Crazy Hair day

I had no idea what to do for crazy hair day this year so at the last minute I braided half her hair in many braids and let her sleep in them.  The next morning I brushed and teased the braided half to fluffiness and brushed the other half nice and smooth.

The fluffiness went down through the day, but i thought it was pretty clever on a last minute idea.

Rita's

All of my 13 years of marriage, every time we found a new slushy place Chad would try it and say "no, it's not the same"  apparently there was this wonderful place called Rita's back east that was Italian ice and he would always try to describe the yummyness of it, how smooth it was.  I would always smile indulgently at him and not my head and say OK.  then one day were driving down the road and there was a mascot to a new store opening, chad was so excited, "did that say Rita's? did that say Rita's?" i told him yes I thought it did, so we stopped on our way home and sure enough, Rita's had opened that week and they were giving away free ices for the week.  It is now a regular stop for us, we go at least once a week, and yes they are a great as he described.

Pinewood derby

Tyler was our only derby kid this year.  He worked really hard to cut and sand his car this year.  We had to add a lot of weights after cutting most of the middle off but it worked out just like he wanted.  He didn't place this year, but had a great time making it look just how he wanted.

Tylers Birthday

This we decided to give the kids a budget for their birthday and then they had to take us out to do something with the money.  They could take us to ice cream or a movie or whatever they wanted and then they could keep what money was left over to buy a present.  There was a lot of planning and changing of plans and rules, like they had to actually do something with us, no just keeping the money.

Tyler's day came and he decided to take us to a place called jump street.  It is a big building filled with trampolines.  There is trampolines 40 feet long and dodgeball trampolines and a foam pit.  He had such a great time and chad and I got a good workout....well chad did, I was done after about 3 minutes.  We took him to dinner at 5and diner and then we went shopping.  He had a huge list of things he wanted and money from grandparents to spend.  He had already bought new shoes that he found on sale at big 5 and found some bike parts on the Internet that were tones cheaper than at the bike store.  He still had a bit left so we headed to the mall where he was able to buy a couple hats that he asked Grandma Kitchen to embroider form him.  We had so much fun on our date with Tyler and he had a great birthday.  I forgot my camera so I only got this one picture on Chad's phone of him in line for the foam pit.

being a princess is such hard work

I went upstairs and found Court asleep in this plastic tub filled with pillows and puppets.  Once again she hates to sleep in her bed and I often find her in the oddest places.  She looked to me like a princes asleep on her throne with her pet peacock.

Last concert at sunsethills

I had a hard time at Casey's concert because I realized this would be his last concert at Sunset and with Mr Breneman.  We are moving schools next year because the district is open an arts academy from 5th - 8th grade and the boys want to go.  He did a great job once again as did the the choir and the rest of the band.  Sunset has great music teachers and we have been luck to have them.Casey has such a love for the trombone and I am so impressed with his musical skills.

Easter

We hunted eggs in the back yard.  Only the 5 littlest kids did the hunting and they had a great time.  Tucker heard there was a golden egg and spent most of the time stressing about finding that egg and had to be conviced to pick up other eggs while he looked for the golden egg.  He was getting so upset someone eventually encouraged him to look in a specific area and lo and behold...the golde egg!!!  he was very happy after that.

Court and Eden had a great time playing all weekend and Court had a grweat time dressing up in Eden's clothes all weekend.  For Easter morining she even borrowed a dress so match Eden in her beautiful Easter dress.

The boys

All the kids

Couples...nice face Chad

Sweethearts

big brother

Mom with her kids.  Dad was inside sick (which I also came down with by that night :) it was horriable)

Eggs

We debated egg dying but grandma wanted to do that with the kids so we bought dozens of eggs and boiled then up.

We had to go in two shifts since we had so many kids.  Little guys first and the big kids got to help.

Big kids got to last since they are more artful with thiere egs and would take longer.  I'm glad grandma insisted because the kids had a great time and how could we have not wanted to dye eggs?!?!?! just because we would need 5 dozen and what were we going to do with that many boiled eggs is no excuse to ditch tradition!

Beach

We headed off to the beach for some sun and fun. the grown up sat and ate while the kids snacked and ran off to play and I ran after to them to get pictures.

The water was cold :)

Sam and Chad played football with the older boys and I got some great action shots.

Some went boogi boarding...tucker tried to drag the board around, but it is bigger than him so it was a challenge

Chad talked Casey into giving it a try, but Tyler refused.

Court and Eden collected shells

we got to see this helicopter fly by low along the shore.  We decided they were spotters for the wale watching tours because he would fly around and then circle and then these boats full of people would head over by where he was circling.  We also say some water blown up as if from a blow hole and at one time we saw some dolphins or something.

Chad and Sam went on a romantic stroll down the beach

Brody had a great time digging

And there was some burying and sculpting of Casey into a merman

and then just leg burying of little ones