We Postponed Easter

Easter fell on April 17th this year. The Friday prior to Easter is when we hosted an egg hunt at our house, and on Saturday we colored eggs as a family. Brooke wasn't feeling great in the afternoon before the egg hunt, but she didn't run a fever. She perked up after some rest and ended up having a fun evening with the rest of us! On Saturday morning, everyone seemed fine, so we colored eggs and had a nice day at home. However, by about 5:00pm on Saturday evening, Brecklyn was dozing off on the loveseat, and I thought maybe she was getting sick. I pulled her toward me for a hug, and knew immediately that she was running a fever. 

Her fever was running between 102 and 103 when we went to bed on Saturday. She slept in our closet so we could keep an eye on her, but it was a long night. She was achy, uncomfortable, and restless. On Easter Sunday, I stayed home with her while Chris took the other kiddos to church. Since we don't celebrate Easter as a religious holiday, we don't have a special service or anything. Chris and I also decided to wait on photos and Easter baskets until the following Sunday when everyone could enjoy them. 

This sweet baby slept so much while she was sick.

She really wanted to stay awake to read, watch TV, or play a little, but she just couldn't make it happen. 

After three days of achiness and fever, Brecklyn finally felt better. I was so thankful! However, Brianna came down with the same sickness before Brecklyn was completely well. Sigh. Thankfully, they were both over it by the end of the week, and yesterday we were able to carry on with our Easter traditions.

Brecklyn

With her shorter hair and missing tooth, she looks like a different child!

Brooke

Love her hair!

Brenson

He's definitely getting too big for the rocking chair!

Brianna

Also too big for the rocking chair, so I had her stand.

Love my crew!

Last week, the girls all would have had to wear sweaters because it was cold and rainy on Easter. This week it was still chilly, but the weather was much more mild. 

The kids love going into the twins' room to wait for Chris and I to put out their baskets of goodies. I keep thinking there will come a day when it's not so exciting, but until then I intend to continue to soak up their sweet enthusiasm. 

We have a sweet, elderly neighbor named Mrs. Mooney who is 89 years old. The kids love to take her food, check her mail for her, help her when needed, etc. She sent the chocolate bunnies to kids :-).

Brenson loves this orange soda we will get once in a while at El Azteca. When I saw it in the store, I knew it would be a perfect gift for him, haha!

Brecklyn loves to read and was excited about her Runaway Bunny book.

Brooke, as usual, loved it all!

Brianna's basket was much more "grown up" this year. She got hair clips, nail polish, flip flops, and a fun fidget spinner. 

Love my cuties 💖

The kids were all great to be flexible about waiting to get their Easter baskets. In fact, they wanted to wait until Brecklyn felt well enough to participate in the fun of it all. I'm always thankful for fun family traditions!

Freedom Celebrations!

Happy Wednesday, everyone! We've had some {very} unexpected happening this month, so I thought I would share about what's been going on with us lately. First, though, I want to share about our Independence Day and the fun activities we were involved in surrounding that!

July 4th was on a Sunday this year. On July 2nd, my parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary, and I hosted a fun little party to celebrate that tremendous accomplishment. Jeremy, JT, and Mallory had joined us for that celebration, and left to go back to Tennessee on the morning of Saturday, July 3rd. We spent a nice day at home, and that evening decided to grill food and set off some fireworks. Chris was cracking me up lighting fireworks with a blow-torch, so I shared the photo below to Facebook. 

I'm so glad I shared the photo because my friend, Shana, saw it and commented that we should join them for their fireworks show at their house that evening. She followed her comment up with a text to let me know she was serious. We thought it sounded like fun, so we loaded the kids up and headed over to the Burkholder's house. They had quite a crowd there, and kids had a blast playing with friends and eating watermelon.

Quintessential summertime . . . eating watermelon on a hot July evening before enjoying fireworks!

Shana shared with me that she had sent me an invitation to their gathering on FB, but somehow I missed it. I'm so glad she didn't hold it against us that I never responded to the invite!

Zack and Bren

The show was incredible! Jason did an amazing job!

Daddy and Brooke

Momma and Brecks

The next morning, we went to worship services and had a relaxing afternoon. We had a fun evening planned and wanted to be ready!

All dressed in our red, white, and blue!

Brianna, Brooke, Brecklyn, and Brenson

After evening worship services, many of us stayed at the building to eat desserts and shoot off some fireworks. It's always a good time with our church family!

Hayden, Chloe, Brianna, Caroline, Brecklyn, Brooke, Sadie, Avery, and Brenson

The "big" kids :-)

The "little" kids 💓

Momma and the "middle" kid :-)

We had a few close calls with the small fireworks due to too many kids and too many elderly people trying to handle fire. Chris and I were thankful everyone was safe! It felt like a big accomplishment at that point, lol. 

Brookie

Brecklyn

Caroline

Sadie

Hanging with my girl, Tia

Waiting patiently for the guys to get the big stuff going

Andy, Vance, Doyle, and Dicie

Chris, Bren, Ross, and Russ . . . the ones in charge of the big stuff!

Bri and her sidekick, Caroline

The show was really good, and we all enjoyed it!

We found out the next day that later that night Andy fell and broke his ankle walking into his house. Poor Nelda had quite the time getting him to the ER and getting him help. AND - I'll write a whole post about this - but *spoiler alert* I fell the next morning and broke my ankle. That was definitely unexpected, and even more unexpected to be broken ankle buddies with Andy, lol. I'm glad we had a great weekend because you never know when "life" is going to happen!

Happy St. Paddy's Day!

 Happy St. Patrick's Day! We "celebrated" in our usual way today by having green milk and Lucky Charms for breakfast,

and by wearing our green!

Other than that, it was business as usual for us today! The big kids had track practice this morning (I snapped the above photos just before we pulled out of the driveway), and we did just a little schoolwork, as well. We are taking part of the week off for Spring Break.

Anyway, I love looking back on photos, and I really enjoyed putting together this collage of my littles and me dressing in our festive clothes :-). I know this is so cliche' to say, but the years really do go by so fast.