Easter Plus

We'd all been excited for Easter because Brad, Allison and the boys would be visiting. We hadn't seen them for a year! They arrived late Friday night after missing their connecting flight in St. Louis--Ethan hugged the lady who found them all seats on another flight! Britta wanted to take the boys out to see the horses, and we let her. Seeing the horses turned into climbing on the snowpile (understandable since the boys were so excited about the snow), which somehow turned into walking in the field--Noah came in with one boot on, Sammy had fallen in the mud, and Ethan had to leave both of his boots outside. Britta was relatively clean. This is one of the boots rescued from the mud: By the way, there are four pairs of boots still lying on the grass outside our garage. :) Allison had been planning on leaving Ethan's boots for our boys anyway.

Everyone had a good time coloring eggs together again this year. No one tried anything too fancy, so they were done quickly. Last year, Ethan didn't quite understand that he was supposed to use the spoon/egg dipper, and his fingers were all green! He got it this year. :)

Grandma and Grandpa B came out on Saturday afternoon and brought Easter dinner. Grandpa B made a puzzle for each of the grandchildren--he printed 8x10 pictures, glued them to wood and cut them with his scroll saw. They were a hit! The older kids' were harder. Noah's was a picture of him on his dirt bike--it had a lot of grass and leaves in the background that were challenging. :)

The next day we drove to Ames to see Eric in a production at Cornerstone--wonderful as usual. Holly made an awesome Easter dinner which we all enjoyed, and then it was time for the cousins to brave their wild backyard for an Easter egg hung. Actually, they have a very nice backyard; this picture is just of a big bush on the edge that Tate and Noah felt the need to climb through.

Then everyone needed to sort through their loot inside. :)

Monday night we headed to Brad and Allison's hotel for a pool and pizza party. I tried to get a picture of all the cousins at once, but this is the best I could do. I'm still glad I have it. :)

The pizza part of the pool and pizza party:We said goodbye to the NC family after the pool party. Hopefully it won't be a whole year before we see them again! We all enjoyed them so much.



On Tuesday night, Sammy and the boys enjoyed a post-Easter sale find--a cookie decorating kit. Sammy tried to finish off the rest of the icing, but I threw it away. We did save a cookie for Britta.This past week as the snow was melting, the sewer backed up just a tiny bit into the basement. Glen quickly got that taken care of, but he decided it was necessary to dig a hole above the distribution box in the backyard and pump the water away. We were still getting water (only) in the basement, so he borrowed the neighbor's backhoe to dig a big hole in the edge of the yard (in the rain, no less) to pump more water away from the house. It worked! We had squishy carpet for a day or two, but he turned the in-floor heat way up to dry everything out. The carpet will need to be cleaned in spots, but we've had the basement door and windows open, and the musty smell is even going away. The boys think their dad is so cool--they're right. :)
Britta took this picture of the cat, and I thought it was cute. The funny thing about this picture is that she ran into the house saying, "Mom, I need the camera! Kimmy is doing something so cute--she's sitting on the little yellow toy with her paws on the steering wheel!" I let her take the camera, but until I saw the picture, I was still picturing our HORSE Kimmy sitting on this yellow ride-on toy. I kind of missed the reference to paws, and I didn't remember this toy being in the horse pen. By the way, Kimmy Kitty was named after Kimmy the horse because of their similar coloring.