Hiking, state parks, and picnics... what fun !!!!

We hit two state parks and hiked our butts off, it was fun to walk the St. Croix river with the boys..we saw lots of beautiful sights that day....

this is us hiking along the st. croix river...
the boys wanted to throw big rocks in to make a large splash...

Here Nick is carrying a rock from the campsites to throw in the river...

This is the barn that is old and abandoned, we came upon it on our hike through one of the loops...

Here Chris and Josh are convinced we need to head that way.. I asked them what, which way , and both of them pointed to the left, little did I know.....

All these picture are taken along the St. Croix River, a beautiful, little chilly day...

Zack and Nick ran ahead in the campsite and posed, soooo cute those boys...

Easter, birthdays, and broken arms, oh my!!!!

We have had a very eventful beginning of the month, we had Easter, Josh turned 11 (Egads!) and Nick broke his arm, at his brothers birthday party.. But just look at him, still all smiles..

This was his precast, we got the real one the next day..
Here they boys are finding Easter Eggs in our backyard...

Here Zack found one on the feeder...

Josh and the day of his birthday.. We had his big cake at the airsoft party out at our friends house, the Browns...

Josh with his basket, he just woke up. (Can you tell =)

This was a basket of out monster eggs starring at you.. !!!My sister painted cute flowers, little bunnies and they used acryllic paint, took their time and I get monsters and dad rocks eggs, no mom rocks.....oh well, dad gets all their attention..that's ok with me...

One tough cookie...

I would never have dreamed that Nick would break his arm on the day of his older brother's birthday, I believed he would do it one day, just sad we missed Josh's party.. Nick fell off from a very high tree swing and lost his grip, landed on his wrist bent.. He broke both bones.. I would never had known he broke it though, he picked it up and said , "look mom I can still bend it, meanwhile his wrist looked like an S.. he was so brave at the hospital, he warmed my heart. He never cried once at the hospital, picked his arm up himself for x-rays, thanked the nurses when they would give him something.. What a brave and sweet patient, so easy.. I have only given him motrin 4 times in 3 days, I would want morphine..

the cast is orange and red, but is covered by an ace bandage.. the doctor gave him a shot in the bone to numb it so he could set it while they were putting the cast on.. The shot hurt worse than the break and when he squeezed it while the cast was hardening, it hardened too tight and cut the circulation off his fingers. as we were walking out the doctor took one last look and said, I am not happy with this, we need to cut the cast on both side, it is too tight and will return the next week for another layer of the cast, to make it tighter.. here is the hard part, the saw that they use to cut it open shakes and vibrates, you ever had your broken bone vibrated.. that part hurt and I could tell he was trying to be brave, but it really hurt..yet he didnt cry..

Here aunt Liz and nana sent him a crayola basket loaded with candy, coloring books, bubbles, silly string and lots more.. he is in love with it and is very excited to have it. he carries it everywhere he goes...

relaxing on the bed with his new friends..

He is Risen..... even with the egg monsters...

Easter is upon us.. It will be here tomorrow.. Here the boys are intently decorating their eggs. This year they wanted to decorate their eggs as monsters and speckled.. year 2010.

Nick's yellow cyclop..He's friendly though...=)

By the end of decorating 36 eggs, their hands were so stained that no amount of scrubbing would budge it...we gave up on those silly wire hooks they give you in the kits, they don't hold a jumbo egg and wow did we crack alot before they gave up and used their fingers. and did that bring back memories..