Easter::Take 2

We headed to my Aunt's house for Easter, on Easter.  They ate lunch at 2:00.  I knew that wasn't going to fly with the kids, since we were at both services, for church.  We let them nap and then headed out.  I think we got there around 4.  Just int time for the Easter egg hunt!

Such a sweet picture of Auntie helping Joelle.

Uncle Ken and Papa helping little B

Nana helping Adelyn getting an egg up in the tree.

Poor baby spilled her jelly beans..                                      Pretty excited about the piece of chocolate;)

B sniped all the candy off the vehicles ;)

This was the last piece of candy we could find laying around..guess who made their way there first?!

Brecken, Lily (on the floor) and Jojo

After the Easter egg hunt I consumed a large piece of cherry pie, a piece of raspberry dessert and a small piece of mint brownie.  YUM.  I fed the kids some leftover ham...and passed on eating anything else;)

Angry Lady.

This little lady.  She is something else.  In case you didn't figure it out, by the diaper sticking out of the tights, it's Joelle.  She is our drama queen.  Extraordinaire.  Right out of the womb, we knew she was going to be our difficult one.  I can pull up a picture of when I had just given birth and she's laying on my stomach, compare it to a picture of her screaming today, and it's the exact same face.  Not even joking.  She was our "non-sleeper" (not even that bad, maybe once a night until she was 1), she has a temper a mile wide, one wrong move and she's wailing like no tomorrow, loudest, sassiest, littlest lady.  BUT she is also soooo sweet, loves to laugh and has the best giggle, makes the funniest faces, and has the best little personality.  She will, seriously, scream and scream and scream until she either gives up, or gets her way.  She doesn't get her way very often.  So it's usually a lot of screaming.  It's usually when we are leaving somewhere or getting into the van.  I do know how to calm her right down.  She needs to be tightly held/cuddled and she will stop almost instantly.  That's usually a last resort.  And only if she's been screaming for a long time.  I DO feel bad for her.  But don't want to cater to her every whim either.  No amount of threats will get her to stop.  She knows.  Sometimes, she'll stop, say "sorry mommy" and it's done.  Other times, no such luck.  I fear for the teenage years.

fdsafdsa

THE Doll Beds

My parents gave the girls the doll beds last night.  We had them sitting out and covered their eyes.  They opened them at the same time.  They were sooooo excited.  Joelle was excited for the TV ;)  Surprisingly B wasn't upset in the slightest.

Seeing the beds for the first time.

Checking out their beds

Brecken makes do with what he has.

Adelyn tucking her baby in.

Joelle trying to get into bed with her baby ;)

Little B found his own doll bed to play with ;)

A close up of both beds.

Joelle's bed.  The mattress do have buttons running down it.

A close up of  Adelyn's bed.

So glad we finally got the beds all done.  My dad built the beds, my grandma sewed all the bedding and my dad and I painted them.  The girls will have years and years of enjoyment out of these.  LOVE them.

Easter-Take 1

We went over to my Dad's side, to celebrate Easter, tonight.  We had ham, mashed potatoes, squash, I made green bean bundles (green beans wrapped in bacon, drizzled with a butter/brown sugar mixture), fruit, deviled eggs (which all 3 of my children LOVED.  Weirdos.), and my mom made zucchini cake and angel food cake with strawberries inside.  We had dinner, an Easter egg hunt, dessert and my mom tried to do a pixie dust in a jar idea she saw on Pinterest.  It went so well my cousin Nathan told my mom "I think you need to start getting your ideas from somewhere other than Pinterest."  Some days, I couldn't agree more.

Jojo hunting for pretzels and eggs.

My, incredibly pretty, incredibly sassy, little Jojo.

Papa helping Brecken get the toy hanging in the tree.

Love them.

Brecken hunting for pretzels and eggs

Brecken and Joelle sharing eggs and pretzels.

First shot.  Nice and sullen.

This was my second to last shot and my grandma said "how many did you take anyways?!" I said "10-15" She says "well surely there is one good picture."  She's right.  There was one.  This one.

That's better.  Nothing like "want a piece of candy?!" to get everyone's attention an a smile.

Miss J

I know.  We are confusing.  We have a daughter whose names starts with "J" but yet we call Adelyn Miss J.  Always have, always will.  Adelyn J.  Miss J.  I finally decided she was old enough to cook at the stove.  She has been fully informed from the day she was out of the womb that the stove was hot.  All of my children are.  She's very careful not to touch the stove and if she happens to fling food onto the stove, she asks for help instead of trying to get it herself.  She thinks she's pretty hot stuff.  And so do I ;)

Pretty Girls at Panera

I was headed out for a moment of peace and quiet with Adelyn.  Eric asked me to get the van tire fixed and I thought we could grab a snack at Panera while we waited.  Joelle desperately wanted to come so we made it a girls night.  I got them a cinnamon roll to share and I, of course, had one too.

Adelyn has been really into making silly faces for pictures.  Joelle is saying cheeeeeeese.

Like I said.  Silly faces.  But she's pretty cute so we'll call it good.

Love going out with just the girls.  The boys had a pretty special night too.  Daddy took Brecken for a walk and then they came home and made homemade hot chocolate.  Brecken talked about it for dayssss.

Fred Meijer Gardens

We headed to Frederick Meijer Gradens to see the butterflies with a bunch of friends.  Joy, William and Sawyer, Tiff, Sophia and Charlie and Rachael, Kaylee and Kaleb all made the trek.  There were tons of butterflies..and tons of people.  I didn't take a stroller so my pictures were few and far between..and definitely don't include all of our group!  But I did manage to snag a few good ones..

William showing Joelle and Adelyn the butterflies ;)

My pictures of these two turned out terrible..not sure why but I had to include them.

