Greats and Grands

Jessica took Storm and Snow over to my folks house this past weekend for some playtime. She showed me a couple of photos that she snapped and I just had to share them.

There's a special bond between Greatgrandparents and their Greatgrandkids!

Papa and Storm having fun on the floor

What a sweet photo!

Papa and Gigi and Storm

Family Easter Celebration

As usual, we held our family Easter celebration the Saturday before Palm Sunday. We usually have it in the morning (I don't want the candy in the Easter Egg Hunt to melt) but this year we had it in the afternoon. Thankfully the weather wasn't too warm, in the mid 80s - just perfect!

All of the kids but Snow participated in the Easter Egg Hunt. She'll be right in there with them next year I'm sure! They did all get an Easter Basket.

The three older kids have been asking for umbrellas so I bought them this year. I was just going to stick them in their baskets, but Katie sent me a photo using the umbrellas as the baskets. It was so cute I tried it and it turned out great! They were so thrilled to get their own umbrellas and can't wait for it to rain. I haven't had the heart to tell them that they'll probably have to wait until July.

Since we were celebrating in the afternoon we served dessert and appetizers. It was so much easier than providing a full meal. Maybe we'll stick with afternoons from now on...

Skye and Sunny

Showing off their haul

Storm really got into cracking the eggs open

They love the umbrellas

Dan being a good sport while Zach decorates him

Snow's first Easter Basket - I don't think she's impressed

Gigi and Papa with all of their great-grands

Ahh, Grandkids, is there anything better?!

Here are some recent photos of cousin fun at my house:

Storm and Thunder cuddling

Thunder "sharing" his cars with Storm

Gigi getting some smiles from Storm while Sunny supervises

Papa and Thunder

Papa steals a kiss

Sunny and Storm

They just love to hold Storm

Awww

Yesterday we made binoculars so they could "investigate"

Gramps, Thunder, Sunny

Three

Today is Thunder's third birthday. His party was this past Saturday. Thunder is totally enthralled with trash trucks. On Wednesdays when our trash is picked up, we run out when the trash truck picks up our recycle can, we run out when it picks up the recycles across the street, we run out when it picks up our garbage, we run out when it picks up the garbage across the street. The drivers are great guys and they always wave back at us. More often than not they also toot the loud trash truck horn. He turns every truck at my house into a trash truck.

He's also completely into horses and anything horse related. When I have an empty gift wrap tube, he turns it into a horse and gallops around the house on it. When we go to the library, he always wants to check out a book on horses.

He loves puzzles, books, playing outside, cars, trucks, and "Sheriff Callie's Wild West" on Disney. He's a sweet, thoughtful, loving little boy. I love him so!

A cowboy hat!

Turbo DVD

Tool box

Cowboy boots!

Sunny, Thunder, Storm, Skye

Showing Uncle Mark how the trash truck works

Aunt Kelly and Storm

Uncle Mark giving Skye some golf pointers

Gigi and Papa

Family Photos

Since all of my kids were home for Christmas, we took advantage of the opportunity to have professional family photos made. The results were fantastic as always. If you live in the Phoenix area and are looking for a great family/kid photographer I highly recommend Joanna Polling Photography. You can find her site here. She has a good eye and is easy to work with. Her end results are always terrific. If you do contact her, please tell her I recommended her. Now on to the photos...

me and Dan

Skye

Sunny

Thunder

All of us plus my folks

Gigi and Papa with the great grandkids

Gramps and Grammy with the Grands

Gabe, Katie, Sunny, Thunder

Awww...

My folks with their grandkids (and one great who snuck in there!)

Dan and I with our little family

Adam and Jessica

JD and Janel

Ashley, Skye, Zach

Carl and JoAnne

aka Dad and Mom

aka Papa and Grandma

aka Papa and Gigi

Zach (the youngest)

JD (the second born)

Katie (the third born)

Jessica (the oldest)

Family Christmas

In the midst of the chaos of our move, needing to paint every square inch of wall in our new home, no baseboards, showers that don't work properly, and an overgrown backyard, we had family Christmas.

For the first time since 2009, all of my kids were here. It was wonderful. Nothing could have taken away from the joy of being all together. Of course, when I look at the photos, I can see the work that needs to be done glaring at me, but it recedes as I see my family gathered together.

Here's a snapshot of our Family Christmas 2013:

Zach, Jessica, Adam

Gabe, Katie, JoAnne (Gigi), Janel

Thunder, Sunny

Ashley, Skye

Janel, JD

Dan 

Me, Thunder

The cousins

Skye, Ashley, Zach

Carl (Papa)