Easter

Slowly but surely I'm catching up!  Emphasis on "slowly".  This year Easter fell at the end of Spring Break for us.  Over Spring Break, we did a whole lot of not very much, and it was nice!  Of course we dyed Easter Eggs, which was a lot of fun.

 It didn't take Jake long to figure out what he was doing, and he loved it!  I was surprised at how well he did, and how much he understood about what was going on.

 John and the girls were very crafty and worked very diligently.  This was pretty serious business for them!

 This year we put a bit of olive oil in the mix per a neighbor's suggestion.  I'm not sure we did it right.  It was supposed to give a marbled look, but all the oil accumulated in one place and made just a huge white place on most eggs.  I was just thinking about how well it kept the dye off the kids, though, when the picture above happened.  All of the green ended up in Jake's lap.  No, the kids didn't end up with Hulk hands as usual, but when I changed Jake's diaper, I realized he had Hulk thighs!  It was hilarious.

 Ellie did not want to pose with her eggs, so I had to sneak a shot.  They did turn out really pretty, though.

Buck had Good Friday off, so we did a family craft...kind of like papier mache.

 

 This is how they turned out.  Pretty!

During spring break, Mom had eye surgery.  It wasn't a big deal, but for recovery, she had to keep her head down, as in looking at the ground, for a week.  With all of that, she still hosted Easter.  Amazing.  So, she was there, and we brought some eggs and candy by to show her on the patio, and brought the camera by to show pictures every now and then, but mostly she just had to listen and guess what was going on.  That's why she's not in any pictures this year.  Usually she's right in the middle of the action.

 The kids had a great time hunting in Grandma's yard.  Bigger, different hiding places for eggs, and so pretty.

 It didn't take Jake long to find the candy, and he knew just what to do with it.

The hunt got pretty serious at times, but they were all nice to share eggs and help others find more to even the count.

 After they found all the eggs, Grandma had some fun games and relay races for us to play.  It was a blast!

 

 

 

That's a beautiful crew!  It was an exhausting, but fun Easter.

Clemson Sprints

This year was the 20th anniversary of the crew team.  We try to make it back to Clemson Sprints as often as we can, which is almost every year, but this year was special.  Tons of alumni made a special effort to come into town.  I always love Clemson Sprints.  It brings back so many fond memories.  The gatherings afterward also bring back fond memories.  The party after sprints was the first time Buck and I started hanging out.  We had never really talked before, but I learned that he peeled the labels off of coke bottles for a living, and he learned that I love daffodils (and stole one from a church garden or somewhere downtown to give to me).  This year, with so many alumni we hadn't seen in years, there was a lot more reminiscing to do.  Once again I did a terrible job getting pictures.

 Friday the team hosted a "friends and family" day.  They let alumni, friends, and family take a turn in a boat and sort of have an open house.  Buck was playing at a youth retreat, so he was in and out all weekend.  I was solo with the kids (hence not many pictures).  The water was freezing, but they headed straight for the lake and had a blast.  We put all 4 in the boat for the first time and got our first picture of the Buckingham Mixed 4.  Guess how many hands and how much cropping was necessary to quickly snap this shot before quickly getting them back out of the boat!

Hard at work on the ergs.  Saturday night Mom kept the kids and we had good quality catch up time with everyone (zero pictures).  It was nice since I really didn't get much more than a quick "Hey there!" as I ran past everyone chasing after one kid or the other at the lake.  In 10 years I'll take more pictures when we do it again!

Snaggle Teeth

 

I swear all spring teeth were falling out all over the house.   I've lost track.  The poor Tooth Fairy is going poor!  I guess this was number 6 for John and number 3 for Eve. 

Spring Time

I just loved this picture...matching, dirty, tippie toes.  A sure sign that spring has sprung.

Gatlinburg

 This is terrible.  Another picture-taking failure.  I'm finding with Jake as much of a wanderer as he is, my hands are always full, and a moment's distraction gives him just enough time to round a corner and be completely out of site, so I haven't been taking as many pictures.  Anyway, in March we had the super fun treat of meeting Aunt Shannon, Aunt Michelle, Jimmy, Tommy, and David in Gatlinburg!  They took lots of pictures.  Oh well.
They had to drive forever to meet us "half way", but in our opinion it was well worth their drive!  It was so good to see everyone.  We spent lots of fun cousin time in the cabin and the hot tub!

We went horse back riding, pet farm animals, mined for fabulous jewels, went to the aquarium, ate lots of yummy stuff, had girls and boys night, and spent lots of time catching up.  AND...

Much to Shannon's dismay, it snowed.  Just enough to be gorgeous.

Tie Breaker

So, we found out on Valentine's Day, but didn't announce it until March.  In October we'll settle the family tie breaker...Boys V. Girls!  We were waiting until the first ultrasound looked good, but I started showing so quickly, and it took forever to get in for an ultrasound, it was time to share the exciting news (John had already mentioned...publicly...that it looked like Mom had a baby in her tummy.  We had a talk about that, but he was right!).
We wanted to tell the kids first.  Unfortunately I took video but not pictures.  They had just gotten invisible ink pens from school, so we wrote "In October we will have a new baby".  Each word was placed in a box with a little candy.  Each child's name was on 2 boxes and hidden in an age appropriate place.  They had lots of fun finding their own boxes and eating the candy.  It took a few minutes to figure out what to do with the blank paper (especially because that isn't nearly as exciting as chocolate), but with a few hints they started decoding with their invisible ink pen.  They didn't seem overly excited when they figured it out, but since that moment they haven't stopped talking about it.  They are so super excited, which makes it even more fun.  At first, Ellie was adamant that it HAD to be a girl, Eve definitely wanted a girl, and John was undecided.  Now Eve is pretty adamant, and the rest of us are happy either way.  The next day we made these cards and sent them out.  I think we could've just sent blank envelopes and everyone would have known what the announcement was :)
A few weeks ago we had our 20 week anatomy scan and had the ultrasound tech write the gender in a sealed envelope.  I think we'll leave it a fun surprise, you know, tie breaker and all...
(Side note...we had several hilarious versions of the pictures on the card, but narrowing it down to put them on the blog was overwhelming, as far behind as I am, so I passed in the interest of catching up on other things.  Sorry)