It's only been a month...

LOADS of Easter pictures!  :)

The reason it took me this long to post is because my grandma took some really cute ones and I waiting to get copies, but I don't want to wait any longer!  When I get those, I'll post them.

 Porcaro Easter Party!  

Lots of candy, more candy, and cousins!

 These stinky toes LOVE grandpa!

 Story time with Grandpa A. and Great Grandpa P.

Adorable.

 Nothing is cuter than these three cousins together!

Sienna, Sofie, and Sierra

 Hunting for eggs

 Meili was more excited than I expected!

 Thanks Grandpa for helping get the hard ones!

 Me and m'girls

 Meili discovered jelly beans this day... enough said.

 Uncovering the spoils with Daddy.

 This was the best Easter weather I can remember!

 Pretty sure we all got sunburned.  So worth it!

 Dying eggs for the Easter Bunny

 Another year that the Easter bunny didn't fail.

 Sofie managed to stuff an entire peep in her mouth!

Gave me the shivers.

 Mei was more excited about the little eggs.  They're still a great toy in our Sunday bag.

 I failed to get a picture of Mei in her Easter outfit the day of, so this was the next week in St. George. 

Still too difficult to get a good picture of this kid, she is ALWAYS moving!!

Before and After

We bought our home a year and a half ago as a repo and the yard has been a project.  Apparently nobody really took care of the yard before.  Now that Meimei is old enough to play outside while I work, I have finally made some slow progress.

The last few people who owned the home didn't know how to take care of grass...  This is actually better than it looked last year!  (that patio is another project)

 Derek spent the entire summer last year fixing our sprinklers so this year I could finally plant grass!  This is the mix I used that looks like green snow.  In a month I'll post pictures of my new beautiful lawn! :)

I hated this section of the yard.  But I couldn't put a flower bed here because of the sprinkler positioning.  So I had to be clever.

 It is now my new (soon to be) herb and flower garden, completely moveable if there are problems with sprinklers.

The old shutters were a nasty faded green color that really dated the house, kind of hard to tell in the picture.

I painted them black.  It's a bad comparison picture though because the earlier one was summer, beautiful weather and flowers.  Maybe I should've waited 'til the flowers bloom and the sun shines to take this picture!

(next we need to fix the roof...)

This is an island flower bed in the front yard.  I don't have a before picture but when we moved in it didn't have anything in it but crappy grass and weeds.  We cleaned it out, covered it with black garden fabric, dumped some bark and got to work planting stuff.  Right now I've got tulips and phlox.  In the summer I'll have snap dragons, fox glove, dianthus and a burning bush.  So much better!

I've  been working on a few other projects but don't have "after" pictures yet.  Maybe next week or so.  We have two sickly trees in the front yard that don't get leaves until mid summer, and then just shrivel up and die in the fall instead of changing color.  They're still young though, so I'll be replacing them with (hopefully) a Ruby Horse Chestnut and a Katsura tree.

For Roo

I wanted to post another video of Mei going totally nuts and wandering around like a lunatic, but the video was barely too long to upload. :( But she's so darling.

Little Birdies Told Me

Finally enjoying some Spring Weather! This particular day was cloudy, but we had some great sunshine on other days!

Meimei's new swing. She loves it and the kids love pushing her!

Sofie has finally mastered this swing by herself! My arms are very grateful.

The kitty litter box...

"This is the best day of my life!" -Sofie

My sister learned that you can take off the dormant branches of trees and bushes and "force" them to bloom. Pretty awesome! The forsythia was beautiful, but this plum is the best! I'm experimenting with a lilac but it's not doing much yet.

Daddy went to Vegas for an accounting convention.

Meimei wanted to tag along.

A Few Late B-day Pics

I'm so lucky to have a talented grandma with an expensive camera! These are the shots she took at Mei's party. She is so darling!!

The tricky post-cupcake cleanup.

Sofie loves the camera...

I decorated with other pictures my grandma has taken.

Meili does this while I exercise too, it's hilarious!

The End.

"Packtricks Day!"

I really enjoy St. Patrick's Day and it's even more meaningful now that I actually know who the guy was and the legends behind the symbols we use. However, I always have a hard time finding dinner ideas for kids who probably won't eat corned beef and cabbage. (dessert ideas are super easy to find though...) I finally found a fun idea!

Shamrock pizzas! I used my heart cookie cutter.

The legend goes that St. Patrick taught the Irish about the Trinity using the 3 pedals from shamrocks. Although we as members of the LDS church don't necessarily believe that the Trinity is literally one being, it was a fun lesson to give to Sofie showing that the pedals can represent Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost. (hopefully not too sacrilegious that we ate it)

Rainbow/Pot o'Gold cupcakes

Extremely time consuming but cute and fun!

I made these last year too, our new tradition.

I couldn't get a good picture of the inside layers. When I cut it in half it crumbled.

Cupcake massacre.

Meimei's Birthday!!

Meili turned one in February!

She has officially stolen my heart.

She walks all over town.

She tells jokes.

She teases.

She helps clean.

She jibber-jabbers.

She sprouts teeth like it's going out of fashion.

Her fuzz hair is slowly becoming tame.

She idealizes her big sis.

She's a cuddle bug.

She adores Daddy and Mommy.

She's my Mei.

I told Derek that the next time I am struggling to survive with a newborn to remind me how fun they become!

Birthday Breakfast

Awwww

Birthday dinner at Grandma Kathy's

LOVE this face!

I didn't take any pictures of her devouring her cupcake.

The Paparazzi did it for me :)

My stinker who refuses to SIT while she eats.

The cupcake devoured, looking a little sick.

I think the birthday cards were her favorite.

Looks like she's reading it :)

Playing with her new baby Belle dolly

Can't wait to watch her grow up even more