Happy Easter!

Making a quick stop here at the blog after a very busy day so far. We started early this morning with an Easter Egg Hunt in the neighborhood and a meeting with the Easter Bunny. Then home for a steady breakfast and then quick getting ready for the next adventure.

A second Easter Egg Hunt with a big Splash and then home to feed hungry and thirsty kids. While Chris headed to the golf course, I've cleaned up the house, made a lot of meatballs for our Easter Brunch tomorrow morning, and then cleaned the kitchen.

Now, 10 minutes break and then getting everyone ready for the next adventure for the day/evening. We're taking the whole family to a concert for the first time! We're making it as a picnic and will have dinner there, and hopefully have a great evening.

When we come home from the concert tonight, it will be another late night, as I still have a lot to do to help out the Easter Bunny tomorrow, to prepare his eggs to fill up. As we also have a BIRTHDAY girl in the house tomorrow - I have a lot of things to prepare for that too when everyone is in bed.

As you can imagine, there are plenty of pictures in the camera waiting to be looked through, but that will have to wait for another day. I don't know if I'm going to have the time to get logged on here during the day, as we'll be pretty busy around here.

Therefore, I'd like  to already now wish all my family and friends a very Happy Easter!!

As I'm not going to have the time to check into all my favorite blogs to wish each and everyone of my blog friends and readers personally - I here want to wish you all a very Happy Easter as well!

Easter Witch & Easter Bunny

The cutest pair this Easter!

 My oldest Easter Witch and her Easter Bunny.

My Little Easter Witches 2013

GLAD PASK!!!

Today it's Easter Thursday - in Swedish "Skartorsdagen". Not a day that is celebrated here in the US at all, but since I think it's important to keep our Swedish traditions alive, I atleast try to dress them up like Easter Witches this day, and take a few pictures to keep as fun Easter memories down the years.

Last year, we didn't get to take any pictures, but this year, I certainly wanted to do it, even if the kids weren't the most cooperative when it came to leaving the headpiece on, or not smearing the cheeks out before I got any pictures at all. As always it takes most work to convince Benjamin to stay for a few pictures, but even if he's not all smiles, it's still nice to have the pictures.

How they looked their first time being Easter Witches back in 2011, look HERE How cute they were, and how small with just under a year.

And below is how cute they look as Easter Witches in 2013:

 

Good Night Yuma

Later last night, when I took the garbage out to the curb, I saw this beautiful sunset. I went back inside to get the camera to be able to catch a few pictures. The sunsets are always stunning here, and there is sometimes like the whole sky is burning in orange and sometimes it's more to the pink/purple shades, like last night. Either way, it's very beautiful and somewhat magical to me to witness these sunsets. I just wish that I'd have the time to really wait it out and snap more pictures after one another, but kids were going crazy in the bathroom while brushing their teeth, so this time there was no time for waiting it out. Another time!

 The sky behind me taking the pictures of the sunset...

Slowly Getting Ready For Easter

Last night, the kids and I started to decorate for Easter here at home. Cassie had been wondering when we actually would do so, considering that Easter is this weekend coming up. So, after cleaning the house, convenient enough Chris had training all day, so he wasn't at home and needed to sleep, which meant that I could clean, the kids could run around crazy and play all day without risking waking him up.

So when Cassie came home and all the homework was done, we dug out the Easter decoration boxes from the garage, and started to go through what there was.

The kids made their nests ready for the Easterbunny to put some gifts and chocolate in here inside, as it's a bit too hot for that outside. And to make sure that he knows that he's welcome in this house, they decorated the bushes and the Welcome sign outside with Easter eggs.

This he surely must see and be ready to hop right in! When he does, we'll be ready!

