birthday, beach and more birthday

Since my last post we have been busy with Jacksons 5th birthday and spending Easter at the beach!
Last Friday night we had some friends over for a cookout/Jacksons birthday.  Of course, the nice sunny 80 degree weather left us and on Friday it was rainy and 60.  Jason still managed to cook chicken/steak/shrimp kabobs on the grill, which were delicious and the kids had a great time playing inside. 

How many peeps can you eat
in one minute??

Happy Birthday Jackson!

We had an Easter Egg hunt for all the kids and we had to have our annual peep eating contest.  Congrats to Adam who ate 9 peeps in ONE minute.  The average was 6 but I will give Walker credit for eating 3-he is only 4 years old!!  Most people ended up staying late (around 11pm) but the kids were playing great together and we had fed them candy, peeps and birthday cake so they had lots of sugar to run off.  Its was nice having a relaxed evening hanging out with friends.
Saturday morning we got up (moving a little slower than normal...) and packed for the beach.  We had a great time with my mom, Gambi, Michael(my Brother), and Jack and Liz(friends from Atlanta).  Jason woke us up for sunrise service on the beach which was something different.  We were suprised at the number of people at the service, we guessed at least 250 people.  When we got back to the beach house we looked for Easter Baskets and the bunny left them for all three kids, with extra candy for mom and dad!  Jack and Liz did an egg hunt for the kids too.

Birthday boy with Grandma and Papa

I never knew eggs could "talk"

Everyone left early Monday morning except for us.  We ran errands and had fun playing on the beach.  We were going to leave on tuesday but i'm a sucker for nice beach weather and since it was sunny we decided to stay till thursday.  Last year Lauren was scared to go in the ocean but something has happened because she became fearless!  She said, "Mommy, I love the waves now,"  and she would just run out in the water.  I'm glad both kids really like the beach but will definitely bring life jackets next time!

Amanda, under my grandmas old beach umbrella

Brad, Christa and their girls came late Tuesday night and the kids all had fun playing with their cousins.  The girls wanted to wear dresses out to dinner at the Seafood Barn.  The first time we went there Lauren and Jackson wanted to know where the cows and horses were, since its called a barn!  Now they like it for the hushpuppies and butter, and the interesting decor inside.



 
Yesterday, I brought cupcakes to Jacksons class for one last birthday celebration.  He gets so excited and a little shy at the same time, it was cute!  I can't believe that our little boy is 5.



Jackson with his teacher, Ms Wendy

Spring Break



picnic time!

I've decided the term "spring break" is an oxymoron for parents!  Its not a break, its actually more work!  However, we have had a lot of fun this week visiting friends and having friends over.  We went to the park, played for hours outside, had picnics, and we squeezed some cleaning and errands in with all the fun.  We picked strawberries yesterday with one of my friends from college. 

We had to dip some of the strawberries!

Looking at a lady bug in the berry patch

On Sunday we started spring break with a trip to the park with Jason, and then McDonalds for a "snack." The kids thought it would be fun to be the mom and dad so that night they slept in our bed (we moved them when we went to bed) and Jackson made me breakfast in the morning. By 10, he decided it was too much work being in charge and said he wanted to be a kid again.

She might still be a little small to swing...

Today we are getting ready for Jacksons birthday cookout, which will be tomorrow night. Right now, Aunt Sarah is upstairs playing with the kids-yeah!! Of course, its been 80 and sunny and tomorrow its supposed to be 59 and rainy-ugh...

4 Months

We took Amanda for her 4 month check up today-time flies!!  I know you aren't supposed to compare your kids but I always like looking to see what they each are at certain milestones.  Amanda was up to 50% for height and weight, she had been closer to 10% so she is really growing!  Also today Jackson was 49 lbs and lauren was 32 lbs.  For some reason I can't get our photo editing software to work so I couldn't crop laurens pic but pretty impressive that I have pics of Jackson and Amanda on the same blanket-think they look similar???

at 4 months:

Jackson- 16.4 lbs, 27 inches

Lauren- 12.5 lbs, 25 inches

Amanda- 13.2lbs, 24 inches

Jackson, 4 months

Lauren, 4 months

Amanda, 4 months

Easter Parade

At the kids preschool they do a Christmas and Easter Parade each year, its about 40 min of watching the different classes parade around the school two times.  At Christmas time, while on bedrest at the hospital, I was very sad to miss the parade, however this time I was counting down the minutes till the kids were done-haha!  They both had a blast and got really excited each time they passed us so that made it worth it.  Jacksons class dressed as a family going to church, boys carried bibles and the girls pushed baby strollers.  Laurens class dressed as gardeners, getting ready for spring.

On the lookout for "Pinkfoot"

This morning they told me they were going camping.  I found them in the office and let Amanda have a little "campout" too.  They have been watching a kids show called BubbleGuppies and were looking for Pinkfoot (aka mom) who had to come capture their baby because she was not enjoying the campout.  I better run, the campers are getting ready for some smores and aparently Pinkfoot loves smores...

Caribou

Last week we got to swim lessons really early (something that never happens to me) so we had time to stop by Caribou Coffee.  Now the kids think this should happen every week, and who am I to argue with that:).  However, before going I looked up the nutrition content of a coffee and had to order something different than I was planning.  Some of the drinks have 60-80 grams of sugar and I'm trying to stay around 30g a day.  I won't even mention the calories or fat-ugh!
The kids are doing great swimming.  Lauren is moving up to the next level and they can both swim independently!  Looking forward to spending time at the pool this summer.
We had ham and bean soup for dinner with the leftover ham from Sunday night.  Last night we also had ham and tomorrow might be ham and cheese omelets-any other ham suggestions???

Weekend Fun

This weekend Jasons family came to visit which is always fun, especially for the kids who get to play with their cousins.  Saturday night, while cooking dinner-of course, the power went out for about 6 hours but we made do with candle light.  The kids all had glow sticks and thought it was a blast!  On Sunday we all went to the neighborhood Easter Egg hunt.  Later that night we had our homegroup from church over for "Easter dinner" and communion and we did another egg hunt.  If you count the eggs I have hidden for the kids and the times they hide them for each other Jackson would tell you they have done "a google" of egg hunts.  A couple weeks ago Jason told him that google was a really big number and ever since then Jackson calls a lot of things a google... 

Goodbye and Good Morning

Friday was the last day of school for one of Jacksons friends.  They have been in preschool together for the last 2 years and now his family is moving.  We had the friend over for a playdate this week and at school they had a going away party for him.  I'll admit, I got teary-eyed as they were saying goodbye one last time at school but the boys just gave each other high-fives and walked away like they will see each other again on Monday.  I wonder when kids realize that sometimes a goodbye is a "see you later" and sometimes its more than that...


On a much happier note, for me at least, its Saturday!!  We woke up this morning and walked to Big View Diner for breakfast.  Sometimes walking with the kids takes f-o-r-e-v-e-r but today we made it in record time.  We were hoping to see Aunt Sarah there but she didn't go in until 11.  Lucky for us, she stopped by the house on her way to work for morning hugs and cuddle time with Amanda-until she spit up all over Sarahs work clothes-whoops.