easter.

Kosty now refuses to take any pictures! sad.

woke up to these faces standing over my bed Easter morning after they found their baskets. 

cousins at Nana and Pappy's. 

playing a rather dangerous game that ended in tears with Uncle Zach.

Easter was not the typical. Jer woke up with a migraine, and so it was just me and the kids. No cute family photo or even any pics of anyone dressed in Sunday best. Actually on Easter Sunday, it was so hectic that I didn't even get any pics of the boys dressed up until two weeks after. Nice. And you can see how awesome those turned out. I had to include the progression so you see how they were at odds from the start because Kosty refused to smile or look at the camera. Then Brayden, noticing my dismay, and being the pleaser he is, tried to force him so that I could get one shot. All downhill from there. I realized I had to let go of my priority of a decent Easter picture for my blurb book. It just wasn't happening. Other than that, it was a good Easter. As always, we enjoyed the Easter pageant, dying eggs, and time with all three family houses we visit after church. Oh, I forgot one other flop ;) .... our neighborhood always does an Easter egg hunt in the park by our house. This year, thanks to Pinterest (:/) she switched it to a glow in the dark hunt. So yep after spending an hour or more trying to jam glow sticks into tiny plastic eggs plus the candy, they kept popping open, we took our eggs to the park and everyone decided to go ahead even though it WASN'T EVEN CLOSE TO DARK. It was full daylight people. With hundreds of "glowing" eggs. And all that time spent jabbing those sticks in there for absolutely nothing! It was actually pretty funny when all the kids started bringing back eggs that had glowsticks crack inside. They had to throw them all away and the candy too. Good times. Just in case anyone out there saw it on Pinterest too, you've been warned. 

Brayden was the only one who would cooperate during conference for a couple of pictures. It makes me so happy that these boys get EXCITED for conference. Like, really excited. They love the breakfast, the reverence tent, and of course not going to church, and playing candy bingo. 

We were discussing babies, and Brayden was trying to understand how Daddy has a part in it. 


He said, "Sooooo....Daddy downloads his DNA by kissing you?" 

Brayden has always wanted a perfect attendance award. He finally got his wish. He also got the Top Runner award, which he had no idea he would get. He ran the most miles during the running club season out of the whole 3rd grade. 42.25 miles. Pretty cool. 

warm dinner.

Kosty never ceases to be strange. But we love him anyway. He brings this blowdryer everywhere lately. Even to dinner so he can be "warm". 

spring breakers.

what the peace sign. this kid kills me.

park hopping.

We put in as many kids as we could fit into the tornado simulator

cosmic bounce with friends & cousins.

picnic in the park.

one sure way to his heart.

riding down the freestone hills.

Freestone train.

Costco lunches.

Kosty finally struck the ticket jackpot! He's never gotten even close to this many.

peter piper with the Mcconkies.

yogurt jungle.

cousins at the park.

Poor aunt stef--she tries. She's just way too affectionate for his type.

Yep. Just now blogging spring break. Holy slacker. I actually am way out of order now, but realized I never included these, so oh well. Spring break highlights: Cosmic bounce at Bounce U, Freestone, picnics, parks, visit from Aunt stef, cousin time, tornado simulator, lunches out, mall, yogurt jungle, peter piper, friends over, etc. Towards the end, we started to get a little bored, and so I had a random idea and told the boys to load up in the car. I told them it was something we've never done, something outside, something close, etc. Gave them a bunch of clues and they were super excited that it was a surprise mostly....I drove them around to 10 different parks all within a 3 mile radius. Park hopping. At each park, I said ready set go, and gave them 3 minutes to play. They thought it was the coolest thing EVER! I thought so too because it was close, it was simple, it was free, and I got to relax in the car and watch their happy faces. I love when the most simple things turn out to be the most memorable. Doesn't happen often enough, but always so glad when it does.

father and sons

Jer took the boys to Father n Sons and was happy about the less than hour drive to Superior! There were no pine trees, they were rained and snowed on, and everyone skipped out of there before the sun came up because of the weather, so there was no breakfast. You would think it would have been the worst trip ever, but of course they all had a good time despite everything working against it. Uncle Zach came along, and they spent the rest of the day shooting guns. They were gone for exactly 24 hours, and I managed lunch with my family, a pedicure, shopping, a drs appt, and got my house clean. I kind of like having all boys.