Belated Birthday Weekend

The kids and I made a quick weekend trip up to the cities to celebrate my Mom's birthday.  We were supposed to go in March, but some illness overtook our house for two weeks.  So we finally made it up last weekend and although the original party plans got changed a bit, it was a fun time!

We were going to stay in a hotel and enjoy the swimming pool for an evening and morning.  Instead we went to the MG Community Center pool.  The cousins (with the exception of Cal) and Jeff and Lisa joined us for a few hours of swimming.  Timothy and Teresa are in swimming lessons right now, so they got some good practice on their skills.  My parents came along and watched the kids have fun!

Waiting for the cousins to arrive at Grandma's house.  It is always hard to patient!

After swimming, it was back to Grandma's for more play.  Dan, Krista, and Cal joined the party at this point too.  The original idea was to have my mom do very little work for dinner.  Well, that did not happen, but we did have yummy food and good conversation!  Sorry Mom!

Dan and Krista are now officially the pinata people.  They supplied a candy filled pinata and let all but Cal go after it.  Mattias I think loved it the most, but was the least helpful in busting it open.  Cal got fussy during this activity...he clearly wanted a turn too.  Guess we will have to another one when he gets bigger!

Timothy and Teresa take whacks at the pinata.  Timothy had the winning hit that opened it up.

And this great pinata turned into party hats when broken and a crazy space helmet thing that Dan wore! Great laughs and memories!

My mom finally got to open a few more presents.  It was the year of the journal and notes to mom that make her cry.  But I think that made her happy!

Had to include the picture Teresa took of my Dad.  He tries to get out of pics, so we need this one!

We had to leave Sunday late morning, but Timothy and Teresa still got us all outside for some kickball and fun on the swings.  We also measured the kids in the playhouse to see they have both grown since a year ago.

Here is some video of the kids enjoying swing time with Grandma and Grandpa.

The weekend went way to fast.  My kids stayed up way too late and woke up way too early.  The drive was way to long.  BUT...it was still a fabulous weekend and I am so glad we had the chance to be with family and make lots of memories!

Visit from Grandma!

We had a visit from Troy's mom, Grandma Judy, for Easter weekend.  We were thankful to be healthy after our sickly few weeks in March.  Troy did a lot of bleaching in order to make our home germ free. We were all happy to welcome Judy and show her a bit of our town and family life.  (She even got to see the kids throw a fit or two-- we are talking the "real" family life here!)

One afternoon we took her to the river museum.  She got to see the kids favorite exhibits and animals.  Perhaps she even read one or two things in the exhibits herself, but the kids were pretty intent on getting her attention.  The girls posed for a picture while Timothy finished playing in the water area.

We also went to Galena, Illinois to do a little exploring.  It was a beautiful day to check out the quaint town.  We first toured the Ulysess S. Grant house.  Then it was time to check out the shops downtown.  We tried samples in the gourmet food shop. Browsed in the bookstore, and made a stop at the toy store.  The best stop was the ice cream shop for ice cream cones!  We forgot to get a picture of that.

The day after Easter, we got to celebrate Judy's birthday.  She spent the day at Wartburg with Troy and enjoyed a nice lunch out with him.  In the afternoon, we put her to work doing some mulch in the yard and helping fill the basketball base with sand.  I think she enjoyed the time outdoors--although one probably shouldn't be put to work on their birthday!

In the evening we had a birthday dinner at Culver's  This was mainly the kids' choice, but it also included ice cream which was Judy's request for a birthday treat.  It was sharing the long weekend with Grandma Judy.  The kids were very sad to see her go.  Timothy woke up sobbing at 2am--even woke grandma up--because he was so sad.  We had to pick out a bracelet to give her.  But we are very thankful for the time we did have together!

Happy Easter

Easter was a lovely day.  And it was nice to have company visiting us this year.  Grandma Judy made the trip down to spend the weekend.  She helped the kids do a little egg coloring early on Friday morning.  Of course the kids will not eat the eggs, but it is fun to see them change color.  Teresa wanted to dip her eggs in for about 30 seconds.  Judy convinced her to wait a little longer to achieve a little more color change.

Easter morning begin with Timothy waking up early and being VERY patient while he waited for Teresa to wake up. Around 7:30 everyone was finally up and the egg hunt began.  The kids loved searching for their eggs and baskets.  Equally thrilling was opening all the eggs to see the treats inside.  And of course there was always the Jesus egg--an empty one to remind us of the empty tomb!

It was beautiful outside, so Timothy and Teresa got some playtime in before church.  Thankfully they did not get too chalky or dirty!  This was about as dressed up as our two sweet ones like to get.  And even these "Easter outfits" were not worn with out some insisting on my part.  Not a dressy pair!  But cute for sure!

We attended worship at our church and tool a couple of family pics afterwards.

After a simple lunch we went to Flora Park for more play time.  Timothy ended up in the sand box digging deep holes.  Teresa spent a lot of time giving Grandma Judy running hugs.

The later afternoon was spent at home, so I could cook our Easter ham.  Troy kept busy putting together our new basketball hoop.  He was able to get it put together enough to try it out.  He was proud to get is assembled with no hassles.

We has a yummy dinner in the evening and some more outside play.  A lovely day of family time and celebration!  Happy Easter!