Beauty Queens

I was nursing Lennon this afternoon and noticed it was particularly quiet. Too quiet. I quickly found the girls content as can be in my bathroom, looking like this.........

Lovely, aren't they?

Beauty queen Leecy T

Beauty queen Lainey bug

Personally I think they are a lot cuter with out all of the "pretty" makeup on, but as mad as I tried to be about it, I have to admit I was having a hard time not smiling!

How do you eat an Oreo?

Val made an amazing chocolate cheesecake from scratch on Sunday and used crushed Oreo cookies as the crust. He had a few left over and gave one to Lainey and I swear I have never before seen anyone eat an Oreo the way she did! She pulled the cookie apart, and while most people usually lick the cream out of the center, she instead pulled the cream off of the cookie in one piece. I still have no idea how she did this. Then she ate it and finished off with her chocolate cookies. I have to admit to being a dipper. I love Oreo's dipped in milk, but I just might have to try this one day to see if I am as talented as my 2 year old! :) So my question for you is, how do you eat your Oreo's?

Finances

Aleece has gotten so good at saying her prayers! She has learned to pray for specific things so her prayers are never exactly the same. She is really growing up! But sometimes things she says still catch us off guard. She was saying our bedtime family prayer the other night and was blessing family members when she said, "please bless our finances, our fine uncles and our fine cousins." I had no idea what she meant, but really had to try to keep from laughing when I finally figured it out.....please bless our "fine auntses, our fine uncles and our fine cousins". She can be so funny sometimes!

FHE

Monday's tend to be a little crazy for us these days, since Val began a new master's class that takes him straight from work to school. So, although we would love to still have our Family Home Evenings on Monday's, for the next couple of weeks we either be doing it on Sunday or Tuesday evenings, depending on what is going on. Well, Val got home from class on Monday night and it was the kid's bed time, but Aleece insisted that we needed to have Family Home Evening, and that she had the lesson prepared. How can you turn that kind of offer down? So we let her teach us and I was astonished! She began with the Articles of Faith and quoted from memory, 10 of the 13! I was sure on the last line of the tenth article of faith that she would be stumped by the word "paradisiacal" but she said it perfectly! We only had to give her a few prompts to help her remember and I seriously couldn't believe how well she did! Then she talked to us about the importance of returning to our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. She showed us a coin and said, "this is not what is important", then she showed us a picture of our Savior, "this is what is the most important thing, returning to Heavenly Father and Jesus." She told us the story of our Savior's ultimate sacrifice, the atonement, and even had pictures to go along with it. The primary program in our church is amazing! We are so proud that she is learning gospel principles and that she has such unwavering faith! She is growing up so fast and I love watching her grow and evolve into a beautiful little girl! We love her so much!

More Easter pictures

The weather turned bad before we could get a group shot of the kiddos, so we had to settle for the couch inside! Not as pretty as the flowers (but a zillion times better than the old couch!!!!) They were super silly, as usual, but we got some cute pictures of them amidst the silliness! I love that they are all the best of friends and can make each other laugh no matter what! They are the sweetest kids and we love them SO much! How can you resist those sweet faces?!?!?!

Easter baskets

The Easter bunny came while we were at church last Sunday and spoiled the kids rotten! They all got some really fun gifts and they were definitely sugared out by the end of the day!

Mr. Lennon got some fun new toys, which he took to immediately, a soft new blankie and some awesome new babylegs that have skulls on them!

Little Lainey bug got some fun learning toys, a babydoll stroller, a Goofy toy, and lots of candy! Notice how she dug right in! (They are their father's children, what can I say! :) )

Sweet Leecy T to some cute new clothes (she loves dresses!), a princes dancing mat and wand, a new necklace and, of course....candy!

Daddy got some new clothes, Quantum of Solace and candy and mommy got a food processer (yeah! this makes kitchen prep SO much easier!) and a new pasta pot! (Can you tell I love my kitchen and spending time in it? ;) )

Thanks Easter bunny for spoiling us!

Easter Sunday 2009

We had a wonderful Easter Sunday today! We were able to listen to the ward choir perform their Easter cantata in church and we were so proud of Val! He puts so much work into that choir and we love every opportunity we have to listen to him play the piano and sing!
We are so grateful for the opportunity we have to celebrate the sacrifice our Savior made for us, so that we can be together forever. We are so grateful for the Atonement and all that it offers us. The gospel is such a blessing in our lives, and we are so grateful to have the knowledge that we can live again! We know that our Savior lives and that he loves all of us!
We were able to take some cute pictures of our cute kids before the weather turned ugly! One of neighbors has the most beautiful tree and we couldn't resist taking the kids picture in front of it!




