Easter Traditions

Every year, the Fish Fam gets together to color Easter eggs. This year was no exception! Papa & Grandma had the whole clan over (and believe me, it was packed!). The operation took place in the garage, with lots of newspaper covered tables. Each of the kiddos got to color TWO dozen eggs, so that was a lot of eggs for Papa to hard boil before everyone came!

Cole had such fun (his mom forgot an old shirt, so Papa supplied one for him)!

Katelyn opted to use her hands instead of the egg-holder contraption. It worked better for her, but the dye didn't come out for a couple days!

Afterward, all the cousins had fun playing dress-up and messing up Grandma and Papa's house!

Here they are having an impromptu "tea party" using the play dishes and Papa's water cooler. Yep, that got nipped in the bud pretty fast! :)

On Easter Saturday (that's when the Easter bunny visits our house - so we don't take away from Easter Sunday, the true celebration), the kids awoke to their Easter baskets in their rooms and lots of eggs to find throughout the house! They had so much fun finding them in all the places they were hidden! They also got some play chicks that chirp when you put them in your hand. Super neat!

Katelyn's favorite thing was the chocolate in her Easter basket and inside all the plastic eggs. I think she pounded every single one of hers before lunchtime! No, she didn't get sick - thank goodness! :)

Cole liked pretending he was the Easter bunny and hopped around all day!

On Easter Sunday, we celebrated the Resurrection of our Lord and Savior - we went to church and worshipped and spent time together as a family. Hope you all had a wonderful Easter too! :)

On another note, Tax season is over! Hurray!! It's been so nice to have Ryan back home more often! We're glad you're back, Ryan! We missed having you around more than you know. :)

Rock Band!

The kids' new favorite game is Rock Band! They even have their own log in so the points for Ryan don't get messed up. Here are some pics of the kids playing the coolest game ever!

Once in awhile, they will let Ryan play.....

Krispy Kreme FiElD tRiP

Just a couple quick pics of Cole's preschool field trip to Krispy Kreme...

The kids got a tour and were able to go in the back with the machine, touch some dough, and everything! They had a ton of fun! And afterwards, they got to have some yummy donuts!

My 29th B-day

I had an awesome birthday, thanks mostly to Ryan! He told me to take the day off from childcare because he had something special planned. So he arranged for a sitter for Katelyn & Cole (thanks Shorty!) while he sent me to Arizona Hair Co. where he had set up an appointment for me to get my hair cut and highlighted. I didn't do anything drastic like Ryan wanted (he wanted me to dye it black or bleach it platinum blonde or something), but it felt nice to have all the split ends trimmed off and the way-overgrown roots to be touched up!

Next, he had set up an appointment for me to get a pedicure! Now, if you have never had a pedicure, you need to do it soon! Especially if you live in AZ and wear flip flops all the time like me. It is literally pure heaven! Thanks Ryan for all you did to make my b-day so amazing! You spoil me and I love you so much!

Later that night some family came over for cake and ice cream. The kids loved helping me open my presents and blow out the candles on the cake.

I got a lot of messages from friends and family on Facebook and my twin sister, Glenda, did a really sweet post on her blog too. It was such a great birthday! I still can't believe I'm 29, though. I still feel like I'm 20 for some reason. :)

Okay, now what mischief has little Katelyn been up to? Let's see...

Katelyn is very mischievous! Here are a few "pickles" I've found her in lately...

She is in a toddler bed now and she snuck out of bed during naptime without my knowledge and went into my bedroom. A little while later, I had a feeling to check on her, so I found her in a playpen I have in my bedroom for my childcare kids. Apparently, she had gotten into Ryan's bedside table drawer where he keeps his cough drops. There were probably about ten cough drops that she had opened and then spit out because they didn't taste good. (They were the Halls regular menthol ones.) Maybe she thought if she kept trying, one of them would taste good? Then, when she gave up that, she got a pen out of Ryan's drawer and drew all over her arms and legs. That is how I found her. It was so funny I couldn't really get mad at her. I wish I had thought to get a pic of the playpen with the cough drops all stuck to the blanket, but I just cleaned it up before I thought about it. Here's her "artwork" all over her body (she's so proud!):

One morning, Katelyn woke up super early and came in our bed. Ryan and I were definitely not ready to get up for the day, so we told her to go play. A little while later, I found her in the bathroom like this:

She had found the BandAids and put them all over her leg and fingers, too! It was so funny!


