Happy Easter!

We hope all of you had a great Easter. We ended up making a quick trip to California to see Donny's grandpa who had surgery for lung cancer several weeks ago. The surgery went very well but the recovery process has been slow and with a few bumps. His grandparents really enjoyed the kids for a few days and we had a good time as a family as well. The kids loved spending a few days with dad and going to the park as it was beautiful weather. So here are a couple of pictures of the kids with Easter stuff in Idaho and California. Their grandma in Idaho bought these fancy baskets for them.

Walking to the park with Daddy.

Easter egg hunting with granny in the backyard.

Sitting by great-grandpa.

The eggs Hannah and Daniel colored and decorated. If you look closely you can see Daniel's eggs are all camoflauge colors.

Family Pictures

We had our family picture taken yesterday. Everyone did very good.

We have had a few and far between nice days. Here are a couple of pictures of Hannah blowing bubbles while we babysat their cousin Kole.

Busy March

February flew by and now March is almost half over as well. My parents were here last week for Grandparents day at Hannah's school and to celebrate Hannah's birthday.

Happy 4th Birthday to Hannah!!

It was really nice a couple days last week 60 degrees. Heat wave. It has been snowing off and on and 40 degrees since then. So a glimpse of spring and back to winter. Daniel enjoying the nice weather.

The kids keep right on growing. We celebrated Hannah's birthday with her new counsin Averee at a place in Twin called "Hop 2 It". It has all kinds of inflated jump houses indoors. The kids love it. They invited all their classmates and friends. So when I get some pictures from Aunt Deb we will post those.

Donny and I took advantage of my parents being here and spent a night in Boise for our 5th anniversary coming on the 20th of this month. We did some shopping, went out for dinner, and stayed the night in the Anniversary Inn in a room called the Biker Road House. It was nice, relaxing, and QUIET :).

I am taking a trip with my mom and sister Leah to North Carolina next week. Leah is in a wedding and we hope to make it to the coast as well. I am looking forward to a nice break. I have never been away from the kids for that long so we will see who does better. Me or them.

Donny is turning 30 this month as well so I thought I better do something to celebrate the occasion. So we are having a little party at his friend's house with all of his friends at the end of the month. As I said, March has been and will be a busy month. We hope all of you are well. I will try to keep posting pictures with all these activities.

Happy Valentine's Day

Here is a picture of Hannah with her preschool class celebrating Valentine's day. They had cupcakes, cookies, and lots of candy. As you can see daniel sat right down and joined in.

Here is Nicolas enjoying his bath time. He loves the entertainment from his older siblings but also enjoys it when he has things to himself, especially mommy. He is growing so fast. He will be 9 months this next week and he cruises along the furniture.

Daniel's 2nd Birthday

Here is Daniel enjoying his cupcake at his birthday party at Pizza Hut in Idaho.

Blowing out the candles. I found these candles shaped like trucks. Perfect for our truck and tractor boy.

Mad at mom and dad for taking away his presents and giving him more to open.

Excited about all the "Green" tractors he got. He gets green from here and red and blue from Iowa.

Here is all the Gaalswyk kids and grandkids. As you can see, we have half of the grandkids. Donny and I keep telling his siblings to get going so they can catch up. But since last Christmas, the grandkids doubled. They had 3 last Christmas and 6 this year.

Christmas Trees

It is tradition every year in Donny's family to go to the mountains and cut down Christmas trees. We got one the first year of marriage but in my family we always had a fake one. So I got one the year Daniel was born and maybe when the kids get big enough to leave the tree alone, we will get a real one again. But until then it is just fun to go along and have fun as long as there is not tons of snow up there. We make a little camp and roast hot dogs and marshmellows. They cook hot chocolate and beans over a camp stove and then we climb through the trees looking for the best ones. Hall them back to the pickups and head home for Dutch meat ball soup and sandwhiches.