Spring Break recap...

Well, we arrived back at our apartment here at NTBI late last night, and we have spent today unpacking, cleaning and trying to potty train Layla:

Let me just say, it has been interesting. 

Anyway, as I have already posted, our Spring break started out really good.  We spent the first few days at Nathan's parents' house and had a great time.  Then we had the birthday party for Halle and Daisy, which I also posted about and that was so fun!  The rest of the week was also great.  Nathan spent the week working with Aaron on Klint and Sarah's "new" house (click here and here to see their awesome work!)... He really loved doing carpentry work again.  So that really made his week:)

We also...

had playgroup at Amy's house:

 Let me just say, Amy is so awesome.  She is so hospitable and always makes us such good food when we come over for playgroup.  She is also very calm and laid back...between all of us, I think we counted 18 kids!!  (minus Daisy, so I guess it was 17).  But that is a lot of kids.  Thanks, Amy!  And Kaine also thanks you...he loves to be with his good friends Hudson and Carter:

We had fun coloring Easter eggs:

And it was so great to visit Gateway and hang out with Paul and Nichole.  Hopefully we can visit again this summer when the weather is a little warmer.  Thanks so much, guys--it was wonderful to catch up with you!!

Our kids enjoyed their cousins...

Daisy started giving us the cheesiest smiles this week...(and eating almost exclusively solid foods--good job, Daisy!)

Kaine and my dad went fishing, and Kaine caught this fish!

Our family always fills out a NCAA bracket each year, and my dad gives winner a gift card.  So this year, we decided Kaine would be old enough to join in.  He won!!  And he legitimately filled out his own bracket!  My parents gave him a Walmart gift card and they also had a little trophy engraved for him!  It was so cute--Kaine thinks trophies are so cool:)

Our kiddos had a blast on my parents' gator:

And we just had fun hanging out outside...

What a good break!  We are back and ready to start classes again.  It is crazy that we are almost done with our first year of training.  Our classes end on May 17!  These next couple of years before we head overseas are just going to fly.  For now, we are trying to enjoy family and friends as much as we can, and trying to soak it all in:)  Have a great week!!

a double birthday party

Since we are home on our Spring Break right now, we decided to combine 2 of our sweeties' birthdays and have a double celebration!  Halle's birthday was back on March 3, and Daisy's is coming up on April 25...so we celebrated them in the middle.

It was such a fun evening as both of our families gathered together at Nathan's parents' house.  Halle was looking forward to this for weeks, and Daisy loved her cake more than any of our other 1-year olds ever did!

And YES...I know I am camera-happy.  Especially when it comes to our kids.  And especially on their birthday parties.  So just take that as a warning. :)

Here is Halle, ready to start her party!  She is such a sweet and beautiful little girl.  She loooooves Hello Kitty, so I made her this cake:

Here is Daisy, the other birthday girl!  She won't be 1 until the 25th, but that's okay.  She is also such a sweet and beatiful little girl!

The 2 birthday girls...I love this picture!!

Some of you might remember a couple of months ago, at Kaine's birthday party, we had so much fun playing "Pin the Tail on the Lion."  So we were going to play that same game for Halle and Daisy's party, but then we were thinking that all of our guests just played it 2 months ago!  So we came up with a new game:

Kiss the Princess!!

I can't remember if this was Nathan's idea, or one of his parents'...but it was so fun!  The morning of her party, I took a picture of Halle like this:

Then Dave took it to get printed at the Print Shop, and it came out like this:

And then we had each person put red frosting on their lips, and in much the same way as "Pin the Tail", they had to "Kiss the Princess"...it was so funny!  Hopefully everyone doesn't mind me posting the pictures of this:)

It was so fun:)


Then, it was time for the customary pinata.  This is a tradition that is fun, but we aren't sure if we are glad we started it or not:)  Pinatas take time to make!  But our kids love it.

Daisy was extremely excited to get her hands on this cake!!  As we were singing to her, we could barely get the candle blown out in time before she started eating it.  She was ADORABLE!!!!

And Halle was anticipating her gifts all evening! 

Everyone went out on the patio to talk when all the activities were done.  It was a beautiful evening.

A blogpost wouldn't be complete without a crazy picture of Layla:)  She is so funny!

What a fun evening.  Thanks so much, mom and dad, for letting us have it at your house!  And thanks everyone else for coming and putting up with our crazy game:)  You are all good sports!!

Spring Break!!

Does anyone else think it is strange that I am 29 years old and I am enjoying a Spring Break?  Haha!  I do.  I feel like a kid again!

So our Spring Break officially began on Friday after classes, but we drove down this morning.  We left at 8:00 in time to go to church in...Leo!!  It was so great to see everyone--it has been months since we have been in Leo on a Sunday.  So that was so great.

Then we headed down and now we are at Nathan's mom and dad's house for a few days.   We were so pleasantly surprised at the beautiful weather!  We enjoyed being outside all afternoon/evening.

Nathan, Kaine and Halle went on an "adventure" to the creek out back in Dad and Mom's yard...

I caught Halle picking her nose:) 

Kyle is such a good uncle...he played for a long time in the sand with our kids!  They loved that.

The boys went "golfing"...

While the ladies (Mom, Gma and me) took took the girls on a walk!

Right now, I am enjoying the whole "college schedule" thing!  As much as I LOVE being in classes, it is fun to have a break to visit family and friends.  We have lots of stuff planned for this week, and hopefully I will blog about lots of it!   Playgroup with my amazing friends and all of our kiddos, going to a Perspectives class with Michael and Jane, birthday party for Halle and Daisy, out to eat with my Grandma Schwartz, up to Gateway for an evening with Paul and Nichole, family gatherings for Easter...we are going to love spending time with everyone!