Easter Sunday Pictures

Easter Sunday was such a wonderful day. I'm so grateful for my Savior, Jesus Christ and that he selflessly gave his life for all of us so that we can live again after we die and be with our loved ones forever. 

My heart is full to bursting as I look at these pictures. I am so thankful for these sweet children. I don't know how I got so lucky to be their mom but I'm not complaining! =) I'm so grateful for the Plan of Salvation and to know that I can be with my family forever. 

Anika

 Keslie

Brenan

Sawyer was sleeping so we didn't get a complete sibling shot. Bummer. 

Little miss Sawyer - love that big mouth grin! 

Easter Bunny Day

The kids are always so excited to see where that crazy Easter Bunny will hide their baskets and eggs! Anika found her's buried behind the shoe basket!

 Bren's was hiding out behind the flour in the pantry.

 He must have thought Keslie's was dirty because it was in the dishwasher! Haha! 

Baby girl got a basket too. I think it was on top of the cupboards! 

 Here they are checking out what was in their baskets:

 Later that morning Tessa and Addison and their friends Alexis and Bart stopped by on their way to Galveston for their cruise! OH MY GOSH! It was so wonderful to see my sister and Addison and to have them in my home and meet my baby girl! They stopped by on their way home too so I'm feeling pretty happy about that.=)

Cute newlyweds: Bart and Alexis and Tessa and Addison

 My kids with their auntie and uncle.

 And one of Nathan and me with T and A. =)

 Sawyer liked meeting her first Kivett aunt! I'm so glad we got to see them. =) 

 We spent the rest of the day with the Soters. We went to the park for awhile and this is the only picture I got. Bren and Thomas sat there and dug for bugs for the longest time. Our kids love each other. =)

We had our big Easter feast on Saturday with the Soters so that we wouldn't have to deal with it after church the next day. It worked out perfectly and was delicious! Once again I felt so grateful to have them so close by us. We love them! 

Coloring Easter Eggs

We had fun coloring eggs this year! I always look forward to the yummy egg salad sandwiches we get to make with them later. =) Here are some of their creations:

Hard at work.

Easter Playgroup

We try to have a fun Easter playgroup every year (as long as I'm not in my first trimester - my motivation goes out the window at that point!) and make grass head guys, have an egg hunt and eat yummy food! 

Working on the project:

 Picnicking in the back yard

 Steph and little Miss Mckayla at her first ever Easter playgroup! =) 

Due to a couple surprise fire ant piles we decided to have the hunt inside. Bummer! I think the kids still had a good time! Here they are enjoying their candy after all the eggs were found. =) The timing was amazing. Everyone was loading up to head home when the HUGE storm rolled in. The one that had me in tears that our home and my kids were going to be swept away by a tornado. FUN! Gotta love living in tornado ally! 

 Here is Brenan's grass head guy a couple weeks late. He's got quite the head of hair! Time for a trim. =) 

Texas Bluebonnets

This was our 3rd spring in Texas and we finally got around to getting some pictures with the beautiful bluebonnets! This spring has been absolutely breathtaking. It's so green and there are wildflowers everywhere! Anyway, here are my cuties surrounded by the Texas state flower! 

 Sawyer wasn't very cooperative. These pictures do a good job of showing how she felt about the whole thing. Haha!

 I know - how did I miss that hair in Anika's face?!! 

 These girls are the best of friends and I think these pictures do a good job showing how much they love each other. 

 They were all thrilled when they discovered that ladybugs were crawling all over the flowers and had to catch a few! 

 Brenan is so hilarious! I love the absolute joy on his face in these pictures.

 Pretty much it's all I can do to not smother them all with mommy kisses every second! 

The Hunger Games

I am very happy to say that I loved this movie!! It isn't often that I give a thumbs up to a movie if I love the book but I thought they did a great job and I loved the cast! It was a so fun to go with a bunch of girlfriends and now I can't wait to see if with Nathan. =) 

Here we are at dinner;

Aubrey, Catelin, Amanda, Emily, Stephanie, Me, Janet, Janet, and Rachel

 Waiting in line

 Our friend Maria was supposed to come but got sick =( so her husband took her ticket and ended up sitting with us at the theater. This picture cracks me up - there he is right in the middle of all the girls! Good thing he's pretty cool. =) Not many guys get to see what it's like on a GNO. 

Thanks for the fun night. 

"May the odds be ever in your favor!" 

Spring Break

We had kind of a crazy spring break. =) We started it off by sending Nathan off to CHINA!! I admit I was a little bit doomsday about the trip. I was sure his plane was going to crash and sink into the depths of the ocean. Luckily, he survived and will be sharing all of his fun experiences from the trip in another blog post. Here are my cuties right before we left for the airport:

A lot of these pictures were taken with my phone so I'm sorry if they are a little fuzzy!

 The next morning we packed up our van and got ready for a mini trip to San Antonio. Our drive should have taken 4 hours but ended up being 6.5 because of the poring rain. It was ok though - we were all just so excited to see our friends! Heather was so nice to let us stay at her house and Aaron was so great and volunteered to watch all the kids so that we could go on a girl's night out. What a champ! It was fun to see the girl's and catch up on all the latest and greatest San Antonio news. 

Amber, Me, Celeste, Heather, Nanci, Jordan

 We went to our old ward which ended up being a little bit weird for me - it's always a little awkward to go back after you've left. Not sure why. But it was so fun to see some old familiar faces! Heather fed us a delicious dinner and the kids had fun playing together. After we put them to bed we enjoyed watching PROM. Haha - just a little bit cheesy! 

Keslie, Anika, Hallie, Peyton, and Brenan 

(they did not want to look at the camera - probably because of the sun!) 

On Monday I took the kids out for breakfast and then we headed to Seaworld. It wasn't the best day ever. The kids were whiny. I was grumpy. Fits were thrown and we almost packed it up and headed home. Haha! After attempting to go to IHOP and Brenan having an embarrassing meltdown and me loading them all back into the van and me having and even more embarrassing meltdown we all made up and had quite the enjoyable breakfast at The Egg and I. 

I knew it was spring break and that Seaworld would be a little busier than usual  but I was not prepared for the masses of people that were there! It was INSANE!! All the shows were packed  and we weren't even able to get seats. I had forgotten swim suits and sunscreen so they couldn't even run around in the splash pad area without getting their clothes all wet. Keslie decided it was worth it to cool off! Crazy little thing. =) 

We made into one show - AZUL - which happens to be my favorite! It's the one with dophins, beluga whales, birds, and acrobats. And it's funny to boot! We loved it even though we were in the very front. Here  are the kids enjoying their cotton candy while waiting for the show to start. 

 And baby girl was there too! =) 

 After we got back from Seaworld and got the kids in bed I got to watch the Bachelor finale with all the girls! Ashley even made it up from Corpus Christi! Sweet reunion! 

Me, Ashley, Amber, Heather, and Celeste

 I woke up to Brenan coughing and then puking so we got up and out the door in hopes of not spreading any sick bugs. I felt SO terrible!! Why is it that a kid ALWAYS gets sick when we go on trips?? The drive home was the pits - Mcdonalds made me super grumpy by burning our egg mcmuffins and not cooking my oatmeal and charging me for water. Then about 2.5 hours into the trip Brenan threw up ALL OVER the place. It was disgusting and stinky. Poor guy. We laid low for a couple days and then met up with some friends at our favorite park. 

 We wrapped the week up with rainbow jello for St. Patrick's day and Easter clothes shopping and lunch at the mall. We were all happy to see Nathan waiting on the curb at the airport for us that night! It was a fun week but we missed him. =) 

Here they are enjoying their jello!