Katelyn does not like to wear clothes! Especially if they get wet or dirty. She is always taking them off (she even tried to take them off at church one week). So this is a typical picture of Katelyn:

Another example here - she took off her pants because she spilled water on them.

So those are just a couple funny stories about Katelyn's mischievous deeds lately. I'm sure there will be more to come soon! :)

What has Katelyn been up to lately?

Katelyn has been a busy little girl lately! Here she is
helping me with the laundry....

Coloring (she does this while Cole does his homework - that way she doesn't feel left out)...

Going potty - she would probably be completely potty trained if I would commit to it. It's hard to do with all the other kids running around. I know, she likes to sit backwards on the potty! Funny, huh? It makes her feel like she's not going to fall in, I guess.

Playing with Bella in the backyard. She loves to throw the ball for Bella. She also loves to pick the tall strands of grass and bring them to me to put in water so they can have a drink.

Cole's friend's b-day party

Cole's friend Alex had his birthday party at a gymnastics school. The place was awesome, with floor trampolines, big pits with foam blocks in them, lots of places to run, etc. The parents were not allowed on the floor where the kids were playing (probably to avoid distractions), but we could view them in a viewing room. I was a little worried that Cole would be too shy to go out and play with mostly strangers (Alex lives quite far away from us, so we don't see his fam too often), but he sure proved me wrong! He had the best time!

The highlight for all the kids was the parachute. I can totally remember doing the parachute in P.E. in elementary school. Here they are doing waves for the kids while they're running on top of the parachute.

And here they are hiding under the parachute, making a mushroom! How fun!

Unfortunately, Cole got carsick on the way home, so that part was not fun. Thanks to Alex's mom, we had some clothes in our car that we were able to change Cole into. We had forgotten his sunglasses, so I let him borrow mine. He finally fell asleep when we were almost home. I couldn't resist taking this pic of him in the car.

The Zoo w/Cole's preschool

Also in February, Cole's preschool took a field trip to the Phoenix Zoo. I took the day off from watching kids (other than my own, of course) and got to go along! The kids had so much fun!

Posing for a quick pic on a turtle statue.

The carousel was probably their favorite thing!

Looking at the tiger!

The giraffes

The zebras

Okay, I'm to March now. Look for more updates coming soon!

SnOw tRiP

At the end of February, the kids and I had the chance to go up to Flagstaff with Papa & Lainey Fish to play in the snow for a few days. Ryan had to stay and work, but we called him everyday and took lots of pictures. My sis-in-law Shorty and her girls joined in the fun too. We had such a fun time making snowmen, sledding, eating snow, and just hanging out with you guys! Thanks for having us! You're the best!

Okay, how cute is Katelyn's snow bib here. It makes her look so chubby!
Really she's not at all! :)

Ken & Mo visit AZ

In February, Ken and Mo came to visit AZ. We had a fun time hanging out with
them and their kiddos!
Miss you guys!

This last pic is just a random one of the kids and Ryan taken around that time. Ryan set up the hammock in the living room and the kids had a blast playing on it!

Jan. Snow Trip

We decided to take a day and go to the snow in January. We had to go all the way to Strawberry before there was any real snow, but the kids and Bella had "snow" much fun! Ryan was cursing the Durango when we got stuck in some ice. He was a champ and got us out of there with a crowbar to chip away the ice and a chain dog leash we found for traction. "I miss black truck!" he kept saying, over and over. I miss it too! We never got stuck anywhere with that thing.

Bella is getting so big! She'll be a year old at the end of April.

The kids loved to eat the snow. Ryan told them "Make sure you don't eat yellow
snow, just white snow!" :)

My little snow angels!

Brrr! It's cold, Mom!

More eating snow

Cole is so happy to be in the snow!

I love this pic of Katelyn showing me her snowball. :)

Sledding down the hill!

Right by where we parked there was this huge pile of snow (probably from the snowplow) and someone had made a little snow cave. Cole just had to try it out!

Katelyn crashed out on the way home with her June doll (from Little Einsteins).

All in all, a very fun trip!