Benefit Egg hunt

My good friends Leslie and Todd put on a benefit egg hunt every year to raise money for local Sherwood families. They do such a great job stuffig all those eggs and organizing this great event. Its amazing to watch the community rally and raise money for the families who need the funds due to Cancer and the medical expences that come along with their struggles durring their battles. We pray for the day that a cure is found and cancer is a thing of the past.

The Easter bunny showed up on a motorcycle, how cool is that!?

Trying to get a picture of the boys before the hunt. Zach apparently is blinded and cant open his eyes, Im not sure why Jaxon is covering his face, and Eli seems very proud of his bag. Haha

Chore time!

The boys love to work around the house to earn pirate treasure chore tokens that they can use to trade for fun rewards. Mommy favorite chore that they love is the dishes, I HATE dishes. Eli washes, and Zach loads the washer.

They've figured out latley that if they work together on all the house chores, that they get them done faster. So now when they want to earn chore coins they get very excited about "team work".

Ice cream anyone?

I decided to grab an ice cream for the boys from McD's one afternoon on our way home. Big mistake. Not only did they not give me kid sized ones, but they dipped it in chocolate...AND we got stuck in traffic on our short drive home. Bad combination, all of it. So as soon as we got home the kids sat on the cold wet yard to finish up their sloppy ice creams. It was yummy though, so thats what counts the most right? Thats what being a kid is all about, ice cream sticky hands!

Ok so maybe thats not fair, maybe I should have pointed out that Eli did pretty good at not making a mess...Zach was the sticky one. :)

Zoo time

We love our zoo membership. We've had it for years, and I dont know how anyone lives life without one. So go out and get a zoo membership. hehe

Spring break for us was a little boring. My car was in the shop for a few days of it, and the weather was too gloomy to attempt walking to anything around here. But luckily I got my car back by wednesday, and thursday we met up with some good friends at the zoo. It was cold in the morning when we arrived but by lunch we were warm and cozy.

Every time we've gone to the zoo with the boys we've taken their picture on this goat. One of these days Im going to have to make a flip book out of them and watch them grow on the goat.

I love this picture. Hayden Evan Hannah Eli and Zach all checking out the fish.

Diane went to get her stroller after the train ride and I got these pictures of the kids to keep them all occupied. Here they are all nice and serious..

and this is wha happened when I told them to be monkeys...can you tell this is Eli's forte?

All the boys on the train

Hannah and Eli on the train.

We got them all in the nest and told them to be birds..this is what we got. Silly kids.

Ive never been to the zoo and seen these up so close! They flew right up to the viewing box to this tree, we thought at many moments that they were going to fly right at us. Beautiufl.

Once again, a great zoo trip with great friends. Were so excited for spring and summer so we can start going more often again. We love animals.

Picture time!

We've been going to the same photography place for the boys photos since Eli was 8 days old. I still cant get over that. Has it really been that long, and are the boys really getting this old so fast!? As a parent, I dont think I will ever get over that..they grow up so stinking fast. So anyways, we headed out last week for picture time. The boys did very well, Eli only turned into his monkey personality towards the end of the sitting so that was nice. :) All of the poses turned out so great, it was hard to narrow down to just some of them. The photographer was great, she knew that since we'd come in so often over the years that we'd really exhausted every typical pose they do there for the boys ages. So this time she got creative and drug lots of props from the Senior pictures room over to use with the boys. I once again, am very pleased with the pictures and love their new place on my living room walls.

This was an easter one, but not too "baby'ish"...just a couple simple eggs.

I loved this pose idea, yet this is when Eli turned into "monkey" so most of his faces in this particular pose were not worth printing. He also occasionally pretended to spray himself in the face with the hose just as the flash went off, so you can imagine how those tuned out. For all the struggles he had durring this pose, I think this one turned out ok though.

Comparing these pictures to the ones I took off the wall from last time, I was amazed at just how much they've grown in the few months. Especially my little Zachy, he's totally losing that baby look. Such handsome boys.

Dont blink...or they'll grow up.

When Eli was approximatley a year and a half old I caught him in our back bathroom, eye liner in hand...bathroom covered in eye liner. Normally in this type of situation I would have not been a very happy Mommy...a mess to clean up and an eye liner headed for the trash! Instead, I was very proud of my little boy. I decided to take in the situation as a whole. He had used my eyeliner to learn. He had nicely traced the toilet seat, and then proceeded to draw his newly found love of circles all over the counter, cabinets and floor. Thats all it took, to trace the toilet one time. I cleaned most of it up after I told him we only color on paper, but realized at the very last one that I needed a picture of Eli's first circle. And to this day, approximatley 5 years later, the one lonesome uncleaned circle is still in my bathroom to remind me just how fast that kids grow up.

And then fast foward to present, and I wonder how on earth did he go from that eye liner circle boy to this amazing big boy who colors so well and stays in the lines!? We blink, and they grow up on us.



This is my favorite painting he's ever made. Me and him surrounded by a garden, blue sky and sunshine. It cant get any better than that. I cant believe he's turning 6 years old soon. Time goes too fast.

Please check out my friends business blog page and help me win a contest!

Some dear friends of mine are local realitors in Sherwood. They have recently started a blog page and are doing some amazing things in their business. Please check out their site and watch some of their great videos, and then sign up for their blog so you can follow their fun adventures and deals ...and tell them I sent you so I can win their contest. :) The blog site address is http://toddandlesliemccabe.blogspot.com/