Hoppy Easter!

We had a great Easter Sunday. The Easter Bunny brought Emmett a remote control robot in an "egg collecting" basket that he can use to gather our real eggs from the hen house. Harrison received the coolest green Bakugan guy ever, delivered in a new bike helmet. We spent the morning with various egg hunts and a couple of outdoor yard projects, then headed to Grandma and Papa's house for a nice Easter dinner. The weather was gorgeous, nothing like Tucson in the Spring!

Here's a great picture of the cousins during an Easter egg hunt in Grandma and Papa's backyard. Great job getting them all to look at the camera, Kirsten :)

Thanks Craigslist...

We got the best, new (to us) playground set from Craigslist in November. The set would cost $3000 to $4000 new, but Kirsten found it for $200, what a deal! Huge thanks to Julie and Doug for helping us dismantle, transport, and rebuild the set in our backyard. That endeavor ended up taking hours longer than we all anticipated, but we got it done.

While Grandma and Papa were here visiting, and I had time off work, we decided to work on refurbishing the set a bit. We restained the wood, replaced the chains on the swings, laid some sod in the backyard, and built a mulch playground area under the swings. The mulch is even made of recycled tires, very eco-friendly and low maintenance. Now the playground is like our own little park. Great job everybody!

Four Mile Cove

We took Grandma and Papa on a walking tour of a preserve in Cape Coral called Four Mile Cove. It was pretty warm despite the fact that we went in the morning in December. But we had a great time and learned about mangroves and wetland species in the area. If you look closely at the second picture, you will see a water bird drying his wings in the sun so he can fly away after his breakfast. So awesome.

Picking tomatoes with Grandma and Papa

While Grandma and Papa were here for their Christmas visit, they took the boys to a local farm that lets you pick your own strawberries and tomatoes. Kirsten and I went for pedicures and a wonderful Korean dinner out :)

This picture is of my favorite boys, all in a row!

At the park with Papa

Grandma and Papa came to stay with us for Christmas 2007. This is a great example of how much fun we had one morning at a Pine Island park.

Baking Gingerbread Cookies!

Emmett received some great chef supplies for his Christmas gifts, including a gingerbread cookie kit. Grandma and Papa were happy to assist Chef Emmett with his gingerbread cookies. Looks like they had a great time! The cookies were pretty good too :)

Merry Christmas!

The boys awoke at 5:50am Christmas morning to a pile of gifts beneath the tree and stockings stuffedd full. Harrison spent most of his time dumping his stocking, refilling it, and dumping it again. The boys received trucks, cars, pencils, special drinking cups, and various cooking utensils, including a lettuce knife and cutting board shown below. Emmett made us fruit salad and egg salad (with his new egg slicer) for breakfast. It was an enjoyable, although very early, morning.

Kirsten made a delicious standing prime rib for dinner. I made Mascarpone AuGratin potatoes from scratch (new recipe, was yummy!). Dinner was eventful, thank goodness I'd had a glass of wine. Harrison wasn't overly interested in eating so he was content playing with the salt shaker. Somehow no one realized the salt shaker was glass, until he dropped it and it shattered all over the floor. Being that we live in Florida and it was about 85 degrees outside, everyone was barefoot. So, while Papa and Emmett went right on consuming large amounts of prime rib, Grandma braved the glass shards and grabbed Harrison. She handed Harrison to me while Kirsten went for the shopvac. When I sat Harrison on my lap, copius amounts of babypoop squirted out of his diaper and all over my lap and him, so Grandma went to get me shoes. I went to wash myself in the shower and change clothes, Grandma cleaned up Harrison, Kirsten shopvac'd the dining room. Of course, when all this was through, Papa and Emmett were still eating :) Thankfully, they had saved a little for us all to finish our meal!