Happy Easter

Happy Easter from our house to yours. Hope you all enjoyed your celebration of the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Our precious children

Ethan not too happy about taking pictures.

My two handsome guys.

Mr Smiley

10 weeks old.

This is getting boring mom.

All right that is enough.

He was done and let us all know very loudly that he was not happy.

Kierra's first day of school and Brianna's school program

My baby Kierra is growing up. She has wanted to go to "school" for a long time and the Lord worked it out that she will get to go to school for the next 6 weeks. I usually don't discuss things that are too personal and for sure not financial information but God worked a miracle for us and for that reason alone I will share this story so that HE can get all the glory and praise. We have wanted to send Kierra to preschool but financially that wasn't possible. Kierra has had difficulty with potty training and so we discussed that if she wanted to go to school that she had to learn to go potty on the big potty. The school was willing to help her with this job too but it was still the financial issue. Just in the last 2 weeks Wesley got an unexpected bonus at work (this was approved last year by his company to be given this year) and it was almost the EXACT amount needed to put Kierra in preschool for the remainder of the school year. God knew LAST year that this situation was going to come up and knew the exact amount that would be needed. Isn't our God good, and caring, and ALL knowing. I wish I could remember this more often and for every detail in life. I know it but I sometimes have trouble putting faith to action. Kierra has done very well and worked on going potty so last Tuesday she got to start preschool. She gets to go 2 mornings a week and she loves it. Brianna also had her school program and open house recently. I can't believe her Kindergarten school year is almost over.

First day of school

I think Brianna was as excited or maybe more excited than Kierra

Kierra's teacher, Ms Becky

Ethan

Can't have a post without at least a couple of pictures of Ethan

Brianna, Kierra, and Brianna's friend, Mia

Brianna and her teacher, Mrs K, showing Grandma her school projects after the school program.

Snow in April???

If April showers bring May flowers then what do April snows bring? We woke up Saturday morning to a beautiful white view. Yes it is snow in southern California in April. What a surprise. It truly was beautiful. Not sure if some of the flowers and the grapes will survive such a surprise but we will see. Brianna was thrilled of course but Kierra only lasted a few minutes and then decided she was cold and came back in the house. Brianna and daddy played in it for quite a while. It lasted a lot longer than I thought but it was all gone by mid afternoon.

We told Brianna to come look out our window and this is what she could see. It took a few seconds before she realized that is really was snow.

Ethan's first snow. Had to take him out for a picture of course.

At first Kierra didn't want to go out but then decided she did so she got dressed and went out but didn't last long.

Some of the mountains near our house. It was still pretty cloudy so you couldn't really see very well.

Ethan's first trip to Bass Pro Shop. The girls will teach him to love it as much as they do I am sure.

P.S. I am way behind on blogging so there are 4 new posts including this one. If you are interested keep scrolling down.

Ethan

A friend of mine from work crocheted these bags and hats for Ethan. They had matching booties too! Thanks, Maggie.

Daily happenings

Asleep on daddy's arm. Ethan's first marshmallow roast. Daddy and the girls camped out in the backyard on Friday night after we got home so Ethan and I joined them for a little while in the evening. But we were smart and slept in the house in a nice comfy bed. Daddy and the girls had a wonderful time "camping." Kierra holding and singing to Ethan. She is such a good little helper. Ethan all dressed up for church on Sunday morning. Kierra told me the other day that she was "feeding" her baby. Not sure why she needed her sunglasses on in the house but she must have thought she needed them.
She wanted me to take a picture of her with her baby. Smiley boy. He is smiling more and more. This is the cutest little flannel shirt. He was so cute all dressed up. Smiling again. Playing with his new toy. He likes is for a little while and then wants to be picked up again. Big sister Nana holding and putting Ethan to sleep the other morning before school.

Grand Canyon Jr Ranger

We started travelling home from Kansas on Thursday, March 24 th. We were sad to leave but had such a wonderful time being with our family. Thanks Mom for having us. We are quite a crew to put up with for 10 days.

Brianna and Kartyr, best buddies, most of the time:)

Our immediate family. We took this the morning we left. All those pictures and almost forgot to get one of our family together.

Brianna holding Ethan to help Mom out at the motel one morning when trying to get on the road AGAIN.

We stopped by the Grand Canyon on Saturday and planned to spend the whole day but it was SOOOO cold and the wind was blowing hard and it was snowing, much to Brianna's delight. We liked it too but my was it cold. Kierra got sick the last couple of days before we left mom's so she wasn't at her best so needless to say, being out in the cold wasn't much fun. We started out on the far east side of the Canyon and drove through the park to the main visitor area. At the east side visitor's center we picked up Brianna's Junior Ranger booklet so she could work on it throughout the day.

Brianna and dad working on her Junior Ranger booklet. For those who aren't familiar with the national parks, most of the parks have a Junior Ranger program where the kids fill out a booklet of activities and attend a ranger talk and then they earn their Junior Ranger badge. It is a really neat program. We had heard about the program but this was the first time that Brianna got to do it.

She was supposed to be drawing a picture while we drove across the park but she got tired and fell asleep. She never dropped the booklet or the pencil the whole time she was asleep.

We saw a lot of woods and snow on the drive across the park.

Brianna and the ranger that taught us about geology and the rocks at the Grand Canyon.

The Grand Canyon, beautiful as always. It was so cloudy, snowy, and foggy that day but Wesley got a few pictures during a time when the sun was peaking through the clouds.

We told Brianna that if she completed the Junior Ranger program we would buy her a hat to put her badge on. She was very happy with her hat and badge. We are so proud of her for completing her first Junior Ranger program. She is looking forward to visiting another National Park and earning another badge. Unfortunately due to the cold weather we did not stay long at the Grand Canyon and instead started driving home and arrived at about 3 am on Sunday morning.