We got (Easter) egged!

For the second year in a row some friends of the family have egged our house - with Easter eggs, that is!

They arrive late at night and leave a note for the kids to find in the morning.

This year they hid the eggs all over the patio and driveway, thanks to snow and mud in the yard.

The kids were so excited!

Here's one!

And another one!

 Thanks, friends, for treating our kids to another great Easter egg hunt.

Oh, and here's the eggs we dyed later that afternoon.

Fun With Friends

Spring is finally here!  We've been able to spend time outside with lots of friends.

Here's the crowd (or part of it) from Easter Sunday.

Today we made a trip to Longview Farms...

What a fun group of kiddos!

One *Last* Snowfall

On March 24th we got a lot of snow - 10 inches, in fact!  That's not a lot for other places, but for St. Louis, it was pretty amazing.

 The snow was thick enough to make it hard to walk, and easy to get buried!

Laine and Cole enjoyed some time outside the first day (Mead was inside with a fever.)

The next day Mead was ready to play - even sledding on a small hill can be fun.

All bundled up.

Here they go!

Everything looked so beautiful!

Outside time

Though the temperatures have only been in the 40's we are desperate for some time outside.  Forty degrees is better than 30, so we'll take what we can get.  

Enjoying the back yard.

And riding bikes at the park.

Mead just graduated up to the bigger bike with training wheels.  Those things will come off before too long, I'm sure.

Family pics

I posted all these and more on Facebook, but I wanted to stick a few on here too.  We went out for my birthday the other night, and the kids came home in a very fun (and funny) mood.  I pulled out the camera and got some fantastic shots...

Loving the new toothless smile,

and the great expressions!

Go get 'em, Mead!

Mead took this one of Laine and Penny - a great shot!

Cole wanted to join in on the crazy fun.

Laine took these of Penny with Mead and Cole.

And we finally got a decent (recent) picture of the two of us - thanks to Laine!

Brother/Sister Bond

We have a wall of family photos in our home: pictures of the whole family, sisters, each of the kids around 18 months, all three kids together, etc.  As I looked at all the pictures I realized there are two family relationships that haven't been captured very well yet.

This is one of them - Mead and Cole have a special relationship.  I'm not sure if it's because they are only 21 months apart, because they have more similar personalities, or because they are together more often while Laine is at school.  Either way, they really enjoy their time together.  In an effort to remember that, I took this photo of them, and it'll be on our "family wall" soon.

The other picture is one of Penny and me.  It's been a while since we've gotten a really good shot of ourselves.  Hopefully that will be coming soon!

Winter Wonderland

Just when we thought winter was almost over, we've gotten several days of snow.  Mead and Laine played with Mary one day, sledding, snow balling, and making snow angels.

Cole has enjoyed just walking around in the yard, checking everything out.

What fun!