The night before Easter Sunday....
The boys were getting out of the bath when Brad spotted Ricky the raccoon in the front yard. He yelled at the boys to look out their window to see. I tucked the boys in and went back to check on them and I found Patton laying on top of Parker after rearranging him told he me "The raccoon will break through my window and get me." While laughing and reassuring him he finally went to sleep.




Penny was such a good raccoon hunter! She was passed out waiting for the Easter Bunny to come so she could sleep right through it.


Get up, get up the Easter Bunny came!


The Easter bunny came and brought lots of eggs.


Brad and I heard Parker wake up and tell Patton to wake up the Easter Bunny left a lot of eggs in the front yard.

There is Patton he would pick one up and if he did not like the candy or it did not have money in it he would put it back on the ground.

Doesn't Brad look thrilled. Morris decided to make himself comfortable on his lap.

Egg-tastic weekend
Saturday we colored eggs. My nephew Mitchell came to help.


Mitchell with his eggs

Payton, Parker, and Patton doing their eggs. With Payton's busy schedule she doesn't get to join in the fun, but we were glad she was able to color eggs with us!

The crew with Brad's mom (mama).

Patton with his new skin color

Can you tell what Patton's favorite color is?

Thankful Thursday
Well Patton did something that really surprised me. I know he has a good heart but hardly displays it. He got a Easter card in the mail with $5.00 in it. I found him trying to stuff that money into his and Parker's rice bowls from school. If you are not familiar the rice bowl is something the kids are suppose to put change into during the Lenten season to help those less fortunate children. Patton says he wants to give the money to his friends like Maddox and Will so that their moms can buy them food. I explained to him that the money would not go to them but to other little boys and girls. He said okay I will give it to those friends Muma.
I had a tear in my eye at the end of our conversation. It really touched me that he is learning the true meaning of life, to take care of all of his brother and sisters just like God and Jesus take care of you and me. I also felt a sense of achievement as a parent. Wow I am doing something right. Well me and St. Joe school and parish.
If we all could have good in our hearts then this world would be a better place. I said instead of giving something up for lent I was going to look at the brighter more positive side of things. I like it on this side. Yes it is hard not to be negative, but it makes me feel better when I am positive. I challenge each one of you to do something good and caring for someone else by tomorrow night. See how good it feels. Try to look at the brighter side of every situation too, trust me you will get more out of life! We can just sit around and do nothing and wait for the world to change all by its self or we could all get our act together and do something to make it a better place to live. If we all try to better people and better disciples of Christ this world will be a better place don't you think?

Wonderful Wednesday
I finally got the front room repainted and my pictures of the kids hung and could not be more happy! I have wanted 16x20's of the kids for a long time but everywhere I went they wanted an arm and a leg. I stumbled on Amber in Newton and she has taken the kids pictures ever since. She is great at what she does and has awesome prices. Check her out at www.photographicsgallery.net.

Tasty Tuesday!

I am going to try a new twist on this ol blog. Tuesday will be dedicated to some sort of recipe.

On occasion I will have a give away for those who try the recipe and send a comment on it and I will put your name in a basket and draw a winner out. What will I win you ask? Well I guess it can be a surprise. It will have to do with the kitchen though. Just e-mail me your address if you don't think that I have it already. So for today's recipe Patton made a chocolate chip coffee cake.

2 cups all-purpose flour

1-1/ tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt
1-1/4 c sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

1 stick unsalted butter(i used salted that is all i had) at room temp

2 large eggs

1 c sour cream

1 tsp pure vanilla

1 cup chocolate chips ( i used a whole bag)

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350

2. in a medium bowl mix flour,baking soda,and salt. In a small bowl combine 1/4c sugar and the cinnamon.

3. using mixer, beat together the butter and remaining 1 cup sugar until fluffy.

4. beat in the eggs, 1 at a time then beat in the sour cream and vanilla.

Pour half the batter into the pan add part of the chocolate chips. Spoon remaining batter, add rest of chocolate chips. Sprinkle cinnamon sugar mixture over it. Bake until golden and a toothpick comes out clean. 30-35 minutes. It took mine about 40 minutes the center just was not getting done.

Flood, Fire, and Mushrooms!
The kids went to Lori's after church with their dad. They went to watch a house next Lee and Lori's burn down. The Noble fire department burnt this house for practice.
After that Brad took the boys and Lori's kids minus Baby Kam to the woods to do some mushroom hunting. Could you picture Brad with a cute ring sling with a baby in it hiking through the woods? HE,He! I had to go to work to do one of my customers from Indy. When I returned I found a nice flood in the basement.

We were at church and the whole back parking lot was nothing but white when the hail was coming down.

Brad took this on his way home from mushroom hunting

Look close not one rainbow, but two


My basement floor after the nasty day.

yes this is what was being pumped out of the basement. Yuk!

last but not least the best part the MUSHROOMS! Yumm-O!

Hope everone had a great rainy day!

Payton had a competition this weekend in Arthur. Her first one was at 8:30 sat. morning. The alarm was set for 5:00 so we could get up and on the road by 6:15. Needless to say I woke up at 6:09! I took a 30 second shower and was ready in 10 minutes. Wow it can really happen. We got there at 8:40 and thought we had missed it but they were running late thank goodness! She got 4th on double mini and 2nd on tramp.
After it was all done and said we decided to head to Tuscola which was only 11 miles away. We did a little shopping and found some good bargains.
Thanks sister for a great day. Mommy loves you;-) he,he