WAY belated Pre-Easter Celebration

 We started the pre-Easter celebration with a church breakfast--mmmmmm, pancakes, ham and eggs, yummy!!

 Then a little egg hunting, Brian found an egg in this tree that looked as though it had been there a couple of years.

 So exciting, she doesn't know what's going on, simply that she's finding cool plastic things with candy in them.

 Time to play in the water, what is it with getting dressed nice so we can get dirty?

 Awww, three cuties and their treasures. Kinda slim findings, but there were a LOT of kids there!!

 Right after the egg hunt/breakfast, we headed to Rockdale, TX to Jamie and Jake's wedding reception.

 Caitlyn and Sadie found a cute little friend.

 Steve got a little choked up when they asked him to say a few words. It was a beautiful event.

 Aunt Jerry made it, and we had a great time visiting with her as well.

Our little toothless wonder, she has since lost two or three more teeth and looks similar to a Jack-O-Lantern.

Whew! We're done!!

Well, it's obviously been a while since I updated last, but I've been caught up in all the end of the year school craziness! I do however have some GREAT updated pictures of our finished addition to our home!

 1st off, who doesn't love a giant dirt hill?  Well the mother who has to clean everyone up after they've played they're little hearts out, to name one.  Still, it did keep them quite busy!!

 This was right after they painted our existing family room, you can see the old color on the right, we had them lighten it up a bit, just because we now have very little natural light coming into this room.

 I had to get a picture of the E.T. room.  O.K. if you've ever seen the movie you'd get it.  Anyways, this was our kitchen for a good couple of weeks. We couldn't eat in the kitchen, because they had it blocked off while painting and when they blew the insulation into the attic. It's hard to see, but it completely closes off the back half of the house (new addition).

 It was totally worth it!!!  This is our new tiled kitchen/breakfast area. You get a glimpse of our new pantries as well. The one on the right is just for food storage.

 The finished product for the kitchen! We had to get a new chandelier because the other one broke when they took it down.

Here's our new WOOD burning fireplace.  We are excited to use it this winter.

 Caitlyn's room--this is so her with it being pink!

 She has almost the largest closet 2nd only to ours! I was standing on the other end of the closet when I took this picture.

 My craft room!  Thank you Brian!!

 Whew, watch out Green!!  Haley's chosen color for her room. Which also connects to the new bathroom.

We are THRILLED to be able to have our own rooms, even if there are no curtains yet.

 The new bathroom. Double sinks, with the tub and potty separated by a door.

 Lovely built in cupboards--yeah for space!!!!
 This is probably Lydia's favorite place in our house! The new game room. All of her toys are in a section of the picture that I couldn't fit in--at the right side of the picture. Brian even questioned if I had put Lydia down for a nap because she wasn't following me around everywhere and it was quiet, I simply told him that she was so quiet because she was playing in HER room--it's FABULOUS!!!

Our new updated living room. New carpet, and no stray toys!!  It's wonderful!!

This is the hallway leading to all of the new rooms. Caitlyn's and my craft room on the left, Meghan's straight ahead and Haley's and the bathroom on the right.

All in all, we are so pleased and so excited to have this new addition!!  Lot's of room now for visitors (hint, hint)!!

UPDATE!

 So I felt like we needed to put up the most recent pictures of our remodel, so here they are, from top to bottom:  Gameroom;  outside by patio;  double pantry;  and long hallway to extra bedrooms.

Fun Random Pictures

 Can you spell "TROUBLE"?  Lydia does EVERYTHING Caitlyn does. This was the 1st time I let her lick the spoon after making a cake.

 She saw Caitlyn doing it and insisted that she too could do it.  Well I guess she was right, she cleaned it up like a pro!!

 This was a puddle after a rainstorm we had.  We desperately needed the rain. Not only were we almost in a burn ban, but as you can see from the puddle (and the swirls), we also had LOTS of pollen!!  Thanks to the rain, it washed a lot of it away.

 This is really hard to see, and this is actually the top of a shampoo bottle.  The little black thing is actually a lice.  Yep, it was pretty scary, and I had no idea what this was at first.  Poor little Haley probably had one of the worst birthdays this year.
This is why I don't have any other pictures of her birthday, but after I brought her home from school (on her birthday) I was looking at her head and noticed a little bug moving around.  So, I asked her to hold still for a second while I got a bug off of her.  Well, while I was trying to grab it with my fingers, all of a sudden about 3 other little bugs started running around on her head and I said, "OH"!  Well, this freaked her out and she ran around the house screaming, "I can feel them in my hair, they're moving in my hair"!  When I finally got her calmed down, we decided to try and wash the little bugs out.  After thinking it through and talking to Brian and his mom, we came to the decision that these were LICE.  Sad times.  We went through everyone else's hair and also discovered them in Meghan and Sadie--although not to the extreme that Haley had.  It was a HUGE laundry day for me, and a long night for the girls.  Needless to say, not a fun experience, and we are actually still dealing with this.

 On a lighter NOTE--hee, hee, excuse the pun.  Lydia has discovered that she can climb up on the piano bench by herself.  She has always enjoyed sitting on Brian, Meghan or Haley's lap while playing the piano, but this is even better because she doesn't have to wait for someone to put her up there.

She just has to be like everyone else! Our sweet Lydia.

Construction Again. . .and a Few Good Pictures

 This is where our triple windows were looking out into the yard.  They brought in so much needed light into my kitchen, and I will probably miss them the most with this new addition. I will no longer be able to look out into the backyard and watch the girls run around while I'm making dinner (sigh).

 They have finally insulated the walls.

 It was pretty cool watching them SPRAY this insulation into the roof/attic.  It was blue, and expanded as they sprayed it. It did smell bad though and took 2 days.

 This is our new septic system. I'm not sure on how it all works quite yet, but from what I do understand, I guess when the tank gets too full, it will release some of it's excess through this sprinkler system.

 The purple tubes are where the sprinklers will be (I guess).  Anyways, we will need to set it up to go off at night so we don't have to worry about little girls running through septic water sprinklers.

 Here are the bricks, ready to be put up on the outside of the house.

 Many men working on the bricks--they ran out quickly and ended up having to wait a couple of days till another delivery of bricks could be made.

At the end of the day and end of the bricks, this was how far they got, almost completely done.

 Here's our NEW wood burning fireplace!  We are very excited to be able to finally use our fireplace this winter!!

 Here are the extra pictures.  Lydia decided to organize the shoe boxes.  She knew this would be a big task, so she got her little Winnie-the-Pooh chair so she could organize in comfort.