Easter

I really am okay with my kids getting older but I struggle a little with all that it entails.  I boiled a ton of eggs for everyone to color and really only Landon and Drey did it.  Tylee came and did a few but wasn't much interested in it. I know this is part of life but it's kinda of sad.  

 No, its not blood.  She found one of the empty containers of dye and of course put it in her mouth.

 The realization that we are going to have to share our children with inlaws I'm trying to come up with different traditions that will work well with that.  We did a brunch on Saturday morning and then our Easter egg hunt.  This year we just so happened to have a $50 gift card to Chick fil A (breakfast only) so we got that.  I didn't think that was going to be enough food so Landon used my new waffle maker(early mothers day gift from scott) and made waffles too. It was plenty of food!

 The only way to get the big kids to participate was to do a golden egg with $10.

 I wasn't organized enough to do Easter baskets on Saturday so the commercial side of Easter overflowed into Sunday just a little bit.  We hid their baskets around the house to be found Sunday morning before church.  Shiloh was soooo excited about having her very own basket with treats in it.  Drey had all his treats eaten before the end of the day.

Our normal Easter tradition is that we do Easter with my side on Saturday and Scott's family on Sunday.  With mom being gone it kind of threw us off.  Shellece was kind enough to host the entire family at her house on Sunday dinner.  We haven't done much with my family since mom left and the kids wanted to see their cousins on that side so we went there.  It was good to catch up and the food was amazing!

Family Pictures

Bayler has done our last couple family photos and does an amazing job.  But he can only do so much with the pictures.  We didn't have hardly any pics that had everyone showing, looking at the camera and smiling.  This was partially my fault for doing pictures when it was freezing but the kids were incredibly grumpy too. They hate family pictures but it is something I will NOT give on.  I will have to do it during warmer weather next time and maybe that will hep a little. 

Adoption!!! April 18, 2019

 Scott's company will pay for a hotel and meals if your adoption is out of the town you live so that worked out great for us since our adoption time was 8:30 AM in Ogden.  We headed down to Ogden right after school on Wednesday.  Drey had been so excited all week for this day.  He had his backpack packed and ready to go on Monday night.  When I pick him up from school, he is usually the last kid out of the school.  On this Wednesday you could see him running through all the kids to hurry to the car.  I got in the car and said "mom this is gonna be the BEST DAY EVER!!  We will get to have the babies in our family always and I will never miss any of their birthdays". I'm not a big buffet person but it's the easiest place to go with lots of people.  The kids LOVE  Golden Corral so that's where we ate dinner.  Amazingly enough there was actually some good food there too.  After dinner we headed to the hotel and went swimming for awhile.  The rest of the evening was not so pleasant so we won't go into detail about that.  I would prefer to just remember the positive stuff. 

 We barely made to the Courthouse on time, but we still made it.  All of us were a little tired but once we saw Bayler and Courtney there it made us happier.  We were on the top floor and it had quite a view.  Which was good cause we didn't even get into the courtroom until after 9.  Before going in we had to talk to several different attorneys, read and sign lots of papers.  The girls were given cute stuffed animals that they would be adopting as well.  By the time we got in Mia was already an hour past nap time and didn't want to be held any more.  Needless to say it was not a quiet proceeding.  The judge is a sweet grandma and took her grand ole time going through everything.  She had our family go up to the bench by her and each of us rang her glass bell.  She wanted us to remember this day and hoped that every time we heard a bell ring we would think of this day.  Apparently she's never watched the movie It's a Wonderful life cause if she had she would know that every time a bells rings that means an angel got his wings. Either way, they are both good things.  To the question I've been asked several times, no it doesn't feel any different.  They were already my kids, this only made it legal.  I may feel different when we get sealed, guess we'll see. Thanks to Bayler for all the beautiful pics out in the lobby. 

Regionals

This year regionals was in Missoula Montana and it was way different in many ways.  The biggest one was that I didn't go, Scott did. We had two competing this year instead of one and they also rented a bus and everyone rode on that up there.  The kids seem to love it.  You will notice that there are mostly pictures of Avery, this is NOT because we love Avery more.  It is because Avery has a phone to take pictures and Landon does not.  Both kids did great and I believe they both placed in every event that competed in.  Their coach said she was so impressed with Landon and his ability to stay calm and perform well under stress.  He also broke seven personal records in speed events.  Now they need to perfect all their routines for Nationals in Florida. 

While they were gone we went swimming but this time we brought Tylee so Mia could swim too,  it was fun for a bit but then it got too crowded.  

 We had a nice LONG game of memory.  I think the people that made this game has never actually played it.  Who puts 60 tiles in one game???

 Addason and Holly didn't get asked to junior prom this year so they decided at the last minute to go stag.