Easter 2012

Easter is one of our favorite holidays for a number of reasons.  We love the mandatory painting, we don't do many arts and crafts as a family for some reason even though we enjoy it so this is a great excuse.  Hide and seek is also one of our favorite things to do that we don't do enough.  What else, oh yeah!  Tons of yummy candy and deviled eggs.  Tate's favorite Easter candy is jelly beans and he insists that the Easter Bunny brings the best ones.  Zoe loves the chocolate eggs wrapped in foil.  Greysen ate way too much of everything.

Here we are with our creative juices flowing.  Greysen just wanted to keep dropping the eggs into the dye to make big splashes.

Zoe's beautiful artwork!

Greysen coloring and not splashing!

Tate is a serious artist!

Here are our finished products!  Lovely right!?

One thing I could do without on Easter is getting up at 5am on a Saturday!  My kiddos are early birds especially when there are treats involved.
Anyway, we try to be good sports.

Here is Greysen trying to open an egg.

Zoe with her share of the loot!

Tate is on the hunt!

Look at all the eggs!

Tate's favorite monster egg!

This was Tate and Grey's favorite post festivity game called scatter the eggs far and wide.

After our family egg hunt and a little yard work we met up with some friends to do a joint egg hunt at the park.  Here Zoe is playing the good big sister by pushing the little boys. 

Ben and Jeremy hid around 100 eggs!  Unfortunately our camera was on the fritz so we didn't get any pictures of our kiddos looking.

Here is our cute group of kiddos! 

Ben entertained the kids with the bottle rockets he made with our kiddos over spring break.

These videos were taken over the spring break since our camera stopped working on Easter but you get the idea. 

   

Tate's Rocket

 

Zoe's rocket.

Here is the group of kids watching the rockets at the park on Easter Saturday.

Tate and Chandler playing at the park.

Zoe insisted on posing for this picture.  She is so funny!

Zoe's First Ski Trip

Zoe's school paid for each kid to go skiing this year and a parent got to go with them.  Considering my condition and lack of previous experience Ben went with her.

Such a nice dad to not take any pictures of the falls.  Zoe says she spent as much time on her bum as she did on her feet.

Zoe had a great time but was so sore that she is in no hurry to go back.  Unless we spend all day at the lodge eating Pizza!

More Recitals

Tate had his first piano recital a month ago or so. He did such a good job!

Zoe had another dance recital just for her jazz class this time. She was so excited about the red jumpsuit.

Primary Talent Show

Our Primary puts on a talent show every year.

Zoe and Tate had the opportunity to share the talents they are working so hard on.

Tate wasn't nervous at all!

Zoe was nervous but once she got into the music she forgot about it.

I am so proud of both of them.  They put a lot of time in practicing.

My Primary Presidency and I have all of these funny sayings about "High Five a Tiger", "Jazz Hands", and putting on our "Tiger Makeup" that get us through difficult times. This is our theme song and here we are getting our groove on. It was much more therapeutic for us to do than to watch. At least we had fun!

It's a boy!

I just realized that I haven't posted anything about our soon to be new little one.  Ben and I have always planned on having 4 kiddos before I turn 35.  I turn 35 in September.  We just made it!

This is our fist picture of the newest peanut to grace our family.  This was taken at about 12 weeks.

 

We took our whole family to the ultra sound.  Tate and Grey got pretty bored but Zoe was anxiously awaiting the news about the sex of the baby.  She was desperately hoping to even out the male to female ratio in our house.  When the ultra sound tech said "Congratulations! It's a boy."  I glanced up at Zoe who was seated near my head and she said, "What did she just say?"  I repeated, "She said it's a boy."  Zoe looked up at the tech very seriously and said, "Can you check again please."  Thankfully the ultra sound tech was a patient woman and obliged her.  It was so obvious that even Zoe could see that it was a boy.  Then she started to cry. 

Zoe has come around to the idea of being the only girl.  I think having her own room and plenty of mommy daughter dates sweetened the deal.

Tate couldn't be happier.  He just says "Boys win mom!"

Taterootie toot turns 6!

Tate recently turned 6 years old even though he promised me at the age of 4 that he would never get older than 5.  He totally broke his promise!

When we were planning his party I asked Tate who he would like to invite and he started naming names.  I had to rush to grab a piece of paper to write them down and by the time he was finished there where 22 kids names on the list.  He named from memory 22 kids names!  I was so shocked!  And freaked out because how do you plan a party in the winter for 22 kids where you can't go outside?!

Tate decided he wanted a pajama movie party.  Okay so maybe that would be do-able.  We tried to get him to pair down the list but he was afraid that someone would get their feelings hurt so he couldn't bring himself to pick anyone to take off of the list.  In the end we let him invite them all hoping that some would not be able to come.  We ended up with 19 kids.

 

Our friend Tina helped with the transitions by keeping the kiddos occupied.

Thank goodness Tina was there because we where completely unprepared for the level of energy of that many 5-6 year olds.  She came up with this great game to help with presents on the spot.  A couple of kids got bonked but it helped keep them busy.

One benefit of having lots of kids at your party is the presents.  Tate got double the presents on his birthday than he did at Christmas.

Tate currently does not like cake so he chose to have sundae's and fruit for his birthday.

Here are some of the many things we love about Tate:

1.  He is very friendly and wants to be friends with everyone
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2.  He is super smart, by October he had completed the kindergarten reading curriculum and just kept going.  Last I heard he was on 4th grade.

3.  He is very organized.  He is the guy you want with you to clean up he puts everything in it's place.

4.  He usually has a great attitude and completes his chores, practice and homework with enthusiasm.

5.  He is a great brother, he even helps Grey go potty!

6.  He loves to laugh and his laugh is infectious!

Here he is with some of his stash.  Probably 80% Star Wars.  He was a happy guy.

Man that was an exhausting party!

Zoe Plays Viola

Zoe decided she would like to try to learn the viola this year in her school Orchestra.  It has been a challenge for her but she really enjoys it!

Here are some clips from her very first concert.