Cane's B-day

Cane's b-day was April 16, but we had to party this past weekend and our house. My parents and Marcie came and Nick's parents and his brother and sister, Tim and Tiffany. It was great, we ate lunch, did cake and ice cream, and then opened presents. Or I should say Cole and Claire opened presents. Cane was in a great mood all day and it was fun to all be together. The last time this group was all together the house looked a little different, outdated and full of moving boxes! It was a great party!

What, I don't know how this frosting got on my lip?

We had to light the candle several times to let everyone have a turn to blow out the candle! Cane just wants the cake!

Wow, good cake, Mom!

Ball is one of the two words in his vocab, other than mama and dada. He loves to say "ball" and "bye-bye."

Yeah for the birthday hat!

Tim and Marcie are the greatest godparents ever!

Easter!

Coloring Easter Eggs was a lot of fun for the kids, I was surprised at well they did waiting for the eggs! And then off course, we had to cover them in stickers!
Cane really liked the egg Claire colored for him!

The Egg hunt at Grandma McQuinn's was great. It was so nice outside!

You can't tell from this picture, but Cane didn't really think that playing in the grass was all that cool! He hasn't really had a chance to get used it, but I would guess that will change now that it is warming up!



The Loot!

Claire has a really hard time smiling on command! This is the loot from our house Easter morning!

Swining on the Rope swing at Great Grandma Eberts!

This is what we looked like no more than 10 minutes after we left Steve's house (the McCumber Easter celebration) after dinner. Go figure, no naps this afternoon!

My shy little girl!

So most of you know how shy Claire can be, but you put a dress on this child and she opens right up! She has been looking forward to shopping for dresses with Marcie for a long time, she loves to try on dresses! Marcie and my mom came this past weekend to shop and she was queen for the day. I am pretty sure Claire thinks Marcie's wedding day is all about HER! As soon as she would put a dress on she would say "this one is beautiful!" and then she would spin around and test the dress out! At the first place we went to, she came out of the dressing room in the first dress and began spinning around in front of a bunch of people she doesn't know! This is a breakthrough for Claire, she doesn't like attention from people she doesn't know. However, a "beatiful" dress transforms her into Cinderella!

The second place we went to gave her one of the bridal changing rooms with the big mirrors and lots of room to spin! She couldn't stop looking at herself! We found several dresses here that Marcie, and Claire, really liked. It will be hard for her to choose!

Here is princess Claire, she really liked the way the dresses would poof out when she sat down. She would sit and stand over and over, after she was done spinning of course!

It was a great day, Claire had such a good time, and we loved watching her. All four of us girls went out for lunch afterwards, and just to show you how attached she is to Cole, when we were leaving she decided she needed to bring home a chip for him. Just one, broken chip. He was very excited and appreciative when she gave it to him!


Cane has found his new favorite spot in our house. Now that he has realized he can pull himself up, (would you want to pull the weight of those cheeks up) he loves to watch outside! When the kids are in the house, he stands and looks out the front window. When the kids are playing out back, he pounds on the back sliding glass door and laughs, I think he thinks he is playing with them!

Our Spring Break fun!

For the kids, the best part of spring break was dad setting up the swing set! It was beautiful that day, we played for hours on it!

Cane enjoys to swing as well!

Peek-A-Boo! We spent some time at grandma and grandpa McQuinn's house over break.

This is my mad face, don't you feel so sorry for me?

In Ankeny, we made it to the park one afternoon.

Marcie and Grandpa had to wear their birthday crowns when we celebrated their b-day together!




Cole and Claire love to go swimming at my school!

V-Day and More!

We had a terrible bug this weekend, Claire had a horrible fever on the Friday night before V-day, Cole had the fever on Saturday, Cane had a terrible cold all weekend, and I got sick at Red Lobster on Saturday night when Nick and I went out! However, we still enjoyed the candy and fun! The crafts they made at Jane's house. Bless her, she does crafts with the kids every holiday!

As you can tell, the his nose was running all weekend!

He gets a little silly when we take his clothes off!

Since I am a PE teacher, I start them out young! Especially when you have rolls like this! Ha, just kidding. I have no idea what he thinks he is doing, he usually does this when he gets mad.

Only 10 more push ups to go mom!

My little Patriot!

Cole loves to say the Pledge! Anything he sees that looks like a flag, he tells me to "put your hand over your heart" and goes to town! After the pledge, he immediately belts out "My country tis of thee." He gets a little lost at the end of the song, but since this video has figured it out! Claire says it to, but not in front of people!

Crazy Drifts!

This is several weeks ago, most of our snow has melted leaving large "ponds" as Cole calls them in our yard. Some of the snow has already melted in these pictures, it was over the propane tank. But this night we went outside to play and the kids and a great time! They thought it was pretty cool that they could walk up the snow to the top of our barn. If you can't tell, this is a picture of our barn, the snow was about 1 ft below the top of it so you could walk right up to the top! The snow was totally packed, you didn't sink in at all when you walked on it, Nick and I were up on it as well!

This is a video that I was meaning to take of Cole and Claire sliding down the roof of the barn into the snow. However, I got distracted watching the dog slide off the roof. She only fell about 3 feet off into the snow, it was a little bigger drop off to the snow where she fell. It was so funny, no worries, she jumped right back up on the roof!