So Fancy

Very last post about Easter, cross my heart.

Due to bug we passed around on Easter, the kiddos didn't get to wear their new fancy clothes until the next Sunday (a fact which drove Miss Pipes crazy).

Before church yesterday, I dragged the kids back to our side block wall for pictures.

And yes, it was extremely difficult.

I had to wake Wyatt up from his nap to get him ready for church, so you can imagine how much fun he was.  

Pipes is Wyatt's favorite person after Mom and Dad.  Now that he's a big boy and walking around, he imagines himself to be just as mature as the older three kiddos.  He HATES it when they treat him like a baby and try to carry him anywhere.  Except for Piper.  She is allowed to pick him up and hold him. 

Mr. Porter Pot sure thinks he is something special when he puts on his church clothes.  From the time he was Wyatt's age, as soon as I'd put that tie on him, he'd start shyly grinning and strutting around with a puffed-up chest. 

He hasn't changed much.

He wanted his picture taken alone, but Pipes jumped in for a frame. 

These girlies have no idea how lucky they are to have a built-in best friend.

Miss Pipes, fabulous as always.

And lil' Adi?  She's still gets really awkward in front of the camera and tries to do these huge fake laughs to cover it up.  We're working on it :)

And then we marched off to church without Dad (awesome work schedule he has), and tried to survive the three hours without him.

Have I mentioned that it's only 2 1/2 more moths until Wy-Fi gets to go into Nursery?  Not that I'm counting or anything.

Belated Egg Hunt

We were planning on having another egg hunt on Easter with my sis, but after that unfortunate sickness left us all moaning, we pushed it off until a later date.

Yes, we had an egg hunt a week after Easter ended.  It would have been cooler if we had waited on purpose we that we could have purchased everything half off. 

We went to the park, Whit and I practically threw the eggs all over the grassy area, and the kids decorated a bag. 

Yup. It was chilly enough that we had jackets on.  Well, some of us wore jackets.

The kids got to hunting.

They then burned off all of the sugar they had eaten by playing on the playground.

And us adults entertained ourselves the best way we could.

Easter Morning

After all of our fun in Thatcher, we didn't get home until almost 11 o'clock on Saturday night (thanks to the awful car crash on the reservation).  After unloading the kids and the car, I scrambled around to set up for Easter the next morning.

This year I totally stole this idea from 71 Toes and strung yarn all over our house.  The kids Easter baskets were tied to the end and the beginning was tied to their bed or nightstand.  When the kiddos woke up, they had to follow the string to the end in order to find their treats. 

It was pretty sweet.  Also, I stayed up until almost 2 am setting it up.  So worth it.

 

Good morning, Mr. Wyatt!

 

Yeah, he loved having his picture taken first thing in the morning.

This year I decided to cut waaay back on the contents of their baskets.  Usually I get them an outfit, flip flops, sunglasses, a hat, some outside toys, candy... yeah.  A little overboard.  I am also just plain tired of spending so much money on things that we don't need.

Since my kids already have a ton of clothes, I scratched that off the list.  Also, they get their new Easter finery (for some reason I've never actually made that a part of their baskets).  Porter has at least three pairs of sunglasses and the girls have lost at least that many in the past year, so I scratched that.  We don't need any more hats (no one really wears them), and most of the outside toys get left on the lawn to get showered on by the morning sprinklers.  They ended up with Peeps (it wouldn't be Easter without 'em), a chocolate bunny, a Cadbury egg, a water gun and an outside toy.  The girls each got a Skip-It, Porter a football, and Wyatt a plastic bug that rolls around and blows bubbles. 

Wyatt liked the yarn.

And yes, you're right:  Piper is not looking like her chipper self.   In fact, almost an hour after this pic was taken, she was puking into our family's official throw-up bowl.

And the Easter Morning Breakfast table.

Whit came over for Easter dinner and we spent the day cooking.  No pictures since I was also taking care of the kids lying on the couches.

As I have mentioned a couple times, we played a game of Sickie Dominoes that morning.  Piper was the first down, Adi held out until after lunch, next was myself right about dinner time, then Porter at bedtime and finally poor lil' Wyatt.  It was horrible.

I am fortunate enough to have the bestest sister and bro-in-law in the whole world.  When Wyatt started throwing up, I called Orrin up at work crying, telling him that there was no way I could take care of all these sick children by myself when I felt as truly crappy as I did.  He called Whitney and Chris and they came over and, after changing the sheets on my bed, swept the older three kids up and took them for the night.  I was left with Wyatt (who just wanted to sleep and drink water) and myself to take care of.  Seriously, Whit and Chris:  I love you guys. 

Here's a pic from their night:

Also, we thanked Whitney or her help by passing on the bug to her.

Easter In Thatcher

We took- what it turning out to be- our annual Easter trip to Thatcher to party with the Merrills on the Saturday before the holiday.  It was actually supposed to be a weekend trip, but Mr. Porter Pot decided to get sick on Thursday, so it ended up only being a day visit.

But what a day visit it was.

We started out the day by going shooting in the desert.  While we waited for everyone to get there and set up, the kiddos went climbing and exploring.

We put the kids somewhere safe and behind the firing line.

Did I mention that poor lil' Rylee was sick?  We didn't realize just how sick she felt until all of the rest of us came down with the same thing the next day.  But I digress.

 All the Merrill guys brought their toys (guns- I believe there was enough artillery there to outfit a small army) and we got to shooting.  Well, not me.  I fired OP's rifle once and it scared me enough to keep me behind the camera.

Yeah, there was a lot of shooting going on.

Luckily Hannah and Kade brought their new puppy to entertain the kiddies.

Porter and Madden decided that hanging out inside of Orrin's truck was better than sitting in the bed.

Plus there were a few babies to hold.

And even a bull to rope.

Sharon brought us all out lunch (luckily, since we all forgot about that meal).

There were even a couple of bikes to ride.

We reconvened later for a BBQ at our favorite park in Pima.

The kiddos had an egg hunt.

And I walked around and took a ton of pictures like a true creeper.

Jessie divided us into teams, gave us all a bag of supplies and an egg, and told us to protect the egg.  Awesomest egg drop ever.

I honestly have no idea who won.  No one's broke on the initial drop, so we kept trying until they all finally did.

The kiddos played Hannah's balloon popping game (unfortunately the grass did most of the work on this one).

They also took full advantage of the playground equipment.

We all played Sharon's Skitttle Minute-To-Win-It game.

Lindy and Brandon dominated this one.

The adults then had an awesome water balloon toss.  No pics of that since I was too busy trying to catch and throw those little things.

We headed home after and spent the next two days throwing up.  It was terrific.