tough guys

Another unusually warm April afternoon causes my children to abandon the majority of their clothing and soak up some sun.

It was back to rubber boots and warm coats today, the craziness remains.

Lost in thought...

On a gorgeous summer-like evening there's nothing like taking a moment to stare off into the wilderness.

sweet little nieces

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter Weekend!  On the heels of my big boys' birthday is usually Easter, and it always works out well for us to have both sides of our families here to celebrate another year with twins and stash a few of those foil-covered eggs around the house for the boys and their cousins to find on Easter morning.  Usually our yard is full of mud at this time of year, but Saturday and Sunday we soaked up a ton of sun, the kids (and my brother & brother-in-law) burned off the extra calories while making good use of our trampoline, and there may or not have been a camera-toting auntie who couldn't resist these adorable little girlies.

This is what photographers would call a technically imperfect photo, but I love it.  My sister's youngest is as rough and tumble as her older brother and her three boy cousins, yet this shows her soft girly side (and a glimmer of her mischievous personality lurking behind those stunning big dark eyes!).

And this pint-sized bundle of cuteness is my sister-in-law's youngest (but only for another three months!!).

celebrate!

It's hard to believe but my first born(s) turned eight years old yesterday.  The twins were thrilled to have eight of their friends over to play and eat cake!  Their dad & I set up a fun treasure hunt for them through the meadow and it was really tricky since the clues were written on the same colour paper as the brownish leaves and grass.  They took a little break from the cleverly-hidden Clue #3 to do a group shot.  There's actually 11 kids in this photo - the eight friends, plus our three dudes.  And yes, we did survive a house overflowing with little boys.  No one was hurt, nothing got broke, my boys were spoiled rotten with all kinds of cool new stuff from their friends (thank you again!!).  All in all, a very successful party.  Let's all do the birthday jump!

almost eight

Ain't it great?