Wished I'd had a better telephoto lens to get a better picture of this baby bunny in our yard. This was as close as I could get before he hopped away. Cute little guy.

My funny girls:  knitting while walking around the block

Little boys and dirt. Enough said. Love the serious expression on his face.

Ugh! I know my food photography leaves a lot to be desired, because these don't look anywhere close to as delicious as they were. They are strawberry filled cream puffs which John surprised us with this morning.

And here is something even more surprising:

These are bamboo shoots picked from our own yard. We have a friend whose native Chinese parents came and showed us which shoots to pick, and then how to cut and prepare them.Bamboo shoots  are actually quite delicious.

And this is David photobombing:

What a clown!!

First strawberry picking of the season. Weather was lovely, strawberries were plentiful, big, juicy, and sweet.  We got 5 gallons.

Rose bud two ways:

Christina is so talented and creative. These are thank you cards that she made. Every colored piece is cut free-hand and all glued together. I especially love the bands around the hats.

We had to say good-bye to some old friends today. We were both sad and happy.

Now we try to find a van to replace them, but I have to say, these vans raised our expectations.

*These pictures were taken last night, not today. The kids have been asking for a picnic and it seemed like as good a time as any. We wanted to go to the lake for our picnic, but it was actually "closed for winter". That was pretty disappointing. But we just drove over to another park. There is a small creek at the park, so there was an opportunity to at least get a little wet.

They weren't going anywhere they weren't supposed to. They just climbed over the fence instead of walking through the gate. Kids :-)

Easter Pictures:

 I have never been more sad about a focus failure. This picture would have been perfect otherwise:

These were all taken while we were waiting for the rest of the crew to get home from church:

Rebekah's almost too tall to get this shot anymore:

Finally, everybody together:

Except, as usual, Elijah wants to come check out the camera:

HAPPY EASTER!!!

Flowers that we wrapped and tied for our community outreach today:

Elijah helping John prepare for his class at church tomorrow:

Sometimes at night when Elijah is grumpy and tired, the girls will put him in the hammock in their room and just rock him. He likes it.

You can see the tear there on his cheek (if you click to enlarge):

He likes to lay down and have the hammock wrapped up around him. Here he is telling Bekah to close the hammock:

Today my mom sent a package for Easter. It had Webkinz stuffed animals for all the kids. The kids were so excited and passing them out with screaming and excitement. Elijah pulled out a hand-me-down pajama shirt and ran around screaming and hugging it. He wanted to put it on and he's been wearing it all day.

I just have to say, I thought he was in the basement with his brothers... (um, he wasn't):

Oh, are you watching me?  Let me just hide so you don't know I was the one playing in the toilet:

Rain on the rose bush: