Beautiful yellow daffodils!
The fountains are on!
Close-up tulip
A tree house
Me looking into a kaleidoscope
The trees are blooming!
My sister Amy & my mom in "snow" (actually the fallen petals of the trees)
Me & Amy in front of lilacs
A grand view!
The maze!
Me going into the maze!
My dad's brick in front of the maze. He used to work at the Arboretum, and is truly missed.
Me and my mom
The sign on my dad's Linden tree
The view from my dad's tree
Me hugging my dad's Linden tree 
The women in our family got together for the Wooddale Women's Brunch, followed by a wonderful service called "Spa for the Soul". From left to right: My sister Amy, Aunt Deb, my mom, cousin Beth, me, mother-in-law Kathy, and sister-in-law Melanie.
Heather Flies (who was also the officiating pastor at my wedding) was the speaker. She's amazing! She talked about how it is more important to have a Beautiful Soul than to be beautiful on the outside. We as women should not worry so much about how we look. We need to be thankful for the wonderful personality traits that God gave us.
We just finished up a unit in my classroom on Cultures. For a final project, each of my second graders designed a square of the quilt with different symbols of their culture. It's a very difficult concept to teach. Many of them drew flags, crosses, and some people. I used the bulletin board border from my husband's Aunt Nancy. It turned out great!
I bought some new birdseed for my feeder (fruit & nut blend), but it was too big to fit through the holes! I decided to just put the seed on a plate on the ground, and now I've been attracting squirrels and even chipmunks!
Trevor (2 1/2)and his Easter basket. He's obsessed with cars! Matt is always trying to get him to say the name of one of his cars "Dodge Powerwagon".
Trevor and my sister, Kacie. Kacie is 4 months pregnant.
Me & Trevor with his Mr. Potatoe Head Bunny.
Me & Trevor when I was babysitting him.
One of the first things we all have to do is find our Easter baskets hidden in the house! Aubrey found hers!
Cuddling with her Easter bunny!
Aubrey and Sara
Our nephew, Tyler (obviously a teenager that makes his own statement)!
Our niece, Teagan. She did her own hair today! Isin't it beautiful!
Aubrey wearing bunny ears.
She found one!
The Easter Bunny hid Tyler's eggs high up in the tree.
Carrying her Easter basket.
Aubrey and mommy. She has Elmo Bunny shaped Easter eggs.
Looking inside the eggs.
Matt & Aubrey
Matt making weird faces at Aubrey. What a goofy Uncle!
The famous Jello eggs! Mmmmmm!
We also celebrated Jerry's Birthday! He has a duck on his cake because he can speak in a Donald Duck voice!
One of my favorite features is the window-like door; it also has a glass shelf inside!
Oooh, ahhhh.... the lights are so beautiful! The plumbing has also been hooked up. Now we just have to finish the tiling to the left of the vanity.
Matt and his dad installed the vanity in the bathroom! They had to do a lot of leveling and scribing to get it just perfect. We still have to attach the valance on top, and hook up the plumbing to it. I was very worried at how the counter top would match the rest of the bathroom, but I think it's absolutely gorgeous! Way to go, Matt and Jerry!
We brought home our doors from Menards! They're so beautiful and smell great! They sure do make the rooms look a lot smaller, though. They almost touch the ceiling!
Matt grouted the tile on the walls in half the bathroom. He had to be very careful next to the ceiling.
Before
Before
After
After
His hands got all wrinkly because he was wearing latex gloves all day long! Eeeewww!
We also brought home all the parts to our vanity that we had been storing at Matt's parents' house!
"IT'S A MAJOR AWARD!"
(Famous line from the movie "A Christmas Story")
Matt was invited to go on a ride-along with his friend, Matt who is a cop. Here's his friend in his squad car.
The car is completey unmarked except for the small badge on the passenger side.
They patrolled the tough streets of Deephaven for 8 hours on Saturday.
By the end of the night, Matt was getting roudy and had to get locked up! (J/K) "I didn't do it Ociffer!""Pull Over!" "No, it's a cardigan, but thanks for noticing."
I found this recipe on parents.com and it is fabulous! It is the best thing I've ever made! I just have to share the recipe with you! You have to like spicy though, or you could omit the jalepenos, but I don't think it would be the same. I changed the recipe to more jalepenos and more corn, this is with my changes. You have to try it!Directions
*If you only have a small 3 qt. crockpot like me, you can still cook all of #1 in your slow cooker, and then transfer it to a large chili pot when adding the other ingredients on medium heat.
*If you're in a hurry and can't wait the full 4 hours, you can just take the temp of the chicken, when it's at the right temp that's good enough.
Sara reading a book to Aubrey.
These are photos from our Christmas get-together at Matt's cousin's house. I got Aubrey to take a nap. Lucy is sitting with us.
So precious!
