Easter 2008

In honor of the nice spring like weather we are having right now I decided to post my Easer pictures. So they are about a month late but with Easter so early and every things else that has been going it just didn't feel like Easter. Out Easter tradition goes like this. Saturday morning we all gather at Grandma's (I know she is my mother but to the kids she is Grandma so it's easier to just call her that) From her house we go to her city's Easter egg hunt. This is something we have actually been doing since Kacey was about a year old (we figured about 19 years) of course some of the kids are too old now to actually hunt for eggs there but we all go anyway. We sort of divide up each taking a kid or two depending on the way the age groups are set up. I usually get lost with a kid somewhere so this year I went to the field where Cheyenne and Austin were along with Amy, Kollette, Kim and Kacey. I figured there is safety in number right? Wrong some how yet again I got separate among the hundreds of people that were there. Luckily I managed to find every one again. So we all meet up and go through the eggs to see if there are many major prizes one. After we have gathered the kids back up again it is off to Grandma's to color eggs. With all the kids around the table and cups and cups full of dye you thing chaos would ensue. But order is maintained and each kid and Adult colors 6 eggs. Then it's time to clean up and of course at this time all the kids have disappeared to where ever. Once the mess is cleaned up it's outside to the back yard to find and egg to turn for a prize. The everyone plays with their toys and goodies that Grandma Bunny has placed in sack. After all this chaos it is time for Easter lunch. Which alway delicious and appreciated. My mom is wonderful and very adaptable when extra kids show up. She always has something for every one. She is amazing and I know her grandkids love her and Grandpa very much. There kids think they are great too! All the pictures are in the post below. I was trying not to make this so long.

Easter Pictures

Checking out the eggs to see if there are any Major awards so to speak
Eryk Showing off his haul!
Amy and her two girls. Brianna in the middle and Dallas on the left.

Little Miss Princess with her eggs and basket, All she wanted to do was find kids that did not have any eggs and give hers away. She is such a sweetheart The crew. Austin ran to the van with his goodies as fast as he could

The Dye cups. Those four glass mugs we have been using for Easter dye for about 17 years
Brianna artfully crafting her egg with the help of a wax crayon and a sharpie
After dying the same egg yellow
Kacey getting involved

My creations

Dallas' Egg
More of the entire crew. Austin, Ryan, Grandma, Kacey, Kim, Dallas, Sadie Jarod (Brianna's on again off again romance) Eryk, Kaitlyn and Brianna, Cheyenne
Kaitlyn and her bag from the Grandma Bunny

Eryk and his wares. Sadie Sandee and Ryan

What if the Hokey Pokey IS what it is all about?

So one of the many perks of living so close to Brian and Kollette is occasionally I get invited to some fun school activities with the kids. This particular night was a Luau Beach dance party. It gave us the oppurtunity to let our hair down and go a little wild. Fortunately for me and probably for my readers as well when it came to the Hokey Pokey I was behind the camera so there are no pictures of my putting my backside in and putting my backside out......
Here are a few picture of Kollette and Kids demonstrating the Hokey Pokey



And of course no dance party would be complete without the YMCA song. A special request by Kollette!

And then Miss Drama queen herself demonstrates the lateset rage in dancing. The Monkey!

A Penny

I have gotten behind here a little on my blog, but I received an email from a friend today and thought I would share it as I love the message behind it. I do have Easter pictures to share and some other pictures but will get those up later. Enjoy!
Gives you something to think about.
Several years ago, a friend of mine and her husband were invited to spend the weekend at the husband's employer's home. My friend, Arlene, was nervous about the weekend. The boss was very wealthy, with a fine home on the waterway, and cars costing more than her house
The first day and evening went well, and Arlene was delighted to have this rare glimpse into how the very wealthy live. The husband's employer was quite generous as a host, and took them to the finest restaurants. Arlene knew she would never have the opportunity to indulge in this kind of extravagance again, so was enjoying herself immensely.

As the three of them w ere about to enter an exclusive restaurant that evening, the boss was walking slightly ahead of Arlene and her husband.
He stopped suddenly, looking down on the pavement for a long, silent moment.

Arlene wondered if she was supposed to pass him. There was nothing on the ground except a single darkened penny that someone had dropped, and a few cigarette butts Still silent, the man reached down and picked up the penny.

He held it up and smiled, then put it in his pocket as if he had found a great treasure. How absurd! What need did this man have for a single penny? Why would he even take the time to stop and pick it up?

Throughout dinner, the entire scene nagged at her. Finally, she could stand it no longer. She casually mentioned that her daughter once had a coin collection, and asked if the penny he had found had been of some value.

A smile crept across the man's face as he reached into his pocket for the penny and held it out for her to see. She had seen many pennies before! What was the point of this?

"Look at it." He said. "Read what it says." She read the words " United States of America "
"No, not that; read further."
"One cent?" "No, keep reading."
"In God we Trust?" "Yes!" "And?"
"And if I trust in God, the name of God is holy, even on a coin Whenever I find a coin I see that inscription. It is written on every single United States coin, but we never seem to notice it! God drops a message right in front of me telling me t o trust Him? Who am I to pass it by? When I see a coin, I pray, I stop to see if my trust IS in God at that moment. I pick the coin up as a response to God; that I do trust in Him. For a short time, at least, I cherish it as if it were gold. I think it is God's way of starting a conversation with me. Lucky for me, God is patient and pennies are plentiful!

When I was out shopping today, I found a penny on the sidewalk. I stopped and picked it up, and realized that I had been worrying and fretting in my mind about things I cannot change. I read the words, "In God We Trust," and had to laugh. Yes, God, I get the message.

