Apparently my commitment to this blog (and indirectly, my sister) has been reduced to once a month.  I am thinking about a resolution to post once a week, but at this junction, such a conquest seems exhausting.  So, for now, I suppose I will do what I can do and hope that the future holds so much excitement that I would be forced to submerse myself in a world filled with wonderful pictures and lots of blog posts.  Until then….it’s once a month.

This weekend, in an effort to busy myself with something other than obsessing over the purchasing of what hopefully will soon be our new house and the endless amounts of work I should be doing for school, we decided to head out to the pumpkin patch in Bixby.  Those of you who know me best, probably can imagine my excitement when I found out that our children could not only pet the farm animals, but they could also feed them. From their bare hands. (Insert fake smile here).  While I love nature, I think feeding farm animals from my hands ranks shortly behind going to the fair (which, in my opinion, is the grossest place on the planet).  But, what can you do?  They had a blast, even though a storm rolled in shortly after we got there.  Here they are grossing me out feeding the animals.

Every once in a while I get a set of pictures that I really love, and this one is one of those sets of pictures.  I feel like they really capture Madison and her very intentional personality.  She carefully considers all her options, intentionally distances herself from distractions (primarily her siblings), and finally finds that perfect pumpkin.

Unfortunately I was unable to get a picture of the kids with their 60 lbs of whole pumpkin, nor did I take a picture of us gutting and carving those 60 lbs. of pumpkin.  I did, however, manage to take a picture of our finished product.  Hopefully the next front porch picture I take will be a of a new home.  More on that to come (hopefully in less than a month).

If looks could kill…

A girl after my own heart.

And in case there is any doubt about the content of this picture…yes, my dad is having Lillie pull his finger.

And if you’re curious, that is her birthday treat for school.  I’m not a fan of icing, so I decided to make this Rice Krispie Treat cake.  It is store bought Rice Krispie’s stood up on their ends, taped together and formed into two “cake layers”.  I then wrapped the layers in pink tulle to add some color.  It is super easy and super cute (and lacked icing).

And just for good measure, here is our birthday celebration that we had in for Hannah (a.k.a. the beginning of Lillie’s birthday celebration season) even though she wasn’t home to celebrate with us.

Hannah’s cake (as you can see, Lillie does NOT share my disdain for icing):

Easter was a little unusual for us.  We had planned to get up and do Easter Brunch and let the kids hunt eggs in their jammies before going to church at 1; but, unfortunately, Madison got sick Saturday night, so that put a damper on my photo opportunities on Sunday.  Luckily, she felt well enough to hunt eggs though, even if it was in her p.j.s.

This picture probably doesn’t look like anything to you, but it really made me laugh.  The kids spend a lot of their time at my parents house “racing” in the backyard.  So when we told Lillie to get ready to go hunt eggs, she had a hard time understanding getting ready for anything besides just racing.  (She is “on her mark”).  We had several false starts (Lillie leaving the line without her basket) before she finally caught on to what she was supposed to do.

And here are just a few in our Easter outfits.  I don’t have any great pictures, because I new that I likely will make them do pictures again when Madison can participate.

And…I don’t have much to say about T-ball besides here are a couple of pictures.  It is pretty entertaining – Eli is just happy to have an opportunity to play in the dirt.

Me: “Hey Lillie, show me how old you are and say Peace.”

Lillie:

Tonight was Madison’s swim team’s season banquet, and it was lots of fun.  We are so lucky to have such a wonderful coach who not only loves to coach, but also loves to invest personally and spiritually into the lives of her little swimmers.  Tonight we celebrated the team’s first place finish in the all-city meet, which is a huge honor!!  Each player was awarded with ribbons and a special magnetic photo board.  Madison placed 4th out of about 60 girls, ages 7-8, in both the freestyle and butterfly….we, of course, are very proud!!

Madison also received very special recognition by her coach.  The league that our team is involved in limits who can swim within the league by age and skill. So, once  a swimmer reaches a certain skill level, they must move into another league.  At the beginning of the banquet tonight Coach Shelley said that she had four special awards to give out.  Two of those awards were given to swimmers who were no longer allowed to continue with the league, and two were new swimmers that were taking the place of the swimmers who were moving on.  Madison was one of those swimmers!!  Shelley chose her out of all the new swimmers because she has “far exceeded everyone’s expectations and has turned into an incredible competitor.”  She was so nervous to be called out in front of everyone, but it is so nice to know that Madison has found her niche.  Here she is while coach was bragging on her.

Today we were finally able to venture out without our coats, so naturally, I pushed for some time with my camera.  While the kids weren’t super excited about the constant “stand here and do this”, they were very grateful for the time outside.  Here are a few shots of our venture…

And one for Aunt Hannah…

http://twitpic.com/photos/christophobu