EASTER!

I love Easter! The beginning of nice weather, the flowers popping up in our yard, going outside, sunshine, and of course celebrating the resurrection of our Savior. It seemed extra special this year, as the girls really seemed to understand it more. We did all of the easter bunny type activities saturday, easter baskets, egg hunts, making eggs. Then on Sunday we focused on the real reason we celebrate easter. We read the scriptures with the girls and learned all about the events leading up to Christ's crucifixion and then his resurrection. We focused on his atonement in the Garden of Gethsemane and helped them understand that we repent so we won't have to suffer as He did. Then we celebrated that Christ overcame death and was risen! The girls (especially Reagan) were very happy to know that Jesus is alive and not dead. They were really distraught when we discussed what the people said and did to Jesus. It really helped me to realize just how VERY important Easter is. At lunch Reagan volunteered to pray, and it was so sweet. I wrote down some of the things she said because I didn't want to forget.
"Heavenly Father, Bless us that we won't suffer. Bless us that we will repent. Bless us that we won't sin. Bless (she frequently says bless instead of thankful) Jesus that he was resurrected after he died." Then she blessed normal things. But it made me really happy to know that she had listened and that hours later she was still thinking about what we had discussed. Anyways, so we had a wonderful sabbath day - great lessons at church, happy little girls, good food and family time. Now onto the pictures :)

My girlies in their matching cuteness!

Easter egg hunt at the Stumps. Always fun!

Finding the billions of eggs that Grandma and Grandpa brought!

Their new super hero capes that I ordered cheap from one of those daily deal sites!

Showing their superhero stuff!

Easter basket stuff. Nothing big, just lots of little things I found on clearance throughout the year. My little ponies, angelina ballerina, mini lalaloopsies, barbie movies, bath poofs and capes. They got plenty of candy from everyone else :)

Making rice krispie treat easter eggs!

And they got new spring nightgowns for easter, with matching scrunchies for their hair :)

They love nightgowns! (Because they are dresses you can sleep in)

And the rice krispie easter eggs! I think they turned out great :)

Hope you all had a wonderful Easter!

my old man

Rick turned 30. Yep the big 3-0. He played the part well, hobbling around with his cane. We couldn't really plan anything elaborate and we couldn't do any of his favorite things since he still can't walk very well. So we invited some of our close friends from church and had an adults night out! We went to a fun Japanese Steakhouse, where I forgot to take my camera...

I only did a few decorations, just to remind him just how old he is :) I hung the numbers one through thirty across our living/dining room so he could visualize how many years he has completed here. And the simple banner. Just in case he forgot :)

Rick's family came over for lunch and dessert and games before our night out. It was fun and as always we had too much food :)

I didn't make Rick a cake since his dessert of choice is homemade oreos. But his nice co-workers brought in two cakes on friday. One to eat with him and one to send home. So we used that cake for the candles. Reagan and Kennedy were more than happy to help him blow out his candles now that he is getting so old ;)

We played loaded questions when we were done with our nice dinner. It was hilarious. Some may have cried, some may have peed...

Steve and Lara (above) Ben and Aubree (below)

Scott and Julie

Rick and his new Depends

Alan demonstrating how to use them

The Whole Shebang

Ah, that looks more normal! (Cindy, why do you always copy me? j/k)

And then there was mafia. Cindy was awesome at calling people out. hilarious.

Thanks for making Rick's birthday so awesome! Love you guys!

p.s. check me out, two posts in one week!!

the monthly catch-up

So somehow even with all my good intentions I just don't make it on to blogger very often to post. I am recommitting myself to do better :) Here is what we have been up to around here... April Fools day was a little lazy since my husband is still on crutches and not able to do much. So I grilled out and the girls got to pick any utensil they wanted to eat with. Reagan chose the ice cream scoop. Kennedy chose the salad tongs. She even got pretty good at it by the end of the meal :)

The dress-up bin I made for the girls. Now they don't have to pull out every single dress trying to find the one they want to wear.

Pretending they are on crutches like daddy. Despite the look on her face, they really thought this was fun and came up with it on their own.

Late night craft group :) We somehow never manage to finish our craft in a 'reasonable' amount of time. So this project (maybe 30-40 minutes) took us about 5 hours. Yep, we are that good!

The girls dress themselves these days. Normally Reagan begs and pleads and coerces Kennedy into wearing a dress. Kennedy's compromise is normally wearing leggings under it, whether they match or not... But Kennedy says, "I wear dresses because Reagan wants me to. But I like sweatpants best!" A girl after my own heart!

Aside from the fact that it looks like I have never brushed their hair (and I probably didn't, but we'll blame it on the running laps) I love this picture. These are their happy smiles, not their 'cheese' smiles.

The beginning of spring/easter crafts. Little chicks hatching. Since then we have painted lots of pictures, made kites and ducks and made collages.

Doesn't she just look too big? I can't believe she will be 3 in a few weeks! I want her to stop growing up :(

Ah, yes. My nemesis. Rick's knee. This is a picture of it 3 days after surgery. Which was a month ago. He started to put full weight on it for the first time yesterday. Poor man has severe nerve damage in his foot and leg and has a blood clot... Can't wait for him to be all better!

The girls have been super good since Rick had surgery. They did really well with my make shift activities that I came up with when I had to take care of daddy. Luckily they have the best imaginations ever! Seriously. Some days they are so far into their imaginary worlds that I have no idea what they are talking about. Some of their favorite things to pretend include fishing, dinosaurs, and fairies. In this picture they are fishing in the break water or something.

Rick the day after surgery. Reagan and Kennedy found his old stuffed animal from when he was a kid and kept tucking him in with 'Kevin the Koala.'

Reagan gave her first talk in primary and I was soooooo impressed. Not only did she make sure she was making eye contact, but had great inflections in her voice and even ad-libbed. She is a natural born public speaker, and I don't know where that came from!

St. Patrick's day. Yep, they dressed themselves again. :) They even find hair ties and tell me how they want their hair!

Playgroup feast for St. Patty's day.

My closet re-do. I am a little embarrassed at how horrible the before is. The layout was so bad that you could barely even step into the closet. That's my excuse.

So I built some shelving and replaced the rods so we could fit our clothes on one side so we could actually step into the closet. That was a run-on. Oops.

Back in february, my sister and I took my dad to an MSU women's bball game. It has become tradition and is quite fun. We remininsce about our high school days and critique the coaches and players.

Playing at the park in the snow. We were sick of winter and decided we would enjoy the park even with the mounds of snow!

They loved it. We had the park to ourselves. I know, shocker. Who plays at the park with tons of snow??

Being weirdos.

Another late night craft session. We get a little giddy after 10.

Sheesh, these pictures are old. We hosted a murder mystery dinner. And it rocked. Just sayin'.

Helps that we had a bunch of crazies participating with us :)

And the silverlicious party at Borders. The girls LOVED it. Yep. If you have girls and they haven't read the pinkalicious books, do it. My girls think they are wonderful.

My next goal will be to post about our trip to Mackinaw City in the next week. We will see... Now that we spend our time outside, I may just see you again in May :) So if I forget, Rick turns 30 tomorrow! Happy over the hill to my wonderful Hubby!