Monday, April 13, 2009

It's that season again...

The one I visit several times a year where I try to get a good picture of the kids all together, as well as one with the family. (You may or may not recall this post)
But this year, I think we have SUCCESS!!! Maybe it's a fluke, but there was minimal photoshopping happening around here. :) That makes for one happy momma!

So without further ado, here are this year's Easter pictures! :)

The Howe Family 2009


The munchkins


The girlsies--Lexi, Haley and Linds


My little men--Robby and David


I'm in love with Hobby Lobby. I think I love every section in the store. Ok maybe not EVERY section, but I could wander in there for hours (and I have!). I found the fabric for the girls' dresses there and fell in love. Actually I had a horrible time picking out which fabrics to use! I already have a few more million ideas in my head of sewing projects. :D Now if I can just squeeze more time out of each day, I'll get there eventually. :)

Maybe next year, I'll make the boys matching ties. Maybe I should start now. :D

Spring Break!

This year, Easter fell on the weekend of Spring Break for my kids. The first part of the week, my twin sister and her children came to visit. We had such fun with them. Jenn and I stayed up way too late talking and giggling like when we were young. Or maybe making up for when we were young. :D And the kids (all eight of them) had fun playing together. They even put on a circus for us. I will have to see if I can upload the video. They are adorable!

On Wednesday afternoon, they headed home and I packed us up to get us ready to go camping! We bought a pop up camper last spring and now that it's warming up, camping season is here! We went south near where my in laws live to a state park. There is a nice big lake down there and we even tried to do some fishing, although we never did catch anything. Rob's parents, sister, and brother and his two kids all camped with us the first night, and his parents also the second night. We had a lot of fun with them. The kids really are already talking about our next camping and fishing trip!

Saturday we stayed with my in laws and spent Easter with them. We've been doing the 12 days of Easter with the kids, reinforcing the Resurrection and the real meaning of this holiday. It's been neat seeing their reactions. And seeing how much they remember! We'll definitely do this next year also! I wanted to do Resurrection cookies too, but there just wasn't enough hours in the day. Next year! :)

After a nice dinner with the family, as well as an awesome surprise (Megan came to visit from Utah!!) we packed up the van and headed home. We did get a flat tire on the camper, and Lexi immediately remarked that it was because we hadn't said a prayer before we left, like we always do. I love that she thought of that. We made certain to say one before we continued on. And I'm really grateful that Rob is handy and changes tires. :)

Oh and thank you to the man who stopped to make sure we were ok and didn't need any help. It's proof that nice decent people DO exist. And when we drove by and saw you stopped to help someone else, it made my day. You rock. So thank you, Mr. Stop-and -help-stranded-people-on-the-interstate. I hope if you're ever in trouble, someone stops to help you out!

So that's the Spring Break re-cap. We had a lot of fun, but it's always nice to be back home sleeping in your own bed. The kids started back to school today and so life goes on. :)

Pictures to follow!