EASTER

Easter was so early this year that we still had quite a bit of snow outside. Because of this, the Easter bunny decided to hide eggs mostly inside with just a few on the front porch. The boys were very excited to find their Easter baskets this morning and were elated to find toothpaste in them (just what we needed, how did the Easter bunny know? And how did he know that Leif really wanted Ninja turtle kind?) They also got a few Easter books and of course some candy. Little Miss doesn't have her own Easter basket yet, so the Easter bunny just had to leave her board book in Asher's basket. The boys love going around looking for eggs, although I swear Austin and I had to point half of them out even though they were in plain view. They aren't very competitive though. If one kid was at all upset about the number of eggs he had, his brother was happy to give him the next one he found. After all the eggs were found, Austin encouraged the kids to eat a bunch of jelly beans while I warned them not to eat too much before breakfast, then we put them all into one big plastic bag for the family to share (meaning Austin will eat most of it and I'll give the kids some occasionally. The Easter bunny was kind enough not to get anything that I really like :) The boys were very thoughtful and filled up a couple of the eggs with Cheerios for Heidi to play with and eat. Then they played around for a few hours before it was time for church. Here are a few pictures we got before we headed to church (Gotta love Leif's "smile")

TEN MONTHS

Little Miss is growing up too fast! Although she is definitely still a baby, you can start to see a little bit of little girl in her face and in her mannerisms. She has always been very interactive, but she is becoming even more so. She is also starting to understand emotions better and gets very upset if one of the boys speaks harshly to her. Occasionally Asher or Leif will say "No, Heidi" in a voice that isn't very pleasant and she gets a sad, hurt look on her face before bursting into a sad little cry. It takes me about 30 seconds of calming words and rubbing her head and back for her to calm down. The boys also try to calm her down because they weren't trying to be mean to her, they just didn't want her touching their toys or food.
Heidi has started to army crawl around on the floor. She can get herself from sitting into a crawling position, but when she tries to take off, she ends up sprawled on the floor. I've even seen her go from the sprawl back to a crawling position, but she can't move from there. She has decided instead to just pull herself along. Its a funny little crawl, wiggling along the floor because she uses her left leg more than her right and she ends up twisting a little funny as she goes. But she gets where she wants to go and is very happy about it. She loves to head for a bookcase in our living room and pull off as many books as she can before I grab her.
Heidi is still a bright ray of sunshine in our family. She makes everyone happy because she is always smiling and we are so happy to have her.

 And here is a bonus picture of all the kids ready to go to church :)

Snowman

We finally got good snowman-making snow! I've been promising the boys we will make a snowman every time we get a big snow. They get all excited as we get our snow gear on only to be disappointed when we get outside and the snow is too fluffy and won't stick together. Today was different. Since it's Spring, we got heavy, wet snow that was perfect for packing. My mom and I helped the boys make a snowman that they were delighted with!