Easter Tradition

The good thing about being a family is that you get to make your own traditions, no matter what the "normal" traditions are. Last year we decided to go out for EASTER Sunday lunch and we ended up at Ling's Chinese Buffet. I'm not sure who suggested it but it gets an A+ in my book for a variety of reasons....

1. No Lines.... You walk in and sit down

2. No waiting for food to be ordered. Hence less restlessness in the booth.
3. No preparation or clean up duty for Mom.

4. Fortune cookies at the end of the meal. Or soft serve ice cream... with 5 kids how can you possibly beat cookies and ice cream?

5. Everyone gets something they like and no one is upset.

And as a completely unexpected bonus there is a fountain outside of Lings that was a perfect backdrop for Kaylee's new Easter dress.

And of course the kids like to splash a little in the fountain and make wishes...

It was a great Easter Sunday with our new Chinese Buffet/ Easter Sunday Lunch tradition. And we also got 2 for 1, because it was also Paw Paw and Nana's 39th Wedding Anniversary.....

Date night with Daddy

Dr. Dobson is a strong advocate that Dads should take their daughters out on "date" night. So a few years ago David and Kaylee started having Date night. It generally only happens about 3x a year but none the less it's always a really special night. So of course Mia had begun asking when was it going to be her turn.

As with many things around here we have to come up with an "age" for things to happen. Usually we arbitrarily assign an age to events. For example: you have to be 7 to ride in the front seat,
you have to be 11 to stay up past 8:30 on school nights,
you have to be in middle school to have a cell phone
and
you have to be in Kindergarten for date night.

Just look at the happiness on that face. She wears her smile all over herself.

off they go to dinner.

David wouldn't tell her where they were going, and it nearly drove her crazy not knowing. (Maybe she's more like me than I'd like to admit)

Happy Birthday Paw Paw

Last month we celbrated Paw Paw's 76th birthday. We all went to Texas Roadhouse for a great meal. And it was a great night....Wednesday that is...Kids Eat Free!!
After dinner we came back home to have birthday cake. It was once a chocolate cake in the middle with white icing. Surrounded by chocolate and vanilla cupcakes. There were 5 cupcakes wit Happy Birthday pics in them. Perfect, one for each of the kids.
But somewhere between lighting the candles, turning off the light, Mia trying to see and the dog..... most of it landed smack in the middle of the floor.

With skill like a surgeon we extracted all edible parts and this was what was left.

Oh well we had fun and made a memory

Easter party

With all the political correctness in our country the kids can't even have Easter parties anymore. It's now called a Spring Party.
and instead of Christmas it's Winter party
and here's the real kickerinstead of Valentine's its a Friendship Party.
What? What's wrong with Valentine... I don't get it.
Well anyway this year at Trent's EASTER party they made kites.

And in keeping with all the political correctness we have to now account for everyone's food allergies. Now there are some allergies I understand Peanuts for example can really be life threatening. I'm OK with no peanuts but now everything has to be
peanut free
fat free
gluten free
wheat free
sugar free

FUN FREE

So 2nd grade decided this year let's just be Food FREE.....The party is kite making and flying..... OK whatever. Are they really too old to still hunt eggs? heck I still like to hunt eggs.

Trent's teacher told them, "there won't be any food at the party so you can bring a fruit break snack to have at your desk" Typically a fruit break is grapes, crackers, apple, etc.

When it was time, she annouced "go get your fruit snack if you brought one...."

And this kid, brought one. but when he unwrapped it at his desk....this is what he had....

A LARGE piece of chocolate cake with white icing.....fork and knife included. It was enough to feed his whole table.

That's what I'm talking about Sam.....Work the system man! Next year Tren't bringing a whole cookie cake!!!!

Even with all the rules the kids still had a great time flying the kites. And they actually flew which made the day so much better.

Your trampoline is where?

We have had a trampoline for quite a while now. In fact the first trampoline was the cause of Trent's broken leg. However when we moved 2 years ago the trampoline didn't last long. I had heard trampolines don't move well and I guess that's true. We tried for a while to salvage the old one. David even built a wooden 2x4 leg for one of them. But it finally fell completely apart.

So during spring break this year we decided to get another trampoline, because well with 5 kids it's something that gets WELL used.

One the way home from Academy, it began to rain and we were upset that we couldn't assemble it that day. I whispered to David, "we could set it up in the living room" Just joking.....
He leaned over and whispered, "they'd never forget that"

So when we got home everyone pitched in to move all the furniture to the side and they set the thing up right in the middle of the living room.

and jumped, avoided the fan, jumped, avoided the fan, jumped

and jumped some more... Then at night we all laid on it and watched Biggest Loser and the kids brought sleeping bags on it and slept there. Kaylee says it's much more comfortable than sleeping outside on the ground.

Cupcakes

It was Kaylee's turn to take snacks for her Girl Scout meeting. With it being so close to EASTER I thought we could try to come up with something cute. So I googled "cute easter cupcakes" (what did we do before Google?
Anyway this is one of the ones that popped up. There was another cute bunny one but Kaylee chose this one. (I think in part because she was counting on there being left over liccorice) I was counting on there being left over PEEPS!

Mia - isms

Me - Mia go get your PJ's on

Mia - Have you washed my one with the noodle strips

Me - The what?

Mia - The one with the noodle strips

Me - The One what ?

Mia - The shirt

Me - The noodle shirt? You don't have a noodle shirt

Mia - The shirt with the noodle strips...that I wear at night(gesturring toward shoulders)

Me - Oh The shirt with the SPAGHETTI STRAPS...

Yes Mom that one...

Sometimes it's like detective work around here....If I survive the next 18 years I'm considering applying to the FBI...I have the experience

What a life....

Oh to have the life of a bunny.....or to have the life of a princess....or to have the life of a bunny princess......

Ty

Mia

Trent

Kaylee

A few weeks ago I had portraits of all the kids done. This was Kaylee's session and she loved modeling for the pictures. I love this color on her. My baby girl is not such a baby any more.