It seems that I have been finding an inordinate number of pennies in the last few months, but then, pennies are plentiful! And, God is patient..

Hap"peep" easter!

As another Easter Holiday successfully comes it a close one ponders why the yellow sugar coated marshmallow confection known as peeps are so popular and where did they begin.

Here are some fun facts:

How many…

• The amount of PEEPS® chicks and bunnies eaten at Easter could more than circle Earth’s circumference. That’s a lot of marshmallow!

• The number of PEEPS® chicks, bunnies and other shapes made each day could make a path from the factory door in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania to the state of Maryland.

• The machines at the Just Born Factory can add 3800 PEEPS® eyes per minute!




How tall, how far…

• It would take approximately 172 MILLION PEEPS® bunnies end-to-end to circle the moon!

• Over 70 million PEEPS® chicks lined up beak-to-tail are needed to reach from New York City to Los Angeles.

• If you had 8000 PEEPS® bunnies, and you stood them in a straight vertical line, you could reach the top of the Sears Tower in Chicago




How popular…

• Loyal PEEPS® fans LOVE their PEEPS®… fresh, stale, frozen and even on pizza!

• There are over 200 unofficial PEEPS® web sites!

• PEEPS® are so popular, they have been the best selling non-chocolate Easter candy for the last decade.

• PEEPS® have become gourmet favorites as fondues, crème brule ingredients and cappuccino toppings!

Tell me more…

• In the early 1950’s, it took 27 HOURS to make one PEEPS® chick. Today it takes six minutes!

• PEEPS® chicks and bunnies come in 5 colors. Yellow chicks are the most popular, followed by pink, lavender, blue, and white.

• Each PEEPS® chick has 32 calories and 0 grams of fat.


The Washington post holds an annual Diorama Contest and this year there were 800 entires and according to their website it was A 22-year-old woman's Egyptian theme that won

Peepankhamun used peeps and various household items to create a diorama inspired by the ancient Egyptian tombs.



She told the Post she was inspired to create the unusual art, which included peep-inspired hieroglyphics, by a recent museum visit.

I'd been to a really great Egyptian art museum in Chicago a couple months ago, and it just seemed like fun, a good possibility for drama and lighting, she said.

The newspaper said Sillers' creation narrowly beat out fellow finalists: the Pop Art-inspired Peep Art, the abstract Nightmare in Pink, the cinematically-inspired U2 Peep-D and Thrilla in Manila, which featured peeps imitating a famed Thriller performance.

You can check out all of the finalist here
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/gallery/2008/03/21/GA2008032101983.html?hpid=artslot

Fresh, frozen or stall I for one do not like them and only indulge once every few years to to remind myself why. The kids however love them and probably could have devoured an entire box a piece if I would let them. That of course would be very irresponsible of me.
Happy Easter to All

Green Eggs and Ham!

I do not like green eggs and ham I do not like them Cam I am. I would not eat them here or there I would not eat them anywhere. So shortly after the underpants episode we took the kids to Ihop for lunch. When we got there we noticed they had Horton hears A who pancakes and they looked fun, delicious and nutritious and we really needed to set a good example (at least once.)

Both Kaitlyn and Eryk wanted the pancakes so we decided to get them with the green eggs and ham to go with it. Just for fun and again for nutrition value. Spinach is good for kids... right?

Well it turns out neither of them like green eggs or ham. Kaitlyn claims she was going to eat the ham but it somehow ended up on the floor hmmmm.....


They loved the pancakes though and who wouldn't with sticky blueberry and rasperry sauce on top. Covered in chocolate sprinkles topped with a sucker

Cheyenne opted for the smiley face pancakes and had the opportunity to play with their food by adding go-gurt wherever their heart desired.

After everyone was done we let them blow bubbles in their milk. Just because!


It seems as though they had a great time at Ihop and should not require therapy later in life :)

Captain Underpants

Jared and I decided this weekend we needed some adventure in our lives because my blog has been a little boring lately. What better way to acheive this than by taking Brian and Kollette's three adorable children for a 24 period, thus relieving them of their parenting duties, and once again proving that we should not be entrusted to care for impression-ably young children. How the following scenario played out is a bit foggy to me, however we found ourselves in our truck with a package of Eryk's newly purchased King Kong under pants, and a litle extra time on our hands. I am sure it went something like this. Hey Cammie look at me, I hear from the back seat of our truck. I turn around to see Eryk with his under pants on his head. Every one laughs hysterically cause we think he is funny and thankfully I had my camera with me. I just have to take a picture so that in his dating years I have some sort of blackmail material. (Gage just doesn't know how lucky he is that it doesn't live close enough for me to pull out all my blackmail pictures of him doing silly things.)

Then I look over at Cheyenne and see her pig tails and think how funny it would be to see her put the under wear on her head with the pig tails sticking out. So I say to her, I'll give you a quarter if you put them on your head (I knew this would work cause what kid doesn't like money). Sure enough it worked liked charm and on went the under pants and out came the pig tails. Not too bad really, you could hardly tell they were under pants. Looked like some new fangled head wear. Getting a picture was easy as well as these innocent kids have been trained from birth to love the camera, and naively believe that Aunt Cammie would never want to embarrass them in anyway. I think later when I mentioned the word "blog" she regretted her decison and begged both me and her mom not to post the picture.

Now remember we had all of the kids with us strapped safely in the back seat of the truck and it is a case of Monkey see monkey do so of course Kaitllyn had to have her turn with the underpants on her head and who I am I to deny any child that right.