Easter

The festivities began the day before with dying eggs.




















Done!


Later on, we had our Easter egg hunt.












Do you see the orange one hiding in the tree?




They each found about thirty-something eggs.








Bella found the golden egg and was the winner of the golden bunny and $5!


Inside each egg was a piece of candy and slips of paper for either a prize or a cent/dollar amount. Each of the kids did pretty well on that egg hunt!

The next morning was Easter morning! It was an early rise for all of us since we attended the sunrise service at church.

Every year the church is decorated a little differently and it always looks beautiful.




Isn't she lovely!


And handsome!


And looking so grown up!


I'm one blessed mama that these are my kiddos!








Graydon being Graydon. :)




The kids always want to do one of these!


After church, we came home, changed, and then hunted for Easter baskets. Graydon found his first! It was hiding under his bean bag chair.


Curtis was next. His was hiding behind some pillows in the living room.


Bella was way last! She wanted a challenge this year and we gave it to her. Her basket was hiding beneath her dirty clothes in her clothes hamper in the laundry room.


We enjoyed a beautiful Easter weekend. :)

Random Everyday Life

Graydon got these glasses at a thrift store in Verona. He loves them.

Playing at Chick-fil-A.


Kids exercising in the basement with Mama! It was upper body day.


We get to babysit this cutie at least once a week. The kids love him!




Bella and I did some yoga together. (Ignore her hair. We were practicing for Crazy Hair day).


She is very flexible.


Bella and Andy went to the Toby Mac concert with a group from church.




They got to meet the drummer.


She's a big Toby Mac fan and knows all of the words to most of his songs!


Crazy hair day at school! The high hair was Bella's idea, so I went with it. When I got to school, the kids all said that I had Troll hair. I hadn't even thought of that, but I went with it.


The next day was Nerd Day.


Just when I thought we could probably give away our plastic food. . .


The kids.


I was looking through Curtis's reading test and questioned him on his answer to this question: I wondered why he would just write "how." His response, "my teacher said 'write how,' so that's what I did." He even erased an answer that would have probably been correct! We had a good laugh about his literal interpretation of his teacher's explanation.


He has been in a big Batman phase lately. He made himself a Batman mask with scrap paper at school.


He writes, "Batman Curtis" on his papers and he wrote about Batman for a recent assignment.


He'd been asking for a Batman suit for a while and we finally got one!


Playing Batman with Dad is one of his favorite things to do.


We made March Madness brackets with the extended Kilps family. Andy and Bella came in first and second place with their brackets and each of them won some $$!


The kids love taking pics of themselves on my phone. I have about 60 of this exact photo of Curtis.


Graydon


Bella




Bella recently accomplished her round-off back handspring! She's been working so hard - we're really proud of her!

Mabel

As I was looking through my recent photos, I saw that there was a bunch of Mabel, so I thought I would give her her own post.

She brought this big branch in from outside. She loves to gnaw on it. The bark is completely off of it now and it's just solid wood that's left. It has made quite a mess on the kitchen floor, but this branch is as hard as a bone.


She likes to keep me company when I'm doing my school work.


She's a fan of the kids' bath times (but not of her own).


We turned around and found that she had put herself in a box!


First walk of the season.


She likes to hang out with us at bedtime.


She's a happy girl.


And very sweet.


She's just not always the most cooperative when I'm trying to take her picture!


And she is going to be ONE next month!

Andy turns 37!!!

We spread out Andy's birthday celebration this year over a few days.


Bella made him this sign.




On the actual evening of his birthday, a big group from our church went to Indianapolis for Faith & Family Night at the Pacers game.


These hats were included in the ticket price.






After the game, one of the players shared a little bit about his life.


And we all got to make free throws. Both Andy and Graydon made their baskets!




The following evening, we went out for pizza. It was kind of a dreary day. Bella's sweatshirt is quite a contrast to the sky - I did nothing to this photo.


After dinner, we came home for ice cream cake! This was my first time making one.






Happy 37th Birthday, Andy! We all love you!!!