Oh Yeah...Soccer!

Life has been so hectic lately, I forgot to post soccer pictures! These pictures are from the last two games. This is Rece's third season and he is having so much fun! We love soccer season!

Love the hair. I can't believe I didn't notice how bad it looked. Must have been in a hurry.

Run Rece! Run!

His turn to sit out a quarter. All of his games are at 9:00 on Saturday mornings, and it has still been very cold. We have had to take warm coats, hats, and blankets to stay warm. We are looking forward to warmer weather, so we can cheer without our teeth chattering!

Farewell to Steve

Four years ago my brother came home for a visit. He asked me if it would be alright if he bought Rece a fish. I responded, "no problem". I didn't realize it would mean four years of cleaning a little fish aquarium. A job I rank right up there with cleaning toilets. After about three years, I decided this was no ordinary fish. This fish was unnaturally durable. He had been dropped on the floor, underfed, overfed, his water had reached alarmingly low levels, and the list goes on...and so did Steve. Until today.

We had to have a proper burial. Flushing him just wasn't an option.

Rece dug the hole.

At this point we said a few words. Here is a sampling:
Rece: "Goodbye Steve. You were a good, strong fish. I will miss you. I love you".
Zachary: "Goodbye Steve. You died."
There were a few tears.

After our goodbyes.

Easter Weekend

We had a very busy Easter weekend. We spent Saturday with Ryan's family and Sunday with my family. The kids went on three Easter egg hunts so we have way too much candy at our house!

I'm not sure why Zach looks so worried in this picture. Just smile buddy!

Rece is by far the easiest to take a picture of. He always has this great smile ready! He is such a good big brother. He was very concerned that Meg and Zach would need help finding eggs, so he was right there to help them.

Almost every picture I took of Zach was blurred. He wouldn't stop long enough to pose for the camera. He's excited about the candy though.

This was Megyn's first Easter that she got to hunt eggs. She would get so excited when she saw one. She carried her little Easter basket around on her arm all weekend.

I'm mean. I made all the kids pose for a picture before they could hunt eggs. Here's a picture with all the cousins. Ethan and Myles are in the back. One of them is holding Evelyn (sorry I can't tell which one - I'm gonna guess Ethan?). In the middle is Brittney, and on the bottom row is Rece, Megyn, Lauren, and Zach. I just noticed all the girls are wearing pink. You would think we had planned that.

Here we are with my family. Actually I'm not there, but someone's gotta take the picture. My grandma came over and had dinner with us. The weather was so nice we stayed outside for quite awhile. We didn't have a traditional Easter dinner. My dad barbecued instead and it was excellent!

Our happy little family. Please pardon the little one picking his nose.

Here is our annual Easter Sunday "before" church picture. The before was definitely better than the after on this day. I might have to start doing an "after" picture. That might be kind of funny to see. Ryan had no meetings before church so he was there to help get the kids ready. It was so great! I especially love going to church on Easter Sunday. Even sitting alone with three wild kids couldn't dampen the spirit that I felt there. It was wonderful.

You Did What!!??

I did the unthinkable (at least in Megyn's mind) last Thursday. Are you ready? I got rid of Meg's pacifier! It was so much easier than I expected it to be. Neither one of our boys ever really took a pacifier, but Meg was seriously hooked on hers. I tried only giving it to her at naptimes and bedtimes, so as soon as she got up in the morning I would put it up on her shelf. Apparently, she had a stash of all the "missing" paci's somewhere in the house because she would come walking out with one hanging out of her mouth. It was driving Ryan crazy (okay, me too!). So the other night I made the quick decision to cut off the very tip of it (I had been told that this was supposed to work really well) and I handed it to Megyn. She stuck it right in her mouth and then took it right back out. She looked so confused that it made me laugh. Anyway, I put her to bed right after that and gave her the paci but she had decided that it must be broken and just gave it a toss. She cried for only about ten minutes and then went to sleep! I couldn't believe it. But that is how it has been for the last week, and now she doesn't even act like she misses it at all. The paci made life so much more pleasant when she was tiny, but I love that she is done with it !