April 2019

Easter was late this year so we had beautiful weather.  Another succussful community Easter Egg Hunt in the books.  This year we did the eggs with some special prizes to earn t-shirts (which were a huge hit).  We also had pony rides, face painting, and a bounce house/obstacle course.  

Our spring break was also pretty late this year...April 10-14th.  Beatriz was so awesome to give us her beach house for a week.  I invited my family to come with us.  My mom flew in early and drove down with us.  

Here is Cache enjoying his enormous beef n cheddar at Arbys.  That was always one of my favorites as a kid...although I think I always had the regular sized one...this one was huge!

Can't beat the view from the house.

Clearly exhausted after playing on the beach for a few hours and needing a break to play ipads.

Xander's stick design.

We don't love the ocean water so much, but the hot tub speaks to us.

Mystery solved.  My family all hunts for seashells just like my sisters and mom do.  This was definitely an inherited trait.

My cute mom.

Marcy and her loot.

We were the first ones to use this cool new shade tent called Shibumi.  The realty company gave it to the beach house owners as a Christmas present.

Xander's cuteness strikes again.

Cache digging to China.

Easton's bucket of minnows that Aunt Marcy freed back to the ocean.

A little walk by the point of the island.

213 pictures later...

This guy loves walking along the beach and always finds the coolest shells and the most shark teeth.

Mom, me, Marcy, and Emily.  Sad Claire couldn't make it with her kids this time.

A stormy day...the waves were crashing and so were the chairs along the deck.

Inevitably someone things that storms are a great time to enjoy the ocean.  2 people ended up dying.

One of Xander's many love notes to me.  

Love pile.  

Cleaning out the fridge.  It struck me that this amount of food would feed a family in another country and never be wasted.  We are pretty wasteful people.

Showing off my new Costco shirt to Marcy.

MY NEW FRIDGE!  Love the french doors.  It is so beautiful.

Thank you Costco!

And my NEW STOVE!  May we have even heating and loving the double oven feature.

This is the leftover candy from Easter.  Yep, I think Target over-ordered just a bit this year!

March 2019

Declan is my little rock climber.  He is seriously amazing.  This really cool indoor climbing park opened near us and as soon as I could find a great coupon to afford it, we went!  

Here's Xander just showing off!

For the big boys, I was looking for something to help direct their 'boy energy' into something other than each other.  Unfortunately, this boxing studio was a bit too far away to go regularly.  Easton ended up loving it, Cache not so much.  Although Cache is always the child walking around saying 'I feel like hitting something.'  Yep, when we hear that we run!

Cache and his crazy mustache for school.

Emily loving on Xander while playing Rhino Hero.

And Lego Club has begun!  A full roster this year at 25 kids.  They LOVE Lego Club!

I'm so confused.  Here is the fence my neighbors built...seriously?!  

Emily is helping me get my shell hoarding under control.  A few more frames and the rest are going into the shell garden.  

Emily is also helping me stage the entryway into a 'mom area'.  We have used it for hanging coats, shoe bins, attached a basketball hoop to the front door...always a bit of a disaster.  She has convinced me to take back control of this area and make it beautiful.  Here is the start of it...special credit to Wayfair, Target, and Hobby Lobby for providing us endless options!

I decided to treat the nursery kids at church with Lucky Charms for snack today.  I apparently made an extra bowl that wasn't touched...but all the rest of the bowls have all the cereal still there and all the marshmallows eaten out!  This helps me feel better about my own children, clearly this is an inborn trait of all children!

More crazy cool clouds!

Taking a nap is something my kids stopped at age 2.  Seriously, not even in the car.  This can't be a good sign.  For Declan, it almost always means sickness is about to strike!

I always love looking out into the cul-de-sac and seeing boys playing.

'Mom, can I start a fire'... a few minutes later this is what I see!

I realize it is in the fireplace, but maybe still not the safest activity.

We love playing at Katie's house.  She has a great huge yard.  For some reason, they all end up bunched together.

And the croup cough strikes again.

The best thing about having my sister live with me...these piles aren't always my doing...yep, every single one of them is for Emily :) 

I have been hiring a professional house cleaner and I love it!  I decided the thought or actual action of keeping the house clean is too exhausting.  It is a never ending project especially when the other 5 people in your house don't seem to care.  Although I am still annoyed that after 3 cleanings, my toilet still looks like this!  I mean, who doesn't want to get down in there and scrub out the grime that has clearly decided to permanently reside in our toilet!

While waiting a very long time for our allergy testing appointment, we saw this really big and cool tree out the window.  The cool thing is the roots or possible shadows that are shown on the ground coming out from the tree like spokes of a bike wheel.

Let the 28 poke test begin!

Declan has this chronic (and super annoying) cough every year for the past 4 years and we would love to figure out what is going on and more importantly, how to stop it!

And yes, of course I took my child to get ice cream afterwards. 

 What kind of a monster do you think I am?

The view on my street from my neighbors who have 7 cars...and the neighbor across from them who chooses to park on the street instead of their driveway, so annoying.

Declan, the child who plays hard and falls harder.

This is going to end badly.

Thanks Costco for my adorable shamrock pasta for St. Patrick's Day.

The view of a well-organized garage.  

The boys were super impressed by all the wrinkles on Emily's forehead.

The twins were looking especially cute today.

Cherry Blossom festival in DC.  Definitely a highlight of the year.  So glad Emily got to join us this year. 

We brought along Easton to keep us entertained.

Xander and Declan are taking an acro-gymnastics class.  This is one of their new tricks.