Yesterday was our "spa day" at MOPS. Amanda told me she turned the faucet all the way over to hot and filled up her foot bath. So I did the same. Stephanie had to rescue me with some ice cubes. Moral of the story- always check the water temp. yourself, don't listen to your friend.


Adam said, "Here mommy, this will make you happy- we picked a buffet of flowers for you!" It did make me happy. :)


We have a "special" neighbor that likes to yell. Loudly. Apparently they were waiting for the show to start.


I love yellow. I bought a yellow lupine that I'm anxious to plant, but I don't know where to put it.


My sweet girl

Aunt Laurie, the kids loved the bubbles you got them for Easter. I think they burned through all 4 bottles yesterday.


Anna is finally starting to move around with shoes on. The first couple times she acted like I stuck cement blocks on her feet.


It was kind of like manna from heaven- Chris Klein stopped in with a bag of misc. breads today... English muffins, breads, bagels. God is so good.


I pray YOUR day didn't end this way. He did it to himself- he couldn't get it off. The more we laughed the harder he cried. **sigh** I love being a mom.

Grandma brought the kids new coloring books today. Adam has been feverishly coloring ALL afternoon...

Adam: "Well, I'm almost done with my coloring book!"

Casey: "What are you, an extremist?

Adam: "No, I want to be an ENtemologist when I grow up."

I LOVE SPRING

It was the perfect day today- a little garage sale-ing, a little muffin baking, and playing outside...


My little Anna. She LOVES going outside. However, she also likes to eat dirt and anything else she can quickly stuff in her mouth. That 's why she is so big and strong.


I could eat her she is so cute.


Yessir, it's that time of year again when we turn our faces to the sun and work on our melanoma. I feel bad, Tommy actually got sunburned on his back today.


I heart you, daffodil with the white petals.


I have always prided myself on the fact that my kids have pretty good fine-motor skills. Adam could cut out a paper snowflake with those bad boys.


Rachel doesn't like to have her picture taken anymore, so this is what she does whenever I come at her with the camera. Silly girl.

Snippets from Today

This is for Liz. I baked 2 of these nice crusty loaves today, a slightly different recipe than usual, and we were all happy with it.
I need to get a new bread pan because the one pan always comes out perfect, the other one is a hair doughy in the middle. I hate that.


The rabbits don't seem to be interested in hyacinths.
I hope tomorrow is nice, I need to bag up all the dead stuff that I removed from the flower beds today. And I need to buy some more of that putrid spray to put on the lilies- the rabbits have attacked already. I have a patient that made his own garlic spray- have any of you done anything like that?


Anna tumbled out into the porch today- she loves it there! Her socks were filthy by the time we came back in. We'll all be barefoot soon enough!

Mutt & Jeff

Abby and Tommy play together pretty good usually. Today they were especially cute... this morning they kept saying, "Do you see us, mom?"


They apparently both love Jeanette Oke.


Here they are donning their matching outfits. (She's wearing his shorts)

Easter Weekend

We let the kids have their baskets Saturday morning, it was just one less thing for me to haul to my parents. Casey had to work on Easter, so we spent the night in Deckerville on Saturday.


All ready for church! The kids love visiting grandma and grandpa's church, and so do I. I always miss Jenny at Easter, we always had so much fun at the Easter breakfast and singing our favorite hymns.

Sunny Afternoon

I dream of having a big house with lots and lots of windows. But in the meantime, we enjoy our little space by the sliding glass door in the kitchen...


Kisses through the glass


We were crafting this afternoon with paint. They had just as much fun pretending to paint the table.


Abby was, um, feeding her Sheepy.

Mini Vacation

This was the reaction we got when we told the kids we were going to Splash Village today! Casey took a vacation day, so we packed up the kids but didn't tell them where we were going until we were almost there. Rachel and Adam loved it. I hated the locker room. I still want to cry just thinking about it. Picture a mother with several children and hundreds of people crawling all over the place. There was no where to change a baby and no space in the locker room was wider than a couple feet. It was awful. But we persevered and finally all ended up inside where the fun was to be had.


Anna actually did really well at the water park. She was not a fan of this swing, though.

Weekend Update

Saturday morning we were invited to the neighbor's for an Easter egg hunt. The kids were beside themselves with joy. Anna was being a monster so I stayed home with her. Casey did get a few pics for me, bless his heart. I hate to miss out on all the fun!


Saturday was the first time we got to babysit Addison. She was wonderful. I was washing dishes and had Addie clinging to one leg and Anna to the other. Anna was not very happy to share me and kept trying to pull her hair and bite her head. Addie never even fussed. I think she's ready for a sibling.


I went to a Moms to Moms sale a week ago and found several cute things for Anna. These red jammies are probably my favorite. Tonight was her first time wearing them, she was a little befuddled as to why we kept laughing at her.


Ever since Jenny said she made a lemon cake I have been dreaming about one of my own. Tonight I made a Lemon Chiffon cake from Taste of Home. Unfortunately we couldn't wait til tomorrow to try it.

Spring Clean-Up

Since I've had such an awful time at baking this week I figured it was time to move on to gardening. I spent all afternoon outside yesterday removing dead junk and trying to dig out some plants that are doing their best to take over the entire area. I am the boss around here (with the flowers, I mean) and I'm not pregnant this year, so no excuses- everything will be in tip-top shape!


I love when the 4 big kids play together. I think it's because I don't keep wondering where someone is- the pack is easy to spot.