Tricky TV Night

Sundays are not easy to watch something on TV here in our house. Too much to choose from on one and the same night. I like to watch:

Army Wives, Revenge and the new series Red Widow, that I really like so far. Chris has started to record The Bible, Vikings and then there is some golf program that he follows. So we have six shows that we are recording and wanting to watch on Sunday evenings, and everything is of course overlapping and as we only can record two shows at the same time, there is some puzzling needed to get everyone happy. As some of the programs overlap, or more than two are airing on the same time, some has to be checked when they are coming on again later the same night and be recorded then. The kids are not happy, as nothing but already recorded things can be watched while two programs are recording, and there is normally something that they will want to watch..

As I never have time to watch anything in "real time", I always record all my programs and watch them when I can. Sometimes that takes a few days, and as I looked today on our DVR recordings, it's not much more space left. I have recorded a lot of movies for the kids, and it's easy to just turn on a program there that they like instead of trying to find something on the different channels. I record Mike the Knight, Sofia the First, Peter Rabbit, Jake and the Neverland pirates and Handy Manny, and then it's perfect to put on a 30 minute show here and there instead of a whole movie. An episode of something is so much better, as when the 30 minutes are up, you can just turn it off, instead of getting into a fight with the kids about having to turn off the TV when they are in the middle of the movie.

But, now I have to go back an delete some of the listings, as I don't want to miss any of our programs that we want to see. Thankfully DVR is available. Otherwise I couldn't see half the programs that I want to see. Now, it doesn't matter what time anything starts, I can't keep certain times anyway with the kids and their sleeping routines, so for me this is ideal, to switch on a recorded show at the time that suits me, and not the time that it airs. And also to spread it out, and be able to watch a program per night. So yesterday, I was able to watch Revenge and now I'm just about sit down and enjoy an episode of Army Wives!

Kitchen Duty

Not very often it happens that I put up something food related on the blog. I don't know if that is something that you would want to see or read about, but maybe I should. I always find it interesting to see what others eat/cook and maybe find a recipe to try out myself. Not because we don't eat a lot or eat very well, but mainly because I normally don't even think about taking pictures when dinner is getting served. With getting everything on the table, the kids served and ready to eat, there is no extra time for super pretty photo presentations.

BUT, yesterday, before packing up the food, I just had to take some pictures (with the phone and not perfect light conditions, but still) of the beautiful Quiches that Chris made. We have gotten the taste for Quiches and have made them quite frequently lately, and they are perfect to freeze and just warm up, good for him to take to work and to put in the oven and warm up here at home for a quick dinner. I love them together with a crispy salad and on occasion with a glass of chilled Chardonnay.

Yesterday, we made little individual ones too. The kids helped pressing out the circles of the dough to put in the muffin pans, the mini ones and the regular size pan. They turned out great. Next time we'll make the dough circles a little bit thicker so that they don't get too much color before the quiche has set.

The down side to make all kind of different ones in different pans and lost of preparations, there is a now a huge pile of dishes waiting for me in the kitchen. Not funny to take care of, especially not the next day. But last night after dinner, getting the kids ready for bed, helping Cassie checking some homework, checking and printing out a book report for her, and thousand little things that needs to happen after dinner time, there was no time for the kitchen.

Chris, that had to wake up way to early after his night shift because I had to go to the dentist, was very tired after dinner. As he has training and PT all day today, which starts early in the morning, he went to bed early. As usual, his free Tuesdays are taken over by work anyway..sigh!

No, enough time here, I have to get started on "finding" my kitchen counters again. At least it won't be much cooking tonight, I already know what we'll have for dinner!

We love them with a bacon and baby spinach filling. 

Plenty of little ones for a snack, for appetizers or 

for a pretty decorated little starter for a nicer dinner.

Yuma Twins Easter Egg Hunt

As mentioned in the earlier post, we were meeting up with the Yuma Twins Group on Saturday for an Easter Egg Hunt. It was a lot of fun, and great to chat and talk to other twin moms/dads and share some experiences. Some were older and some were younger than mine, but still always fun to hear from others.  Some kids were wilder than others, and I'm happy to say that even if mine are pretty wild and crazy here at home at times, they do behave and are to the shy side in public, which is good to know. They listen and I don't have to chase after them all the time, they don't brake things, start opening eggs or pulling down the food from the tables, like some other ones did..

