I broke out my new camera for Easter!

For the last couple of years, I've been really wanting a new camera. I've been saving my pennies and finally decided this was the time. After doing lots of research and talking to a few people, I am happy happy to report that I'm a proud new Canon owner! And what better time to try it out than when we are looking and acting our best...Easter?! 

I'm going to go ahead and make the disclaimer that I have NO idea what I'm doing. At all. A few people have shown me some specifics, but right now, I'm just clicking away in Automatic mode and letting the camera do the work. That may never change. 

Of course, after church and the annual DO NOT CHANGE YOUR CLOTHES YET lovely family picture:

Love my babies. At least I got a smile before Levi changed into his ever-loving basketball shorts with a shirt that doesn't match and Maggie spilled mac n cheese all over the front of her. Good times.

And, of course, it wouldn't be a great holiday without your brother stealing your camera to take horrid closeup shots for you. (I will choose not to tell you which foundation is majorly failing me in this picture...)

He's really great at capturing the grumpy cat, double chin photos, too.

On to better things. Like sunflower peep cakes! Good job, Jenny!

And my Easter cookies...

...that I bought. ;-)

It was gorgeous outside, so we were thrilled that the kids could do their egg hunt outdoors. 

Each year, I tell myself to remember to pick up cute baskets for the kids do use for their hunt. And each year they end up using a Target bag. ;-) Details.

I hid Maggie's eggs, so they were very easy to find. Eric hid Levi's. Poor Levi.

Even better than finding all the eggs is the anticipation of what's inside.

Maggie announced that she'd gotten fifty thousand dollars from her eggs. She was just slightly off. 

It was so beautiful outside that we did what every other normal family does on Easter Sunday: we loaded up and went to the gun range.

Jenny got some practice in with her cute little pink take-your-eye-out gun. I shot a round through it and screamed when a shell casing came back and hit me in my sunglasses. TWICE. ;-)

Presh. Boys and their guns.

The kids waited patiently until it was their turn to shoot their guns. They got Drill Sergeant Travis asking them the three important rules of gun safety...

Aaaand, go! 

Even Mags got in on the action! This was her first time shooting. To answer your question, YES, you can shoot a gun with a big ol' bow on your head! :-)

Had such a great day with my family!

Last weekend, we upped our parental status to AWESOME.

So, last weekend is a weekend for the books! We had it planned for a while and I'm so thankful the weather cooperated with us. 

Once upon a time, a loooong time ago, Eric used to do this thing called backpacking. I know. Sounds horrid. Like, they pack all their essentials for the weekend into one bag, hike off into the wilderness, and live there for said amount of time. Stink, stank, stunk. 

Then, we had a baby, Eric thought he needed to go back to school for another degree, life happened, we had another baby and BAM, he hadn't been in over 6 years. Well, this was the weekend of the comeback. The guys were going backpacking and Eric was jumping back in with both feet. AND HE WAS TAKING MY BABY WITH HIM. Yes, this was Levi's first trip out into the wilderness. I gave Eric many "talks" over the last few weeks and I'm sure he took each one of them to heart. Don't let him get hurt. Don't let him drink gross water. Don't let him use a sharp knife. Put a lock on the tent at night. Ultimately, my last words to him were, "You know if something happens to Levi, do not come home." I think I said "I love you", too. Details.

So, here they are - the boys. Cuties! Eager to explore and get dirty.

My boys. 

I tried texting Eric several times that evening. NOTHING. NADA. I knew he was safe, though, because PAUL WAS TEXTING GRETCHEN. Whatev.

I was told the boys cut up all the firewood they needed. Now I know why the dads were ready for the sons to go. Child labor.

I love these boys spending time together. They don't get to see each other that often, but Levi still thinks of Pierce as one of his best buddies. :-)

Mkay, see those little colored things under the rock shelf thingy? Yeah, tents. Tiny. That's where they slept. The same place that wild animals sleep to try and get out of the elements. Awesome. (OH EM GEE.)

I love these men. I'm so thankful that they take time to invest in their sons. Such a great group of godly men. 

SO, while the boys were out getting dirty and becoming one with their knives, I packed up little Maggie May and headed south for the weekend. We had some girlie things to do! Like wear bows and eat chips and salsa.

We were gonna have an all out girl weekend. 

We decided to get the girls toes painted. That idea bombed on us, but at least we got their cute little picture in the cute little chairs!

The girls literally ran off to play for hours. Hours! They'd shut the door to Hope's room and we could hear them giggling and playing pretend. They would come out occasionally with different clothes on or to show us a dance they made up and we would laugh hysterically at them. It was really sweet to watch them play. 

Over four years ago, my bestie moved away and it was not pretty. I was angry at God and pretty much cried "no fair" every day. However, God knows what He is doing. I never could have dreamed that our friendship would grow and flourish like it has.