Handsome Mr. Lennon



Cute little Lainey bug



Sweet Leecy T

Mommy and Lennon

Happy Easter!

The dyeing of Easter eggs...

We dyed Easter eggs on Saturday afternoon and what an adventure that was. One wobbly table, three crazy kids, 12 different colors and 24 eggs! Amazingly there was no spilling, no stained clothes and no tears! A success!

Waiting patiently for Daddy to bring out the dye!

Sweet Leecy T

Cute little Lainey bug

Mr. Lennon

Val helping the kids.

Me, documenting the day's events (though I did dye 3 eggs! One for each of my cute kids!)

Hard at work!

Look at that concentration!

Our beautiful eggs!!!

Mr. Lennon loving the plastic eggs!

Cheese!

Easter egg hunts

On Saturday we had two fun Easter egg hunts! The first was at our church Easter activity and there was a ton of kids! It was fun to watch all of the kids running around like crazy trying the find their different colored eggs. The kids each collected six eggs in different colors. The eggs were empty, but when they took them to the six different rooms in the church they could exchange them for a cup of candy (talk about sugar overload!) and learn about the events that lead up to our Savior's sacrifice. It was such a fun activity and so different from any other Easter activities we have participated in. I absolutely loved the pure expressions of joy on the kid's faces, during both the hunt and as they listened to the stories!

let the hunt begin!

she looks so little next to her basket (which really isn't that big!)

so sweet!

determining which colors she still needed...

our cute kids with their daddy

pure joy!
Later on in the day we got together with some friends at the park by our home and had our own Easter egg hunt. It was such a beautiful day and the kids were so excited (even though they had probably all eaten a good month's worth of sugar earlier in the day!)

They're off!

Daddy helping little Lainey bug!

Rockin' the bunny ears!

Found one!

More eggs! More candy!!!

Fun with friends!
(Boo, Macey, Skye, Delanie, Emma, Corbin, Porter, Leecy, Lainey and Lennon)

Leecy T and Mr. Lennon at the end of the festivities!

We had so much fun and this was just the beginning of our Easter adventures!

Multiple posts

We had so many fun Easter activities this year, thus leading to many, many pictures! So there will be multiple posts to document all of the fun we had! Enjoy!

Standing a little taller

(just after bath time!)

This is pretty much a daily occurance in our home now! Lennon has been pulling himself up in his crib and Lainey has been trying to climb in to join him! Mr. Lennon is getting so big and once he gets standing, he is usually jumping! We had to lower the crib another level this week! Below are a couple of video's of Mr. Lennon that I took a couple of weeks ago. Being in the hospital set my blogging back a bit---he is moving around even better now! Enjoy!

(watch and he will wave hi!)

(going after a toy)

(going after Sully's toy)

(still going after Sully's toy)

Talking

Lainey bug has been talking like crazy lately! She is so darn cute, even with that mischevious twinkle that she always has in her eye! Just today she responded to my call that it was lunch time with "Okay! Just a second, I'll be right there Mommy!" :) She is very friendly and is always introducing herself to people ("I'm Lainey!") and she literally never stops moving! She picks up on so much and I can't help but laugh when I hear her say "Oh my goodness" or even "what the heck?" We pulled up to Walmart the other day to run in for a few things and she looked at Val and said, "Oh no, we're not going to Walmart!" It really is hard to keep a straight face with her sometimes! She befriended the nurses while we were in the hospital and I haven't met anyone who can resist her charm! When she gives you that big grin, infectious laugh and say's "please?" it's impossible to say no!

Soccer star!

Princess Leecy T played in her first soccer game just 3 days after getting out of the hospital. (We pretty much kept her quarantined those three days so that she could go to her game!) She was amazing at the game and even scored 2 goals! I wish I had gotten a picture of her after she scored that first goal. The smile on her face was absolutely priceless. She is so sweet!

Mommy and her soccer star!

Her team is the Shockers!

She is #12. When they called to find out which number she wanted, she first told me 1000. I guess I left that question too open-ended! I informed her that only 2 numbers would fit on her shirt and she settled for 12!

We are so proud of her and all of the hard work she is putting into being such a great little soccer player! It is definitely a lot of fun for us to watch her! Way to go Leecy!