Monday, March 24, 2008

easter 2008

after going to church in the morning we all headed over to mom and dad's to celebrate easter. hayden started things out with an easter egg hunt where he pretty quickly found all 30 eggs. we had a nice dinner where hayden didn't even fight nearly as long as he normally does about eating his ham.
dave then proceeded to go over the personality test results with jessica and justin and we learned what we already knew, that jessica is from "peace" country and lucky justin is from "fun" country.
we ate some dessert and then we left the kids with mom and dad while we all went out for what has turned into an easter tradition....going to see a will ferrell movie. last year i gave birth hours after watching blades of glory. no babies were born after the viewing of semi-pro.
after the movie more dessert was had by some and then we packed up and headed home.
thanks to mom and dad for the place to hang out, a yummy meal and for babysitting!
happy easter to all!


nearly impossible to get any good basket shots with two kids. one of which will only look at a camera for a half a second and the other tried cramming anything he could the second we stepped away from him:




yes, i am aware he needs a haircut. it's happening. soon.:
mmmm, cadbury eggs:
yuck! foil:
he found all 30 eggs in record breaking time (with a little help from us, of course. he's really not that great of a looker):
opening of the eggs:

rainah and her basket:
all day long. can i have just one piece of candy?:
it's blury, but oh so funny:
dave explaining the personality test results:


Sunday, March 23, 2008

easter eve bowling

saturday nite jessica, justin, jenn, tina, dave, hayden, talan and i all headed out for dinner and then bowling. stupid leagues were going on so we almost couldn't find a bowling alley that had open bowl. being the the responsible parents that we are, we took the children out bowling at around 9pm. we let hayden know that there weren't any bumpers and he still did great. the first game he bowled about a 39 or so and then the second game he bowled an 80! justin only beat him by 1 point....but we must say that justin crushed everyone on the first game. he's not THAT bad.
after bowling we headed back to our place to watch fireflight make their tv debut and fill some easter baskets.


ready with the 10 pounder:

they didn't even have to show any skin to get these beads:

the gang:
upside down:
justin and jessica's engagement photo:
no bumpers and he's still better than most:

hayden loves the silly face pictures:
doin' work:
jessica serious with the 12 pounder:
gettin' his bowl on:
i have no idea:
jessica letting talan help:

the boys:



Saturday, March 22, 2008

dudley egg dye's suck

so after going to see the easter bunny, spending all day at mom and dad's (with 2 babies that refused to nap there), and then heading to red robin for dinner, it was time to dye our easter eggs.
jessica and justin made it over just in time for the last few eggs and boy were they happy. egg dying is such an exciting event. well, hayden sure loves it.
dudley egg die comes with like 9 different color tablets. 3 of which tell you to only use the warm water and not the water and vinegar. they have 2 packages of the tablets...one of which holds three tablets. you would guess that they are the 3 colors that need the water only, right? apparently not. we ended up having to throw 2 of the colors away as they just didn't work at all. the other colors really weren't that bright and there were lines on almost all of the eggs. i think i remember this happening before, so maybe now that i'm blog complaining about it, i'll remember for next year and get a different brand. any suggestions?!
anyway. hayden had a great time, and we made sure to keep talan awake long enough for a photo op before throwing him in bed.


watching the water change colors:
his egg...of course he made it red (although it really turned out to be pink):
talan dying his egg:
hayden was not so happy that talan and daddy made the color splash:
mmm, this looks good:
trying to get a shot of both of them. this is what i got:

hayden's "red" egg:
the family:
done at last:


the easter bunny

this year we made our trip to see the easter bunny at pretty much the last minute. i couldn't find any really good easter outfits for the boys and when i finally found a shirt for hayden, they didn't have his size. so i ordered it online and figured we would head off to see the bunny once the shirt arrived.
i talked to jenn and she said she hadn't taken rainah to see the easter bunny yet either. as always, twelve oaks has the nicest/non scary looking easter bunny around so she decided to come our way on friday and we all (jenn, rainah, me, hayden, talan, mom, dad and justin) headed over to the mall for our annual visit.
the past year or two i've put hayden in a tie and he's more or less hated it. this year, he put it on and was so excited. he looked in the mirror at himself and said "oooo, i look FANCY!" i brought a change of clothes for him so he didn't have to sit around at mom and dad's all day in his "fancy clothes" but he refused to changed. he even had a fit later that nite when we all went out to eat and mom tried taking his tie off.
we talked A LOT about the bunny with hayden and he did really well again this year. as i was putting talan on the bunnies lap hayden kept saying "can you just sit with us mom? how 'bout you just sit with us?" but he finally gave in and sat on the bench next to the bunny.
talan did great and just sat there looking around. rainah was the amazing one as we all figured she'd cry as soon as jenn sat her down. but instead, she sat there looking at the bunny, even smiling at times, touching his whiskers and even at on point putting her head in the bunnies hand.
stupid twelve oaks has signs during christmas and easter saying that they don't want you taking pictures. they want to make sure you pay the $50 for a 5 x 7 and 2 wallets to them. lucky for us, i've never been one to listen to the rules. i stood right next to the photographer and took as many shots as i could get while mom videotaped and dad and justin stood behind the photographer taking their own pictures.
i haven't seen anybody else's pictures yet, but here is what i got:


