Tons of Tulips!!

We spent a fun afternoon with our friends, seeing the amazing tulips in Mt Vernon.  We were lucky to get up there and enjoy being outside with a fairly warm day and no rain!  There were plenty of mud puddles around for entertainment, though!

I used the "refine" button for the first time on this next picture to erase the chocolate that looked like it was coming out of Isaiah's nose!  We bought some homemade fudge to share, and I handed him a piece while he was in the backpack and didn't get a look at his face until we were back at the car....he had SO much chocolate on his face!! 



The girls loved the squishy mud!  It felt like you were going to sink right through the ground!



I let the girls take the camera around and get some pictures of their favorite flowers.  All of these were taken by Clara and Hannah-the flowers are truly amazing!!!

All four kids were sound asleep the whole way home! 

Easter Sunday

Girls waiting anxiously at the top of the stairs for Darien and Monica to arrive Easter morning...

Searching for eggs-the Resurrection eggs were exchanged for a money prize if the correct part of the Easter story describing the object inside could be told...

Isaiah opened his chocolate bunny and didn't let go!

Still eating that bunny...(with a tired Daddy!)...

LOVES chocolate!!

My kitchen helper making the hot-crossed buns...

Aunt Momo is such a good sport :)

I was so excited to find this little tie for Isaiah to wear, but he was not a fan of it, and it only stayed on a few seconds.....Eliza has gotten lots of use out of it, though, as it completes her "boy" attire! ;)

Spring Break two...

We drove Darien and Monica back to Bend, stopping for a fun couple of hours at OMSI in Portland with Aunt Molly, and then spent the week at Nana and Boppa's house!  We swam with Nana and Julie, the girls painted pottery, we saw a movie sitting on the old-fashioned couches at McMennamin's, and we drove out to the High Desert Museum one day to learn about American Indians, old settlements, and see a few animals...

Aunt Julie supervised the girls making dolls from pipe cleaners and fabric...

The kids were pretty amazed at this old Indian reservation home, with an old black and white TV...

We had a couple of fun dinners at Aunt Heidi/Weezer's house, where Isaiah got to sit on the countertop to eat and led the girls in "Just Dance"...

We spent some time with Great Papa, who charms every baby.  Isaiah actually reached for him right away!

Aunt Julie's wheelchair, walker, stander and grab bars provided endless entertainment for the girls!

Isaiah wasn't very interested in the American Girl dolls that Nana has to play with, but he did like the dog toys, especially the balls!  Nana went out and bought him his own shovel, rake, and bat and ball set to play with!  Isaiah figured out very quickly to go to Nana with any of his requests.  She patiently got out the vaccuum every time that he asked and helped him vaccuum the floors (one of his favorite jobs!)  She really does speak baby language because she almost always could figure out what the grunts and yells meant!  Isaiah found a best friend :)

Nana is just starting the landscaping at their new house, so there were endless rocks and dirt piles to play with in the yard......a little boy's dream!

And the girls were pretty happy with it, too!

The kids played hard all week, Nana worked hard keeping up with them and cooking, and Mommy actually got to relax quite a bit....at least during the days!  4 kids in one big room with me (by their choice) made for some LONG nights!

Spring Break one...

We were so lucky to get my sister and her girls up here for their spring break!  We spent the weekend with Aunt Weezer and Monica, enjoying some time on the Kirkland waterfront...

And putting together a new hutch to store all our school materials (apparently the kitchen counter has other uses!).  I only got cute pictures of the little "helpers", but my sister really did most of the work figuring out the IKEA picture instructions from the 60 pages on the computer, while Joe put the parts together...

                                               eliza is not qoprating she is picing hrr tonal     (Hannah added this caption while I was changing a diaper "Eliza is not cooperating, she is picking her toenail"...pretty close!)

Isaiah loves his Daddy!

We got to watch Darien's dance team compete in Tacoma-the girls were in heaven watching the dancers!

Darien and Monica stayed the whole week with us!  They watched the kids a few days, while I picked up some extra hours at work, and then we shopped most evenings!  Clara got to stay up late one night to shop with the "big girls" :)

Big boy with his hat on, and always trying to put his feet into everyone's shoes!!