easter 2011

We had a great Resurrection Sunday yesterday! The girls were all dressed in pretty pink dresses from Nana and Tata!

Julia and Kate in their pretty dresses!

All four girls!  So pretty!

Julia looking for eggs!

Katey looking for eggs!

Dada and Ainsley!

Mama and Ashley!

Us and the twins! 

their favorite is gum...

...especially giant green gum!

little family christmas

One word: presents!


Look at that hair!



A bread machine for Mwa! I look surprised huh? I'm not. I knew I was getting it! I picked it out actually!



Jas got a new guitar. He looks surprised too, right? Wrong. He picked his gift too!

christmas at the holland's!

We traveled to LA for one of our Christmas celebrations! We stayed at Kim and Rick's. My parents, as well as my brother and his girls (minus Ellie) came too, so it was a packed house!

Aunt Kim and....Ashley? =)


The boys with the girls! I'm always amazed at sweet these boys are with our girls! It's so neat to see! Thanks guys!

out on the town!

We went to the Bellagio to see the Christmas-y conservatory and the water fountain! It was beautiful! And the girls loved it, despite what it looks like in this picture:



Thanks nice lady for the picture! We had so many people staring at our family that we felt like WE were the display!


And then...the fountain. It was amazing. We got to hear "O Holy Night!" Beautiful!! Amazing!

christmas tree pickin'!

This year our Christmas tree pickin' was quick! We got in. We got out. Maybe that's what happens when you've got a four-year-old and a two-year-old that you're chasing around, and a baby attached to Mom and Dad.

Even though we were quick, we had fun!


Love this picture!


Family photo! We don't get a lot of these! Thanks nice family!


*sigh* I love these girls!

decking the halls

The girls are at a point now where they can actually help decorate for Christmas...well, at least Katey is. Julia...not so much, but she tries!


I like to decorate too!



The babies pretty much just hung in their Bumbos and watched all the Christmas action!

baking time with the bigs!

I love Christmas time! This year I decided to do a 12 Days of Christmas activity thing with the girls. We'll ignore the fact that we probably only did about HALF of the activities (gasp) and focus on what we DID do! For Day 1, a partridge in a pear tree, we made a chocolate chip pear cake. Not as "yum" as I was hoping, but good nonetheless!

The girls are quite the pear cutters!


Chocolate chips...why? Just because!



Sprinking the goods on the cake batter! Pears and chocolate!



Ready for baking!


Done!

happy 4th of july!

We had a busy 4th of July! We woke up and got dressed in our totally cute 4th of July gear. Then we headed off to church.

We came home from church, ate lunch, took quick naps and then headed back to church for our Hot Dog Bash. Yum! Then we had night church.

After night church we headed over to a park to watch some fireworks with some church friends! Fun!!



Playing with a couple other babies from church!


It was a long day...


The twins barely fit in the stroller anymore. They're getting so big!

happy mama's day!

I had a great day today!

Jason and the girls really made it special for me! I feel so loved!

My homemade card with foam stickers and all (which, by the way, is WAY better than spending $3+ on a store bought one):



Me and my FOUR (yes, FOUR!) girls:



I got beautiful flowers (that Jason "helped" Katey pick out) and a totally cool cake decorating book! I can't wait to bake me some cake!


Me and my fantastic hubby, who I wouldn't be a mother without ;)! Thanks for such a great day, Jas!

a different kind of easter!

This year was a little different for us...I love traditions! Love, love, LUH--OOOOVE traditions! But this year...I was tired. We all were!

So. What happens when you have three, um, I mean FOUR kids three and under, including two four week olds?

Instead of hard-boiling, dyeing and decorating eggs, you'll just put stickers on the fake eggs that you're going to have the three-year-old stuff with candy. See? Fake eggs...





and stickers...!



And you let the kids eat probably too much candy as they stuff the eggs. But maybe that would've happened anyway! See the totally thrilled face of Julia? Yeah, she really, really likes candy! See?



Then, because of the craziness of your day with four kids three and under including two four week olds, you barely have time to make it to Target to get basket stuffers. But you do make it, with a day or two to spare! Look at those cute baskets (not to mention kids)!



More candy? Suh-WEET!



Kate IS happy here...promise!



Your favorite part of the whole Easter traditions thing this year WILL be shopping for and buying the PERFECT Easter dresses. And when your unsuspecting hubby (who is only trying to help!) tries those said perfect dresses on the girls instead of letting you do it, you may or may not have a mini breakdown. Just so ya know!

But look, aren't the dresses perfect?!




Here's Dada with the other two girls, in their not so perfect, but still cute, dresses! (Good job matching us, Dada!)



And the only picture of you will probably be the one taken by your photographer in the making three-year-old!


When you get home from church, you will probably be exhausted and therefore have to postpone the Easter egg hunt until after naps....EVERYONE'S naps, thus having to undress and then re-dress the girls in their Easter dresses! But look, aren't they cute?!



Easter egg hunting!






After the Easter egg hunt, you probably won't have enough energy for the nice Easter dinner you'd planned. Instead, you'll go pick up a pizza. And postpone the nice Easter dinner until tomorrow (...hopefully!).

So Easter might not be exactly what you'd planned, but hey, everyone WILL survive AND have fun in the process!

Happy Easter!