Twins

Eve and Naomi sometimes decide to be twins and dress accordingly.  I only have two pictures of this phenomenoa but it happens with some frequency.  Sometimes it's pretty funny what they decide matches, too.

Katie

All Ladies' Tea

Eve and I attended the All Ladies' Tea at our church back in May.  It was fun to get dressed up!

We invited our neighbors along.  Here are Eve and Rikelle smiling for the camera in the blinding sun. 

And at the tea!

Katie

Portland Cousins

We had a quick visit with Aunt Renee and Uncle Larry back in May.  We ended up playing outside with our cousins and I snapped some pictures.

Sweet Phoebe, 20 months

 My cousin Stacy's kiddo, Edy, 14 months - Love her shirt!

Eve and Naomi with my cousin Rebecca's kiddo, Emma.  The girls were enjoying some seriously amazing caramel corn. 

Katie

Eve's First Ballet Class

Eve finally got to go to ballet class! She has been asking for ages and we decided to let her give it a try when a friend suggested a bargain-priced Living Social deal.  Can you see her excitement?

 Of course her hair had to be up in a bun!

I took a full-body shot, but it's all blurry!  Darn!  I wish I'd taken one just in the tights and leotard, too, but there's always next time.  We think ballet will be Eve's activity of choice since she's been enjoying it so much.  At one of her classes in May, the teacher was impressed with Eve's footwork and asked her to demonstrate how well she pointed her toes while skipping across the room.  You can be sure our firstborn-to-the-core LOVED that attention. 

Katie

Cupcake Fun with Fondant

Back in April we hosted our small group's monthly date night.  The girls had a great time decorating cupcakes for the 17 other kids who would be in attendance!  A big thank you to Auntie Naomi for providing this very fun activity!

Here they are just getting started.  Notice Naomi's cape.  It's Eve's baby blanket from Grandma Janet, but Naomi insisted in wearing it today instead of a sweater when she was cold.

 Eve is intent. 

Eve & Naomi go the hang of things quickly.

This is what Phoebe did while the decorating was in progress . . . in addition to a lot of shrieking for attention and eating little, distraction bites of the green fondant that had hardened somehow.

The finished products featuring various frostings and fondant crowns, cell phones, flowers, purses, and sunglasses.

Katie

Easter

Here we are on Easter morning.  I can't just post one picture because there are so many funny ones.  These are as we're headed out the door for church.

The girls are enjoying some Easter presents in these shots.

I finally got my act together this year and made Resurrection Eggs.  I was completely exhausted Saturday night, but I figured if I put the effort in this once I'd have them forever.  I used some special, metallic eggs from Grandma Diane who passed away earlier this year. 

Each egg is representative of a scripture and contains an item corresponding to that scripture.  In total, the twelve scriptures tell the Easter Story.  For example, a donkey, nails, a toothpick "spear"

Here are 40 pieces of silver.  This was definitely the heaviest Easter egg in the hunt!

And so you don't think we completely deprive our children, here's Eve enjoying some candy out of the non-Resurrection Eggs included in the hunt. 

Katie

Joanna's 3rd Birthday!

Get ready for a huge post!  I took lots of pictures on Jo's birthday!

We always get ready for the big day the night before so the Birthday Girl wakes up to a celebration.  Here we are getting ready to wake up Joanna for her birthday breakfast. 

Can you even see her?  This girl burrows under her blankets so even with the lights on she is sound asleep.  Phoebe, however, is awake and hollering in the crib next to her so the noise eventually wakes her up.

Here's Jo, finally ready to greet the day.

The traditional walking through the birthday ribbons in Daddy's arms.

Here are the gifts waiting for Joanna at the breakfast table.  The older girls wanted to make it an Elmo celebration so they helped find all sorts of Elmo things to add to the table.  We also were excited to find Elmo Mylar balloons at the Dollar Store (not pictured).

Eve and Naomi are ready for Joanna to open her presents already!

Naomi chose this adorable bee puppet for Jo.  It was so fun to see Joanna's delight with each gift.

Wedding Little People.  I think Eve is the most excited about this one.

Aunt Naomi's birthday badge gets applied immediately.

Joanna requested Chocolate Chip Pancakes for her birthday breakfast.

Strawberry pancakes are also a big favorite so I made those as well.  Pretty, huh?

Joanna received lots of new Play-Dough from Ed and I.  All three older girls played with it for hours!  We had to put it away so we could have Joanna's chosen birthday lunch of pizza. 

 Late in the afternoon the girls and I got busy decorating birthday cakes.  Aunt Naomi gave us some great cake pans for Easter that we put to use.

I think the girls' looks just as good as mine; maybe even better.

After Joanna's selected dinner of nachos (in which Joanna had her first taste of Tabasco and didn't even blink) we had birthday cake.

I love that Joanna had to hang on to her hat in order to blow out the candles.

 This is one happy birthday girl!

Katie

Visit to Grandma's

We visited Grandma's for our Oregon cousins' Spring Break.  I got to do lots of scrapbooking with my cousin, Rebecca and the girls got lots of fun in with Grandma and the cousins.

Here's Sesame Street snuggle time with Grandma.

Pheobe with a big grin.

Phoebe and her cousin Belle are only 8 days apart.

A slumber party with cousin Emma.

Eve has fun with bunny ears.

Naomi doesn't want to miss Bubble Guppies.

Over all it was a fun trip and I wasn't ready to go home at the end of our visit so I stayed one more day.

Katie