This was the first time in 4 years we have spent Easter at home. Usually Easter is during Spring Break and we spend it camping. The Easter Bunny spoiled my kids this year. So did their Grandparents. Between the 3 Easter egg hunts they got almost 100 eggs each. Despite my love/hate relationship with all the candy it was great and they had lots of fun!

A couple days before Easter we got all of our eggs colored.

Why can’t they just look at me at the same time?

Spin an egg. Kinda fun.

Jayci put almost every sticker on one egg.

The finished products. Corbin cheesin’ it and Jayci still has dinner on her face. Nice.

We spent the day before Easter with Grandma Brenda and Grandpa Scuba Steve. They did an Easter Egg hunt for all of the kids which ended with each of them finding a new swimming suit. They are darling! I’m so excited for boating season! They also did a BBQ dinner which was yummy, like always. The kids always have so much fun at their house.

Grandma Brenda, Grandpa Scuba Steve and all of the kids ready for the hunt!

The cute bunny masks they got. Halle refused to keep it on long enough for a picture.

And they’re off!

Checkin’ out their loot.

Cute swimming suits.

Lovin’ Great Grandma Bridges.

Halle loved being in the Easter egg bin. She played in there forever.

The Easter Bunny was trying to help some nighttime fears we have around here. He brought Jayci and Corbin each a little night light that has a timer on it and they can sleep with and turn on anytime they wake up in the middle of the night scared. They are cute and seem to be working. He also brought them a DVD. Jayci got Tangled and Corbin got How to Train Your Dragon (or Drain your Dragon as Corbin says). They got some Pez, of course lots of candy, some pencils, and all three of them got a new swimming suit. They are so cute! My kids are going to be stylin’ on the beach this year.

The day of Easter we went to Grandma  and Grandpa Hales house. The rest of the family had spent Easter with them the day before while we spent it with other family so Grandma planned a special Easter egg hunt just for my kids. They got spoiled again. Not as much candy this time! Thank goodness. They got lots of fun stuff. Squinkies were the highlight of that hunt. My kids have wanted those forever! Grandma’s are so smart.

This year for Spring Break we headed down to Southern Utah in hopes of warmer weather! It has been a cold Spring! We went to Sand Hollow. We love it there! Lots and lots of 4-wheeling to do! I wasn’t sure if I’d get to go out much because Halle is a little small to be wearing a helmet and riding on a 4-wheeler. But thankfully my dear step mom and step sister let her ride with them in their Razor. So I got to go out on all the long rides! All two of them! Hah! It ended up being cold almost the whole time we were there. It even snowed on us a little. Bummer. We did head in to St. George one of the days to escape the cold induced boredom and took the kids to see the movie Hop. Which was a very cute movie. Despite the rain and cold the kids still had a ball digging a fort (or port as Corbin calls it). By the time they were done ended up being a castle. Rain or shine they were out digging in the sand. Corbin even conned some of the adults (ok, only one: Diana) into digging with him. They also love to ride on the 4-wheelers. They have no fear. Jayci just wants to go as fast as possible up the steepest hills possible. It’s so fun to see them having so much fun! My Dad brought along a little kids 4-wheeler for them to drive all by themselves. They were excited. But unfortunately because of the laws in the state parks they can’t drive them until they are 8. Bummer! They still drove circles around the fire-pit though and that was fun enough for them.

Diana and Jessica digging under the direction of Corbin. See the blurry spots? That’s sleet. Brrrr!

Corbin standing in the chair they dug out for him. Hey, I can supervise way better from up here!

Digging, digging, digging.

Trying to make the “port” as tall as Corbin is. I never got a picture of the finished product. Darn it!

Snow!

A view of camp.

Nowadays, you have to take a 2nd mortgage out on your house to fill this baby! 100 gallons of guaranteed fun!

Mommy getting the kids ready to ride.

Which way were we supposed to go? This doesn’t look right.

A short stop for some lunch. Halle is loving life. Riding with her BFF Kailee all day.

Corbin on the little 4-wheeler. He would say he is going to ride until his “flumb” hurts! Too cute.