waiting in line:
hayden and talan:


rainah:







Monday, March 10, 2008

tobogganing

i'm not a fan of cold weather and i really hate snow. snow when you have kids is even worse than when you don't have them. everything is always wet and cold and it's just miserable.
hayden hasn't gotten to play outside very much this year, or any other year for that matter. it seems like whenever there is enough snow to actually play in, the weather is just too bitter cold to be outside in it. the big snowfall the other day was perfect as it was nice and sunny and warm. it still was a pain having his mittens fall off every other minute, but at least i wasn't out there freezing as well.
so i've been telling hayden that we'll have to take him tobogganing this year. mostly because i knew that the toboggan hill is much less snowy than a sledding hill. we wouldn't have to deal with climbing up a big snow covered hill while carrying a sled AND hayden. we wouldn't have to get all wet and super cold. we really wouldn't have to touch snow at all.
i had planned to take him this past sunday as they will be closing the hill down for the season by next weekend, as long as the weather is still ok. the last thing i wanted was to wait until the very last minute and have it be 60 degrees and them close the hill before we had a chance to go.
thursday morning i woke up with a sore throat. i had hoped it wouldn't turn into anything other than that as we had plans friday nite, saturday nite and then the tobogganing on sunday. by thursday nite i had the chills, aches and a fever. i felt pretty miserable on friday and had to cancel all of our plans. i had decided that no matter what, we would still be taking hayden tobogganing on sunday. i would be able to pull it off, even for just a little bit.
saturday i actually started feeling better but i had already cancelled my plans for the evening. my fever and most of my aches were gone. i now mostly had a really bad cold with a horrible cough. our friends bobby and david were looking for something to do and suddenly our sunday plans for tobogganing turned into last minute plans for saturday evening.
we got ourselves ready and took talan over to grandma and grandpa's and then headed over to bobby's so we could all take off from there. aside from dave, me and hayden, bobby, mallory, brianna, brianna's friend, and david all went. we didn't leave his house until a little after 6pm and didn't get to waterford oaks until a little after 7. it was pretty cool to actually go in the dark though. and there really weren't many people there so there was no line to wait in for the hill.
i wondered how hayden was going to take the first ride as the hill is really big. he took to it like a champ and after silently flying down the first ride with dave and myself, with me wondering if he was ok the whole time, we got off and hayden excitedly said "that was AWESOME!!! let's go again!"
and that was that.
eventually, hayden was riding in the front spot on the toboggan with the 2 other kids. the entire nite he had the biggest smile on his face. he just lives for this stuff.
we probably ended up going about 10 times. about half of the way through, bobby was helping to push one of the toboggans to give them a head start. he basically pushed with his whole body, but as soon as the toboggan took off from the start the little (or not so little) stopper thing popped up and nailed bobby in the shin. it was a pretty bad injury that took him out of the game for the rest of the evening. about an hour later it was HUGE. hopefully that toboggan at least won the race!
we told hayden we were going one more time and just as i expected, when we finished up the ride he immediately started crying that he wanted "just one more time!!!" but it was late, nobody had eaten dinner and he was exhausted from a long day. he fell asleep within minutes as soon as we got into the car.
we had a great time and will probably end up going more than once next year! maybe even with talan! i guess the cold weather is good for something. of course i'd happily give it all up to live on a beach for the rest of my life.

this was his face for pretty much the entire evening:
dave and bobby. coming to get ya:
mallory, brianna's friend and brianna:
us:
we really were cold:
waiting for the next run:
rolling down a hill:
hayden and dave:
hayden is in the front. click on it to see it a bit better:
mallory and bobby showing off his injury:
hot chocolate and red cheeks: