Easter Sunday - 2011

The kids left their Easter baskets on the back porch for the Easter bunny and when they woke up in the morning this is what he left them......cool stuff!

But they had to wait to play with any of it until they got home from church....where we had another Easter egg candy hunt....at church instead of hiding candy inside eggs when we all know that the kids ahd enough eggs from other hunts, they just laid the candy on the lawn and let the kids go after it.  Makes it really nice when you have the little boy that runs to an egg, opens it for the candy and then misses out on more eggs b/c he's mesmerized with the candy inside...just cut the middleman out and give him some c-a-n-d-y!

Here are Kate and Maddie getting ready for the 'go!'

Vanessa and Kate

Wesley...he loves smarties!

 After church, we had our own hunt at home...........................

Reach high my big girl!

Wesley had the tree house covered.....if there was an egg..he got it!

Then we headed to Schulenburg to Uncle David and Aunt Cathy's for Easter lunch.  They have an indoor pool so the kids enjoyed swimming together...here are Katharina and Wesley born just 3 weeks apart!

The following pictures are priceless.....Wesley doing what he LOVES to do the most..make people LAUGH..even if its his 80 yr old grandma getting soaked by his water gun!

 Cathy and David have a HUGE house...like 5000 sq ft huge...so they did an indoor egg hunt.  Plenty of cool places to hide eggs....

Then Aunt Cathy hosted a cupcake decorating contest.  The kids had a blast!

And finally......we stopped by Grandma's house on the way home and she always sends us home with something.  This time it was a cute pot plant (not seen in the photo) and this bear...yes...its a 3ft bear carved by hand.  Grandma got it from a girl down the road that was selling some things.  Evidentally it originated in Nacadoches, TX while she was in college, she bought it.  It is very very heavy and the kids love to decorate it.  Cool idea grandma (even though at first I thought Justin was going to kill us when we drove up and asked him to get a 200 lb wooden bear out of the back of his truck!)

Easter Celebration #3

We will call this one Easter Celebration #3 and Peters Family Reunion all lumped into 1 special day.
Unfortunately Justin was on call, so he couldn't leave his home area but Vanessa and I took the munchkins to Beeville for 2 separate events. 
First, we went to Uncle Gene and Aunt Shirley's to have our Peters Family Reunion.  When Grandma Peters was alive, every holiday was a reunion.  Everyone came to Grandma's house and had lunch and sat underneath the oak trees and talked about how things were going and how they used to be and everyone just loved it.  Now that grandma is gone, its much harder to get everyone together.  Grandma was so special to everyone but to Justin, she was his world.  So I think that (for Justin) any future Peters reunion will never be the same (or even come close) without grandma there.  For me, Grandma's get togethers were a very integral part of my life with Justin before we were married and as we started our life together.  I enjoyed the closeness of the Peters crew since I was an only child and (as an adult) couldn't really count on my family for much more than a genealogy pool.  So Vanessa and I took the kids to see cousins that they had not seen before (or if they had seen them before they were all too young to remember!). 
Second, we headed to MiMi and PaPa's for some one on one time with Mary Grace and Cade (and more Easter gifts from MiMi and PaPa)...luckily MiMi and PaPa didn't indulge in candy since the kids already had enough candy to last all year!

Wesley and Cade in Uncle Gene's backyard fort....Wesley is instigating something I'm sure from the look on his face :)

Vanessa getting ready to hide the eggs for the younger cousins

 Kids getting ready to hunt eggs...sweet little Frannie is chatting up to Wesley

My beautiful Kate

 Wesley found all the super sneaky hidden eggs.................

 Our uncles....Chuck, Buster and Gene (and Aunt Shirley in the background)

Easter Celebration #2

Kate's Celebration at school......just like everything her school does, her Easter egg hunt was very organized, safe and fun!  And (unlike most public schools) we were allowed to celebrate Easter as a Christian family as well.  We go to church with 95% of Kate's Kindergarten class and the remaining 5% go to church at other churches across the street from ours (in downtown Inez there are literally only 4 streets and one is Church St).  So many of the kids we hunted eggs with on Good Thursday, were also hunting eggs with us on Easter Sunday after mass.  It is very nice to have developed such a tightly knit circle of parents.......our kids are so amazing and special!

Kate's custom Easter basket...accessorized with her favorite little charm 'cutie'.  Cutie goes EVERYWHERE with Kate.  She's normally attached to her backpack or getting washed in the bath tub along with Kate's bath but for this special occasion.....she's decorating Kate's basket.  Kate was very surprised when she woke up Thursday and saw my mommy decorating  :)

 On your mark...get set...GO!  The kids were allowed 5 eggs each.  Honestly, its the best way to run an Easter egg hunt for a bunch of 5 and 6 year olds! Everyone gets their 5 eggs and sits back down on the sidewalk..everyone walks away a happy camper  :)

 Kate and her dear friend Maddie....and just for the back story...Maddie's mom is best friends (from high school and college) with my cousin Melody.  Small small world!  And Maddie has a cute little brother that will be in Kindergarten (Class of 2012) with Wesley!  Of course Maddie also has a cutie pie little sister Abigaill (2 yrs old) and Kate doesn't have a little sister (nor will she ever) but we will be happy to take Abigaill with us anytime she wants us  :)

Easter Celebration #1

Wesley's Easter party was originally slated for Thursday morning but was moved to this morning (found out that it was because the accreditation auditor was going to be on campus Thursday - who schedules an audit the day before Good Friday at a Christian school?!?!)

The kids had a great time! 

We had to make a last minute HEB run on Tuesday evening to get some candy to put in Wesley's eggs (which was probably really unnecessary because we definitely had 12 pieces of wrapped candy in our candy stash!)  But while perusing the Easter aisle, Kate picked out two pretty basic baskets for her and Wesley.

We had to snazz his basket up a bit...he LOVED it and definitely one of a kind....

Hunting eggs on the baseball field

 Wesley's cute class (and even more adorable teacher Miss Kristie)...and just a note that as we were walking back to his classroom, Wesley and Justin and I were walking behind Miss Kristie and this conversation ensued......
Wesley:  Miss Kristie sure has a bright yellow dress on.
Me:  Yes, Wesley..its a pretty yellow dress
Wesley:  She looks like a big banana.......bahhhhhhahahahhhh....
Me:  Wesley...you are silly
Wesley:  No, Miss Kristie is silly for dressing like a banana.  It's Easter.  She's supposed to be dressed like a bunny, right?

Miss Kristie turned around and winked at me and said:
You know before I taught this class, I always thought I wanted to have 4 girls when I had kids.  But after having such cute boys like Wesley, I seriously want 4 boys like him.

Awww...Miss Kristie, that is so nice.  But let me warn you..there is nothing easy about Wesley (except falling in love with him!)

And what keeps us busy these days?!?!!

Anyone who thinks that parenting gets easy or less exhausting as your children grow up, obviously never reared children.  We are constantly driving from here to there, practicing, games, Kumon, play dates, performances and CCD..you name it, we've done it or are doing it.  And I wouldn't change a thing!
I was very Blessed growing up that my mom let me participate in anything I was interested in.  As a single mom she toted me here and there and everywhere and most of the time was the only willing chaperon (and when they didn't have enough parents on field trips, she'd recruit one of her friends so that there were enough adults!)  So I have big shoes to fill when it comes to opening my children's eyes to all that the world has to offer.

Last year, Kate tried soccer and while she got better as the season progressed, she is not the aggressive type.  She was very accurate in ball placement but when it came time to needing to 'steal' the  ball or bump around, that was not the way she's wired.  So this season we tried softball. Softball is still a competitive sport, but its not as physically aggressive but does require focus and problem solving (what base do I throw the ball to if she hits it to me?)  Kate has done FABULOUS!  She looks forward to practice and is quite the hitter!

She looks very very cute in her Little Dipper hot pink and black uniform too!

Flowers...for me?

These beauties came from my adorable kiddos courtesy of our very own flower garden.  Gerber Daisies one of my absolute favorites...and in hot pink and deep orange...they just don't get more beautiful.  The yellow wildflowers are just perfection!