The Flintstone house.

Jayci is quite the climber. She was having a ball giving her mom a heart attack.

So much fun! Thanks Dad for the invite. Let’s do it again next year!

On March 24th Corbin had his second set of tubes put in and got his adenoids out. His first set of tubes never seemed to do any good. He only got one ear infection after he got the first set but we just haven’t been able to get rid of all of the fluid in there. We noticed his hearing was continually getting worse so we decided to take him back in. His Dr. dug wax out of his ears forever! There was a lot in there! We were hoping that would help but his tympanogram was a flat line (it should have a high peak to show the amount of sound that is reflected back from the eardrum). So we tried putting him on Mucinex for 30 days to see if we could thin the fluid and it would drain but he still had a flat tympanogram. Our last resort was tubes again. I hate my kids having surgery, anesthesia always makes me nervous. But kids bounce back so fast it’s amazing.

I couldn’t go with him for his surgery because we couldn’t find a sitter for the other kids for that early in the morning and Rob decided he wanted to be the one to take him. I felt like a horrible Mom for not being there to hug and comfort him when he came out of anesthesia. But I guess a Dad’s hugs are good too, right?! Haha! He did really well. Daddy felt bad that he couldn’t eat anything before his surgery so he took a little bag of Lucky Charms for him to snack on for the drive home. Yeah, he threw them up in the car. Guess that wasn’t a very good idea. Other than that he was back to normal in no time! And the best part of it all? He can hear us again (well as good as any 3-year-old not intentionally ignoring Mom can hear)!

Getting all ready for surgery.

The nurse explaining to Corbin what they are going to do.

Playing with a magna doodle and Dad’s phone in his spiffy new socks.

Riding in the wagon to the OR. It was funny, he got a stuffed Eagle from Primary Children’s the last time he got his tubes in. He hasn’t touched the thing since then but insisted it had to go with him again. How funny that kids remember things like that. The nurses were cute and put a band around its neck like the one around his ankle. And of course the blanky had to go, too.

I decided to look back and see how little he was the last time he did this…crazy! They grow way too fast.

Trying to wake up. Juice and popsicles always make everything better!

My sister Stephanie decided to have a St. Patrick’s Day party this year. We usually don’t do much for this holiday but it was a good excuse to get together.

Here’s a picture of all the party animals sporting their green attire. Stephanie made some cute hats for her and her kids-I should have too but I was too lazy. My kids got the awesome dollar bin hats from Target instead. So creative of me!

Grandma “J” was brave and came for the party. We were so glad! We don’t get to see her often enough.

Halle & Grandma “J”

I don’t have very many pictures of my kids with my Grandma so I decided to take the opportunity and take some. Lately it’s quite a task to get Corbin to smile at the camera. He’s always pulling a funny face! Silly kid. I love these pictures.

We decorated some cupcakes. The kids loved that! Jayci was trying to put her new skills to use-her new favorite show is Cake Boss. She thinks she’s pretty much a pro now!

I was proud of them. I think they did such a good job.

We did some face painting.

We set a trap to try and catch a leprechaun. Cody and Jersey ate almost all of the treats we left for him…thankfully he still found them.

Unfortunately we didn’t catch him. Corbin was pretty upset about it. But he did leave us a trail to follow and at the end of it he left a bunch of treats! Sneaky little leprechaun.

Playing some games.

Doin’ a little Irish dancing.

Then we had some green Top Ramen for lunch. Yum!

It was a fun day! Thanks Stephanie for planning it and Thanks Kaycee for letting us use your house!

We took the kids sledding for the first time today (I know I can’t believe I haven’t taken them before now either)! We had so much fun! I thought for sure both of them would be too scared to do much since going down a slippery slide scares Corbin. They totally surprised me though. Rob and I rode down with them the first time. After that they both decided they needed to go on the big hill and all by themselves. They even went on a few little jumps. They loved that. I was so proud of how brave they were. We all had a blast!

Oh…we left the camera sitting on the couch on our way out. Way to go! So we only got a couple pictures and some short video with the phone. The quality isn’t as great but it’s better than nothing.

