18 POUNDS!!!

My tiny infant baby is four months old and is growing like crazy.





Austin loves to sit up and check out the world, go for stroller rides and is starting to hold toys and shake them around. It won't be long before he is rolling over. Where does the time go? He is such a sweet, calm little guy. He sleeps 8 to 10 hours at night which makes for a very happy mom! I love walking in his room in the morning to see him cooing and looking around. When he sees me he gets all excited and gives me the biggest grin. The boy just makes me SMILE!

SPRING!

....if only for a few days!
We did enjoy the beautiful weather last week. Garrett and Rylee were thrilled to see Austin in the baby swing.


I hope I see you again soon lovely blossoms.

Easter!

For Family Home Evening the week before Easter we were of course talking about Christ's last days and the Resurrection. It was all going quite well and the kids were participating up until the part about the Resurrection when Rylee shut down and didn't want anything to do with our discussion. She finally, through clenched teeth, stated, "I DO NOT WANT TO BE RESURRECTED." What do you say to that??? It finally seemed a bit better when I told her that "yes, Hannah will be resurrected too". You can't go to Heaven without friends you know.

The Saturday before Easter we went to my parents for our annual Easter Brunch and egg hunts. Mom does three hunts: the traditional egg hunt and each kid gets their own color of egg so as to make it completely fair.

Here they are ready to go. Austin wasn't quite up to the task this year.


Aren't they cute munchkins!
The second hunt is a treasure hunt which mom did around the neighborhood this year and ends with a huge basket full of goodies that they kids all get to divide and share. The last egg hunt is the one egg for adults and one egg for kids with $$$ in it. This year the Gray's swept the big money egg. I found the adult egg and Rylee found the kid egg. Wahoo! It's about time, those Nelson cousins usually take it all!

Sunday Rylee refused to wear her Easter dress and at the last minute decided to wear this cute number.

It's awfully sweet because it was MINE when I was four or five!

After church the kids found that the Easter bunny did make a visit to our home. Thank goodness!

Mommy realized the Easter Bunny picked matchy outfits. That really was a coincidence.

A replacement???

Last night Garrett wrote about a snail he caught. Of course he's learning to spell and many words aren't correct and I don't bother to say anything. However he had misspelled "Good" as "God" and after much praise on the fine work he did I mention as kindly as I could about how to spell good. Needless to say I severely hurt his feelings. I tried to repair the damage but it was no use. A bit later I was in Rylee's room when I could see him out of the corner of my eye standing in the doorway. I looked over and he had a tear running down his cheek and a backpack on. "What are you doing bud?" I asked. "I'm running away from home!" he says as he very slowly walks down the hall. I don't know that I've ever wanted to hold back a tear and a chuckle at the same time. I shuffled him back to his room and sat him on my lap and told him how sad I would be if he left and was doing all I could to apologize and convince him to not leave home when Rylee pipes up, "Well, maybe God will give us a new Garrett."