Happy Easter

I have so many things that have happened in the past 2 weeks, one of the biggest being the Frederick running festival, but I really like to blog in order, so let's see if we can get ourselves caught up.
First comes Easter. We had a lovely Easter over here. The boys enjoyed their Easter Baskets, and Olivia loved hers too. Jesse and I ended up substituting in Nate's Primary class, so it was really fun to prepare the Easter lesson, and have Nate there. We had talked about The Crucifixion and Resurrection that morning, so it was all still fresh in Nate's mind when it came time for class.

Olivia didn't get any candy, I think she probably felt sad about that.

She did get a new rattle.

And some puffs. YUM!

Hurley was sad he didn't get a basket.

Just because there was no chocolate in her basket, didn't mean that she didn't try to steal some!

This is more her speed though. :)

Checking out the loot.

Pancakes based loosely on a rabbit head shape for breakfast.

All prettied up for churchTaking a little nap on the way to Grandma's house.

In their Easter duds.

Showing some sibling love.

Since we had just gotten home from a vacation with the Markham family, we went over to my mom's house for dinner after church that day, and had a lovely little dinner. So there is our Easter wrap up!

Best Friends

I think that these two are going to be best friends. Well, at least Graham is going to love Hurley to death, and he may at times tolerate Graham.

Massanutten Spring Vacation

This year for the Markham getaway, we traveled down to Massanutten Resort down in Middle of Nowhere Virginia. We arrived on Friday night, and shortly after we got there we put the kids to bed and got a little unpacked. On Saturday it was rainy the whole day, so after a very hilly run, we headed over to the indoor water park. The kids had a blast. After a few hours we came home and had some dinner, and then headed back over to the water park for another few hours after dinner. Olivia loved it. It is the first time that she has ever been swimming.
The next morning at Church I noticed that Graham had crusty junk all over his eyes. Thus began Graham's pinkeye part of the trip, also known as, the rest of the trip. Poor kid. However, we still got some fun in. Cammi and Grammy put on an egg hunt for the kids, and they got tons of loot.

There was a park nearby, so we played there for a while.

Jesse did some pull ups.

Olivia sat in the swing and looked cute.

Then we got the kite out, and had a blast flying it around. All of the kids did a great job.

So did Jesse.

We spent plenty of time just hanging out around the rental house.

One night we made a fire in the pit that Cammi brought. Mmmmmmmm..... s'mores. Graham is an expert at catching marshmallows on fire.Nate and Meckenzie dyed Easter Eggs.

And Graham did a lot of this:

The best thing that I remembered to pack was the Children's Tylenol. So while he did spend a lot of time like that, he was able to also have times when he enjoyed other activities. The culmination of his illness came on Monday night. Jesse had gone home early because he had to work on Tuesday, but we stayed an extra day with plans of doing more fun things on Tuesday. So that night I had the boys sleep in the empty twin bed that was in my room, instead of downstairs in their own beds because i thought Graham may need me during the night. Oh did he ever need me. At roughly 11:30 Graham comes over to my bed and asks to get in bed with me. (I had Olivia in my bed because the little stinker wouldn't sleep for very long in the pack and play.) He then promptly throws up all over me. It was great times. Fortunately LaVonne was still awake downstairs, so she was able to help me, since the throwing up and subsequent crying woke up Olivia. So now I had a crying baby, a crying boy, and puke to clean up. After we were cleaned up, I then had to figure out the new sleeping arrangements. I didn't want to put Graham back in bed with Nate, that wasn't working out, and there wasn't room for him to sleep with Olivia and I, and Olivia wouldn't sleep in the pack and play, and there were other people in the house trying to sleep, including babies, so everyone crying wasn't an option. We finally ended up on the couch, and at some point in the middle of the night Olivia was asleep enough for me to move her back into my bed, and I got a few hours sleep on the couch. Not too much though. Needless to say, we did not end up going to the Children's Museum the next day. :) And I am forever grateful to Cammi for driving up home that day, since I would not have been able to make it.

But back to the vacation. On Monday before Jesse had to leave we were able to find a few geocache locations.

Can you spot the geocache in this picture?

Nate and Meckenzie find it.

And get to search through the treasures inside.

And finally we drove up to the top of the mountain (There was a cache up there too) And got to take a little family picture. The next morning before we left, we got the kids into these matching outfits that Grammy got for them, and tried to take a picture. Some of the kids cooperated.

Some did not.

But it was a fun vacation, despite the rain, the sickness, the middle of the night puke, and lack of naps for a certain baby.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, how we spent the rest of our spring break, everyone except for Nate got some sort of sickness, so we spent a lot of time lying on the couch watching movies. :)

Unblogged

One night I went in to check on the boys after they had fallen asleep, and found them both in Nate's bed. It was awfully sweet. They slept that way the whole night. Here is Olivia ready for a warm day at the park!

Our newest addition

So this is what is sitting on my lap at this very moment. We got a new kitten this weekend. His name is Hurley. He is 8 weeks old right now. He is so cute, and we love him already.

Well, most of us love him already. Can you tell how relaxed Lizzie is about the situation? She is still hissing and growling at Hurley when he gets too close.

So his new hiding spot is between the couch and bookcase. Last night the boys thought that he needed some toys while he napped.

Another hiding spot.

It's so much fun to have a kitten in the house. Especially since he's already litter box trained. :) He is just so cute walking around, and playing. And the past 2 nights he has slept right with me on the bed, which is kind of fun.

An important First

Today Olivia is rocking her very first ponytail. My problem? I'm not very good at it yet. But I thought I remembered one time someone saying that they do their daughter's hair while she is sitting in her highchair eating breakfast. So it turned out that Lunch worked OK for that too! (Not much else happens at breakfast around here, and sometimes breakfast doesn't even happen!) Now, much like the Mohawk that she naturally sports, her ponytail sticks straight up. But now I need to get a few small little bow clips that I can put at the base of her ponytail. And I'm sure that as I keep practicing they will get to be a little neater.