Hope you all had a Happy Easter. I always get to take lots of personal photos in the first quarter of the year because it’s a much slower season. So, thought I better share some of “us”. Now that my schedule is picking up (baseball and work) taking photos of my own kids will decrease 🙁

For starters, we kicked things off with our youngest’s second birthday. Just for comparison you can see last year’s birthday shot next to this years! Baby face turned into big boy face for sure 🙂

Then on his actual birthday he got to eat a big swirly sucker. Yum!

This rain has been crazy. I am a sunshine kind of gal. Even if we have snow I am okay as long as the sun is shining. Caleb is a great lover of the outdoors (gets it honest) so while he kept yelling to “go outside” it dawned on me to do what I did with Connor around the same age and find some puddles! Let’s just say he was thrilled. Things like this remind me to lighten up, be a fun mom and let my kid just be a kid. I needed that reminder!

We didn’t remember to have an Easter Egg hunt this year…. but my kids did it on their own about three days after Easter! How’s that for following traditions?! We do though, celebrate the “real” reason for Easter (year round).

I just had to have my lovely friend (and neighbor) Ali Cobb take this photo after church service. Getting Maddie in a dress and having my hair done at the same time don’t happen very often. Gotta take advantage of those rare opportunities because you don’t know how many you will have. What is crazy is that Maddie is now the same height as me! I hate that she’s growing up so fast. It’s like time just raced once we starting have more kids and somehow she became this near “grown-up” 12 year old. I treasure all the one on ones we have.

Then we headed up north to visit Aaron’s family. My boys love getting out in the country where they are free to climb trees and run with their cousins. Had to track them down before their cute shirt became full of mud…. which they did.

My sweet niece and nephew with my sister-in-law.

Connor is a lover of dandelions. He picks them wherever we go. He’s my most masculine child so when I turned around to see the below (right) he said “don’t take my picture”….. hee hee. I was too fast!

This last one is for Grandma. She needed an updated shot of all 8 grandkids and by the looks of the mud etc. all over them, there was no way we could pull that off. So, how ’bout a trusty silhouette? Can’t wait to put this in an old barn window for her wall!