So, back to life as normal now. Kevin is studying every night late for up his upcoming CPA exam and I am busy trying to get our garden in while keeping Lucy from digging up all my seeds. Forget birds, the two year old is way more of a threat to my little plants! So last week my good friend Katie Reese, formerly Jensen, who now resides in North Carolina was in Washington for a visit. I haven't seen her in over 5 years and was so excited to catch up. Since Crystal also lives conveniently in the same town, we all got together for a mini-reunion with our kiddos. We were such good friends in high school and have managed to stay in touch pretty well. Katie now has a super adorable little boy, Kaden, who is 8 months. And who Lucy felt a need to torment by repeatedly taking his binkie and then trying to shove it back in his mouth backwards.

This was our attempt at a picture of all our kids together. We graduated 9 years ago, who would've thought this would be what our little offspring would look like?

From left to right: Lucy (2), Isak (3 1/2), Livy (3), Kaden (8 months), and Aubrey (5 1/2).

Dang we have some cute babies! Katie lives close to the beach and I think Crystal and I need to take a vacation down there while our hubbies spend a quality weekend with our kiddos. Livy was feeling less than cooperative with the picture, but she belongs to Crystal :). I love that being close to where I grew up I get to see friends from high school every so often. Now if I could just convince some family in the way of siblings and sibling in laws to move closer, I would be set forever.

Its been nice to be home and back in our routine. Isak likes to tell me that he is "so glad you came back from New Zealand" and that he loves to be back at his house. He told Kevin yesterday, "I am made up of bones. Yep. I shoot them out of my eyes when fighting my enemies". Today he told me, "Mom, it smells like human food. It doesn't smell like boy food". Funny kid.

We got our kids some sheep skins while in New Zealand which I have reserved for special occasions only with no food, drink, or stinky hands nearby. Lucy was pretty excited.
Saturday we had an Easter egg hunt at a friends house here with a bunch of kids. Isak and Lucy were pretty excited, I recycled our pumpkin from Halloween and Isak used the actual Easter basker. I think Lucy was more into it than Isak was, after he found about 10 eggs he just wanted to play on the equipment. Lucy was really mad she had to wait to go find eggs, she kept trying to run into the backyard ahead of all the kids. I have a friend who had a good idea about teaching kids about Easter that I copied. In the Friend this month there was an activity about the 8 days prior to Easter and what Christ did each day. I printed them out and stuck them each in a balloon with some jellybeans then numbered the balloons 1-8. Each day we pop one and read what happened. I'm not sure my kids get it at all but its a start at least.