Easter

My favorite holiday by far is Easter. I love the spring time, I love the eastery colors and the tulips blooming everywhere, I love to coordinate my family's outfits (I know its dorky, but it was always a tradition in my family growing up. A tradition I loved then and still do!). But most of all, I love WHY we celebrate Easter. HE ROSE, people! Jesus rose from the dead! And because of this, we can have eternal life in heaven. I know this is not usually the theme of my blog posts, but I just want to say that if you have never heard the Easter story, don't believe it or think it is simply "just a story", I STRONGLY encourage you to dig a little deeper or ask around. What you find might change your life!

Our Easter celebration started with a beautiful church service (we actually made it to 8am service. Yes, pigs were flying as we walked in to the church.) Lee's parents went with us. Then we had breakfast and an egg hunt at my mom's house. The kids loved hunting eggs. They wanted to do it again and again. After naps, we headed to my aunt's house and celebrated with my extended family. We all had a great time. There was even a 'minute to win it' competition. Fun times!

Here are a few random pics from the day. In no particular order.

Anderson is 4!

Anderson had so much fun this year with his birthday celebrations. I always make birthday banners for the kids (Anderson crawled through his 1st birthday banner, stopped in the middle, grabbed the fringe and sucked on it) :) We celebrated with the annual Happy Birthday song wake up serenade, pancake breakfast (with a candle on top!) and family over for dinner. Then the next day we had his friends over (he only wanted boys this year) for a Thomas the Train birthday party. More like a glorified play date. He still LOVES trains. It was a lot of fun. This is the first year Anderson really got in to the birthday thing and boy was he IN to it! Everything now comes in 4s. "I need 4 drinks b/c I am 4", "I need 4 trains b/c I am 4", I need 4 suckers b/c..." you get the point. :) Here are a few pics of my big 4 year old and his birthday celebrations.

Birthday Boy!




Family Birthday Celebration. Ice Cream Cake!

Opening gifts



Thomas Party



Orange is Anderson's "most best" (favorite) color. So he wanted everything to be orange. Orange banner, orange cake, orange frosting, orange drinks, etc. These are actually cupcakes that I baked in ice cream cones. If you've never had one, you are missing out!




So after all the fun 4 year old festivities, we ended the birthday celebrations with a Bryan Family (Lee's mom's family) birthday get-together. When we told Anderson we were going to gma and gpa's for his birthday he said, "I'm 5 now!?!" That night he told everyone he was 5. Boy, that 4th year went by fast! I love 4 year old minds :)

Adri's Birthday Party

We had a monkey themed party for Boo's 2nd birthday. It was inspired by the outfit I bought for her to wear for her 2 year pictures. We had just family over this year and it turned out to be a nice little shin dig.

Here's the invite. Created by my friend Sammie at sammiedawnphotgrpahy


The spread. We went simple with cold cuts, fruit, chips and chocolate covered bananas.


I made her cake! It is soooo fun to do cakes!!! Her outfit was my inspiration for her party theme so I just drew the monkey from her shirt on to the cake and star-frosted it. It was easy peasy.


She got a little bashful when we all started singing the happy birthday song.

Lots of great presents!

Christmas 2010

Yes, we did celebrate Christmas this year, and since it is now February, I thought I should maybe add our Christmas 2010 memories to the blog! We had a wonderful Christmas this year. Being close to family makes it so nice because we can be home and still see all our families. We trade off which family we spend Christmas with each year. It was a Leinwetter Christmas so we spent Christmas Eve with Lee's family and also Christmas day, but my family came over Christmas morning (since we wouldn't see them the rest of the day) and got to watch the kids open Santa gifts. Next year we will switch families and spend Christmas Eve and Day with MY family and Lee's parents/brother will come over for Santa gifts. Anyway, I didn't get a ton of pics b/c I was too busy enjoying the festivities and sadly, we did not get a single family photo this year. NOT ONE!!!! :(

Christmas Eve

Lee and Adri before church service



Stockings



Anderson got a Lionel train track and table to play with at Gma and Gpa Leinwetters house. He was pretty pumped.


Pam and I still aren't sure that this train set wasn't really for Lee and Larry. :)


Christmas Morning (heads up- my family wears matching Christmas jammies. I know it may seem wierd to some of you, but its a tradition that is special to my mom, my sister and me, and so the guys appease us and wear their jammies too!)

spotting the goodies


Gettin started


My parents gave our family a pop-a-shot basketball game. It was inspired by Anderson's love of the game, but we all enjoy it a lot!! I see many years of hoops being played by our kids and their friends in the future.


An attempt at a group photo after the gifting was over.


Christmas day
I took 0, yes, ZERO, pictures of Christmas day celebrations. Lee took maybe 5. Note to self, take more pics of Christmas day next year.
Grandpa E sneaking in a Sprite for Adri


Adri playing poker with the guys! She was betting with cookies and gumdrops!

Single Shout Out

Kellys Korner, a blog I love to read is having a link party for singles and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to link up one (more if I can convince you!) of my favorite single friends. :)

This is Alex. The first thing I can think to say about her is that she is truly one of the FUNNIEST people I have ever known. Along with being hilarious, she is a beautiful woman. She's smart, tall and has the sporty natural (with a hint of glamour girl) look down. She loves dogs, loves her family and loves her friends. She likes to go out and have a good time but knows when to stop and should be with a man who knows that too. She's also just as happy hanging out at home especially with someone who deserves her love and attention. :) She will make some lucky guy the center of her world and deserves the same from him.

This baby...

has occupied my thoughts for a LONG time and I am soooo glad she is home and well.

Here she is, Miss Emily Sharon Kidd. I love her to pieces!!!

Carriage Ride on the Plaza

Lee's parents took us to Kansas City Sunday to shop around, see all the pretty lights on the Plaza and to check a carriage ride with grandkids off their bucket list. It was a fun evening.

Posing in front of the Carriage.

Anderson is already tired of mommy taking pictures every time he turns around (see new camera post below!) so he refuses to look at me.

Adri and her baby blues. :)

Grandpa Larry (ee) and Grandma Pam (ham) with the kids

Waiting for dinner