Here is our growing girl on her first Mother’s day!

We had an enjoyable Mother’s Day together. We attended church with my parents, so Grammy could show off her grand-girls. We then went to enjoy a tasty lunch together. We finished off the evening with a little competative wii play where I held my own. What more could a mom want out of her day – good company, good family, good food, and good play.

The other day I raced though dinner so that I could go out and get our yard mowed before dark. I am notorious for mowing yards as the sun is going down and you can hardly tell where the cut line is. I successfully got the grass cut and a few other yard items taken care of before it got dark. As I worked around the yard, I kept finding Emily in windows and doorways keeping tabs on me. Nowadays, whenever she sees a mower, she points it out and talks about watching Mommy or Daddy using the mower. So the grubby Mommy came in the house and headed straight for the shower to clean up. I caught my reflection in the mirror – work shorts, t-shirt, old shoes, dirt stained socks, carelessly swept ponytail, plenty of sweat, and earrings. Earrings? I guess I wanted to keep a fashion sense to my yard attire.

We borrowed Elena’s really cool purple hat! Thanks Elena for sharing!

Julia is hanging out with Daddy!

Our side of the square had an extra dancer.

Go-Bubbles-Go!

We had our annual church Barn Dance and Chili Cook-off. Last year Emily loved dancing and didn’t want to quit even when Mommy’s arms were tired. This year she liked the dancing, but was far more interested in playing outside with the other kids and toys. Julia had a blast riding around in the front pack. She did some dancing with Mommy while Daddy and Emily played. Emily could have chased bubbles for the whole evening if she had been allowed to. The only sad note from the evening was that we didn’t get any photos of Emily and Daddy dancing to the hokey pokey. They had a blast even though Emily didn’t quite get the idea of sticking individual body parts in and out of the circle. Her favorite was the whole body and hopping in and out of the circle.

We enjoyed our day of Easter celebration. What a joyful time of remembering the hope that we have in Christ and the redemption He has provided for us! My heart is lightened!

Emily seemed to really enjoy spending the day with people and Julia’s first Easter was filled with napping and playing everywhere we went. After church we ate lunch, took a nap, hunted Easter eggs, watched Emily eat way too much sugar, visited, ate again, and then had bedtime. Emily’s eggs were filled with gummy snacks and chick & bunny shaped marshmallows. Yummy!!

A little pre-bedtime sugar cookie making with Mommy and Emily. The process was supposed to be roll, sugar, and smush. Emily loved to say roll for all of the steps. The balls she made were pretty good until she had them made and then stuck her fingers into them. The sugar step involves touching the cup bottom into the sugar, only Emily thought that it was better to coat her fingers with sugar. Then the last step was to smush the dough ball with the cup and that was Emily’s most successful step. I am mistaken to say that any of these steps were Emily’s favorite steps because eating the cookie was really her favorite.

This morning when we woke up, we looked out the window and saw snow falling. This is a rare treat for us. I was all for getting our kids up and making them look out the window immediately and then following that with going out and playing in it. Reason won out and I didn’t make Julia spend much time looking out the window and we fed Emily breakfast before going out. Unfortunately, by the time we did get out the door, the snow was beginning to melt. There was enough snow for Robby to teach Emily how to make a snowball, or at least a snow clump. Throwing the snow clump consisted of smushing it against someone else. The other favorite game was to get snow on your shoes and then stomping it off on the driveway.

It appears that Julia spent the outside play time with her eyes covered by her hat. Oh well, I guess Mommy should look in a mirror after putting the hat on her. She didn’t seem to mind the hat/eye covering.