Easter!!

 Easter Sunday - what beautiful weather for a fun filled day of celebration!

 Pre-sugar filled induced coma!  ha!

 Anxiously waiting for the daddy's to hide 200+ eggs filled with candy!!  We had a lot of kids peaking and trying to catch a glimpse of where they were hiding them!  :)

 It was a flip-flop weather kinda day!  Love it!!

 How am I going to reach that one?!

 Even Brooke got in on the Easter egg hunt!

 Our precious & adorable Brookie!

 Sisters!

 

Ben and his loot!

And can't forget about the Easter baskets....this year they each got a super soaker gun & treats!  Summer fun can't come soon enough!

Brooke got in on the action a bit (Ben is making sure she doesn't take HIS super soaker!), although she'll get her own goodies next year!

It was a super fun-filled day - - starting off the morning with a great worship service followed by a scrumptious Easter lunch, Easter egg hunt, bike rides, jumpy house craziness, and lots of giggles with friends and family.  God is Good - we are so blessed!  

horses!

The kids got to ride our neighbor's horses for the very first time!  They LOVED it!!  It's pretty cool we live where we do because the horse came to us (on their way to the trail)!

and he's off....

what a fun milestone....ditching the training wheels!  It is so fun to watch him ride with a huge smile plastered to his face!  "I'm doing it, Mom...I'm doing it!" he kept saying!  Way to go Benjamin - we are so happy for you!

 Pure joy!

What fun these two will have this summer on their bikes!!

eggs!

We had our annual Easter egg decorating get together with the cousins.  Always lots of fun...thanks to a huge help from our fabulous aunties!!  :)

 Beautiful eggs!

 So happy!

She would do this all day if we let her!  She loves to push the chair around and around...all the while squealing with delight!

This is as close as she got to the eggs....next year, babe!

11 months

Oh precious Brooke!  You are 11 months old today!  What a joy you are & we are blessed you are apart of our family! Here is a little look at what you are up to these days:

• still have 2 teeth on the bottom, however your top 2 teeth are just poking through the gums!
• will eat anything that we give you!  what a nice change from the days/months we struggled with spoon feeds! 
• cruising all.over.the.place!  You are going to be walking independently very, very soon!  You will stand up without holding onto anything for a few seconds and you use the kids' art chair or laundry basket to push around the house so that you can walk!  
• says momma/dadda all day long - - you are one talkative little girl
• still is a great napper - usually 2 hrs in the morning and 2 hrs in the afternoon.  You typically go to bed ~8pm and wake up between 7 & 8am.

 I love your little hands and feet!

Sisters!!  Jaelyn sure loves to take care of you!!

Turks and Caicos

We had the vacation of a lifetime - thanks to Papa!  What an incredible experience we shared together!  We stayed at the Beaches (an all inclusive resort) and were pampered the entire week!  Our suite was cleaned every morning, refrigerator stocked with drinks each day, beds turned down in the evening...not to mention never having to make a single meal for the family or even cleaning up the mess after Brooke ate!  The biggest question we had each day was:  which of the 16 restaurants were we going to eat at and do we want to hang out at the beach, pool, or water park?  Gotta love it!!  :)

 All the grand kids from 9 months to 6 yrs old...what a blast they had together!

We flew out of Seattle on a red eye flight - - getting into Atlanta ~6am.  Marcus & I really didn't get any shut eye on the flight....Jaelyn & Ben probably slept ~1.5 hours or so and little Brookie slept ~45 min.  Everyone was in good spirits, just not a good nights sleep!  We had a 3 hr layover in the Atlanta airport which allowed us to get some breakfast (kinda weird to be eating food at 3am PST...but had to get on TC's time zone!) and relax a bit.  The kids were VERY excited to meet their cousins in Atlanta, however, we boarded the plane before we saw them!  Thankfully everyone made it on the airplane and we were off to Turks & Caicos!  The flight to TC was ~2.5 hours and we all got a bit more sleep.  After getting through customs & immigration and getting all of our luggage (amazing how much stuff we brought when we were mainly in our swimsuits!)...we headed to the bus to take us to our resort.  Upon getting to Beaches resort we were greeted by the employees with cold towels, rum punch & cookies!  What fun!  Our rooms weren't quite ready for us so we headed to get lunch...our first experience with all the yummy food!  After a good lunch, we headed to our rooms to get settled in and then off to the pool for a swim! Let the FUN and awesome memories begin!!

The kids with their drinks from the swim up bar!  Too cool!

 Our first experience with the Sesame Characters!  The kids loved seeing all the Sesame friends each day.  This is Zoey with Ben & Brooke!

day 1 in paradise

We headed to the ocean in the morning - what fun!  Playing in the sand and surf - amazing!  The kids enjoyed the water and making sand castles together.

 Pure joy!

 Best buds!

 Swimming with Papa!

Building one of many sand castles...with tunnels!

After we had enough of the ocean, we headed over to the water park in the afternoon - - more pics of it later!

Always holding hands....LOVE!

Ben got to visit with Cookie Monster today!

You scream, I scream...we all scream for ice cream!  Gotta love Bobby Dee's...ice cream whenever we wanted!!  Kids even ordered on their own!!

Another family shot!

We play hard....and fall asleep fast!  :)

day 2

We woke up Sunday to clouds and rain at times - - which was actually ok because some of us got a bit too much sun on Saturday!  So we played on the playground, painted shells, watched Finding Nemo in Papa's room, and even went swimming in the rain in the afternoon!  We had a great day hanging out with our cousins!

 Teeter-totters are always fun!

Fun on the climbing wall with Aidan

What are you up to, Jaelyn?  You look a bit mischievous!!  :)

 The boys were always digging together

Sharing lunch together - - at the kids only table!  :)

Off to the pool in the rain!  Thank goodness for the jacuzzi and swim up bar for fun drinks.  The drinks of choice for the kiddos were a mickey mouse or shirley temple.