The Easter Bunny visited a little early this year :) Our friends had a egg hunt and brunch last weekend where the Bunny put in an early visit in his busy schedule :) The kids all had a great time as well as the parents!

Since it's been awhile

since I posted any real photos of the kids. Here is their photo with Santa this year. Yes Jaxson has stitches in his eyebrow... like I said before it's been a busy few months :)

I think both the boys were pleased with Santa this year. Jaxson asked for a choo-choo and Hayden asked for some special Nerf gun, kinda like that scene from The Christmas Story, "I want a Red Rider Bee bee gun..."

Santa delivered as always :)

Hayden was in yet another parade

I swear this boy has been in some kind of parade every year since he was two! This time it was for his karate school. Here's Daddy and Jax getting a good spot for watching and candy catching :DTim was thrilled when he saw the 501st in the parade. They were handing out great bags of marshmallows... not sure why though.
Here's the school!!

They went by so quick I didn't get a chance to get a picture of Hayden... he was in the passenger side of the truck. Oh well.
And this little guy made Jaxson's day in the parade.

2 events in One!

On Father's Day we took Tim out for breakfast. I offered to cook but since we had a BBQ planed for later he chose to go to our favorite place.
After breakfast we went to the movies to see the new Toy Story 3. We all really liked the movie but none more than Jax! It was his first movie after all. He sat for the entire thing and barely moved!
munching popcorn and just enjoying the show.
We tired him out. He fell asleep on the way home and went straight down for a nap once we got there. Too much excitement.
Later that afternoon we had a BBQ with the grandparents...

Changed it up

This year we went for an Easter Brunch instead of dinner. It worked better for Amanda and John with her family's celebration in the afternoon. I have to say I think I liked it better. It was easier to prep for and cook since I assembled everything the evening before and it was cheaper. 4 dozen eggs was MUCH cheaper than a huge ham or turkey. Just a nicer feel for the morning. The other plus side was everyone was done and gone by 3pm so we all still had the rest of our evening to relax and get the kids ready for the week.
Went all in this year with the china and everything. Its good for the good dishes to see the light of day once in awhile.

Hayden and his air rockets...outside toys for sure!
Jax and his love of Toy Story... can't wait for the new movie to come out.
Family at Easter... and yes Hayden is standing on a chair but I don't think it will be too long before this is reality.
Grammy and Pa (or PaPa as Jax has been calling him)
Nana & boys. Jax was WAY WAY past nap time by this point, thus the stoned look on his face.

The Hunt is on...

Jax really understood what needed to be done this year, but that didn't stop big brother from helping him :)
Jax checking out what Hayden got in his basket
New Tub Toys!!! Woot!
Hayden checking out all the wonderful tings the rabbit left for him this year and counting his chocolate :)
Jaxson showing off his chocolate :-)
Some cuteness before the sugar highs hit... and let me say they did.

Color them Eggs!

We took advantage of a rare 75° day in Chicago and colored our eggs outside. Plus the thought of the patio getting dyed red didn't scare me as much as the thought of my carpet a nice pink. Jax was actually very good though. He dropped the eggs in a bit more forcefully than we would of liked but it made the egg salad later a pretty color :-)
Hayden is an ole pro at this activity.
Rare photo, both looking the same direction AND smiling



The family and our eggs.
While waiting for the eggs to dye and dry we had races in the backyard and basketball contests, with a soccer ball of course :)
This kept the boys from asking every 2 seconds if the eggs were ready.
When they finally were :)

Egg Dive

We missed the outdoor Easter Egg Hunt because of our little spring break getaway so I thought it would be nice to do the village egg dive. Hayden had a great time and came away with dozens of plastic eggs.

Here he is with his stash!
Jax on the other hand was a little confused with the whole process and a little bored. I was worried because they lumped together 5 and under in age groups. That mean A LOT of kids, parents, and little ones. I had to hang on for dear life to Jax as other parents pushed their way into the pool. It was not so great! I did manage to snag 5 eggs for Jax to open and play with.
And Hayden was nice enough to let him open some of his. We stayed to play in the pool for awhile after all the egg madness was done.

NYE '09

On NYE we celebrate with Jere, Sharon and the girls. We have for as long as I can remember now. We had more to celebrate since Jere learned that morning that he would have a job after 6 months of being laid off and we were waiting on news of Tim's job news. We brought out the hats and horns early since Jax would be sleeping at actual midnight, at least I hoped. So here is our little princess :)
The kids livin' it up!
Me and Sharon, after a pitcher of Sangria, hence the 'squinties' :D
Jax and Faithie hanging out.
The kids started playing Wii and once Jax was in bed the adults kicked them out and had our turn at Wii Resort and Deer Hunter. We really haven't laughed that much in a long time. It was fun to be carefree for the evening. :)
Jax and his Godmama.
Me and Tim at midnight... this was the 'nice' picture. LOL
Here's Sharon and Jere's 'naughty' picture...they really know how to celebrate the New Yearthe kids all ready for midnight and bed. They had pretty much hit the wall at this point.
The next morning... don't know who was more tired. :D