joy

this girl

so.much.goodness.

Who needs pants when the sun is out?!

Ed came home with one of these....

Jack was thrilled.

Henry was extremely disappointed to find out it was dead.  He's been dreaming of a pet turkey ever since.

Ava Blythe

This beauty has been begging to chop her hair for years.

I surprised her with a trip to Spokane one day and when we passed this place, I thought one more surprise wouldn't kill me:

Frankly, she's cute no matter what!

it's a tough job...

Ed waited for the coldest, rainiest week in April and then headed to Louisiana.

For work.

And for this beauty.

Jemma Jane

We took a little walk downtown the other day and on the way back we had the bright idea to take the training wheels off Jemma's bike and give her a little lesson.  The other kids and I settled on the bench for what we thought would be a long bit of crashing and "pedal, pedal, pedal!"  Instead, before I even looked up, Jemma was off and riding!  Ed looked at me and I jumped up to get the camera as she rode circles around the basketball court.

The girl constantly amazes me.

She never crashed so we threw the training wheels in her basket and headed on home!

Happy Easter!

 My peeps.

 Playing kickball with the cousins.

 So stinkin' cute.

11.

(I always forget to get a shot of the bunny cake before he is eaten!)

runnin'

I kicked off April with a half marathon down south and we took the girls along for a little road trip.

Watching some rafters on the way.

We were super happy to visit the DeWinkles and meet baby Brynn! 

I had been looking forward to a spring marathon and my only worry was that it would be too hot (since I hadn't even hit the 50s for a long run yet!), instead it was cold.  And windy.  20 mile per hour steady wind, with some gusts added in.

So cold that everyone hid out in their car till about 3 minutes before the start.

 But with a fan club like this, it's not so bad:

And I ended up with 4th in my age group and 14th female overall.  Clearly I had the cold weather advantage!

We celebrated at Red Robin with the Gierharts and then hit the road for home.

 Nothing like running 13 miles and then driving for 6 hours!

We stopped here to take a picture of this sign for Jack, our resident Idaho history expert.

Jemma says

"you picked a good daddy for me!"

Amen sister.

loving these years...

Spring Break (pacific northwest style!)

Years ago when I had just two sweet babies, we would travel 8 (9?10?) long hours to stay at a beach house on the Washington coast.  And then we got busy and we forgot how much we love it and how worth it is to drive and ferry and drive again.  So this year we did it again.  We loaded up eight kids, two moms, a grandma, and a great aunt and trekked our way back to the coast.

Henry, enjoying a little McDs and seat back dvds (times have changed, my friends):

 The ferry!

One of our favorite parts, rain or shine.

 Although this time it was rain.

First thing to do??

 Hit the beach!

 Super thrilled to be old enough to hand wash dishes!

Climbing through the tunnel to get to the tide pools:

The boys, enthralled by the Waltons:

 Painting rocks, a tradition!

 Snuggling at the beach for ice cream.

We produce a lot of garbage!