Slightly better..

What happens when you try to get a group shot..only one looking and the rest looking a hot mess.

One of these things just doesn't belong...Charlies shoe!  Poor little dude.  I should have just climbed down and got it myself...but they probably would have given me a ticket or something.  The "employees" were beyond thrilled to help us out.

Sawyer moving a tree around in the playroom.

Because that's what you do with a horse.  You ride it.  Fake or not.

We ate lunch in the basement.  Since we brought our own, that's where we were banned too.  When we were getting ready to leave I put Joelle's coat on.  Lord have mercy.  It was the end of the world.  She was rolling around on the floor screaming her fool head off.  She crawled over to some strange lady's leg and started pulling on her pants and screaming.  She finally let go of her.  The lady kept saying "Oh you poor girl.  Oh you poor girl."  Hey.  What about me?!  Finally the rest of our group had left, so I walked over the elevator and told Joelle I was leaving.  I waited patiently in the elevator (with the door open) for her to come over.  She did.  We rode up in silence.  When we got to the main floor it was chaos and I grabbed Brecken's hand and asked her to hold my hand.  "No!"  And off she ran.  Then I chased her down to hold her hand too...so I didn't lose her!  Ohhhh boy.  I'm pretty sure every.single.person at Fred Meijer heard Joelle that day.  She screamed most of the way to the car.  Until Tiff took her and she stopped instantly.  Then when I went to put her in the car (we had Eric's car for the day) she was TICKED because we had Eric's car.  "No Daddy car, no Daddy car!"  So then she screamed from GR until the Hudsonville exit.  When I finally held her hand.  Then Brecken started crying because I wasn't holding his hand.  Sigh.

Kalamazoo Air Zoo with Auntie

My sister is on Spring Break this week and she had called last week asking if we wanted to do something sometime.  I've been wanting to go to the Air Zoo but it is a bit of a ride (1 hour) and I wanted some other adult to go with me.  I had thought it might be for older kids but when I looked at the website B and J could ride all the rides except for 2 and Adelyn could ride all except for 1.  I called and they said they get lots of little visitors, so we headed on down.  I asked about bringing our own lunch and she said we would have to eat in the back building but that there was stuff to tour there too.  So we headed there first, ate and then went to the "ride building."

 Auntie and the bebe's in front of one of the HUGE planes. 

Little B thought this was the coolest car ever.  He WANTED his picture taken in front of it.

Sitting in a fighter pilot ejection seat.

 

Oh.my.word.  He was SOOOO excited to be by all the airplanes!  This one you could push a button and it talked to you.  It sounded like it was straight out of the fifties.  Loved it.

Jojo was pretty excited too :)

                     Auntie and B                                                                Auntie teaching Adelyn how to "fly"

Twinkies flying the helicopter

If the kids attention was waning I would say "Let's find a plane that Uncle Josh works on!"  This was one of many.

The "ride building."  We, seriously, had the whole building to ourselves.  I think there were 2 other families there the same time we were.  Both at different times.  We had a little old man give us a brief tour and he left us at the kid zone. 

The Whirlybird

 

Putting coins down the chute

First trip to the Moon!

Joelle was the first person over by this painted on the wall door.  She tried to open it and I started laughing.  Which drew attention to the fact that she was trying to open the "door."  B headed over and then Adelyn came.  How many people does it take to open a fake door, anyways?!

Making your own space station out of magnets.

 The had some die casts (I think that's what you would call them?) in the kids room and we all made one.  Auntie made the top pink one, Adelyn made the middle blue left, Joelle made the purple and orange, I made the bottom pink and B made the bottom blue.

Pretty ladies on Adelyn's favorite ride

Auntie and B riding the planes

Momma, Adelyn and Joelle.  We all crammed in one tiny plane.

My handsome dude and I on the Ferris Wheel

Auntie, Adelyn (behind the pillar) and Joelle riding the Ferris Wheel..one of Adelyn's favorites.

Oh boy.  The Hot Air Balloon ride.  When we walked up to this one, I thought it was just like a Merry Go Round.  But with Hot Air Balloons.  Nope.  More like the Tea Cup ride.  With slightly less spinning.  The balloons went way up in the air and swayed back and forth.  To say the kids liked it, is a vast exaggeration.  Adelyn got off and said "I liked that ride (the airplane ride), not this ride.  This ride is scary."

 

Adelyn refused to ride this one.  It was the paratrooper ride.  It took you up a little ways and then dropped you a bit, took you up and dropped you more, repeat.  Brecken and Joelle loved it.  Adelyn watched from the safety of the ground ;)

The 3D/4D movie theater.  It was a 15 minute movie Disney made about some flies that go to the moon.  There were 4 minutes afterwards that were flashed from future to past.  Like dinosaur past.  Adelyn and Joelle HATED the 4D portion.  Granted it was pretty drastic.  The chairs didn't shake a little bit, they fell backwards quite a ways.  Many, many times.  Then Adelyn was traumatized about the dinosaurs.  Oh well.  They look cute with their glasses on.

I'm pretty sure she's traumatized for life.   When we were talking about the Air Zoo at supper she kept saying "TB stop, TB stop" aka TV.  Poor girl.

Against the world wall

     Two cuties on a mission to Mars.                                                              Flying to the moon.

You know we tired the kids out when they crash 10 minutes down the road.  Apparently we didn't tire B out enough (probably tired him out too much).  He cried the whole way home.

 All in all it was a great trip.  Some things I wouldn't take my children chickens on, again, but there was plenty for us to do.  It would be a GREAT place to go for older kids.  They would love it.  It was sooo nice going when it wasn't chaotic.  More free reign for my kids ;)