Hudson and Brooklyn--7 months

A friend of mine is just starting a photography business. She is working on building up her portfolio and practicing so she asked to borrow my kids. I had her take pics of Hudson and Brooklyn first and we'll do the other two another time...who knows, maybe we'll attempt to get a few of all four:) She gave me a cd with 300 pictures. I chose just 16 to share with you. Enjoy a few pics of the cutest babies I know:)

Brooklyn is quiet and observant for the first few minutes when meeting someone, but once she decides the situation is ok she's all smiles. Rachel really did a good job capturing her personality in these pictures.

Hudson loved the attention and was squealing most of the time. He's a little charmer!

Easter Egg Hunt

As per tradition my friends and I had an Easter Egg Hunt last week. The past couple years I've hosted it in our backyard. With the kids getting older we decided to have it at a park this year so that there was plenty of room for them to run around and play on the play structures. We had been having beautiful 70 degree weather for a couple weeks prior to the day we chose for the egg hunt. Of course the morning of our hunt started out cloudy, windy and rainy. The clouds and rain cleared away, but it remained windy and cold the rest of the day. So we had to bundle up, but the kids didn't seem to mind. Here are a few pictures of our morning.

How many more years do you think I can get them to pose like this:) 

We told the big boys that they weren't allowed to find the easy eggs strewn across the lawn. They had to hunt in the hard to find places.

Every egg Morgan picked up she shook it and proclaimed " Candy in here!"

Ethan and his buddies Mason and Trey.

Here are all the kiddos this year. A few were unable to make because of school conflicts and the cold temps, but the rest of us had fun! Here's the crew at the first annual Easter Egg Hunt. Here we are last year.

Morgan and cousin Annika had a great time playing together.

My Girls

I love my girls! Just a few pics of the cutest little girls I know:)

Morgan's hair is getting pretty long now. I can fit it into 2 pigtails. This particular day she even let me put it in braids! Since it is so curly we're not going to be able to cut bangs, so most days I have to convince her to let me at least put a clip in to keep her hair out of her face.

How could you not love this little face? Miss Brooklyn is just such a sweet little girl. So content and smiling more every day. She still loves to talk!

Here is Morgan in her ballerina outfit. Not sure if ballerinas wear high healed princess shoes, but this one does!

More visitors!

Last week Hudson and Brooklyn were able to meet their Greatgrandma Van Essen. My Grandma and Aunt Marcia came out from the midwest to spend time with my kids and my sister's kids (and us adults too I think:) It was such a special treat to have them love on our kids for 4 days. Kevin and I even snuck out for dinner one night (while they watched the kids AND folded laundry....now thats a treat!). Thanks Grandma and Aunt Marcia for the help, fun, conversation and hair cuts!

Grandma Great with Brooklyn and Hudson. My Grandma has 23 grandkids and 33 greatgrandkids (I think I have that second number right). She loves babies and still gets down on the ground with them to play. It was fun to see her meet the babies.

Aunt Marcia loved playing with the kids too. She and Ethan had a whole afternoon together riding bikes, going to the park and playing football. Her youngest is a sophomore in highschool so I think she enjoyed playing with a little boy again. Ethan and Morgan adored her. Marcia's daughters are named Brooke and Morgan....I think we have similar tastes in names:) I would love for my girls to turn out just like hers, they are such strong women of God they are perfect role models!

Grandma Great and her California greats! Sorry Audrey, your little face is covered up in all the pictures.

Thanks for the great visit! We love you!

Meeting Opapa and Omama

Kevin's Opa and Oma Schenk spend some of the winter months in Arizona. This winter they wanted to come up to our house to meet Hudson and Brooklyn and to play with Ethan and Morgan for a while. Thanks for stopping by Opa and Oma and enjoy the pics!

Getting all four to look at the camera was quite a challenge:)

Ethan always enlists extra help with his Legos. Thanks Opapa!

Morgan got some more "girls" to play dress up with. Thanks Omama!

Presents are always a big hit!

Thanks for taking the time to visit us Opapa and Omama!

How to survive Science Camp week...

Each year Kevin heads up to the coastal mountains for science camp with his 6th graders. It's a great week of fun and Independence for the students. Kevin always enjoys it as well, but it can be a long week for him to be away from us. It is usually a pretty long week for me at home too. This year's solution for that was to head to Pebble Beach with my mom. It was so great to get out of our house for a few days and so great to have help with the kids. We pretty much just moved our chaos to a new location, but it was refreshing to be by the coast as always. We had beautiful weather. I took the older two to the aquarium one morning, Ethan went golfing with Nana one afternoon, we ALL went to the beach one morning (1/2 hour of packing and loading for 1 hour at the beach, worth it? still not sure), and we ALL went to have dinner and watch the bagpiper. That actually went surprisingly well. Thanks for a great week mom!

Ethan was really into the aquarium this time. It is so fun to watch him gain more interest in what is there and what he can learn. You'll notice he had to wear his shark shirt for the occasion. Ethan was really into reading about the displays and having his picture taken by animals...Morgan not so much:)

Ethan all ready for golf.

Nana and Morgan:)

Hudson and Brooklyn were there as well, we just didn't get any pictures of them. They loved having a new place to look around at and loved taking walks.