Ding dong the car is dead!

Daniel woke me up at midnight last night to this beauty!

The ironic thing is we switched car insurance after Daniel lost his job to be just liability.
Dead. Totally dead.

Dreams

Most of the time I have dreams they are about Paris or are in Paris. I am in love with this city and I follow a blog that is giving away a trip to Paris. It would be a dream come true. I will be in agony until the contest is over...

Link

Sarasota, Florida

One day at the family dinner table, I said I wish we could just jump in the car and drive to Florida. Daniel said, "Why not?" So two days later we loaded up the car and drove 20 hours to Sarasota, Florida. Daniel's brother Matthew and his wife Sarah live there, but are moving back here in a week, so this was the last time for a while we would have a place to stay down there. We drove in the middle of the night so the boys would sleep for most of the trip. It was such a smart decision. We pretty much just spent most of our time at the beach. We loved it. Ben was a little scared for the first week, but by the time we left you couldn't drag him out of the water. Tayrien liked to eat the sand and splash in the waves. The sand on Siesta key beach is like powdered sugar and so white that the ocean is so blue. We loved to look for shells and have quite a collection now. We found a new love in Sunni Bunni frozen yogurt. I did not want to come home. I loved the beach and the weather and everything. They are a city that appreciates and promotes art so I was in heaven. We took lots of photos and here are my favorites!

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May days

I am in love with the warmer weather. We have been spending more time outside enjoying it!I have been building up a storm and Ben is right there with me "building" too. Tayrien is growing up so fast, so I decided to share some stats with you.

Weight: 15.5 lbs
Loves to eat: Crackers, teething biscuits, any type of baby food

He has been able to sit up for a while now and is crawling all over the place!He got his shots the other day and didn't even cry when they stuck him! He is such an easy baby. He loves toys and baby signing time.

He recently started to give kisses. He started one day when I was laying on my bed and he crawled right over to my face and started putting his mouth on my face. I didn't understand what he was doing, so I placed him away from my face and e came right back and did it again. It wasn't until the third time I realized it. He would place his mouth on my face and start cooing. No sucking or butting, just kissing.It was sooo cute! He gives them all the time now.

He always wakes up happy. Always! He can now hold his own bottle when we do give him one.

He loves the puppy dog we gave him for Easter. He sleeps with his arm around him. We took him with us to go get shots and I think it helped.

He fell asleep holding on in his highchair.

Holding his own bottle

Easter 2011

Here are some photos of our Easter fun this year. We had a Parents as teachers egg hunt where the boys took pictures with the Easter bunny. Ben was afraid of him so Gram held him next to the bunny. My granny was able to be there too. It is so special to have her be apart of he great grandchildrens events!

A few days later we died eggs with Uncle Tucker. Ben had so much fun this year. Tayrien even dyed his very own egg.

This year we started carrying on the tradition of a scavenger hunt to find their Easter baskets. Tayrien was to small, but Ben had a blast. We used pictures instead of clues until he can read. He was so cute. He would take the picture with him and put the matching photo on the item. When he finally reached his basket he was so excited! I wanted him to fall in love with his new horse, but he was more interested in the plate he got...oh well. He loves the horsie now. We kept asking him what he wanted to name his new friend and he kept repeating friend. So we named him amigo.

We went to my moms house on the Friday after Easter for an Easter egg hunt with my brothers kids and Joe. Partly because it was raining the weekend before and partly because we wait till after Easter to get all the candy and gifts on sale! Ben was so funny. He would find one egg, return to the basket, and eat the candy. I kept telling him to go find more eggs. He finally caught on. My mom started a new tradition of having a golden egg with money in it for the kids to find. They each had their own with their name on it. This was a big hit with little kids.

Sunday we had dinner at my moms house. I love holidays!

EASTER!

I have a ton of ideas for Easter to share! I had so much fun doing them and we are not done yet!

1. Make sugar cookies
2. Easter egg hunt (we attend a Parents as teachers group-it is nation wide)
   
3. Egg dyeing - I like to do this the week before Easter Sunday so the eggs are still fresh.
   
4. Easter Basket scavenger hunt (Easter Sunday) - You have a scavenger hunt to find their baskets. This year we will use pictures for Ben's.
   
5. Easter story in an egg carton (Easter Sunday) - I have had this egg carton with the Easter story inside little eggs since I was a teenager. I kept it for my future kids and finally this year I can use it! My sister-in-law did a wonderful post about how to construct one. follow this link
6. Easter countdown- I made this adorable little sheep with a chain to countdown the days till Easter. I used cotton balls and brown construction paper. Googlie eyes worked great too. I made the chains really tiny.
7. Watch Bambi (or "HOP" a new movie about the Easter Bunny)
8. Color pages about Easter- bunny page eggs
   
9. Make an Easter wreath
   
10. Heavenly letters - write letters to Heavenly Father thanking him for his son and then tie them to a helium balloon and send them to "Heaven"
    
11. Chick card- we went these to the Grandparents
12. Marshmellow bunnies
    
13. Easter bunny pancakes

I hope you all have a fun and special Eater with your families!

April Fools Day

This year I had a lot of fun with food tricks. See if you can guess them right!

Grilled cheese sandwich

Pound cake with frosting!


Juice
Jello

Cupcake

Meatloaf topped with mashed potatoes!

Before


Hope you all had fun this holiday!
Toe sucker

Taking the horses for a walk with the dog leashes



This one is for G'mpa Ed