Easter- Take 2

Easter was a wonderful day as always. We started the morning off with a yummy breakfast made by Burt and then the traditional picture before heading off to church. The service was wonderful. We listened to testimonies, beautiful praise songs and a sermon on what this day really means. It was a little tough at times for me to hold it together since my Grandma passed away the day before, but if you can't cry at church, where can you???? It was exactly what I needed this Easter Sunday.

After church we headed to the Roberson's. They are gracious enough to host families in their home that don't have family in town. We always have a great fellowship time and food of course. The kids couldn't wait to do the Easter egg hunt, but we held them off as long as we could so we could eat our meal. We then let the kids "out" so they could hunt eggs and eat candy. Zachary and Addison watched intently and then played with empty eggs in the grass. After the egg hunt we took our group picture and family pictures and then hung around a little more to talk and let the kids play. It was another wonderful Easter. Oh and what was even better was listening to Joshua tell us the story of Jesus dying on the cross and Him being resurrected on the third day and Nicholas singing the new song he learned in regards to this. Priceless. Burt said he had to hold back his tears. We never want the boys to lose the true meaning of Easter. It was a glorious day indeed.

Family picture before church. Can't you tell the boys love to do this? Ha.

Mommy and her boys.

Easter Egg Hunt at the Roberson's. Claire and Joshua got a head start on the other kids.

Here are the rest waiting and now ready to grab as many eggs as they could find. I love these shots.

Kathy looks like she might trip over Dawson's leg if she isn't careful. It makes me laugh every time I look at it.

Not sure what was so funny, but Burt obviously thought it was. Zachary not so much.

Surveying the goods.

Sweet Addison enjoying the grass and trying to eat it.

Zachary really wanted the egg Addison had.

The whole crew. The Roberson's are so gracious to allow us to bombard their home on Easter. We love it and they must love us!

All the kids. We added two more to the bunch this year.

Second attempt at a family photo. One day the boys will smile on command. :-) I do love the pictures though. It is always nice to have family photos of any kind to look back at.

Another wonderful Easter to add to the books!

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My Easter post has mysteriously disappeared from the blog and now is in draft form again. I now have to redo it. Ugh!!!!

Joshua's Bday party

Better late than never :-) I have had this waiting to post and figured since I just posted about Nicholas' birthday this would be a good time to add this on here.

We went low key on this one. It is hard to think of things right after Christmas and when it is cold out. So, we decided to invite Joshua's friends from church to join us at Burger King for lunch and cake. It was perfect. They were all able to play while us adults could sit and chat a bit. Win win I think, plus no real clean up. We had a few balloons blown up too that were quite the hit. All and all a pretty good 3rd Birthday Party I would have to say. And on his actual birthday we went bowling. It is becoming a tradition.

Enjoying his cupcake.

The slowest ball ever, but it did the trick.

Happy 3 year old.

The wonderful design job by Burt. Joshua loves his dinosaurs.

Who knew balloons would be such a hit. The little things.

Aren't they cute eating at the little tables with party hats????

Wish I had a close up of the candle. It was a dinosaur too. Very cute.

Blowing out the candle.

Gift time.

And this little cutie pie was also there.

Can you guess what was going on here? So glad to catch it on camera, haha.

Cute dinosaur tattoos.

The birthday boy. Precious. He is Dino Mite. Love you Joshua!!!!

Nicholas' Party

I am pretty sure for the past year whenever someone would ask Nicholas when he was turning 5 this is the response they would get---"I will be 5 on April 12th at Pump It Up." It was the funniest thing ever. Can you guess where we had his party??? That's right, Pump It Up. We decided that for this special year we would go big. He was a little confused, however, when his actual birthday came around and all we did was take cupcakes to school and go bowling. He thought for sure that is when we would be going to Pump It Up. It was hard to explain we had to wait till Saturday for the party. Many other children had the same issue so I was glad it wasn't just me. In anycase, he was so excited for his party he couldn't stand it. Saturday afternoon couldn't come fast enough. It was nice for us too since I didn't have to clean the house before or afterward. We did make his cake and goodie bags, but that was pretty painless. We had about 13 kids and their parents and everyone had a wonderful time. Burt took Zachary down the slide once, but he didn't like that so much. We raced the boys on the obstacle course, went down the slide and played basketball. Boy did we get a workout. The kids were all pretty sweaty by the end of it. It was nice being able to go and play with Nicholas and not worry about anything else. After playing we headed to the party room where Nicholas was able to sit on his "throne." Barrett and Sam kept asking him what they should do. He commanded them to sit and eat cake. I think that was pretty nice. He loved sitting there, getting all the attention, being served and opening his gifts. It was a wonderful 5th Birthday Party if I do say so myself.

When I asked Nicholas what he wanted on his cake he said trains, aliens and dinosaurs. Two out of three aren't bad right? I think this was a pretty good idea to incorporate the themes.

I wish I could post the whole series of these pictures. Hilarious is all I have to say.

His Majesty

Best attempt for a family shot.

Nicholas loved the party, his friends being there and all the gifts he received. Thank you everyone for making it such a special day for him.