Picking strawberries

Shuttle launch

Monday morning, after Easter, the space shuttle launched. It launched at 6:21am. Marty, Graham and I watched it from our backyard. You could see it perfectly and so well since the sun was just barely coming up. It made the smoke stream look like it was glowing! I took a few pictures of the smoke stream after the launch and when the sun was up even more. These pictures barely show how beautiful the sky looked! I love being so close to the space center:)


up close of the glowing part,


with some more smoke stream,

seeing the reflection in the water. So beautiful!

Easter

So after Abbie's birthday part of Easter, we sent the kids upstairs to play with Abbie's presents. Then Marty and I got an Easter egg hunt ready for them. We decided this year to combine the baskets and the egg hunt. So we put an initial on each of the eggs and then inside some of the eggs where numbers that went with their prizes. We put some candy and quarters in the other eggs. The kids thought it was fun to have to find their initial. We opened all the prizes and by that time, Marty had to be back at church and I had to start getting myself and the kids ready for church. Right when we were getting ready to leave I thought about taking a few pictures. This is the one that is right on front of our bushes that have pink flowers on them right now - what was I thinking? Actually, I was thinking I don't care I just need to make sure and take at least one picture of them in their Easter outfits and to do it quickly or we would be late!

Then after church I tried again, not much better! It was bedtime by now. I think my favorite though is the one where they almost look like Charlie's Angels:)

The kids were really cute when we were going to bed. They asked if we could have some more Easter tomorrow, since we didn't get to celebrate it all day. They ended up hiding their eggs for each other, it was really sweet.

Abbie's 5th birthday

Easter Sunday was Abbie's 5th Birthday. It was difficult to have another birthday on a holiday since Graham and Molly's are December 26th and 27th, but what a great day to celebrate. We got to celebrate Abbie and the fact that Jesus died for us and rose from the dead! What a way to celebrate our physical life and our spiritual life in Christ!

I had asked Abbie for a while what she wanted to do for her birthday. The only thing she kept telling me was that she wanted us to have balloons and to decorate for her birthday - that was easy enough. Saturday night she was so excited to go to bed. When she saw that it was dark outside she actually started jumping up and down! After she got in bed she told me that I needed to make sure that Graham, Molly and I (daddy was going to be at church) were awake before she was so that we could tell her "surprise" in the morning:) It was really cute. Here's the "surprise" she woke up to:

Her bedroom door, she was really surprised to have streamers and balloons in her face...

Then they were all the way down the stairs...

A "Happy Birthday" sign in the doorway to the kitchen...

and finally streamers and balloons in the kitchen. (Abbie is in the picture because at this time she was running circles under the streamers - she really liked them!)

Daddy had to be at church for the morning Easter services so we let her open her new Barbie movie so she wouldn't be asking mommy all morning long to open her presents:) It was a good distraction for a few hours at least. She was very patient and absolutely wanted her daddy to be there when she opened her presents. She loves her daddy that's for sure!

Hard to believe our princess is 5!

We used the candles where the flames are colored, the purple one was pretty cool, but they had a ton of smoke when she blew them out.

I have a cute video of her opening one of her presents that I will try to post.

After lunch, presents and cake we had our Easter day activities that I'll post about later. It was a fun filled day!

Abbie's comments

Abbie said two really cute things today and I wanted to make sure and write them down.
Molly, Abbie and I were at Publix today, grocery shopping obviously. At the check out, Abbie immediately asked if she could have a balloon. Molly has decided after our last trip when her balloon floated to the ceiling that she doesn't want balloons anymore, even though they gave her another one:) I said, "Abbie you just got a cookie." But of course she still wanted a balloon and the sweet grandma cashier really wanted her to have one, so I said "yes, you can have a balloon as long as if it goes to the ceiling you don't get upset."

While the cashier was ringing our groceries up, we all noticed that there were a lot of balloons on the ceiling. I asked the girls to count them - there were 7! Well, as you can already see coming Abbie's balloon slipped off her wrist and up to the ceiling. She immediately got upset and when I leaned down to talk to her she said through her tears "mommy, there were 7 balloons and now there are 8!" It was so sweet and helped me not be that "I told you so" mom.

Graham has started getting the mail everyday after school and everyday he tells me who each piece of mail is for. Him and Abbie usually ask "where's my mail?" Well, today Abbie got a piece of mail and she was SO excited! She was literally jumping up and down and clapping her hands. She said "I have waited my WHOLE life for a piece of mail." Love that girl. (She was even more excited when she opened it and it was a $3 gift card for Toys R Us. It is from Toys R Us if you sign up online for their birthday club.)

Daddy Daughter Dance 2010

This year was Molly's first year to be part of the Daddy Daughter Dance. Abbie and Molly LOVED it and continually ask when they get to go again. Who wouldn't love getting dressed up, face painting, coloring, hot dogs, chocolate, strawberries and most importantly getting lots of attention from their daddy!

Pinewood Derby race

Saturday, Graham's Cub Scouts had their Pinewood Derby Race. Graham wanted to make his car look like one of his Hot Wheels and I think Marty and him did an amazing job!

We weren't sure how well his car would race since we've never done this before, but Uncle Mike gave us a few pointers. Graham kept telling us how much he wanted a trophy and we just kept telling him what a good job he did making it and that it is about having fun.

His car ended up being the Grand Champion though!! He was undefeated! Obviously he was super excited. He was so funny when they were giving out the trophies because even though he won every race, he didn't know (like Marty and I did) that he was the Grand Champion. And now he gets to race his car in the regional Derby race in March.

A bunch of the cars lined up, some of them where so fun. There was a hummer, a skateboard and a block of cheese just to name a few.

Graham's is the black one with yellow wheels in the middle.

On the starting block, this was the first of five races. We were all nervous since we had no idea how well it would do.

Abbie and Molly did fantastic for the two and a half hours. They would watch a little and then play with their Barbies, watch, play Barbies - they were very patient!

Graham and I during a break

Graham and some of the other Tiger Cubs

Abbie entertaining herself with a Capri Sun:)

The builders with their winning car and trophy.

Graham, Daddy, Abbie and Molly all proud of the trophy