Oh the Bliss!

Hi friends! We all either have babies, are having babies or know someone who does (or is) so there are LOTS of reasons to check out my friend Kristen's super cute website; www.lubirdbaby.com. Reasons I like her stuff: 1. SO cute! 2. Very creative 3. Extremely reasonably priced 4. She's a mom, and I love supporting moms. 5. She loves the Lord, and I love supporting companies that give back to the Kingdom. I've added her website and her blog to the Blogs I Visit. Please check it out for all your gift giving needs!

The five of us will be with the five of them and there's gonna be a whole lot of this... and this... A little of this... More of this... a little more of this... And a WHOLE LOT OF FUN! Can't wait!!

Thought I'd post a few of these beauties from the egg hunt we went to on Good Friday. Fun was had by all! We had a pretty big gang. Me and my three (Mark came later), The Gomez family of four, the Hanson family of five and my fantastic and brave SIL Carrie with her three kids PLUS two more she was watching that morning. Good times! Saved the best for last... I LOVE this picture of Ben with his cousins Gavin and Ezekiel!

I wanted to do a craft with the kids this Easter that was fun and significant. After looking up different crafty websites my friend Kelly thought paper mache eggs looked cute. When she showed me the picture she saw eggs, I saw a tomb! We had the Hanson fam over last Wednesday and created our egg-tombs. After the Good Friday service the kids and I put our little felt "Jesus" in the tomb. We took the tomb with us to Simi Valley and sure enough the first thing Ben asked about Sunday morning was if Jesus was still inside. OF COURSE HE WASN'T because Jesus is ALIVE! The egg-tomb became the center piece on the table with the opening kept uncovered to show everyone that Jesus is no longer in the tomb. It was a really neat way for the kids to have a little visual of a very big concept, one I hope they will grow to understand and cherish more and more every year. Justin, Jack, Addison and Ben hard at work. After about 15 minutes Kelly and I became the egg makers. Ben wanted to dra...

Not really sure why I did it. Well, that's not entirely true. I did it because supposedly if I cut my daughter's hair it'll grow back so luxurious that people will stop us on the street and ask if she's a the model for hair shampoo or maybe the stunt double for Suri Cruise. Never really believed this until my cousin did it to her daughter and look: The emphasis in the question should be on the I, as in - not really sure why I did it. As in, I cut it. Me. I really don't know why. I have a licensed cosmetologist stylist friend who said she'd do it, for free even, but it'd have to be tomorrow. For some reason I wanted, needed it done today. It's not that bad, actually. A little bit shorter than I wanted, but over all I'm fine with it. The bottom line is that she now has happier, healthier hair that will grow lusciously long in no time. Watch out, Suri, here we come! (Ok, not really. Not even close.)

Is it wrong that along side of the death and resurection of my Savior I secretly celebrate THESE on Easter? And my dreams would come true if the Easter Bunny showed up with THIS?

It was a perfect morning for a little of this: I can't believe the forecast is calling for rain on Friday, I just can't believe that! We have fun plans to go to a gigantic Egg Hunt and I'm praying the rain stays away so that the hundreds of kids who are so looking forward to this event won't be disappointed. But when I've spent the last three hours outside and I see pink on my shoulders it really is hard to believe there will be rain anytime soon.** **Under any other circumstances I would welcome the rain, for I love it, but the EGGstravaganza is loved by so many, I'd hate to see it ruined.

My love and adoration for Trader Joe's is old news, but THIS IS NEW! Well, new to me, I'm sure it's been around for a long time, but I didn't know about it until just now. Trader Joe's has a cooking website and blog using only trader Joe's ingredients. How cool is that? Every now and then I'll get home from a trip to TJ's and find myself with a bag full of stuff that sounded good in the store but actually amounts to nothing once I'm home. This website will be perfect for those times because I'll be able to look up the ingredients and find a recipe for it. Wonderful! http://blog.cookingwithtraderjoes.com/ Thanks, Trader Joe's. You've warmed my heart yet again.

I feel like my mom and dad do a pretty good job of keeping their parental peanut gallery comments to a minimum. Though I'm sure they've left my house on more than one occasion with bleeding tongues from biting them so hard, they don't really offer advice unless I've asked for it, and believe you me - I have asked for it plenty of times. This is a quality I really appreciate about my parents because I know it's probably a difficult discipline. I mean, who doesn't like to put their two cents in when it comes to parenting advice? I know I do! (Sorry about that friends). So for the most part, unless someone is in grave danger, if they think I'm doing something wrong they just let me do it and figure I'll figure it out sooner or later, just like they did, and they don't talk about it with me. How many other people they talk to about it miiiiiight be another story, but I'm ok with that. This is not to say I don't want their advice, on the contrary...