The other families had both parents present, and one that didn't have a daddy present, brought the grandma along. I'm so used to bring mine alone where ever I go, and of course I have a great help in Cassie if need be, so it's normally no problem at all. But it was interesting for me to see how other families did it, and pretty much all of them had one child assigned to them, that they kept running after. The park they had chosen was great though, lots of green and open space to run around and with tables and a play area with swings and slides, where we went later after the egg hunt.

The older girls were in charge of hiding/spreading the eggs out for the little ones to "find"

Waiting very patiently for the hunt to begin..

One of the families had brought a bunny to watch over the eggs..

The orange tshirt fraternal twin boys and their younger identical twin sisters were all so sweet!

Their parents certainly "have their hands full" as one of the most common comments from strangers always is to us that has multiples...Isabella reflected over that the girls look the same, but noting more. It was only then and older girls that were identical, so it wasn't like seeing double all the time for them. Trying to take a group photo of all the kids, 7 sets of twins and older siblings, wasn't that easy. Some were sitting more still than others, but most were eager to run off and get the eggs!!

Here are also two other sets of twins with boy/girl (the boy and girl twins that are hiding from the camera) and the boy in red and his twin sister in green to the right in the picture.

Here the pretty 4 year old identical twin girls made the picture to the right!

Here another shot where I got the fraternal twin boys and their older sister in the 

picture to the right

Ready - Set - Go!!!

Taking his time picking out the pretty ones!

Same with Isabella, no rushing trying to get the most eggs, more running here 

and there to get pretty colored ones.

Ben and another boy/girl twin combo.

Such a happy girl!!

Kids going wild - parents trying to supervise/help AND take cute pictures...

Isabella in the middle.

Checking out what's inside! Mostly stickers and hard candy, but as the harder candy is normally a choking hazard and not really for little ones, Cassie was trading with them where she could. We all have learned our lesson, DON'T put chocolate inside the Easter Eggs in Arizona. They melt even after a few minutes in the heat. Haha, we had quite the mess last year in the garden, trying to take the wrappers of melted chocolate eggs..

Maximus and Aurelius (the only names of all the twins that I remember ...) 
with daddy and mommy

It was so windy, that it was nicer to sit out in the sun on the blanket than under the Ramada.

I had just taken a few pictures with another family's camera to get them both in the pictures with the kids and all the eggs, and the mom offered to take some of me and my kids. Nice, as I like to get a few of me and the kids too, as I normally always are behind the camera and not in front. As always it's not easy to get all the kids to look in one direction and the sun was really bright, so it took a couple of shots to get a few good ones - as usual!

After the pictures, we had some of the snacks that everyone had brought and while the kids were eating, the parents could chat a little more. At noon, we had to pack up as other people had rented the Ramada, but we moved the things over to a table near the playground, and where some of us had to leave, some of us stayed and played and visited some more.

One family picked up pizza for everyone, and the kids had lunch before playing some more at the playground. Most of the younger ones were then ready for their nap, and as mine don't nap anymore, they were pretty unhappy to leave the park and all the fun. But, with a little convincing and promise that they would see daddy before he left for work if we hurried up home, they did come along without too much drama.

It was a great get together. Hopefully we can do it again soon, and everyone said the same, that it's so much easier to get together like this in the parks, than to try to do it at someone's house or garden. Like this, you can let them play and there isn't too much drama, as in touching or fighting over toys and things. Just such a shame that it's soon too hot to meet outside, but we all said that we'll try. It's a shame that everyone but me, lived on the other side of town..Would have been nice to have someone close to meet on a more regular basis.

Bye bye park - we had a great time!!