MOMs Club Easter Egg Hunt

My lovely Moms group had a Easter egg hunt a couple of days ago. Ashton was on a race while Violet needed some encouragement. While we were supposed to only pick up about 8 eggs, Ashton somehow ended up with all of the extras! I desperately tried to give them away to other kids but the other Moms were more than happy to let Ashton have the winnings! Many Moms wanted to avoid the eggs being stuffed with "junk" (ie candy) and instead we ended up with other stuff... bouncy balls, stickers, and other misc. toys. Personally, I'd prefer the candy! Let the kids eat it and it's gone! So much for that dietitian Mom right?! Instead, now we have all these teeny toys that fit into the eggs that I run around trying to keep off the floor from Timothy or find stickers stuck somewhere! But it was fun and the kids enjoyed themselves!

Violet spies her first egg! Ashton is long gone by now!

Gotcha!

Shaking it to see what might be in it!

Another score!

I told you he was long gone!

Checking to make sure the loot doesn't fall out!

See! I got lots!

Violet showing off her loot!

The aftermath... mess!

Tim trying to crawl

He can crawl when he wants to but usually resorts to scooting if he is in a hurry!

Glitter Jar

So, my parents were getting a little tired of all of the Pinterest projects and pictures of the kids so I will try to alternate projects and kids just for them! Happy Nana & Papa!

Well, this project is for the kids even if they didn't make it in the pictures. It was hard enough to pry these little things away from them to get a picture! But they are super cool and are basically supposed to be used as an alternative to time-outs. Well, I have yet to use them as a time-out method, but they love to look at them.

Violet's purple and Ashton's green glitter jar!

This is a good one to see the glitter falling to the bottom.

I have gotten on the green bandwagon on reduce, reuse, recycle! Well, I have always been a huge recycler but now I have tons of ideas on how to reuse items... thanks again Pinterest! So here, I have reused a baby food jar. Add some glitter glue, some warm water (I boiled the water and it didn't work well at first, so don't do that!), a teeny bit of food coloring and voila! The warm water dissolves the glitter glue. Since my was short of boiling, the glitter just fell to the bottom. After a few minutes, the water cooled down and the glitter was evenly dispersed!

The Garden!

I have wanted a garden from the minute we bought our house... in Virginia. Well, we are now into our 2nd house... which is now in California with 1/4 the size of a lot, but it is finally getting done! Mainly because the Hubs decided on growing the hottest pepper plants in the world. But I get my garden out of it! But we are in the beginnings of it, well I am anyways. Matt has already grown his peppers from seeds and has already planted some of them into the garden.

The larger box which is already filled with dirt is for Matt's peppers. He has already transplanted them!

The smaller box on the left side which Matt is working on is for "my" stuff. The practical stuff like tomatoes, basil, and for fun eggplant is currently being grown from seeds. I also bought seeds for watermelon, baby romaine lettuce, strawberries,  squash, and edamame! I wonder how the edamame will turn out!

Hidden Homes Trail

Our Moms group met up at the Hidden Homes Trail today. It is really a hidden gem here in Fresno. We really should go more often. It has a perfect little 1/2 mile loop with little stops on the way for the kiddos. It was a beautiful day and I am more than ecstatic that I brought the big camera!

We started out the morning with a quick photo session while we should have been getting ready to go!
I love this picture of the boys!

Cutie pies!

My sweet little girl!

Ashton in what I call his "school pic" pose

 And now onto the good stuff...

The first stop along the loop was the telescope!

A cute pic of Ashton

Oops! An out of order cute picture of Timothy this morning! 

Onto the second stop... the mouse house/cave! Not sure what Violet is pointed at but aren't her pigtails cute?!

The next stop... not quite sure but a little tunnel

 There were quite a few more stops but obviously didn't yield quality pictures. But I didn't think the kids had burned off enough energy so we went on another loop without the group.

Telescope - Take 2

Violet's turn!

And now we climb up to the top of the mouse house!

Yup! They climbed up there all by themselves! Violet actually made it up first!

Cutie pie!

Big hugs! Inside the mouse house!

Ashton wanted a picture with the bug

Violet must have found something interesting to look at!

  

More fun climbing! This time it was a simple white fence! Ashton "spider walked" across the entire thing!

Still going...

Violet had some fun climbing too!

Just a pretty picture

Brotherly love

Ashton really is a good big brother

Kisses for the baby!

A cute picture of all 3!

Oops... another out of order but more climbing! Wonder if Tim will be a climber too?

 And to finish off this mega post... some funny pictures!

I love the kids faces in this picture! Tim seems to have caught a weed in his mouth, Violet looks annoyed, and Ashton is like, "what?"

Can you guess what Violet is doing?! Hilarious!

Hello Spring!

It has been spring for quite some time here in Fresno, but over the past couple of weeks our flowers have sprung up! We planted the bulbs last fall and I am so excited that they have grown! Who doesn't love tulips?!

Tim is 8 months old

At 8 months, Tim is on the verge of crawling. He will get up and down on his knees and rock back & forth. Poor guy just wants to hang with the big kids. He can get around quite well with his "modified crawl." I call it that because it doesn't quite resemble Ashton's military crawl but more of a modified crawl on his stomach. He still loves to eat and definitely prefers real food. He follows in his sisters footsteps with great hand-eye coordination. The kid can eat anything he wants! Including a yucky spiderweb while crawling around yesterday. Ick! Today he got a taste of the "big kids" favorite, artichokes! He has started "talking" a little and can say, dadada and to my delight recently started with mamama! He will also babble, bababa even though he rarely has a bottle. Must just be developmental sounds. Let's see... what else?! He still has yet to permanently sleep through the night but this Mama is days away from letting him cry it out at night. He will sleep from 7pm until around 3-4am. And then is usually up bright and early at 6am! I know he can do it because after the time change he slept from 6pm-7am (yes!) one night and 7pm-7am the following night. Other than that, he continues to be an easy going happy boy! He loves to watch everything that is going on and is rarely still for any moment. He is always turning around when you are holding him to make sure he doesn't miss a thing! I can't believe he is almost a year old!