Easter

We had a great Easter.  We started out our Easter weekend with the neighborhood Easter egg hunt.  Carson was a maniac at the egg hunt. He ran like crazy and picked up most of our family's eggs.  Lincoln could have gotten more Easter eggs, but insisted on bringing our smallest Easter basket to the neighborhood hunt.  Lily mostly stood around looking confused and overwhelmed by the whole event. After she realized there was candy in the eggs she wanted to have all the eggs in her basket.  We also dyed our Easter eggs the Saturday before Easter.  This is always a process that is on the threshold of breaking down into complete chaos.  Luckily, Nate has really long arms so if he sits strategically at the table he can help multiple children in the egg dying process.  The boys loved the egg dying, and both tried really hard to create the ugliest egg (you can thank Nate for this yearly competition).  Lily spent much of the egg dying time throwing tantrums.  She was really upset that she didn't get as much freedom to dye eggs as her brothers did (it is rough being 2).  On Easter morning the kids got some small toys in their baskets.  While Lily and Carson were busy playing with their toys Lincoln went into the living room and gathered up about half of the Easter eggs hidden by the Easter Bunny.  Needless to say, we didn't have much of a egg hunt Easter morning.  Also, on Easter morning after I got Lily all ready in her new dress, I went back upstairs to put on some earrings and brush my teeth.  In the space of time it took me to do those two things Lily had managed to stuff her face with 5 Reese's Peanut Butter cups, and was a chocolate mess.  Luckily, most of the mess had been contained to her face. Seriously though, I think the girl might have a future in the field of competitive eating. The girl devoured that candy down fast.  I had my siblings over for Easter dinner and a small family egg hunt, with the cousins in the backyard.  It was a very nice Easter.

   

Spring Break

We pretty much just had fun in our own little town this year for Spring Break.  Over Spring Break I managed to take the kids to a movie, a McDonald's play place (I tried to take them to a classier place like Bounce, but the place was full to capacity and had a 45 minute wait), and the Zoo.  I only took pictures of the Zoo, but I feel that it was a nice laid back Spring Break.  The kids had a great time at the Zoo, and Lily even was happy in the stroller the entire time! Yea!  However, by the end she was ready to get out of the stroller and do some serious running around.  Lily is fearless, she has no problem doing the things the big kids do.  I had Carson follow her up this big slide the first couple times she went down, but she soon proved she was capable of going up and down this slide by herself.  Lincoln loved the tunnel they have at the zoo, but was a little sad when Carson wouldn't play in it with him.  I had to take a picture of his pout, it is sooo classic Lincoln.  I tried to take more pictures of Carson, but he kept running away from me, and I have other kids to watch and couldn't chase him around the Zoo for a picture.  I loved having all the kids home for a few days, and can't wait for a schedule free summer.

 

Star of the Week

It was Carson's turn to be star of the week in March.  He was so excited to share his poster with his class.  He did a great job of answering his classes questions and enjoyed showing his class his favorite star Wars Lego ship.  Some new things that Carson added to his poster this year were a picture of a King Cobra (he has decided he likes snakes) and a picture of him by an Army Jet (the kid thinks the military is awesome and prays for them almost every night).  Carson is a great kid and we love having him in our family!

St Pattys Day

We were in Utah for St. Patricks day this year, but fortunately Lucky the Leprechaun still found us and left us a pile of chocolate coins and dyed Grandma Barlow's milk green.  Lucky the Leprechaun had visited Lincoln's preschool earlier in the week and left him a cute Leprechaun hat and Shamrock necklace so he was supremely confident that he would find us in Utah and leave us a surprise.  I think Lucky would have preferred not to make a last minute out-of-state visit to the Snow children, but could not bare to have the Snow children disappointed. If you ask me we are visited by one very nice Leprechaun.

Roar!!!!!!!!

In March we visited the dinosaur museum in Utah.  It was really fun!  The boys love all things large and ferocious so the dinosaur museum was right up their ally.  Lily enjoys just getting out and getting into things so she also had a fun time.  Lily's good time only lasted until nap time; after which she had a typical 2 year old meltdown (you can see some of that in the last picture).  The museum has a interactive center where the kids can play with sand, water, and dinosaurs.  This part of the museum was a huge hit!  Lily mostly loved to throw the little plastic dinos into the water and make a splash.  She enjoyed this activity almost the whole time we were at this part of the museum. At one point she decided that throwing sand would be equally fun as throwing dinosuars. Luckily the only victim of her sand throwing was Lincoln, and we quickly got her right back to throwing dinosaurs in the water.  Lincoln loved to block off the water with sand and collect dinosaurs.  He ended up hoarding a little too many dinosaurs so we were forced to make him share with the other kids. He took this rather well considering he had worked hard to gather quite the dinosaur collection.  Carson worked with Nate to build the ultimate damn.  after the damn had enough water behind it they let water through and watched it destroy everything in its path.  We had a great time.  I think this museum is a great activity for the whole family.

I'm a big girl now

Lily is our baby.  And we even call her "Baby" or "baby Lily" all the time.  But the other day as I was going through the pictures on my camera I came across this picture of Lily, and it startled me a little bit because she looks like such a big girl. I don't think our 'baby" Lily is much of a baby anymore.  That makes me a bit sad.  Although I had to admit it, I think she is a full fledged toddler now. 

Spring Park Days

Spring has been it's usual fickle self this year, where it will be 70 degrees one day and 50 degrees the next.  We have been able to squeeze as much park/backyard/ bike time in as possible.  The kids love being outside especially after being couped up all winter.  The younger kids have enjoyed playing at the park while waiting for Carson's football games.  On a walk to a park near our home Lincoln drew us directions on the doodle pad so we wouldn't get lost on our way there.  Carson has enjoyed tossing the football around with his dad.  For family home evening the other day we timed who could run the fastest from one side of the yard to the other, and Nate was of course the fastest, but Carson beat me!  I could not believe it!  He is growing up so fast.  Lily has loved the backyard this Spring and has been out there as much as I will let her.  Her favorite backyard activities are swinging on her stomach and going down the slide. We are enjoying Spring and can't wait for Summer.

Basketball

This winter Carson started basketball.  It was a bit rough at first, because this was Carson's first time playing basketball and he felt  a little discouraged because he was not as good as some of the kids on his team.  However, by the end of the season Carson had made huge improvements and was having  a lot of fun.  We are so proud of Carson for trying his best and working hard.  He is one cute basketball player.