MOPS Egg Hunt

Yesterday I had the girls over from my MOPS table for an Easter Egg Hunt. I wanted to have the hunt outside on a nice spring day, but we had it inside, because it was cold and rainy outside.

We still had a blast and all the kids had a lot of fun playing together. They are all around the same age and my Anderson was so excited to play with boys!!!!!

Kari made these adorable spring cupcakes! We all so enjoyed them! We had taco salad for the ladies with banana bread. For the kids there was chicken nuggets, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and strawberries.

Elizabeth and Kari with their babies Molly and Peter

Bridget and Jill

Angela and Theresa

The kiddies at the kids table!

Here are the kids getting ready for the Easter Egg Hunt!

Angela's Twins!

Here are all the kids!

Our Easter Egg Hunt in the basement! I really wanted to have it outside, but the kids didn't mind!

Thanks Kelli for taking the pics!

Wordless Wednesday

Okay, maybe this is not "Wordless Wednesday!" I need to explain these pictures. These pictures were from the Turkey Trot, Thanksgiving Day. I convinced my husband to run the Turkey Trot with myself. I actually got most of my cousins to also run it! It was such a fun event with family and then we went home changed and had a yummy Thanksgiving dinner together!

I didn't get a picture of all of us runners together, but I think this will be an annual event with the cousins!

Hearts at Home Conference

In the month of March, my wonderful husband encouraged me to go on a mommy conference. The organization is called, Hearts at Home and is connected to MOPS (Mothers Of Preschoolers).

3 of my dear friends and I packed up the car on Thursday night and headed to Bloomington, IL. There we rented a hotel and had a wonderful girls weekend.

In the above picture you can see how big this conference was. They had a main speaker and then they had break out sessions. Each mother could pick the sessions she wanted to attend.

There were three areas in my life that I wanted to work on and then I picked classes to help inspire me and challenge myself.

In the area of being a mother I took parenting a strong-willed child, what every preschooler is trying to tell you, and discipline. After these sessions I really realized in parenting you need to set goals for each of your children. Both short term goals and long term goals. I learned that being a good parent is being creative. In the area of discipline make games to promote positive behavior. Praise your child when they do good. Give them choices that you can live with.

Next I wanted to work on my relationship with the Lord. A picture that has really stayed in my mind about the conference is a watercolor picture. In the watercolor picture it lists:

Lord

Husband

Children

Work

Watercolors bleed and run down. If you have these priorities in place you have Lord as number one in your life, then honoring your husband, then your children, and lastly your work. If the Lord is your #1 then it will drip down into every area of your life. I am a visual learner and to have this picture in my mind really helps me to access my life. It has been one of my goals to make an effort to spend time with God each day and as I rise in the morning to ask HIM to be part of my day.

The last area in my life that I wanted to work on is being a good wife to my husband. I learned that I need to allow God to determine the man He designed my husband to be. I am not the one to mold my husband into the man I feel he should be. I learned to be intentional in our relationship. Us moms also learned more about intimacy. I know TMI (To Much Information)! The girls and I decided to pick something up from a little shopping excursion.

They had this sign as we are walking by! I thought it was totally funny and had to take a picture of it!

The girls! Kelli, Barclay, Shari, and myself

Barclay and Shari Of coarse we needed to do a little shopping on our girls trip! We went to the mall and we passed by Claire's. I said to Barclay, I should just go get my ears re pierced. She said lets do it now! Before I could say anything I was already in the chair! One of my earring holes had closed for the last 5 years. Funny thing is that I used to work at Claire's when I was in high school. I used to pierce peoples ears all the time. I must admit that sometimes I closed my eyes when I pulled the trigger! Remember I was only around 17 and they trusted ME to poke people in the ear! It was a fun experience with the my girls!

Fun Things to Do With the Kids!

Okay, being trapped inside most days forces me to get creative with activities for the kids to pass the day. I'm always looking for simple activities. Here are some that we have done during the winter months.

The other night we made pizzas as a family. The kids had pineapples, cheese, pepperoni, and carrots to put on the pizza. We used carrots so they could make faces on their pizza. They had a blast making their pizza. These fun plaster animals were a gift for Avi and Anderson from our dear friends. The kids had fun painting these and loved their wobbly heads.

I made a rainbow and wrote out the colors, using ROY G BIV (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet). The girls used watercolors to paint with. For Ellie my goal was to let her explore and paint, but for Avi we looked at each color word and sounded out the word to paint the appropriate color.

I used scrap paper and stapled it together and Ellie made a book out of it.