Boys in their green

I snapped a couple of pictures of the boys before we left for church on Sunday. 

don't they look THRILLED?!?  :)

I remember like it was yesterday when Jake wore what Pierce had on.

BLOWS my mind seeing Jake this little!  This was in March of 2009- 16 months old!

look at that sweet little face!  AND his teeth!!  oh my word- makes me a little teary remembering him that little.

Easter

Easter buckets this year with a fun antique truck :)

This picture is for my brother-in-law, Luke.  Jake has become quite the photographer as of late :)

and the hunt begins!

this picture makes me laugh :)

on another egg hunt later that afternoon

i put this picture in to show yall the backdrop of the egg hunt- not too bad, right?!

full of eggs and tuckered out!

I forgot to leave some space above the pictures for me to write about our Easter.  We had a great day celebrating the REAL reason we celebrate Easter.  He is Risen!  He is Risen INDEED!  Praising God for his death on the cross for us and for His resurrection and for the promise of a life spent with Him!  Oh come quickly Lord Jesus!

We had a fun morning with our Easter buckets.  I had actually spent all day on Saturday with some stencils painting their names on them (you know, because I'm all crafty now- ha!)  And when I went to pull off the stencils, the paint came right off with them- BUMMER!!!  Oh well!

The truck is my absolute favorite.  It's the boys favorite too... although they aren't allowed to play with it.  Does that make me a bad momma because I really bought it for me?!?  It currently sits on our front porch with some pretty flowers in the bed (see picture below)

We went to church and had a great service with a fun egg hunt afterwards followed by a wonderful potluck lunch.

Mark took Pierce home for a nap while Jake and I headed to another egg hunt.  Jake goes to school with a little boy whose family is also in the wine business and they host a HUGE (500+ real egg) annual hunt for family and friends.  We were excited to be included in that fun party.

Overall, it was a wonderful day spent as a family treasuring every moment together!

isn't that the cutest thing you ever did see?!  

very appropriate for a house with all BOYS but with some pretty flowers for this momma :)

First Bloom

My "perfect moment" finally gave me my first bloom.  Isn't it gorgeous?!

Flight Museum

As I was looking through some pictures I realized that I never posted our little trip to the flight museum here in Santa Rosa a couple weeks ago.  They had a special "top gun" day with some of the real planes from the movie.  Needless to say the boys loved every second of walking around those huge planes and probably would have stayed the entire day if we would have let them!

sitting where Tom Cruise actually sat :)

please ignore my crazy wind blown curly hair- blah (chopped it all off the next day!)

African Cats

Mark and I took Jake to see disney's African Cats the other night.  We all loved it!  It was about 20 minutes too long for Jake but other than that, he sat very still switching off between our laps (because he didn't weigh enough to hold the seat down!)  :)

Monterey Bay Aquarium

Jake had spring break last week- not that that really means anything when you only go to preschool 2 mornings a week :)  I have wanted to visit the aquarium down in Monterey for the longest time and thought it would be a perfect place to spend a couple of days during our "break."  So we packed up and headed south right at nap time and timed it perfectly because the boys woke up with only about an hour to go and then I just shoved all kinds of snacks in their mouths the rest of the way- ha!

We met up with the Leffew's (our greatest friends in Healdsburg) who had spent the week down in Santa Barbara and decided to stay in Monterey and do the aquarium with us on their way home.  The hotel had a fun pool which was heated so we all swam until we were shriveled up and then headed to CPK for dinner.  Sorry, but no pictures from the pool or dinner :(

It was the first time all 4 of us had stayed in a hotel and while bedtime and waking up time proved to be a little bit difficult we all managed just fine but next time we will plan a little better and maybe get a second room.

The next morning, we drove into Carmel and had a very yummy breakfast at Katy's.  If you are ever in the area- go there!  It was delicious!

Next stop- Monterey Bay Aquarium!  I think I was just as excited as Jake was :)  We got there right at 10 when it opened... along with HUNDREDS of other people!  I'm not kidding.  The place was packed with people.  Maybe coming the Friday of spring break and just 2 days before Easter wasn't such a good idea after all...

BUT the boys LOVED all of it!  Pierce was WIDE EYED and Jake couldn't get enough of it.  Pierce rode on Mark's shoulders most of the time and Sara and I were just trying to keep up with the other 3 kids.  There was a huge area for all the kids to touch all different kinds of things- seaweed, starfish, STINGRAYS, and basically like huge water tables complete with mini waves, boats, toy water animals, etc... and I'm sure we didn't even get to 3/4 of the whole area... because of ALL the kids... did I already mention that it was CRAZY busy?!?

I did good to get the very few pictures I did.  I was afraid that every time I put my camera to my face, A, someone would walk right in front of it and B, that I would lose sight of my kids.  So sadly, I barely took any pictures and the pictures that I did manage to snap show the backs of their heads :)

We were all done around noon so we headed up the street for lunch at... Ghirardelli!  Why not, right?!  The kids shoved down the yummiest chocolate ice cream cones and then as everyone was starting to fall apart we headed to the car to head back north.  Once again, timing it perfectly with naps and we were all back in Healdsburg by dinnertime.

It was a very short trip but loved it all! 

So cute!  :)

if you look closely at that leafy thing you will see that it's really a seahorse!!  it's called a leafy dragon.  makes you love God's creativity doesn't it?!?  :)

the jellyfish were pretty incredible to look at- of course the pic doesn't do this tank justice...

sweet Ruby and her friend the penguin

fun at Ghirardelli :)