Final Photos Friday

This is the remaining photos from Easter weekend...

ENJOY!
Peanut outside in her Easter Attire...

She's wearing the sweater...

I love how the wind is blowing her skirt...

Here I am in my Easter outfit...

Peanut at the Cathedral near the Divine Mercy Side...

Tomb on the Mary side of the Cathedral...

Altar server was in a hurry to put out the candles and put everything back... Fr. C. is busy taking care of after Mass activity... It is currently set up for the Tridentine Mass... Hence the set up of the altar and kneelers for communion at the bottom of the photo...

Time for baskets - Thursday

Here are a few photos of the children and their Easter Baskets... Mr. Easter Bunny thought it would be fine to fill and leave the baskets on the table for the children to discover in the morning... Only one flaw in his thinking... That was Linebacker waking up first and raiding everyone's baskets... ::smirk::

ENJOY!

Will you look at that... Wednesday

I will share with you all about our food and other fun from Easter weekend... First the food... I made a smaller then meal then usual... Tried to keep it simple... So, I made Spiral Sliced Honey Glazed Ham, Stuffing, Red Garlic Mashed Potatoes (skins on), Gravy, Carrots, Broccoli, Green Bean Casserole, Applesauce, Cranberry Sauce and Biscuits... Here are a few PICS of the spread... My hubby likes to tease me because every Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas... I insist on taking a PIC of just the food all lined up on the counter... He calls it my 'Martha Stewart' moment...Yummy...Just another angle... :-) See, I even look like Martha Stewart... I'm kidding... ::wink:: Hubby helping with the children... See he was here on Easter too... Just not as easy to catch on film as the children... ::grin::Linebacker patiently waiting for prayers and then it's time to eat! Story time after dinner with Mommy... We read 5 Little Bunnies by Linda Hayward... It is a First Little Golden Book; Copyright 1985... Children enjoying the weather... Playing late into the day (shadow showing outline of the house, this is looking East)... This was taken from the window as not to disturb their play...

Take Two - Tuesday

Easter Egg Hunt - Take Two (like in the movies)... First egg hunt didn't go so well... Mr. Easter Bunny didn't know the rules... So, once all but one egg was found... We had a 2nd egg hunt and it was all caught on film...

First Easter Egg Hunt RULES....

Rule #1 - Everyone is assigned a Color, no fun if you find all the eggs and I only find a few, everyone finds the same number... Each child had 2 eggs to find...

Rule #2 - Hide that color based on who it is assigned too... (ie, not up really high if it's a little one)

Rule #3 - If you SEE someone else's egg... You keep your mouth SHUT and walk AWAY... It is no fun if SOMEONE ELSE finds ALL your eggs and then POINTS them out to you...

Ok, now that you know the rules... ::smirk:: Let's have some FUN!
Egg Hunters READY!
Linebacker (green) found his first egg on my chair... When ever I stand up he likes to 'steal' my seat...
Linebacker found his 2nd egg... In the toy vacuum... His current favorite toy when outside... Also, near my chair...
Here he is with both eggs... He is pointing and telling me his egg was in the vacuum... Too cute or what?!?!
Peanut finds her 1st egg (pink) in the Kitchen Sink...

Monkey finds his 1st egg (blue) in the oven...

Peanut finds her 2nd egg on her favorite swing on the swing set... She is very excited to have found all her eggs...

Monkey finds his last egg just inside his fort...

All eggs have been found! Hopefully the weather will be just as nice next year and we can hide more eggs... Plus Little Guy and Big Boy will have their hand at finding eggs... Stay tuned for more Easter Fun Tomorrow... FOOD and Story Time!

Memories Monday

This weekend we spent some time making memories... We dyed Easter Eggs, had an Easter Egg Hunt OUTSIDE! (usual to have such nice weather), went to Easter Mass and enjoyed Easter Dinner as a family... ENJOY the photos below that captured our memories of Easter Egg Dying...
The first step to a successful Easter Egg Dying Session is a good work surface...

Step 2 is to gather all your supplies...

This is what comes in your typical Easter Egg Dying Kit: Cups, Dye Tablets, Dipper and Crayon for 'decorating'...

Step 3- Have everything set up BEFORE you invite any children to come and participate...

Engineer dying his egg...

Monkey dying his egg...

Peanut dying her egg... Linebacker patiently awaiting his turn...

Linebacker's turn to work on his egg with some help from Mommy...

Little Guy having his turn dying his 1st Easter Egg ever!

Big Boy having his turn next to dye his 1st Easter Egg Ever!

Our Easter Egg Family - Daddy, Mommy, Engineer, Monkey, Peanut, Linebacker, Little Guy and Big Boy (left to right)...

