HAPPY EASTER

We want to wish everyone a very Bright and Happy Easter!!!!!!

****May we take this day to reflect on the sacrifice that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ made for us so that we could one day return to live with our Heavenly Father.****

Dying Easter Eggs

Well, it is that time of year again!!!!! Easter Egg Dying Time!!!!!!!

L carefully making his creation!!!

P and B taking this very seriously!!

A is wondering, now what?

Now she is mad because we won't let her play with the wet egg!

Look at that handsome boy!!

He is being very careful!!!!

Dad sure was a great egg dying helper!!

Here they are with all their finished masterpieces!!!!

Wow, do I have a beautiful family or what!!!!!!

Happy Spring

First Picnic of the Year!!!!

Today was the first day of spring break for Les and the last day of school for the kids before they begin theirs. The weather is absolutely gorgeous today and so we decided to have a little picnic. It is the first picnic of the year and also our first picnic at our new house. I know we were lame to get McD's, but having the picnic was a last minute decision and we were going to McD's for a specific reason.

Yesterday at school B lost his lunch money at recess and he was pretty upset about it. Of course, I didn't find out until after school so I couldn't bring him up anything. Apparently they were so kind as to give him some fruit, milk and crackers at no charge (please sense my sarcasm). I really wish the school would just do an IOU program. I understand that there are probably lots of people that would take advantage of it, but there are also a lot of people that would be honest and pay their balance in a timely manner. So, anyway..... I told B that we would bring him up McD's for lunch today (something that we have never done at this school) so, he was pretty excited. I really hope that today's lunch was way better for him then yesterdays.

IKEA.....Yum Yum!!!

Me and a small group of my friends decided to meet at Ikea this morning for Breakfast. One of the ladies is going out of town for a few weeks so, I wanted to hang out before she left. Not to mention, I knew that they were serving their $0.99 breakfast free. It is free because a week before Christmas they had some water problems that caused them to shut down the store for a few days. To make it up to their customers they are offering free breakfast. I am not sure when that ends, but I think it is still going on for the rest of the week. Anyway, so me, Logan and Audrey each got a free breakfast and then when I ordered a side of french toast they told me that it was free too for the kids. AWESOME!!!!! We got 3 $0.99 breakfasts, 2 orders of french toast sticks and a drink for Logan and it was all FREE!!!!! That is just the way I like it.

When I was up at the counter ordering our food, the worker told me that kids could eat free ALL DAY (from their little kids menu). So I told him that I would see them at dinner time. Sure enough, I packed the kids and Les into the car and we headed to IKEA for family night and dinner. The kids were excited and I didn't have to make anything (yes mom, I do cook). Whoo hoo!!!!! Not to mention, Audrey did awesome and ate all her food (something she hasn't been so great about lately).

Sometimes its the little things that can really just make your day!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!

Nothing Like New Jammies

Cookies and Milk for Santa

The Stockings Were Hung with Care

Merry Christmas from our family to all of yours. May we all keep in mind and in our hearts the Birth of our Savior. For he is the reason we all gathered today!

Putting up the Christmas Tree

Last week for Family Home Evening we finally put up our Christmas Tree. The kids were really hounding us and I of course wanted to have it up too. It is kind of crazy because I swear since we used it in Texas the last time to putting it up now I think the tree has totally shrunk. Of course it hasn't, but it sure does look smaller than it used to.

Audrey making sure that we got all the pieces out, she is such a great helper

Audrey again, helping with the lights

The boys really wanted to help and as parents of course we wanted them to help too. I know that it looks like Les is bored, but really he was having the time of his life :)

This is the best final shot I have and I didn't realize that it had the antique look, oh well. Hopefully you get the idea.

Halloween

Ok, so believe it or not I don't have any pictures of my kids in their Halloween Costumes this year. I know, I know Mother of the Year award over here! I do think that I have some on my mom's camera though. We moved into our house the week before Halloween so, things were pretty hectic. *Again, these pictures are from my phone, so they aren't the best.

