Happy Easter!

We had good family time over the Easter weekend.  Judy came to visit us for a few days again this year.  We did a few outings with her.  Troy and the kids went with Judy to Swiss Valley. (I had to stay home while our new water heater was being installed.)  The had a nice hike, but were disappointed to find the nature center was closed for the holiday.  I guess Judy will have to wait until another time to meet Teresa's favorite mt. lion!

We also took a drive to the children's museum in Iowa City.  It was really fun with lots to explore.  It was conveniently located in a mall with a food court which made for a fun lunch and more time to play after lunch.  And of course Judy always likes an ice cream treat, so we enjoyed an evening trip to Culver's!

On Easter we had our bunny breakfast (cinnamon rolls) and then hid eggs and baskets for the kids to find.  Teresa was delighted to find her high heel shoes.  (She did better than I expected walking in them.)  And Timothy is now longing for summer even more as he got some dive sticks for the pool.  We cleaned up pretty nice and got to experience worship in our new sanctuary at church.

The afternoon was spent going for a walk together and playing games, re-hiding and finding eggs, and talking with family.  We had our Easter dinner in the evening followed by the Dora castle cake which decided was to honor Jesus the king! (Teresa picked a bunch of recipes from the Dora cookbook to make and the castle cake was one of them.  The kids thought I would never make it!)

Happy Easter.  He is risen!

Birthday Celebrations

Since my birthday was on a weekend, I decided to claim the whole weekend before for my family celebration!  On Saturday morning we went to the nature center to build a bluebird house.  I sort of doubted our ability to do this, but it actually was very easy.  Timothy and Teresa helped out with screwing and hammering it together.  Teresa really got into pounding the nails and was trying to pound them in the carpet, the front of the birdhouse, anywhere she could!

Timothy impressed me with his hammering.  At first he did small taps.  By the end he was able to finish off the nail that Teresa started pounding.

Teresa was also the best dressed bird house maker.  She chose to wear her Easter dress for the occasion.

The finish product.  Now we just have to get it mounted and set up in our backyard.  Maybe sometime will have some bluebirds move in.

After lunch the kids and I went to Lego club at the library.  Timothy constructed an Easter basket filled with eggs.  I made a birthday cake of course.

Teresa created a puppy palace complete with a puppy giving a speech, two puppies listening to the speech, a puppy waiting at the counter for food, and one puppy swimming.

Sunday had some more fun, although I have no pictures.  We went to our first movie as a family.  I debated going as I heard some parts of Zootopia were scary.  But I decided we would go for it and just prepped the kids about the scary things.  It turned out that they both loved the movie.  Teresa said that her favorite parts were the scary parts!  Hmm...not sure about that, but I was glad it was a good family time.

Instead of going to a restaurant I decided that it would be fun to bring a pizza and eat at home.  That let the kids have more play time and less wait for food time and made us all happier!

On Monday, my actual birthday, I was certainly blessed.  I woke up early and went to pilates.  I wanted a good hard workout to start the day.  At home, Troy made a yummy breakfast.  Timothy, Teresa and Troy all made me a month's worth of blessings.  So each day I get to pick a blessing that each of them wrote. So sweet!  I had lots of messages and calls from family that made me feel loved and special.  The day at home was quiet, but I did not mind.  I made my brownie cake and some mushroom burgers for dinner.  And I enjoyed time with my family in the evening.  It was perfect in so many ways!

Weekend getaway

With a few days off from school, Timothy, Teresa and I packed up and headed to the cities for a weekend at Grandma and Grandpa's house.  It was a weekend with a few ups and downs.  The trip began a little rough as the van got bumped in the Kennedy parking lot.  Thankfully there was nearly no damage and the other person did not even get out of his car.  It shook me some and was not the ideal way to start a 5 hour drive.  But we made it safe and sound.

On Thursday we had a fun day at Grandma's.  We played games, decorated for Easter and hoped the cousins would come to visit!  Timothy and Teresa got a few surprises from Grandma.  Teresa got to decorate some new headbands.  Unfortunately Teresa complained about a headache through out the day.  I thought maybe she was just tired and her headband was bothering her.  Well, not so much, as about 8:30 I heard her coughing in her bedroom.  The kind of cough that leads to throwing up.  I got her cleaned up and tucked in and then tucked Timothy into my bed...so much for a relaxing evening for me!

On Friday, Teresa threw up again after a few sips of juice.  I did not think was a good sign towards recovery.  Our plans to go swimming got derailed, but I agreed to take Timothy to the trampoline park in the afternoon.  Although he was excited, after 10 minutes of jumping, he said his tummy hurt.  We managed to stay most of the time and left only a little early.  Thankfully nothing came of his tummy ache.  It sure had me worried.  Teresa had a bit of a fever in the afternoon, but by dinner she had bounced back and seemed on her way to healing.

Saturday morning everyone seemed to be doing okay, so we headed out to the cousins' house for Fiona's birthday.  I am so glad we could go.  Both kids were looking forward to it.  Teresa enjoyed the games and party.  Timothy was a bit sad that he had to go upstairs with the other boys and siblings.  He really wanted to play games and see the present opening.  We took some downtime back at Grandma's and then joined the cousins again for Broder's first communion that night.  It was a busy day.

All in all, it was a good weekend.  We even got in a little time to visit cousin Cal and Dan and Krista on our way out of town.  Timothy and Teresa were cute playing with Cal.  Timothy especially liked that Dan played ball tag with him inside!  I am thankful for the chance to see family even if it was a trips with a few ups and downs.