You Might Be A Red Neck If...

The kids LOVE the new neighborhood. There are kids everywhere. The magic is that we live at the bottom of a U-shaped street at the bottom of a hill. The neighborhood kids swarm around here racing down the hill on their bikes and scooters. The fun is infectious, we all want to join the party. 

Little Chief has acquired the coordination to pedal a bike!

But inevitably the Toads get called in for super, which around here just means that the party just moves to the back yard. 

Pops bought us a treat! A new grill. I see no reason to cook in doors for 6 months.

Superkid solved our table situation by flipping over the box the grill came in  and squatting on the deck.

That's when I came to the realization.
If you're dirt biiking in your back yard, eating hotdogs off a card board box, regularly pulling ticks off your baby's head...

...and dancing in mud puddles for fun, you might be a red neck.

And life is good.

Hoppy Easter

These Toads clean up pretty nicely for church.

I failed to mention it previously, but Superkid ties his own ties now. 

I'm impressed. With 4 boys that is a trick I should learn too.

Abizella is pretty in pink!

I love this face!

This one is fun to squeeze!

Jaws is fun to chase!

Pops is always my handsome, dapper gent!

After church, we rushed home and prepped our Easter feast. Abizella was charged with dessert.

My friend (actually Mindy's best friend) Darla and her husband Mike were in town for the Boston Marathon. We were happy to provide Darla with her pre-race carbo load!

Big Abi joined us as well. Little chief was happy to catch up with his pal.

This one is for Mindurs. It really was so great to have Darla and Mike here. I had a great time chatting about the marathon and the joys of running. I was thrilled for Darla and was happy to have them back for breakfast Wednesday to get the race details.

We spent the rest of the day consuming the giant dinosaur egg Grandma and Grandpa sent...

...and playing with the easter toys and money our grandmas sent. The kids set up an elaborate scenario involving cowboys, a bartender, a sherriff, a banker and the Easter cash.

Easter is sticky, messy, loud and covered with plastic grass, but I'm loving these crazy times!

Candy Breakfast

The kids woke up Easter morning to find that raskly rabbit hid their Easter baskets of loot. 

No worries, they sniffed them out.

Then it came time for the egg hunt. 

I distracted the little kids while the bunnies went out to do their work. 

Superkid retuned explaining that it ruins the fun to be the bunny. 

Abizella couldn't disagree more. 

The kids lined up to charge the field...

The Easter Bunny was generous this year!

The kids left no stone unturned... okay, maybe one. 

Tadpole found one more egg yesterday and happily taunted us with its contents.

Jaws immediately understood the fun and importance of collecting eggs.

Our loot!

Our candy breakfast!

Kind of the best breakfast all year.

Rainbow Eggs

Between getting settled around here and cleaning up the old place, we were super happy to take a break and have a holiday around here. Especially one that involved making "rainbow eggs",  as Little Chief calls them. In fact, every time I have mentioned eggs since he claps his hands and says, "Oh good! Rainbow eggs!"

Superkid is an old pro by now, showing the littles the crayon trick for decorating.

Tadpole developed the patience to get the eggs super vibrant.

Abizella fastidiously painted the eggs multicolored.

Jaws got sent to bed before the fun started. Poor 5th child. We'll make it up to him on the back end.

we had a couple of extra Easter bunnies around here this year. Abizella asked if there was really an Easter Bunny. I asked her, "What do you think?" She then asked if she and Superkid, who was standing next to her, could be the Easter Bunny this year. After the little ones fell asleep, the top two came to the living room where Pops was watching "The 10 Commandments" while ironing Easter clothes. They stuffed Easter eggs  while watching the iconic Easter film. They really liked the movie, but were fascinated by the commercials.  Turns out between PBS kids and Netflix they haven't really seen many before.
This will go down as a happy Easter memory for me. 

Might Be Time For Speech Therapy...

Pops and Tadpole were sharing a Twix Bar.

Tadpole said, "Oh, I love Reece's!" 

Pops corrected him and said, "Actually this is a Twix." 

Tadole said, "Oh! I love Twix, I love that cartoon wabbit." 

Pops corrected him again, "No Tadpole, that is Trix." 

Frustration mounting Tadpole adamantly said, "That's what I said! Twix!"

Doh! Sharpie!

Pops has been shuttling loads of stuff from the old place to the new place everyday as he passes by while driving the kids to/from school. Much to his dismay he returned to the van to find this:

In desperation he asked Little Chief, "Why did you do this?!!!" (a euphemism, I'm sure). 

Little Chief innocently looked up, shrugged and said, "I thought I was playing Daddy."

Feed the Need 2014

And then everything came to a screaming halt. Time for the 12th Annual Feed the Need Race! 

These things don't organize themselves. 

First order of business was digging out the box of FTN T-shirts from the basement.

This year the 3 oldest kids woke up SUPER early to come with me. Superkid even set his alarm clock. Tadpole was too excited to sleep and woke up before the sun came up. It's a good thing I had extra helpers too! Abizella and Tadpole drew the start line for the Toddler Trot, hung posters, and tested out the bounce house.

Superkid joined his Cub troop to pass out water to the runners. The water stop is a couple of miles up the trail, usually their scout master or a parent gives them a ride. The new cub master mounted his mighty steed and herded the scouts up the trail to the station...

Even funnier from the rear, right?

This is the first year the kids have participated in the 1 mile run. 

Abizella and Tadpole are toeing the start line...

Due to a wardrobe defect, Tadpole lost his sneaker around the first bend causing a dogpile of kids in his wake. He popped up, retrieved his sneaker and tore off. I stayed behind to sweep up the kids and dole out band-aids. That was the last I saw of Speedy Tad. 

I took a shortcut and joined Abz for the last half of her run.

Pops, Little Chief and Jaws joined us for the last half of the event. Look closely, that is not Sean Connery. That is Pops sporting his "house renovation" beard.

This year we had over 200 runners and over 7,000 cans of food donated. That is down from 450 runners and 10,000 cans of food last year. There may have been a soccer open week conflict?! Still, that is 7,000 cans of food for the community. I think we can feel pretty good about that.

This Is Our Backyard!!!

I can't believe we got this house. 

The house is great, but the yard is amazing! The kids have been exploring the backyard, and found this trail leading to conservation area. After the kids scampered in the forest everyday for the first week we lived here, I thought I better join Abizella on one of her hikes to see what was back there. This is the trail on the backside of our property. She led me on a little loop that she and the other Toads hike over and over and over again.

After that, we decided to take the trail in the other direction to a little pond that we hiked to a few years ago. It was the perfect Spring day. We saw a great blue heron and heard lots of frogs. 

Abz loved finding animal prints and guessing which animal left them behind. We have seen several deer in our back yard so Abizella recognized these prints easy peezy.

We loved this little bridge that took us out to a little island on the pond.

I adore Abizella's adventurous spirit. 

We hiked hand in hand, chatted and planned a picnic for the whole family. 

This kid is the best.