It was Halloween day and we still hadn't carved any pumpkins yet. (A activity that my kids would not let me forget about.) In fact, we didn't have any pumpkins period. I rounded up all the boys and we set out on a search for some pumpkins. I really didn't want to get any that were to big because I knew they would take forever to carve. Thankfully Heaven was shining down on us because I found the most perfect sized pumpkins for my little kiddies to carve.

Here is the B man with his pumpkin

P Man with his


Not to mention our Big Brown Eyes with his

Love this picture

Seriously, could they really be any cuter. Don't you just love how excited Audrey is to be standing there with her big brothers and her very own tiny pumpkin?!

*****Now, for your viewing pleasure, here is a picture of Les and I from a Halloween party that we went to.

Hicks Family Egg Hunt

The weekend before Easter all the Hicks gathered at Les' brother Charlie's house and had a fun family Easter Egg Hunt. The kids had a great time not only hunting for eggs, but also playing with their cousins.

Here are all the Hicks Grandkids.

Bradyn was quite the awesome egg finder.

Here is Logan searching away.

I just thought this was a great picture of Logan from the day of the hunt.

*I thought I uploaded a picture of Parker looking for his eggs, but I guess I didn't. He however was there and had a great time too. He can be seen in the first group picture.

Catch up!!!!!!

I have been a horrible Blogger lately and I think the reason why is because I got so far behind with my posts that I just didn't know where to begin. Well, enough is enough and I need to start up again. Instead of going back and trying to catch up on all the different posts I have missed, I have decided to do a picture catch up all in one post. This way I can still post about some of the things that I wanted to share (and document for my own memories) and then I will be able to start up again with my more detailed posts. So bare with me, I have a bunch of pictures I am sharing. Now, there are so many more pictures I could post, but I am afraid that it would probably be over kill.

Jan. 28th Audrey pulled herself up to a standing position for the first time.

Feb. 10th Logan is such a big boy because today was his first day of Preschool. He was sooooo excited. A lot of people asked why he was starting in the middle of the year and it is because it was the start of the new semester and he was finally potty trained so he was able to enroll. Hooray for Logan!!!!! Now him and Parker go to Preschool together two days a week. Hooray for mommy!!!!!!!

Feb. 24th Audrey had some super crazy hair when she woke up from her nap.

March 5 I thought this pictures was so cute because it looks like Audrey is playing video games with her brothers. She loves being part of the action.

Feb. 27th After Bradyn left for school that morning, Audrey crawled over to the door to look after him. She stood there and watched him at the bus stop.

Feb. 27th I realized that Audrey was no longer in the living room so, I looked down the hall and sure enough there she was in my Grandma's room. She just loves crawling down there and seeing what she can explore and I think that my Grandmas actually likes it too when she comes in there.

Feb. 27th OH GREAT!!!!!!!! She has discovered the stairs. This is always a dreaded day for me because now we have to put up a gate.

March 2nd Whenever one of the boys are laying on the floor Audrey has to come over to them and ATTACK!!!!! My boys are so great because they just let her do it. Here she is attacking Parker.

March 2nd Audrey had a bath in the kitchen sink for the first time. I don't remember what she had been eating but she got covered in it so I just decided to plop her in. I think she really enjoyed herself.

March 16th March seemed to be a sick month for Bradyn. Twice he was stuck home with a high fever. It was really weird because all he had was the fever, no runny nose or cough. When he had Motrin in him he was perfectly fine, which meant that him and his brothers were really crazy either playing or fighting. However, once the Motrin wore off and his fever spiked he was down and out and just plain miserable. In this picture, the Motrin had worn off and I didn't have anymore so we had to wait for Les to get some. So, Bradyn laid on the couch with a wet wash cloth and tried to cool down. (I am not sure why he had the blanket on him, it was probably during one of the times that he also had the chills) While he was laying there Audrey came to see how he was doing. She was worried.

March 16th While Bradyn was home sick we worked on the Leprechaun Trap that he was suppose to make for school. We heard that they liked shiny stuff so, we made a very shiny box with a pot of gold inside. On the top was a rope made of green ribbon so that the Leprechaun couldn't jump out. Unfortunately, the Leprechaun that came to his class was very very sneaky so, nobody was able to catch him. Maybe next year. (Don't you just love Parker and Audrey in the background.)

