Christ is Risen!

I love Easter. I have found that the older I get, the more I choke up around Easter time. To remember what Christ did for me and the sin He took on for me, it just gets me a little weepy.
For example, I may or may not cry every time I read the story of Jesus' death and resurrection to our children. No need to mention that it comes from their children's Bible (side note: if you do not own "the Jesus Storybook Bible" by Sally Lloyd-Jones, you must buy it, you must).

I give you our yearly Easter picture. I still cannot believe we are a family of 5.

 

And one of the kids

We had our annual neighborhood Easter egg hunt yesterday. Look at what a difference 1 year makes. Most of our neighborhood friends have up and left us. Makes me sad :(

neighborhood egg hunt 2013

neighborhood egg hunt 2012

We also has a little egg hunt at my Grandma's. 

 These are their excited faces.

And some other ones before you go

 Happy Easter!

Christmastime fun

Since I have not posted in a while, this will be a "all things Christmastime" post (sorry for the delay Janet and Grandma A. :)).

Last week, Tay had her Christmas program for preschool. She has been about it talking non-stop since they stared practice over a month ago. She could not wait to get up on stage and sing her heart out. When the night finally came, she was so excited. Grandparents and cousins were in tow for the show and it was sort of a big deal. But then she got on stage, could not find us, and realized there were alot of people staring at her. She was on the verge of breakdown, but thankfully her teacher came to the rescue and all was good. And once she got to stand by her bestie Kylie (on left), she was golden.

Friday night we decorated cookies with cousins. There were 4 of us who each made about 5 dozen cookies, so it was quite the production. The night ended watching dancing Christmas lights (Noah was pant-less, of course).

And then we come to our 3rd Annual Neighborhood Ugly Christmas Sweater Party. I love our neighbors for numerous reasons, but one being that everyone wears a sweater. No one is above the ugliness.
We also made sure to throw in a few games, my favorite being "jingle box". The object is the get the balls out of a tissue box by dancing or moving around...good times.

And to wrap up the Christmastime fun, Tay and Mark went to the Nutcracker. She absolutely loved it and I know it helped that her favorite 2 cousins were along for the show. Can I please just freeze time and keep these kids little?

Yep, we did this

I really cannot get enough of our neighborhood. I don't think we will ever possibly find better neighbors. What other neighborhood do you know of that has a Redneck Olympics complete with beer can chicken and cute shirtless children? Go ahead, be jealous...because my neighborhood does!

I give you the First Annual Redneck Team Sports or F.A.R.T.S. for short. I know, it's classy.

So yeah, my neighborhood is pretty awesome!

How have I never heard of this place?

Turns out there is a nice little lake with a nice little beach about 20 minutes from here. Why have I never heard of it? Who knows! But I am glad I know about it know.

We turned our “beach” trip into a neighborhood outing and the kids had a blast!

 

Neighborhood LUV

We probably absolutely have the best neighbors EVA! There has to be at least 40 kids 4 and under. Which means, there is always someone to play with or a mama to talk to.

We just had an Easter egg hunt and potluck for our neighborhood "in" crowd. Yeah, we are pretty cool around here.
Really we just got together with the other bazillion families who live in our neighborhood and it was AWESOME!

All the kiddos before the egg hunt.
Who's kid is that in the front throwing a temper tantrum? Seriously, where are his parents?


Very happy about her basketful of eggs

It did not take long for this kid to figure out what was in the eggs. He decided to forgo the egg hunt and look for jelly beans that had fallen out of the eggs and where on the ground. I could seriously just eat him up!

2nd Annual Neighborhood Ugly Christmas Sweater Party

Have I told you before how much we love our neighbors? Well, we REALLY love our neighbors. In fact, I have forbid any of them to ever leave the neighborhood unless we can all go together. I don’t think that is too much to ask…right?

Last night was our “2^nd Annual Neighborhood Ugly Christmas Sweater Party”. Thanks to Pinterest, we had some pretty rockin’ games to play. The highlight was Christmas Minute to Win It. My personal favorites were “Can-you-get-the-red-pompom-on-a-string-up-on-your-Vaseline-covered-nose-in-a-minute game?” and “Can-you-get-the-cookie-from-your-forehead-into-your-mouth-without-using-your-hands-in-a-minute game?”

Oh and all the pictures are blurry because I still don’t quite know how to use the camera at night or inside :)

The nut stacker game winner! Do you see the motivation on his face?

I don't have to tell you who won the red pom pom on your nose game. Do you see the amount of Vaseline on his nose? Amye, I know you are so proud!

I gave it a whirl too. I even pulled my hair back….that’s how serious it was.

The only one to get the cookie into his mouth with no hands. We were all pretty excited. It's the little things in life, you know?

And these guys just had some pretty awesome facial expressions so I thought I should probably share these too (you're welcome Matt and Amye)

It’s Santa…nope it's just Eddie with a phone. Isn’t it crazy how kids just know when someone breaks out a phone and then they all gravitate to it?

Not sure why Luke decided to put himself in timeout, but he did. And the kids played "Pin the nose on Rudolph"

One minute they are loving on each other and the next they are belly bumping. I know it is fuzzy, but if you look close you can see the look of anticipation on Ben’s face and that Tay is about to fall down from the belly bump. It was pretty awesome. 

Now everyone has to practice up for next year because you know we are going to play some serious games! And I will also be nominating either Diane or Tiffany to take pictures :)