found it was last year and it's taken me until this year to get it done but hey, there done right? not the greatest picture but it gives you an idea.

we decorated eggs the night before and it was hilarious to say the least. (mis has picked up the word hilarious by the way and says it to us all the time. as in "mom, you are hilarious!" it never ceases to make me smile right then) mia had fun picking out her colors and waiting patiently for them to turn just the right color. asher however was very into the yellow color. he had tons of fun spinning his egg in the bowl and splashing his hands and the egg in the water. he was rather upset when it was time to stop and go to bed. all in all a successful activity.
mia came out of her room and stopped at the top of the stairs. "mom, there's an easter bunny on my fireplace. i want it!" she was promptly told that she had to wait for asher to walk up to which her response was "what??"" she handled it well though and the kids had fun looking at all the fun things the easter bunny brought them.

ring pops in the shape of bunnies were a BIG hit!

gotta have fun bunny ears!

mia had a good time finding the eggs the easter bunny hid around the living room too. she was rather disappointed when she had found them all. maybe the easter bunny will hide more next year.

we headed to church and then after naps went over to grandma and grandpa's for a little more celebrating. we are so blessed to have family so close and to get to see them so often. mia always has such fun with her cousin liam. the two of them had a blast decorating bunny cupcakes. surprisingly enough, most of the decorations acutally ended up on the cupcakes too! we were all very impressed. the trick was also to get them to wait until after dinner to eat them. thankfully we can still work a little of the "out of sight, out of mind" magic (especially when they're together and there are oodles of uncles to play with!

the kids, the cupcakes and uncle dave

hope you all had a wonderful easter celebrating the love and hope we can all find in Jesus! happy easter!

been gone awhile

so here goes with the first post of several updates....

pete and i were in california a few weeks ago. amazing trip. first time i'd left the kids that long or gone that far. though there were moments (like when we called home after the first full day to find out mia had been throwing up all day and the schedule for the next day had to be rearranged and changed from california at 9:30 at night - just put me on a plane!) overall everything went really well. the kids got to stay with grandma and grandpa and play with their friends during the day. i came home first and i was so glad i came back when i did. poor mia spiked a fever of 103 that first night home. no easing back into things around here. we were so grateful for our family and friends who helped out. they are all so amazing. one of my girlfriends even got ahold of our camera and took some cute shots (see the one above) of the kids playing. thanks love! (i didn't actually find them on the camera until today when i was downloading other pictures. such a fun surprise!!)

so once pete got home and the kids were doing better we decided to have a fun "date" night with the kids. we had dinner backward and headed out for dessert first. hilarious! we went to order ice cream and mia kept telling her daddy that she wanted chocolate. now she's only really had vanilla before so he figured he'd stick with something he knew she liked. she and asher got vanilla to split, he ordered chocolate brownie something and i got cookie dough. mia had one bit of his and forget it. she staked her claim to the chocolate and proceeded to eat most of his and refuse to touch her vanilla. that's my girl!! asher liked the ice cream but was having way more fun with the cone and the spoon. it was a very fun "double-date" though it didn't really leave any of us all that hungry for dinner.