Baby's 1st Christmas

Part of what made Christmas so fun and special this year was the fact that it was Audrey's 1st Christmas. She is such a fun and sweet little girl. I really don't think that I could have asked for a better daughter. We all just love her so much and she still has her brothers wrapped around her little finger. She has a great personality and is genuinely a happy little person. She still gets up a little more often during the night then I would like, but I love her too much to be too bothered by it :) When I walk into the room and if someone is holding her, she just about jumps out of their arms to try and get to me. She has also discovered food and I must say, she really enjoys it. The week before Christmas 3 more teeth popped through, this time on the top. My 7 month old baby now has 5 teeth!!!!! But anyways, back to Christmas.

Here she is reaching out and getting that lovely green thing with the fun lights. She didn't really start going after the tree to much until the week before Christmas and even then it wasn't too bad.

She was so excited when she got a hold of this present. She liked the stars that were wrapped around it.

Bradyn took this picture for us on Christmas Eve. Audrey was so excited to go to bed and wait for Santa to come :)

"Man, my brothers totally woke me up this morning!!!!!" I think that this picture is so cute, doesn't it look like she is still so tired? I think that she was really excited to look through her pretty pink stocking :)

Gimme that present!!!!! I want to eat it. In her defense, it does look like a big piece of candy.

Ok, the pictures are really started to pick up a theme here :) But hey what can I say, she is 7 months old and loves to put just about anything she finds into her mouth. Which really helps mommy to keep very vacuumed floors.

She really loves the shirt that Grandma got for her. Isn't she doing such a great job sitting up all by herself?

All and all, Baby's 1st Christmas was really wonderful. I think her face says it all, CHRISTMAS WAS AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Christmas Day

Surprisingly, Christmas morning didn't start too early. Well, except for when I had to tell Parker it wasn't time yet at about 4:30am. The boys got up around 7am, but the rest of us except for Les didn't get up until like 8am. I couldn't believe that the kids had no problem sitting there that long waiting, actually I didn't know that they were waiting that long because I didn't know that they had gotten up at 7. I have such wonderful little boys. I think that they are usually such zombies in the morning (since they insist on getting up early even though I know that they are still tired) that it takes them a little while of sitting on the couch to actually wake up.

The stockings were all hung and waiting for the kids!!!!!

The lights were blazing on the tree and looking oh so pretty.

Bradyn really wanted a rubix cube and thankfully Santa put one in his stocking.

Santa brought Logan his own little art supply kit. There are times that Logan would just sit and color for quite awhile.

Grandpa and Grandma got Bradyn a really cool remote control race car track. Can't you just see the absolute excitement on his face?

Santa brought Parker a scooter!!!!!

Also, Santa brought Bradyn this really cool remote control helicopter. Now he just needs to learn how to land it without having it slam into the floor.

Not exactly a flattering picture of me, but I wanted to show what the kids got me. I absolutely love this because it has been a while since I have gotten any framed pictures of my kids and so, I just LOVE looking at all their beautiful little faces!!!! I can't wait to hang it up in our bedroom and when we finally buy our own place to hang it in the living or family room.

Whoa!!!!!!! The present looks twice the size of our little Audrey.

Les has been wanting an Ipod for quite some time so, he was pretty excited that my parents gave him one this year.

We had such a great day today. My brother and his family came over for a nice brunch and the cousins had so much fun playing with their new toys together. (Also Parker was feeling much better then yesterday and never complained once that he didn't feel well) In the afternoon we all (except for my mom because she didn't feel well) headed to the movies to see Bedtime Stories. It was pretty funny and the kids seemed to enjoy it because we didn't have any problems. Les and I had to take turns standing up with Audrey, but that is to be expected.

Before Jason and his family headed home my mom and the kids put on a little Christmas Nativity. It was so cute, but I didn't take any pictures because I was to busy taping it. There were more roles then kids so, a few of them had to do some costumes changes throughout. They all looked so adorable and it was so wonderful to end our Christmas day remembering the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. What a wonderful blessing it was to be able to celebrate his birth together as a family. I hope that everyone was able to have as great of a day as my family and I were.