Easter 2014

 We still have a few things hanging around in a holiday box that date back to the Easters of my childhood.

 This year, Eli found that he fit the bunny suit and sure had a fun time running around in it for an afternoon.

 We dyed eggs and cleaned house on Saturday, probably just like most every other family in this country.

 On Easter morning, each of the children got a gift.  I found this fancy purse on Ebay for Cecily.  I don't think I've ever seen her so happy over a gift.  I think being the second daughter can be feel like everything is hand-me-downs and second-best for her.  Her sister never had anything like this and she knew it was a special treat.

 Amelia's gift was a necklace.

 The boys all got ties.

 Bronwyn got a hairbow.  :)

 Ready for church now, but we find it's wise to get a group picture first if we can.

 Happy purse-girl on the left.

 And a self-timed photo to remember the day by.  Jones Family 2014.

 The little man.

 Our 17th Easter together.

 Ben, at church.

 Friends.

 Boys!

 And the girls.

 Our friend, John White, who joined us for Easter dinner.

 Dinner was:  Manicotti stuffed with sausage and cheese, green salad with craisins, feta and pecans, and some homemade applesauce.

 Look how tall!  Up above me now. 

 For once, the weather was beautiful and so we went ahead and hid the colored eggs outside.

 He doesn't see it.  He's looking under the porch.

 :)  There he found it.

We even roped our guest into participating.  After the little ones were done hunting, they wanted to hide the eggs for the older boys and John.  He was a good sport!

Benjamin's 11th Birthday

 Ben chose Chicken Potpie for his dinner.

 It was a gorgeous day on April 10th, so we ate in a bit of a hurry so that we could head out to a park for the rest of the evening.

 At Chestnut Ridge Park, we opened gifts.  Peter's sister got him the two remaining books in a series he was reading called, "Robot Wars."

 Several of the kids got him small gifts, per usual.  Sam got him a fishing bait that he is admiring.

 Bronwyn thinks she will help out with the candy.

 Cecily is excited to give him some gum from herself.

 He deciphered Grandma's handwriting all by himself this year! (Cursive is always more difficult for young readers).

 This is news.  And one of my readers needs to give me some tips.  We decided to get Ben a gps tracker for his gift.  We thought he would really enjoy learning to Geocache this year.  We knew there were supposed to be some pretty simple hides at this park and we wanted him to be able to try it out.  He had no idea and he was so excited.

 The only problem is that we didn't open the tracker ahead of time and use it ourselves.  Neither Peter or I knew how to use one.  We knew that we might just end up having a nice hike in the woods and not find anything tonight, but that was OK too.

 So that was exactly what happened.  But here are some pictures from our very up-hill hike.

 If you thought that last hill was steep...this one was much more so.

 You can tell who was my buddy for this hike.

 And this was Sam's buddy.

 The moon is out, time to head back.

 Sure was some great exercise and a very refreshing walk in the woods.  Ben loved it.  He wasn't the least bit disappointed.  I think this birthday suited him just right.

 We came home to banana pudding.  :)

One happy boy.  :)