Ok, for those of you that care (Nikki might be the only one-Haha!) I added 8 more posts before the Thanksgiving post! I’m almost caught up! Hooray!

I got really creative for our Valentine’s and did exactly what we did last year! Go me. It’s ok though Jayci is at a new school, all new kids, new teachers…nobody will ever know, right?!

Hopefully by next year I will think of something new!

We ended our day with dinner by candlelight. The kids thought that was pretty awesome.

If you are bored or just have a lot of free time on your hands…I FINALLY got some blogging done. I still have a lot to catch up on but if you want to read them I added 4 before the Thanksgiving post. I’ll be adding more soon!

My sister Stephanie took our family pictures this year. I think they turned out so cute despite the fact that Halle wanted nothing to do with pictures that day! We couldn’t hardly get her to look at us let alone give us a smile. Little stinker.

Thanks so much Stephanie!

We got 3 Thanksgiving dinners this year. I’m not sure that is a good thing but it sure was fun! It’s so nice to spend time with family. My Dad always has us over for dinner on the 3rd Sunday of every month so since we were going with my Mom for Thanksgiving Day they decided to make that our Thanksgiving dinner with them. Getting our whole family together is always chaos! There are so many kids! But we always have lots of fun!

Nikki made the rolls. They were delicious! She always is so patient and loves the kids to help her so they each got to help roll the rolls. They thought that was great. Rob, however thought it was a little scary. He didn’t even dare eat them. We washed their hands! Geez! That’s why Nikki is their favorite Aunt I’m sure.

My Dad is a little bit of a perfectionist so he had to help the kids make sure they rolled them perfect.

We don’t get a lot of time with Aunt Nikki because she thinks it’s ok to live so far away! So the kids took advantage of their time with her. Here are some cute pictures with her and some of the kids. (Hope you don’t mind Nikki, I stole all of your pictures and some of your text! Haha! I’m awesome like that!)

Nikki & Jayci - She obviously doesn’t know how to work her camera. Haha!

Nikki & Kyla                                                                             Nikki & Kaycee

Nikki, Corbin, & Kyla                                                           Nikki, Jayci, & Rylan

Nikki & Jersey

Jayci’s cousin Rylan taught her how to roll her belly. It is one of those fun stupid human tricks. She loves to show it off and it is pretty funny. So, this year while they were here Nikki made sure to get the two of them doing it on video.

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Nikki gave Jayci a set of some really cute socks a few months ago. Well, Nikki has the same set for her so Jayci thought it was awesome that they could wear the same socks and be twinners!

Our next Thanksgiving dinner was actually on Thanksgiving Day. Nikki planned a big dinner with our extended family on my Mom’s side. It was SO great to spend some time with them. It seems like we don’t get to do that very often anymore with everyone getting older and going their separate ways. Despite that we still had a lot of people show up. It was awesome, we love them all so much!

My mom was generous enough to let us do it at her house. Again, it was a lot of chaos with all those little kids. Her house barely survived it! Sorry Mom!

The only picture I got from that whole day.  But it sure is cute!

Jayci and my cousin Reese.

Our 3rd Thanksgiving dinner was the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Rob’s Mom always likes to have a little dinner with just her kids and their families on that day. It was nice too, but I didn’t take any pictures and Nikki wasn’t there to take pictures for me. I really need to do better!

And who can forget Black Friday?! I am not very good at getting to bed at a decent time. If I am in bed by midnight it is a miracle so getting up at rediculous hours of the day is not on my list of favorite things to do. However, I will do it for Black Friday. I think it’s fun! I always go with Rob’s family. This year we started at 4 am and shopped until about 1 pm. 9 hours of shopping, seriously! I was soooo tired by the time we were done but we got a lot of good stuff and had a lot of fun!

Here is a picture of HALF the stuff we bought. We had to make a trip back to Rob’s mom’s house in the middle of shopping because we were running out of room in the back of the truck and we were too lazy to unload everything from the truck when we were all done just for a picture. Yes, that is piled almost as high as the back of the couch. Fun times!