The Hanson Crew

Well, we have come upon our first Easter here in our new house. Every year we do an Easter egg hunt in the backyard after church. This year will be a little different since they actually have new spots to look for them. And this year, Caleb's birthday falls on Easter. So we are celebrating with family and friends on Sunday two special occasions - lots of food, dessert, and eggs. Here we are dying some eggs on a very warm Spring day... We call this little blue guy Humpty because he didn't quite understand Jonathan's dying techniques. After a tumble into the cup of dye, he then tumbled again while posing for the picture...he has a lot of cracks, but Jonathan is still very proud of his work... Here are our little mini-monsters in the box ready for the fridge. I can't remember whose is whose, but they are somehow separated out...

This weekend was a mommy weekend! Friday night I went to my friend's Christmas Club. She has this amazing idea of getting women together once a month and plans a craft to make. The idea is to make a few of them for Christmas gifts. So at the end of the year, you have at least 12 different homemade gift ideas to give. They have been tons of fun so far. Well this Friday we made meal planners for the fridge. I always make myself what we are making and only sometimes the gift for someone else - depending on what it is and who I know will enjoy it. Anyway, they turned out really cute and were not that hard to make. We made matching magnets with the same scrapbook paper too. Here it is... Then on Sat morning, our church held our Spring Ladies Luncheon - yes, more mommy time alone. It was an excellent time of fellowship with my friends and family. I won one of the door prizes, a homemade apron. It is beautiful! I think God might be telling me over the course of the weekend I

Ashlyn and I went to a neighborhood close by today to get some free stuff off Craigslist and she was excited to hold the directions. I can't wait for her to ride in the front with me :) So I let her take complete control of telling me where to go (even though I had a basic idea for the first few steps). We were about 4 directions down when we started talking about the abbreviations. She asked what "TRFWY" stood for. I explained Trafficway and knew that she was very interested in why some street names were streets instead of avenues, etc. I was waiting for a long discussion to start on how streets are made up and who decides when to make roads long or dead ends, or something else I wouldn't know the answer to. Then she told me to turn on New Mark Doctor. I stood there silent for a minute and realized that she meant New Mark drive. We both laughed out loud. Then we had a 5 minute discussion on why some words have the same abbreviations and how the English langu

Jonathan has mastered buckling his own car seat now. It sure makes for faster time leaving anywhere. Unfortunately he doesn't have the strength in his little fingers to push the button to unlock himself! But it's still progress....

My best friend Lisa came over today to help me re-arrange some decor in my house. We made some progress, but didn't quite finish it all. I a huge fan of the wall verses you can put on the wall. I usually try to find those that shows God's sovereignty or something that says something I really believe. Anyway, while we were going through some of my stuff and moving things around, Lisa saw something that I had never noticed before. I have a black and white bowl on my new coffee table we got for our wedding and I have enjoyed having it out to look out. She said that is was definitely Calvinist and she liked it there! I had never thought of that before....check it out! I can't stop thinking about that now that she pointed it out. Do you have anything in your house with tulip on it?

I know that I definitely do not have a green thumb. But somehow, I have the thumb that makes pets grown really big. This is "frog" and he was a science experiment 2 1/2 years ago. He started off as a tadpole and now as you can see in the photo is almost as big a a banana when he is stretched out. He has outgrown yet another aquarium. We are hoping he lives till next year when Joshua can take him back to Mrs. Denny (the 1st grade teacher at the school who did the tadpole experiment with Ashlyn) and show him for show in tell.

We were given some free decor this weekend from one of Sue's good friends who is moving to TN. She mainly gave us flower arrangement and plants, which was amazing since I was lacking in that area around my house. The timing was perfect too since I had just bought some new tables and didn't have much to put on them (or the budget for some). Here are some of my favorites. I have a couple friends coming over to help me re-arrange everything sometime this week or next. There are 5 or 6 more downstairs that I didn't know where to put. Sue will take 5 or 6 of these too depending on what my friend's say. We are very excited and very blessed!

in the snow and on a sled!

