Not quite!

Zach, with the help of his brothers, squeezed into the Easter jacket and hat he wore on his first Easter back when he was 6 months old.  I don't think that will work for this year!

Made, with love, by Corrie

Ellie was decked out yesterday in an outfit made by Corrie. She's had the sweater for a while, but her skirt is brand new and she LOVES it!

The best part is the skirt is reversible and she is already planning to wear the other side for Easter. Life is good when you're a 4 year old girl with a twirly skirt!

Wordless Wednesday: Diva

Sad day

Last week, on St Patricks Day, we lost a friend way too soon.  He was actually the father of one of our best friends. We haven't spent that much time with him, but he was one of those guys that you only had to meet once to feel like you were his oldest friend.
2 weeks ago he went into the hospital for a semi routine surgery.  Last week, he had enough and left us.  He lived in a pretty small farming town where he was very well known and very loved.  We heard the calling hours were 5 hours of non stop guests.
We got up very early Saturday morning and made the trip down south to attend the funeral with Ben and Zach.  
They talked quite a bit about family, sincerity and legacy. It made me think a lot about our family and our relationships with our kids.   We headed to the cemetery and a lunch after.  This was Bens first funeral where he understood what was happening.  He had a lot of questions and it was hard to watch him get emotional for his friend.
It was a sad morning, but I'm glad we could be there to help out our friends even just a tiny bit. I'm glad Ben got to support his friend.  I'm glad we got to say good bye and I'm grateful to walk away with a new perspective on the legacy we leave behind.

Happy 11th

Jon and I celebrated 11 years of marriage last Friday.  We had a great day and it flew by.  We got up early and headed to Lakewood for breakfast.  We had planned to go to the zoo for a quick visit before Sam had to be at school, but we didn't have enough time and headed to the Nature Center instead. It was a short visit, but the kids had fun.  

Ellie enjoyed herself, but she refused to be in the pictures. The log and the puppet shows are always a favorite as well as finding the Nemo fishes.

After a quick lunch for Sam, we dropped him off at school and headed home for a recharge.  The kids favorite babysitter headed over after nap time and Jon and I headed out for a hot date at Mongolian BBQ and The Art Museum.  We took advantage of the quiet time and headed to Starbucks for a warm treat before we headed home.  It was so nice to spend some time with and without the kids. Unfortunately we had to get up very early Saturday morning so we postponed the tradition of watching our wedding video for a day and called it a night.

Wordless Wednesday: Brothers

Pierogies

Pierogies are a very special thing in the Purdum family. They are truly amazing and very rare.  They make an appearance any time a new baby enters the family and thats about it.  For some reason I got it in my head that it would be fun to spend a day with Corrie learning how to make them.

Spending a day with Corrie is always fun, but pierogie making is torture!  It wasn't too terrible until we got to the rolling and stuffing.  It quickly went from decent to pure hell!

It was a long and painful few hours, but the end result was completely worth it.  They turned out pretty amazing.  I hope Jon is savoring every bite, because they wont be making an appearance again any time soon!

Chocolate

She really likes her ice cream.

Wordless Wednesday: I see grass!

"Char-we"

Zach and his best buddy, "Char-we"!

Curious George

We went to see a production of Curious George at Lorain County Community College this week.  It was a short play geared to preschool/kindergarten age kids.  Ben was a little old for it, but managed to have a good time with us.

The other 3 loved it.  It was fun to see them all smile at the silliness.  I'm looking forward to taking Ben to another play next month geared for a slightly older audience.

Homebound

Its been crazy cold here.  Like too cold to even go outside to play.  We've made it out to some play dates, but we've spent a lot of time at home this winter. Luckily the kids have been pretty awesome (most of the time) about being cooped with each other so much recently.
We finally managed to hit 30 degrees a few days ago and its held on this week.  Sam couldn't wait to get out to play and had a blast with Charlie.  After a quick cold snap, its going to get into the 40's! Ben is so excited about this, but I hope the snow doesn't melt too quickly so our snow bunny, Sam will be able to enjoy it a bit longer.