Thank you for sharing in our memories of Easter Egg Dying 2011... If you didn't dye any eggs this year... Maybe this will inspire you to dye a few of your own next year...

Little Guy and Big Boy had their 9 month well check... Little Guy Officially is 15 lbs 3 oz and 26-1/4" and Big Boy Officially is 18 lbs 1 oz and 28-5/8"... They both are doing well and are scheduled for their next check up when they are 1 years old in July... Has it almost been a whole year? Seems like they were just coming home from the hospital to meet their siblings... The year sure has flown by... Until tomorrow... Sweet Dreams Ya'll...

Maybe I should blog More often Monday

I was reading some of my past postings and realized how much Joy my blog brings me and how much I MISS it! So, let's try blogging again... So, each day I will try to post something new and something that happened while I was gone... Boy have I been gone a long time! The snow had melted then it snowed again for about 48 hours now it is melting again, yet I woke up this morning to yet another dusting and had to brush off the van before we could leave... Then I spent the rest of the trip using my wipers a little streams of water from the melting snow ran down the windshield... Maybe Spring will arrive before Easter? I bought a new dress to wear on Easter... What you think? You can see me actually wearing it on Easter Monday... Retail? $100 (dress, cover, and shoes)... Cost to me? $5.00 (which Hubby actually paid)... Gotta love Sales, Coupons and Giftcards left over from Christmas... LOL... School is almost over... Less then 29 days to go... Lent has been going well... Not losing as much weight as I would like... However a bit is coming off... Hopefully with Spring coming... I can melt off the pounds like the snow melted... I heard Monkey sing in his first musical... He's in 2nd grade... He was part of the chorus... He did an awesome job... They preformed with the 3rd graders and it was titled "Spaced Out" it was all about Outer Space... Very cute! That is all the past I'm going to try to catch on... As for current events... Little Guy and Big Boy had another Infant Congitive Development Lab study today... They had lots of fun... It was about 'color'... They participated in the 'pattern' and sister study to today's study when they were 4-5 months old... As a Thank You gift they received these toys... Little Guy received the keys and Big Boy the Turtle 'car'...

Linebacker had fun playing with the other college students while his brothers participated in the study... I ran to the bank and to the dealership (more about that on Wordless Wednesday)... I decluttered one box from the closet... It was a pretty quiet day...

Easter Monday

Easter was BUSY yesterday... Here are each of the children with their Easter Baskets...
After baskets was Easter Day Mass and then cook, cook and cook... We had just the 5.5 of us for dinner... I cooked a 10.4 Ham, Stuffing, Mashed Potatoes, Gravy, Green Bean Casserole (doubled recipe), Creamed Corn, Whole Curnal Corn, Squash, Peas/Carrots Mix, Sweet Potatoes, Cranberry Sauce and Homemade Yeast Rolls... Not to mention the 6 desserts I made yesterday!
Doesn't everything look delicious!?!?
We had to expand the table with TWO leaves this time... LOL!! We ate, ate and ATE! Everything was FANTASTIC...We managed to fit all the left overs in our new fridge without to much effort... We worried about hat since we had to buy a fridge smaller then what we already had due to space restrictions...
We removed the 'tv cabinet' we had in the library... You could put your TV in it and it had holes for the knobs to fit through... So, one of the first 'Entertainment Centers'... Doesn't it look different now... The room 'appears' bigger!
Before:
After: We (well mostly my husband doing the work and me watching... Considering my condition... LOL!!) also cleared up the twin/couch from the living room... The mattress is now in our oldest son's room... We moved Peanut's dresser into the computer room... Our living room looks so empty!
Before (really old, but best I could find): After (you can see we couldn't stain but so far because of furniture):Our new couch is scheduled for delivery... Woo hoo!!! So, I will be sharing a PIC of it in our living room REAL soon... I headed downtown to the pharmacy... I dropped a RX off there and forgot to go back and pick it up... Now we are out... Opps... Good thing we had one last pill for today... I also returned a couple things at the library that our due soon but we are done with early... I stopped at the PO Drop Box... EI came and we filled out some paperwork and Peanut will start her sessions next week... My oldest had another rough ST session... ST informed me that she nor anyone else from the company would be able to come if he continues with his current behaviors... I understand what she is talking about... It really upsets her personally because she knows from a provider stand point they can't have her injuired on the job when it could have been prevented... She however also understand from the point of having also having a child with Autism and how important the services you receive are to helping your child... So, it is upsetting... We have till the end of April and then she will only come and see Peanut... She is going to talk to some people see if she can help in A. speeding up the process or B. lighting fires under people to find the help we need... We are almost down to nothing... It will be just me alone with him every day trying to help him and protect myself as well as the other children from him when he has an episode... ::sigh::