This past week was Spring Break for our school and preschool so while my sister and niece were visiting, we drove up to Minneapolis, MN. We stayed at a nice hotel and swam the first night and then spent the entire second day at the Nickelodeon Universe Theme Park at Mall of America. The kids loved it and rode TONS of rides. Even Jonathan loves them. I took Ashlyn and Joshua on some of the bigger rides too and we shopped a little while after food breaks. The third day we went back to Mall of America and shopped for 4 hours. Then we drove back home...it is snowing now, so it is weird to say it's still Spring Break. Our visitors leave this afternoon and then we have one and half days to relax before school starts up again. We can feel the end of the year blues already upon us after this week....here are some fun pics of our short trip...

My little sister and niece are visiting for a week We are going to drive to Mall of America tomorrow to the Nickelodeon Theme Park and all the kids are counting down the hours to that fun! We'll post pics when we get back...

I worked on a website this past month for my good friend Allison's sister. She is opening a daycare/preschool in Liberty called Cradle to Crayons Learning Center in May. The project was fun and had a little more graphic design work than I normally do. It was fun. I am also starting a new church website project later this month that I am looking forward to....check out this one here . Enjoy!

Jonathan and Caleb have had a cold this past week and have been a little more clingy. Caleb missed preschool both Monday and today because of it, but I think he is finally over it. He does have an ear infection so now we are on an antibiotic for that. Jonathan is so funny about medicine. He LOVES it. So whenever he sneezes or needs his nose wiped, he tells me he is sick again and needs more medicine. Why do they make Motrin taste so good? Anyway, I had to share that they are getting better - my sister and niece are coming this weekend - and I think they are worried about getting sick...it's looking good A. Let's go to Minnesota and spread the germs there!!

Well, we know just how to do. Have one of your kids "accidentally" knock off a can of spray paint on your garage floor. Then have your husband pull his car into the garage, and not pay attention to anything laying on the garage floor. BOOM!! You have a really awesome explosion (as Caleb called it) and black paint flying everywhere!!! The sound effect is actually really cool too. You should give it a try. Oh, if you do happen to give it a try, pouring gasoline all over the black mess actually does clean it up. Beware of massive headaches and burning noises during that process! Have fun!

This weekend was a VERY productive weekend for the Hanson household...except, we didn't start potty training like we had originally planned. My sister and niece are coming for a week and this is the first time they will see our new house. So I wanted to make it a little more cozy. First we cleaned out the toys in the playroom. I should say purged most of the toys in that room...it is nice to have the toy box be half full now so we can actually find the toy they are looking for. Then we re-arranged the downstairs living room. We will most likely be down there most of their visit because my sister and I grew up playing Super Mario Bros and now we are addicted to the Wii version of that game. She is excited to give it a try while she is here (and go to Mall of America for a couple days!) We hope to conquer all 10 worlds while she is here (we're on Spring Break so we won't have homework days or school!!) We were able to find a permanent spot for the treadmill, move the

Rub-a-dub-dub, Three men in a tub, And how do you think they got there? The butcher, the baker, The candlestick-maker, They all jumped out of a rotten potato, 'Twas enough to make a man stare. (This is blog post 1,000!!! Hard to believe I have shared that many things with y'all)

so we decided to put up our trampoline we bought last fall... it's a lot bigger than our old one and a HUGE hit!

Ashlyn's first basketball season came to an end this weekend. She LOVED it. She wants to play again next winter and of course, practice all year long in our front yard. Her team ended winning all but 3 games and she got a lot of playing time. Here are a few pictures of the season... Ashlyn's individual photo Her Upward team - the Lady Hurricanes Here reward she got at the banquet - a backpack The banquet had some amazing entertainment , including this family of 12 who travels around spinning and juggling basketballs!