Let's have a Play Date!

I am watching a friends little girl all weekend (as her and her husband enjoy a week away in sunny Florida)!  The boys like having another person in the house to play with.  She is a very active, independent and talkative 3 1/2 year old.  I forget how many questions a kid of this age can have, she wears me out sometimes!   Also having a girl in the house a whole new ballgame for me but so far we are doing good. Mason and Bristol get along quite well (they are 17 months apart) but they do have their moments - he wants to do things his way and she is an only child so she just wants what she wants!   I will say that for the most part they are getting along great so far, hoping the next 24 hours is the same. 

We are having a good time with an extra kid in the house and I knew going into this weekend I wouldn't really plan an activities outside the house because I am not sure I am brave enough to tackle a public place with a 6.5, 3.5 and 2 year old.  However earlier this week I mentioned to some friends that we could have a play date at my house if they didn't have any plans and they came through for me (saved my sanity for a few hours this morning).  Colton of course wasn't thrilled about the house being full of little kids so we agreed he could have a friend come over too.  He called up a friend from school and his buddy arrived about 10 minutes later, having friends of his living so close is awesome (side note, Colton is going to his friends house tomorrow for a play date, double win for this mommy - he was entertained by his friend today and I get a break for a couple hours tomorrow)!  So lets see it was a total of 8 kids in one home at one time -  two 6 years-old's, two 3.5 year-old's, a 2.5 year old, a 2 year old, a 1 year old and a 10 month old!  Wow, I am surprised we even survived and what is even more impressive is that all the kids survived as well.  It was complete chaos at times... several kids yelling for attention, diapers needing to be changed, arguments over toys and lunch needing to be served!  But at the same time is was fun, I guess sometimes a little chaos makes the quite afternoon seem so much more relaxing.  I feel so blessed to have such awesome girlfriends who will come over and hang out even if it is just for a couple hours and we don't get much mommy time to just chat and catch up on each others lives.

 I took this next picture of my friends little guy right before they left (I really only took my camera out to get the above group shot, otherwise there was no time for picture taking).  I just had to share it because he might be the most gorgeous 1 year old I have ever seen... look at those eyes and that smile and the little blond curls on the back of his head are completely to die for!!

6th Annual Sand Family Get Together

We had our Annual Sand Family Get Together this weekend and it was a blast!  We all rented rooms at Grand Casino Mille Lacs as well as rented a party room to we could spend time just hanging out and playing games.  We were missing quite a few in the family this year due to work schedules, April winter storms and pending baby arrivals but we made sure we did enough laughing, drinking and eating for all of them who couldn't join us.  We spent time swimming, enjoying delicious food from our Pot Luck Dinner, enjoying drinks, catching up on each other's lives and of course playing a couple friendly games of Catch Phrase and Loaded Questions.   I didn't take as many pictures as I usually do (feel free to take a moment to be surprised) but I did take a few.  Most of the pictures I took were in the pool or of the newest members of the Sand family.  My cousin Kayla delivered two beautiful boys back in December, 6 weeks early, so for many of us this was the first time we really got to snuggle and love on them!  I don't think those boys were put down much at all actually, it seemed like one of us always had them in our arms.  

It was another awesome family get together. I feel very blessed to have family that remains so close and  continues to hold get together's like this even though we all live so far apart and have such busy lives.  I hope this tradition continues for a very long time!

Where's Spring?!?!

How is it that we are still dealing with snow storms and long commutes on the 11th day of April?  I am so tired of Winter but instead of complaining about it anymore (and believe me I have done plenty of that the last couple days) I decided to embrace and make the most of our recent Spring Snowstorm.  Luckily the temps stayed pretty warm so we didn't get the 9+ inches they predicted but we did get a couple inches of the wet heavy kind of snow.  We figured if we can't beat winter we might as well enjoy it so tonight after dinner we headed out to build us some snowmen!  Mason loves snowmen and every time we leave the driveway he says "Bye Mo-man" and when we come home it is "Hello Mo-man" and when our last one melted after standing tall for over a month he was pretty sad so you can imagine his excite when we were outside bringing more snowmen to life.   I will almost be sad to see these guys melt but at the same time I am more than ready for Spring to make its appearance!  

Miss Ilia

Before we went on vacation some good friends of ours delivered a beautiful baby girl and asked me if I would take some pictures of her.  Of course I jumped at the opportunity... two of my favorite things are babies and photography so I couldn't wait to get over to their house and get some newborn snuggles and spend hours taking photos of her.  Ilia is the cutest little peanut and it was so much fun to take her pictures!  They have an awesome sun room full of windows so I was able to play with my camera and taking photos with natural lighting which was awesome.  Ilia was an awesome little the trooper as we tried all kinds of poses and props with her.  Here are just a few of my favorites of beautiful 5 day old Ilia.  Congrats Adrienne and Jason, you guys make gorgeous kids!

 

Where are the boys?

Can you find both boys?!?!

This picture tells me a couple things....

1.)  I could possibly lose one of my children in my own home!

2.)  We have WAY too many toys!

3.)  When left unattended for no more than 10 minutes this is what two Berberena's boys can do to a family room!

Happy Easter

Easter came up quick this year... with us being on vacation for two weeks and Easter being the first Sunday after we got home meant that we didn't have any of our Easter decorations up or any of the "basket goods" purchased in advance.  Saturday afternoon Colton had two friends over for a playdate so I figured it would be the perfect time to make some fun Easter treats!  I love to bake (I am pretty sure the boys had fun as well).  We colored eggs on Saturday night cause we just didn't have any free time earlier in the week.  Mason enjoyed his first adventure with coloring eggs although he wanted nothing to do with that little wire wand... he just dipped his entire hand into the cup with his egg!   Easter morning we were woke up by Colton with his basket already in his hands.  We told him to wake us up before looking for his basket but he said he saw it on his way to our room... lies as it was hid behind a door!!  We told him he could not start looking for eggs without his baby brother and wouldn't you know it about 2 minutes later Mason was yelling "Mama" from his room.  It was a fun morning with the boys running around the house looking for their Easter eggs.  Then we enjoyed a big family breakfast and off to church we went!  Mason was dancing and singing throughout the service, he loves music!  We enjoyed Easter lunch at my parents house with my siblings and mother in law.  After lunch the kids enjoyed another Easter egg hunt, the guys played several (like 20) games of Texas Hold Em and the woman lounged around chatted!  It was a seriously relaxing Easter Sunday which was perfect!  The weather was the only part that could have been better - don't think it ever got about 40 degrees (seriously, where is Spring)!