Uncles are great!

The kids and I have had a great time visiting with my Uncle Victor up in St. Paul for the last month. He loves to have company and is such fun to visit with. He is a very good conversationalist and loves to hear about what's going on. He's feeling pretty good and looks about 30 years younger than his age. Today, the boys each played 2 games of checkers with him and won them all! He has a reputation for being really good at checkers and that rumor is true. Here he is, my Uncle Victor-love you!

Happy Easter~

He is risen! It was a beautiful Easter day here in MN. The sun finally shone and the temps were warm. We had a great church service, nice meal at home and a good egg hunt with the kids outside. The boys were dressed handsomly for church and had a good time searching for the eggs. They found all but one this year, it must be hidden really well! I guess we'll find that one later.....once we start to smell it. Unless an animal finds it first!

For breakfast I made a strawberry triple stacked waffles with banana strawberry glaze, healthy

though! It was yummy. We had cornish hens for lunch with wild rice, asparagus, and sweet potatoes.

We ended up playing outside in the afternoon under the bright, warm sun and then with the neighbor kids and their mom later on. It was such a perfect day! Easter is my favorite holiday!

Outside fun

The boys have been loving the warmer weather! They enjoy doing parkour, a kind of outdoor

acrobatics using things found in and around the area. This day they were leaping a spinning over a picnic table. You'll see three boys, two of them are mine. Sam is the neighbor boy but he's over so much I consider him my "other" son who lives down the street. :)

Emily loved her picnic table and the sandbox too. She learning to slide down her slide, almost all by herself and wants to spend every minute she's awake outside.

It was in the 70's today, bizarre for this time of year. We had a clash of fronts come in last night and it brought some big storms.

My girl

Here's a few recent shots of Emily. She's looking so much more like a toddler, a little girl, than a baby that I can't believe it. I took the boys and her to the park yesterday and was hoping to get some good shots of them playing but the batteries in my camera were dead. Rats! Next time I'll take it with good batteries and post those pictures. Outdoor park pictures are so fun to see!

Here are few pictures from yesterday, it was warm enough for her to have shorts on

in the house with a few windows open. You can see her pretty new shoes too. She loves them!

Whenever she sees an open door she likes to close it. She LOVES to be outside and asks to go outside often during the day. We spend quite a bit of time out doors already, I'm thinking that crockpot cooking is going to be the way to go this summer between playing outdoors and the boys' sports.

Jeremy and Ryan are both in baseball, then football in the fall, then Jeremy is going to be in basketball over the winter. It's a lot of running around but I love to cheer them on and watch them play. I'm really proud of my boys. :) And my girl. :) I'm really blessed to be able to be at home with them. The time with them goes so fast, Jeremy will be graduating in a few short years.

So, anyway, just a few random thoughts to go with my random pictures. Enjoy!