It rained from Friday evening through Monday evening. Yuk. Our yard was a lake, and our basement was dampish. The sun has finally come out today, yay! The great thing about the rain is that all the leaves and plants and flowers are out now....and if you squint your eyes and use your imagination you can pretend you are in Ireland, everything is SO green! 
It's called living in Iowa :). Monday was in the 40's and rainy. It got nicer through the week, in the 60's and 70's. And today it was 85. From the furnace to the central air in 4 days! Yes, I am a huge wimp and turned the a/c on this afternoon....by 4:00 we all had sweat running down our backs. Yesterday I looked out back and saw this:
Grace had spread out a beach towel and put on her swimsuit. She said "I'm getting a suntan". Lucy decided to lay out beside her :). Lucy got a clip yesterday, but she still looks like a homely orphan dog. With an underbite.
We had some storms roll through this evening. No warnings for us, but we got some thunder and a nice rain. Some mammatus clouds before the storm: 
Not much excitement going on around here lately, we've been pretty boring. The weather has been GREAT though...today was 72 and the next 2 days are supposed to be 80. When there's nothing new to report, I usually go out and take pics of Grace and Ava since they are the most willing of the picture subjects :). And they're pretty cute too!
Ben and Tyler in the hot tub:
A fedora wearing pirate :) :
Grace by the gigantic beautiful fireplace:
Looking at the Fox Snake:
Rich going up for the block:
We all went down to Southern Iowa to the Honey Creek Resort yesterday to spend the night in the BEAUTIFUL new lodge. They have an indoor water park so the kids swam swam swam! It wasn't any deeper than 3 feet anywhere, so Grace could go all over the pool by herself. They had a blast...there was a big slide, a lazy river, a basketball hoop, lily pads, and a pirate ship for the smaller kids. The lodge is right on the edge of Lake Rathbun, so it's nestled down in the middle of nowhere Iowa, but it was just gorgeous. It is all built in the Craftsman style, which is right up my alley. I was wondering if they would miss the headboard, dresser and lamp in our room, because they were really cool! It's a pretty new place, so a lot of the trails and paths are still under construction, along with some awesome little cabins..it will be really nice when it's all finished. We all want to give a big shout out to Grandma Cathy for sending us....THANKS Grandma!
Beautiful week here! In the 60's and sunny (except for Monday, which was rainy and 42, but I'm choosing to forget about Monday). The dogs had a great time outside today, fighting over toys. There are a million dog toys in the backyard, but they insist on fighting over the same one. No one toy in particular, just whatever the other one happens to have in their mouths. Case in point: Lucy had this lion...Tucker yanked it out of her mouth and she yanked it back. Never mind that Tucker has about 6 toys surrounding him. 
The beautiful daffodils in Phyllis and Dick's yard!
Ok, I'm the worst person ever. I took NO pictures of my children over Easter. What in the heck is wrong with me? Matt, Ben and Grace spent the night with Grandma Cathy and Don on Friday night. They colored eggs, had an egg hunt, and got some cute easter baskets. Saturday morning Grandma made us all a yummy breakfast and we headed over to Galesburg for another Easter at Grandmother and Grandpa Kinney's. First we stopped off in Eldridge to watch John play a baseball scrimmage, and we dropped Matt and Tyler off to spend the night. John is a great baseball player...wish we lived closer so we could watch his games! After watching the game we took off for Galesburg. Grandmother and Grandpa took Ben and Grace to McDonald's and to the Hannah Montana movie (with everyone else in town :) ). The kids had a ball! Grace had a bit of a case of sticky fingers...somehow the Easter eggs with the $10 bills in them for all the grandkids were missing 4 $10 bills, which we mysteriously found in Grace's jeans (ugh). Sunday morning we went to church, then came home and had a great lunch with the whole family. It's great to see them all, it doesn't happen often enough! We got home about 8:15 Sunday evening. I did get some pics of John, and the egg coloring pics are courtesy of Grandma Cathy, who had the foresight to take pics! :) Hopefully Phyllis will have a few I can have too!
This girl standing next to Ben stood with her arms crossed looking sour for most of the program. Not sure what her problem was, but Ben looked at her many times and tried to get her to laugh:
Making his xylophone debut :)...
Actually a lot of it did melt thank goodness! This is about all we have left in the backyard:
Tyler gave Grace his old cell phone that is dead to play with. She's been carrying on conversations with all sorts of people this afternoon :).
Heidi posted this pic on her blog the other day...Eli wanted this eye from his Happy Meal taped to his head. When Grace heard this she wanted the eye from her Happy Meal tonight taped on her head also. Oh and by the way Heidi, we drove through :).
The boys ready to watch the fireworks in Geneseo, 2000
WARNING, I am two!
Matt as Joseph in the Christmas program at his preschool. Mary flaked out so it was up to Joseph to hold and rock the baby. One of my better costume attempts!
Yes, our string of good luck is about to come to an end. Saturday and Sunday we could get SNOW! Hopefully it will stay to the NW. It's APRIL for pete's sake! We played outside today and yesterday...today was in the mid 50's but without wind it was gorgeous! Even my mom's hyacinth's are blooming!
