Easter!!

We had a week full of Easter festivities!! To start the week off, we had a little Easter Egg hunt out at the dam with our playgroup :: it was so fun!!  The day turned out to be beautiful & the kids had so much fun!!  We decided not to invite the Easter bunny this year since we had so many terrified children last year (last year's funny pictures are here though :)

Jackobi really embraced the Easter Egg hunt this year.

Holidays with children are just more magical.

Kashton, on the other hand .... wasn't very impressed....

... until he realized there was candy in those eggs

then he quickly became a fan ...

A little later that week a few of us got together to dye Easter Eggs!  It's so fun to do things like this as our kids get older.  It's fun to watch them play and entertain one another.  We're so grateful for such fun, good friends!

"What jelly beans, mom?" ... this picture had me cracking up! Kashton looks so guilty with his mouthful of Jelly beans!

we tried to get the little brother's to let us take their picture ....

they were far more interested in the jelly bean & rice crispy treats!

It's fun to have this little trio of boys so close together!

Kashton is my official stubborn picture taker .. (sigh)

one day I'll have him trained!  .... [maybe!]

 

She's her daddy's girl! That's for sure! 

I love their sweet little bond.

Easter Sunday was fun to get all dressed up!

Kashton is still not sure why I make him

sit still for pictures, but is getting a little better ...

we had fun opening baskets and finding Easter Eggs ::

Since Kashton learned about what's inside the eggs, he's a bigger fan. It's about all we could do to get him to avoid opening eggs until after the egg hunt ... little man loves himself some chocolate!!

still searching for goodies ...

even after he's eaten them!

and most importantly Kashton learned to dunk it ...
(thanks Jason) now at least there's more than one
Christiansen boy with this talent ... :)

We had such a great Easter filled with so many fun memories!

We are so incredibly blessed ...

deck the halls

Just about as soon as we could manage, once Thanksgiving was over :: Christmas prep was in full swing in our house!  This year we let Jackobi pick out her very own tree for her room.  And yep, you guessed it ... pink was her choice hands down.  It turned out to be a pretty cute addition to her room!  {and Kashton only managed to sneak two candy canes off her little tree the entire month of december!} & when I say sneak I mean sneak! he's such a little turkey! He would crawl in, grab one and go hide while he tried to eat it!  We're going to have our hands full with this one!

When he wasn't busy stealing candy canes, Kashton's absolute favorite thing was our Christmas lights.  From the moment I plugged them in he was in love. I normally wouldn't mind too much, but he was constantly trying to eat them (as he does everything) :: so it was fun keeping him away from them each day. :)

but how do you resist this face!??

in the mix of things we managed to celebrate Jackobi's favorite

two year old's birthday :: happy birthday hadley!!

dressed as princesses & making crowns ::

what more could a girl ask for??

A few of us went to The Nutcracker :: it was such a fun afternoon and I absolutely loved taking Jackobi.  It was so magical for her.  She loved the costumes and dancing, it will be a fun little tradition for years to come!

We had lots of fun at Nate's work party this year.  There was a clown making balloon animals :: that was definitely the highlight of Jackobi's night.

Kashton was less than impressed with his first encounter Santa. 

Jackobi wouldn't come within ten feet.

Our December was definitely filled with candy canes and christmas trees ::

::friends christmas party::

 

we hope you had as much fun

decking the halls as we did!

gobble, gobble

We had such a great Thanksgiving this year!  In an attempt to keep things simple, we just went to Nate's parents house on Thanksgiving. It was such a relaxing day filled with family, fun and lots of food!!

LOVE my little turkeys!!

Nate had to work Thanksgiving night (boo) :: but my sister was nice enough to come and keep us company while he was gone!  The kids were both wired from candy, but tired from turkey so it was sure nice to have an extra set of hands :)

The day after Thanksgiving is marked with the traditional "Caring and Sharing" at the Rupert Civic Center and the lighting of the square.  It was cooolllld, but we had a blast.  It's such a great way to kick off the holiday season!

one of our many blessings this year is our families.

we're so glad we are able to share such special moments

 traditions and memories with them! ♥