Easter Weekend

We had a wonderful weekend full of lots of fun family time!

Friday was Jill’s birthday, so I cooked Friday night and had my family over to celebrate Jill’s birthday! We had a great time eating and hanging out together.

Brody made Jill a big poster that said, “Happy Birthday, Aunt Jill!” He was so proud of it!

Jill’s cute cake! Since it was so close to the wedding, we had them add a little bling to her cake!

The birthday girl!

Jill and Brandon

Saturday night, Josh and I served in the nursery at church. Our church had 5 services this weekend, so they needed lots of volunteers this weekend! Later that evening, we let Brody dye Easter eggs.  We put Jillian to bed and then the 3 of us dyed eggs together! It was SO much fun! Brody loved it!

He liked checking on his on eggs! :)

He also loved seeing the colors of the eggs once we took them out of the cups.

All of his bright, pretty eggs! He made one of his eggs a sparkly pink for Jillian. So sweet!

He used the stickers on my hands instead of on his eggs!

His Easter bucket filled with eggs! Yes, he has pink grass!! I went to two places to try to get green, blue, or yellow grass and every place I went was out so I had to use one of the bags of pink I bought for Jillian’s basket.

 

Sunday morning, the kids woke-up to a few things in their Easter baskets. It was Jillian’s 1st Easter so it was fun to experience this first with her this year! And I loved having two sweet Easter baskets to fill.

We can never seem to have enough MatchBox cars!

Jillian got a couple of outfits and some gum drop pacifiers.

Reading a new book!

We went to a wonderful Easter service at our church and then met my parents at their house for lunch. Jill made the Pioneer Woman's Perfect Pot Roast and it was soooo good!

We attempted to take a few pictures after lunch, but you know how pictures with 2 kids go! It was so rainy and nasty up here that we couldn’t take any outside. These are best two of our little family! I realize we have had two kids for 7 months, but every time I see a picture of the 4 of us it still shocks me that we have two kids! Ha! It’s just crazy..in a good way, of course!

 

Our baby girl on her very first Easter! It’s so hard to believe that this time last year we didn’t know if we were having a boy or a girl and now, this year, we have this 7 month old cutie pie!!!

 

Jillian had on some cute little bunny bloomers!

Our petite little doll! 

 

We thought we might get a picture of the 2 of them together. It was a good thought! Ha!

This one was the winner! Don’t they look so happy? Ha! I am thinking I will probably dress them back in these outfits and take a few more pictures! Ashley made their matching outfits and we love them!

Our sweet, handsome boy on his 3rd Easter! He looked so big to me yesterday!

As fun and wonderful as this weekend was, I hope that we never let the fun activities that surround Easter take our focus away from the real meaning and the importance of Easter. I am so very thankful for the cross and so thankful we serve a risen Lord!!

I hope you all had a great weekend!

Happy Birthday, Jill and Playgroup Easter Egg Hunt

 

First, today is my sister’s birthday!! It’s her last birthday as a single woman! :) We are celebrating with dinner at our house tonight.

Happy Birthday, Jill! We are so thankful for you and so proud of you! We love you very much!

This morning, our playgroup had an Easter egg hunt at Lisa’s house. I thought Jillian looked so sweet in her little outfit. I always imagined I would have Jillian in lots of pink, but I honestly love her best in blue because it makes her blue eyes pop!

I realize neither of them are looking at the camera, but at least they are sitting still and neither are crying! :)

A sweet smile from the boy who “can’t like my camera”!

Sara made these little Easter cupcakes for playgroup. I thought they were super cute!

Each mom brought 12 plastic eggs filled with candy. These were our eggs. They are little plastic carrot eggs. I thought they were pretty cute!

Jillian got to play with her friend, Trevor. They are right at 2 months apart. It’s so fun to watch them interact with each other! They are both so sweet and so laid back.

Trevor was sweet to share his toys with Jillian Kate.

So funny story…Lisa and I were talking along with a few other moms and Brody walked into the living room covered in green! My first thought was that he had found some paint outside and painted his body! Lisa was real calm and explained that it was colored bubbles. Who knew they made those? Not me and I really don’t think I want any for obvious reasons! Ha! We got Brody and Lisa’s floor all cleaned-up. We always leave our mark at playgroup! Ha!

The kids had lots of fun playing outside and playing in the playroom. When Josh saw this picture he said, “I hope you helped clean that up!”

After we had lunch, we had the Easter egg hunt. All the kids were so excited and seemed to have had a great time!

This picture of Brody cracks me up! He was hauling to get to this yellow egg! Ha!

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Edible Birds’ Nests

Brody and I made edible birds’ nests Tuesday night for a snack! I remember having these in elementary school and loving them back then. I thought this would be something fun and easy for he and I to make together with Easter just a few days away!

This is the recipe for the nests.

12 oz. pkg. butterscotch chips (You can also use chocolate chips)
1/3 c. peanut butter
1 (5 oz.) can crunchy Chinese noodles (chow mein noodles)

Melt butterscotch chips and peanut butter in double boiler (or in microwave if you are like me). Stir in can of noodles. Form into nest shapes on wax paper. Refrigerate until hardened. Add bird eggs on top.

Brody likes to pretend to open things over bowls when we are cooking, so he was opening an imaginary ingredient with the can opener and adding it to the bowl. :)

Adding chow mein noodles into the bowl.

All mixed together! I think it would have been easier if I had crunched the noodles into smaller pieces before I added them to the bowl.

I decided it would be easier to form our nests in a silicon muffin tin. I just sprayed a little non-stick cooking spray in the bottom of each section so that the noodles wouldn’t stick. I stuck these in the fridge until they hardened. (Please ignore how nasty my muffin tin looks. The down side to silicone is that it doesn’t seem to clean that well!)

Then we topped them with Whopper Robin Eggs. You can also use jelly beans, but we prefer these at our house. This kind of looks like that bird’s nest on my wreath! There are 4 eggs in the nest now!

The little chef! He was so proud of his nests!

Hope you all have a great day!

Tuesday

I have Bible study at 9:00 at church on Tuesday mornings. I am usually hustling out the door dragging diaper bags and children, but this morning we were all ready almost an hour before we had to be at church. I have no idea what caused us all to be dressed that early, but we were and it was a very easy, enjoyable morning at our house.

Jillian and I this morning…

She had on the cutest little Easter bunny outfit. I loved that she posed with her arm propped on her bumper! Ha!

Here are a few pictures of Brody this morning before Bible study. He still “can’t like my camera” so this is what most pictures of him look like these days. Hilarious!

After Bible study, we headed to see Julee. Brody needed a haircut before the wedding. I always try to bring some sort of treat for Brody to hair appointments so that he will sit still long enough for Julee to cut his hair. He is really into putting money into his piggy bank right now, so I told him that if he sat still during his appointment and obeyed, then I would give him some “pennies”. Pennies are what he calls all forms of money..nickels, dimes, quarters, dollar bills.  He was SO excited! He got in the chair and waited on Julee. He was still and well behaved for his appointment. Julee told him she had some “pennies” to give him, too, so between the two of us, he got several pennies to put in his piggy bank. He was one happy boy and I was one happy momma that we didn’t have to relive our February haircut experience! Ha!

We came home after the appointment and ate and played in Jillian’s room before they both went down for naps.

And I finally got a smile out of this boy!

This girl was ready for a nap!

Hope you all had a great Tuesday!