Kaitlyn is 2!

She's 2 already! Kaitlyn had a great day celebrating her birthday with family and friends! The time has gone by fast........and we've enjoyed every minute!





The crew!

She loved this little bear with the flower on her nose!

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Definitely a fan of the bounce house......she didn't want to get out to open her presents!

Cousin Blakely & Big Bro Austin

Celebrating Easter!

Easter is such a special time for me, personally. I have such fond memories of when my family and I first started going to church in high school and how powerful Easter Sunday was for me. I will always remember a rough wooden cross that stood outside our church. There was chicken wire wrapped around the cross and all of us brought flowers and decorated it. It was a physical sign I could "do" that showed my Lord how much I loved him. I think that is why I love Easter Sunday so much, and really any Sunday at church, because it is a way for me to physically show up, worship, and tell my Savior how much He means to me. My prayer is that I can pass that excitement and passion onto my own children.


We had a wonderful time celebrating Easter as a family! Austin and Kaitlyn got to hunt numerous Easter eggs with classmates and family.



Austin ready to hunt some Easter eggs at his school! They had a basket decorating contest.

Our church put on an Easter pageant called, "Bow The Knee." It was a tremendous blessing to be a part of it! There are some neat pictures of the play on my friend's blog, www.keridaway.blogspot.com. I had a couple of lines, but I really enjoyed singing with the choir. It reminded me of the Easter Cantata I sang in high school in my church choir. Great memories!

The kiddos all dressed up for Easter with their baskets full of goodies!

I love family photos even though the kids aren't smiling, but I was so excited that all of us had matching outfits this year! Love it!

Kaitlyn was so excited about those eggs!

Austin had a great time running around trying to find as many eggs as possible! Next year we'll need to get him a bigger basket.

Austin and Cousin Blakely showing off their loot!

Girl on a mission! Love the ponytail! :)

Beavers Bend for Spring Break

Hello All! It has been a while, but I couldn't resist posting some fun pics from our Spring Break at Beavers Bend State Park in Oklahoma! We were glad Uncle Casey and Cousin Blakely got to spend some time with us as well.

Beavers Bend is a great family place to go camping. We did everything from hiking, fishing, putt-putt golf, horse rides, bike rides, train rides......and, of course, ate smores, snow cones and popsicles!

Can you tell these kids are related?

Kaitlyn's first horse ride!

Kaitlyn's ready to catch the fish!

Love this picture of Daddy & son!

Muffin Tins & Crafts

Our Muffin Tin Theme for this last week was the color orange!


Here we have OJ, string cheese, carrots (in ranch), mandarin oranges, peach yogurt and Sun Chips.

Kaitlyn went straight for the Sun Chips and she actually ate a couple of carrots....

Austin pointed out all of the things that were not orange in his tin......the ranch dressing and half of the string cheese. I may have to get more creative next time, maybe with food coloring. We had fun with this one though!

We decided to do a dinosaur craft which was very informative. We learned that when we mix yellow and blue paint together, we get green!

Kaitlyn did a really good job with her paint!

Here is our finished product.....Stegosaurus! Not sure if you can tell, but Austin is wearing his dinosaur shirt as well.

This craft idea came from www.notimeforflashcards.com.

On to caterpillars! Kaitlyn and I made this craft together. This was the first time she used a glue stick. Most of the glue was put on the paper, but inevitably, she put some in her mouth! That's normal, right?

This craft idea came from www.michellesjournalcorner.blogspot.com.

Kaitlyn is Baking!

They say kiddos love to help out and Kaitlyn is no exception. She loves to help Mommy with dusting, laundry and now baking! We made blueberry muffins for a bake sale at our church to raise money for a mission trip to the Philippines.

She pulled up a chair, climbed up on it and helped with pouring all the ingredients and cracking the eggs (which was an adventure)! She loved mixing it all together.

She watched the muffins bake in the oven through the little window and said, "Cupcake hot, cupcake hot!" She was so proud and pretty much stayed in the kitchen and watched them cool.......


.....by the way, our muffins fetched $25 at the bake sale! Thanks, Pop! :)

Celebrating A Special Week, Part 2

What a Happy Valentine's Week we all had! I'll have to say....I got some really great ideas from some other mommy blog sites that we used all week. Their ideas inspired me to be creative with the kiddos and we all loved it!



We started the week off with heart-shaped pancakes with fruit faces. I told the kids I was making pancakes, but when they got to the table and saw them.....they were too excited!


Kaitlyn ate her little smiley faces up quick!

Austin likes to refer to himself as King Austin now! We made some fun crowns out of paper bags. I got this idea from www.notimeforflashcards.com. This mommy blogger has so many neat ideas for our little ones.

And, of course, Princess Kaitlyn!

I was so excited all week about this neat idea! This one is from www.michellesjournalcorner.blogspot.com. She calls it Muffin Tin Monday and the idea is to serve at least one meal a week out of a muffin tin. We didn't get to our special lunch until Saturday, but this was a hit with the kids.....and with mommy!

The theme for this week was Red/Valentines. Austin got the biggest spoon in our drawer for his jello!

Kaitlyn didn't move on to any of the other foods until all of her jello was gone!

Austin's school had a little Valentine's party, so we got to celebrate there as well. He had a good time making his classmates their V-Day cards.

Can you tell we had lots of sweet stuff?

After we got home from Austin's school party, Mommy and Daddy had their own little surprises set out for the kiddos. Kaitlyn made sure to try out the chocolate!

And our last adventure for the week was some painting with water and stamps.....

What a special week it was and now we have such fun memories to take with us!