God continues to bless our friendship as well as the friendships of our children and our husbands. It is just...well, it's a God thing. And, I'm so thankful. 

I would like to note that Eric and Levi both made it home safely and Levi can't wait to go back out into the woods. Gag. Maggie continues to say that hanging out with Hopie was one of the best days ever. So, yeah, we're pretty awesome parents. ;-)

Phone dump to the rescue

When you haven't blogged in over a month (WHAAAT?!), there's nothing like a good ol' phone dump of pictures to get you back in the blogging mood. :-) 

I was going through my pictures last night and trying to delete the hundreds of selfies from Maggie and realized I needed to blog. Bad. So, here's my attempt at starting fresh. Again. ;-)

This throwback goes all the way back to Valentine's Day. Aww :-) We went out with two other couples - our friends and old neighbors. It was fun because the guys planned it and it was a surprise to us gals. Eric has pretty cool connections and got us a limo. I guess he can do that kind of stuff when he can drive it. Ha! It wasn't just any limo...it was a stretched Hummer. Hilar. For 6 of us. Well, 5, because Eric was driving. We went to dinner and then like the wild party animals we are, went to the Pie Kitchen for dessert. Then home to bed because it was past 9:00 and we were tired. 

The gals -

The guys -

Sorry for the horrid iPhone pics. Gah!

With the weeks of snow days and frigid temps we've had, we have still tried to do a fun few things with the kids. You know, like eating ice cream as big as our heads... 

And staying up WAY TOO LATE because Mom had lost control of bedtime somewhere after the 4th snowday!

This little cutie didn't get to stay up late (HELLO GROUCH MONSTER) and she doesn't like ice cream, so we found fun things to do like paint her nails and fix her hair in pigtails. Cuteness! :-)

One afternoon last week, my mom, Maggie and I drove to the outlet mall and met my aunt Gail to shop and eat lunch. Love these ladies and spending time with them!

We also had an evening to hang out with the Murphy's. You know what's good about old friends? They know all about you and still love hanging out with you anyways. We've been friends since college. You guys!! We've been friends for 18 years. EIGHTEEN! How is that possible considering I'm only 24? I love these peeps so much! We've been through so many things together. College years when you're young and care free. Marriage. Children (lots of children!). Buying our first, second homes. Vacations. I've loved every bit of it. 

Maggie had her first basketball awards program where she got her very first trophy ever! Such a big girl now.

We've had some library time. Levi is an old pro. Maggie is getting there. She does know to be quiet now, which is wonderful. Both my kids love going. :-)

And, this weekend, we had the boys while my sister kept the girls. Give a boy a milkshake and a little basketball on TV and they're useless for conversation.

All in all, we've had a few good weeks. However, this momma is SO happy that school is back in session!! BRING IT, SPRING!

Yes, I have trouble with math. And bowling.

After the kids' basketball games last week, we spent THREE LONG HOURS working in our church's concession stand. Ima just go ahead and point out that math is not my strong suit. I would also like to say that if I was in charge of the concession stand, everything would be an equal DOLLAR. None of this $.25 or $1.75 stuff. That's just dumb. You want an Airhead? Yep, a DOLLAR. A coke? That's also a DOLLAR. I was proud that I only had to break the calculator out for a few orders. Shew! (And you people with kids -- have them make up their minds before they come to the window. None of this changing their minds mid sentence!) I kid. Sort of...

Since it was such a long day for me, we decided to meet up with some friends and take the  kids bowling. I have a hate-hate relationship with bowling. As my husband puts it, "To some people, bowling just comes natural. That doesn't happen to you." Nice. Ha! I was happy to find out that only the children were bowling. The parents just got to sit and chat. (Thank you, Jesus.)

My kids LOVE it! Maggie was hilarious. She would walk up to the lane and literally throw the ball on the ground. It would then take about two minutes for the ball to travel to the pins. Levi is pretty good. Seems he is one of those people it comes natural to. ;-)

Love my babies!

Switching gears -- on Tuesday night, we channeled our inner "retirement home" personalities and headed to Levi's school to play Bingo. 

Reading Bingo, that is! Now THIS was something I could do.

Emmy was one of the first ones to get Bingo. They had a table full of fun books and anytime a child yelled "BINGO!", they got to pick out a new book. Super cute!

Levi picked out a book about Pearl Harbor. 

Super excited to be there...

See this lil' face here? Can you tell she'd been crying? Uh, yeah. Maggie started bawling because she didn't get a Bingo right away, so THE TEACHER CAME OVER, GRABBED HER HAND, WALKED HER TO THE TABLE AND LET HER PICK OUT A BOOK. OY. She can throw down tears like nobody's business. 

Super fun night! I was hesitant to go, but I'm so glad we did. Looking forward to many more fun things at school.