Story time with Brindi

Brindi is such a sweet little girl and a great big sister to her siblings.  I hope she never changes.

Easter

Happy Easter!  We had another great holiday.  It is always a great time of the year when life seems to enter back into our lives as the flowers start to bloom and the leaves start to grow on the trees and for most species the young ones are born.  Is it any wonder this is the season for the resurrection of our Lord.  We are so appreciative of our Savior and though the holiday has taken a more worldly view by society we still try and focus on the true reason we celebrate this holiday.

We took a family night to dedicate to making our colored eggs.  The girls always love doing this activity and they are getting pretty good at doing most of it themselves.

We also headed out for another Egg Hunt at Weldon Springs.  This is by far our favorite egg hunt in the area.  They have these golden and silver eggs that you can turn in for big prizes.  We didn't get any of those eggs last year so this year we were determined to get at least one.  When we arrived we scoped out the egg field and quickly found a couple golden eggs that we were going to go after.  We actually kind of hovered over one egg to make sure we got it when they said go.  We were also very lucky as we ran across the field to find another one, so both our girls were able to get big prizes.  Not to mention there was a lot of candy in those eggs.  Also to our amazement, Brindi actually sat on the Easter Bunnies lap!  Brooke was another story.

Easter morning was a good time as you can see through the video above.  I think the girls were very pleased with Peter Cottontail's gifts.  Spring clothing, kits, candy, a chocolate bunny, and new CTR rings.  What more cold a kid want!

Celeste also took the time to make rice crispy egg nests for Brindi.  She loved making these little nests and I loved eating them whole!

March Snow?

We received our annual March snow and took full advantage of it.  This year we decided to play a little house by creating our on snow house.  I couldn't get the kids to stay too long in it but they sure liked the idea.  We also made a couple snow men and even a snow dog.  We finished our day in the snow with some nice hot chocolate!  Gotta love family time.

Katy Trail Ride/Hike

Today was so incredible that we decided we better take advantage of it and get outside.  Celeste had a great idea to take a stroll down the Katy Trail and have a picnic for dinner.  The Katy Trail is pretty impressive as the longest rails to trails project in the United States.  It starts just north of St. Charles and runs almost all the way to Kansas City running along the Missouri River.  Anyways, we packed up Brindi's bike and Brooke's tricycle and headed out for a little family adventure.  Brooke gave up on the tricycle before we even hit the trail head so it ended up back in the van.  Brindi did great on her bike and enjoyed the ride.  We only went about 1/2 mile before we stopped and ate dinner.  We found a cache at our picnic site that Brindi was really excited about.  After we ate we headed back to the car.  The kids had a great time and the weather was awesome.  We are getting excited for spring!

New Years

Happy New Year!  We were able to spend New Year's eve in Leamington in our Petersen tradition of playing rook all night.  This is one of my favorite family traditions.  The best part is obviously my grandpa and grandma Petersen dominating the cards.  also before Mike and his family left for Japan, he left a lot of fireworks in my dad's garage.  We stumbled upon them and used them to ring in the new year for the kids in the back of Amy and Bret's yard.

Tubing

One of my conditions of going out west for the Holidays was having snow.  Luckily we got a few good days of snow.  Snow is something that doesn't happen a lot in Missouri and when it does it is more ice than actual snow and it only lasts a day or two if we are lucky.  A couple must activities when it snows is pulling a tube behind the 4-wheeler and than sledding/tubing.  We did both why we were here.  I was able to pull most of the Kent's and Wardles around.  David also pulled a few kids including Brindi.  Oddly enough, I never pulled Brindi.  The highlight was throwing Jaxon.  David also fell but I think it was on purpose to make me feel better about my hopeful crazy driving.  Below is a couple videos of the action.

We also headed over to the Lynndyl hill for some sledding and tubing.  We had a pretty good turn out and some very fresh snow.  It was great!

Grandma Lovell and Ashley

Aunt Jackee and Emilee

I think this is Jaxon and Jordan going down the hill.

Aunt Jackee, Emilee and Brindi.

Grandma Lovell hitting the slopes

Ashley on the slopes.

Emilee was great with our kids and she played/tubed a lot with Brindi and Brooke.  It was great to see cousins playing together.

We also had to have our hot chocolate milk and cookies.  A Lovell tradition for tubing.

Sexy Lips!

Brooke with her country waterproof system.  All ready for tubing.  Sadly I took her down the big hill and too much snow flew up and got in her face and that ruined any further tubing experience that day for her.  See the video below for proof.

Celeste and Joe

Also a must when tubing is the train.  We did several and this was one arrangement with Celeste in front followed by Amy and Kadee, Jordan, ?, Ashley, JaCee, and me.

Below are several videos of the experience.  Tears, laughter, fear, wrecks, commentary, and FUN!